January 18
PENNSYLVANIA:
DA seeks death penalty for the rape, murder of 87-year-old Adams County woman
The death penalty is being sought in the case of the murder and rape of
87-year-old Virginia Barbour of Adams County.
Adams County District Attorney Brian Sinnett made the announcement Thursday at
Kristopher Gartrell's arraignment in the Adams County Court House.
Sinnett cited aggravating circumstances for the decision.
Kristopher Zackarias Gartrell is charged with criminal homicide, kidnapping to
facilitate a felony and rape by forcible compulsion, among other charges.
Barbour was found dead in her Huntington Township home the day before
Thanksgiving, with her car and other belongings missing from her house.
Gartrell was arrested Nov. 23, and charged the next day with murder and seven
felonies, including rape, kidnapping and arson, among other charges. He was
taken to Adams County prison with no bail.
At his arraignment, Gartrell entered a not guilty plea and requested a trial by
jury.
His next court date is at 8:30 a.m. on Feb. 4 to argue a petition for writ of
habeas corpus, to have another preliminary hearing.
(source: Associated Press)
VIRGINIA:
Va. Senate passes bill to bar death penalty for seriously mentally ill
State senators passed a bill Thursday to bar the death penalty for the
seriously mentally ill.
The same bill was tabled last year to be studied by the Virginia State Crime
Commission. But the commission didn’t address it, and the legislation sponsored
by Sen. Barbara Favola, D-Arlington, now heads to the House of Delegates after
passing the Senate 23-17.
Favola and supporters said Senate Bill 1137 would close a gap in state law to
protect someone with severe mental illness from capital punishment.
“This is providing a vehicle for us to administer justice in a way that’s
humane and, I would say, in a way that reflects the values of Virginians,”
Favola said in the Senate.
Republicans who opposed the bill said jurors already hear evidence of
substantial mental illness and make decisions on whether someone convicted of a
capital offense meets the criteria for the death penalty. Favola’s bill is a
step toward ending the death penalty in Virginia, they said.
“What this does is it takes discretion away from the jury,” said Sen. Mark
Obenshain, R-Rockingham. “I know that there is a robust debate in Virginia and
across the country about capital punishment. ... If you want to do away with
capital punishment, let’s just debate the ultimate issue and decide whether
we’re going to continue to have capital punishment in Virginia or not.”
Virginia has executed 113 people since the death penalty was reinstated in
1976, 2nd only to Texas, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
No jury has imposed a death sentence in Virginia since 2011. There are
currently only 3 people on death row — the lowest number since the 1970s — and
one has been granted a new hearing, said Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax.
“This is a practice that hardly ever occurs anymore,” he said. “This bill is
going to have a minor impact ... you’re talking about maybe one case in a
decade that this bill would actually impact.”
Virginia’s views on the death penalty are changing, he said.
“The reality is we have a broken mental health system in this country,” he
said. “We have a broken mental health system in this state. We don’t give it
enough money.”
Sen. Dick Saslaw, D-Fairfax, one of the most vociferous supporters of the death
penalty in the legislature — who voted to bring it back in 1976 and helped
write Virginia law on when capital punishment can be used — supported Favola’s
bill.
He told Republicans they should feel safe supporting the bill and that they
could tell their constituents that Saslaw — “one of the bigger supporters of
capital punishment” — supported it as well.
Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell, was among senators who want juries to continue to
examine mental illness in capital cases.
“These monsters demand that we give them justice,” he said.
(source: Richmond Times-Dispatch)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
Proposed SC bill would make electrocution main method of execution for death
penalty inmates
While many argue that death by electrocution is inhumane, South Carolina
lawmakers said other options aren’t available anymore.
The main method of execution in S.C. is lethal injection, but a proposed bill
would change that to electrocution.
"For the past probably 10 years, we have had the effect of the death penalty
and there are a number of people sitting on South Carolina death row, but no
manner or mechanism to carry it out,” said Fifteenth Circuit Solicitor Jimmy
Richardson.
According to the S.C. Department of Corrections, there are 37 inmates on death
row, all set to receive lethal injection. However, Richardson said
pharmaceutical companies have stopped supplying the mix of drugs used for that
method of execution.
“They’re worried about people that will call them out and protest,” said state
Sen. Stephen Goldfinch.
"What they’re doing is saying the electric chair is default and some other
manner may be the secondary way,” said Richardson.
In 1972, the United States Supreme Court put an end to death row, saying it was
unconstitutional.
"Everybody on death row - federal, state, everywhere else - all of their
sentences got commuted to life imprisonment,” Richardson said.
That only lasted about a year, at which time the Supreme Court reversed the
ruling. After that, Richardson said many states started using lethal injection
because it looked less inhumane. He added if S.C. passes this proposed bill,
the nation’s highest court could look into the issue again.
“If the bill passes, if we start using the electric chair again, there will be
new rulings from the Supreme Court that will say we’re right back where we were
in the 70s,” he said.
(source: WMBF news)
GEORGIA:
Georgia judge orders new trial in 1976 case that sent man to death row
In a searing decision, a judge in Columbus has granted a new trial to a man
convicted of rape and murder 43 years ago based on new DNA evidence, at the
same time condemning “undeniable” race discrimination during jury selection by
the prosecution.
The ruling by Senior Muscogee County Superior Court Judge John Allen overturns
the convictions against Johnny Lee Gates, who was sent to death row for the
1976 rape and murder of Katrina Wright. Wright was a 19-year-old German
immigrant who had moved to Columbus just 12 days earlier to be with her
husband, a soldier at Fort Benning.
“We are grateful to the court for recognizing the evidence of Mr. Gates’
innocence, and for taking this important step towards justice,” Clare Gilbert,
executive director of the Georgia Innocence Project, said. Her office and
lawyers for the Southern Center for Human Rights represented Gates in his bid
for a new trial.
Muscogee County District Attorney Julia Slater did not return a phone call or
email message seeking comment.
Gates, who was re-sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole
in 2003, challenged his convictions based on new DNA evidence and the discovery
of prosecutors’ notes that disparaged prospective African-American jurors for
his trial. In his ruling, Allen granted the new trial based on the DNA
evidence, but not because of race discrimination during jury selection —
although he was unsparing in his criticism of such conduct.
“The prosecutors clearly engaged in systematic exclusion of blacks during jury
selection in this case,” Allen wrote in a Jan. 10 decision. “They identified
the black prospective jurors by race in their jury selection notes, singled
them out … and struck them to try Gates before an all-white jury.”
Prosecutors notes from the 1977 murder trial of Johnny Lee Gates in Columbus,
Ga,. show that all 4 black prospective jurors (marked with an N in the notes)
were struck. Each name also has a 1 to the left of it, indicating that
prosecutors found them least favorable.
The prosecutors’ notes labeled prospective white jurors with a “W” and black
jurors with an “N.” Prosecutors also described some prospective black jurors as
“slow,” “old + ignorant,” “cocky,” “con artist,” “hostile” and “fat.”
Jurors were also ranked on a scale of 1 to 5, and all black jurors were given a
“1.” The only one of the 43 prospective white jurors who got a “1” said he was
opposed to the death penalty, Allen noted.
“Taken together, the notes demonstrate a purposeful and deliberate strategy to
exclude black citizens and obtain all-white juries,” Allen said.
Moreover, the judge said, Muscogee County prosecutors’ strikes employed in 7
death penalty trials from 1975 to 1979 confirm the discrimination. In 6 of
those 7 cases, prosecutors removed every potential African-American juror to
secure all-white juries. In the 7th case, an all-white jury was impossible
because the prosecution did not have enough strikes to get rid of all the black
jurors, Allen wrote. On top of that, prosecutors “used racially charged
arguments to the all-white juries they secured.”
Allen concluded: “The evidence of discriminatory intent is overwhelming.”
If Gates’ lawyers had raised such a claim much earlier, it is likely they would
have prevailed. But because they didn’t, Allen said he had to rule against them
on that claim.
One requirement for obtaining a new trial is for a defendant to show he was
diligent in bringing his claims without undue delay. Because Gates could not
give a reasonable explanation why he didn’t bring his race discrimination
claims sooner than decades after his trial, he cannot get a new trial on that
ground, Allen said.
But Allen found that was not an issue with the new DNA evidence.
During the trial, prosecutors said the killer took $480 in cash from Wright,
the murder victim who suffered a fatal gunshot wound to her head. A state
investigator testified that the killer tied a bathrobe belt “very, very
tightly” around Wright’s hands and double-knotted the belt. A necktie was also
tied around the victim’s hands, with knots binding it together.
But during a hearing last year, Gates’ legal team presented the testimony of
DNA expert Mark Perlin. He said Gates’ DNA was not found on the necktie or the
bathrobe belt.
“The exclusion of Gates’ profile to the DNA on the 2 items is material and may
be considered exculpatory,” Allen said. “Therefore, Gates is entitled to a new
trial.”
Allen noted that the state called on 2 GBI scientists “who did not contradict,
but instead supported, Dr. Perlin’s testimony.”
Allen also found Perlin to be a credible and qualified witness, and he noted
that, under the circumstances, the three experts shared a distinct connection.
“This was the rare hearing in which the scientist who trained the GBI
scientists testified on behalf of the defense,” the judge said.
THE FIGHT FOR A NEW TRIAL
Lawyers from the Georgia Innocence Project and Southern Center for Human Rights
have long sought to get a new trial for Johnny Lee Gates. In a motion filed
last year, the lawyers noted that Columbus prosecutors had struck all
prospective black jurors in 6 of 7 death-penalty trials — including Gates’ —
from 1975 to 1979. In the other trial, prosecutors couldn’t get an all-white
jury because they didn’t have enough strikes to get rid of all the black
jurors. A Georgia Tech mathematics professor found that the probability that
black jurors were removed for race-neutral reasons was
0.000000000000000000000000000004 %.
(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
TENNESSEE:
In His Final Hours, Haslam Wrestles With Requests For Clemency
One of the few remaining acts for outgoing Gov. Bill Haslam is to decide about
30 requests for clemency.
The Republican governor says he and staffers have been sorting through the
applications, with the aim of consistency.
"But it's really hard, because if you've seen one of these, you've seen one of
these," he said in a recent interview with WPLN. "So we're doing our best to be
both fair and just, and to be, where appropriate, merciful, and to be
consistent.
"And to do all of those things, to be honest with you, is really difficult."
Haslam has granted clemency to more than 20 people in his 8 years in office.
But he hasn't stepped into any of the 3 death penalty cases that have come
across his desk. Haslam notes that capital punishment cases require juries to
make a separate decision to execute, and those decisions are reviewed multiple
times over the course of decades.
But he says he has fewer reservations about intervening in non-death penalty
cases, which he views as determinations of whether sentences were fair. An
example was is the Cyntoia Brown case, who's sentence he reduced from life in
prison to 15 years.
"I wasn't stepping in to say, 'Was she guilty or not?'" Haslam says. "I think
she has said that she was guilty. But it is appropriate to come back and review
what was the sentence at that point in time."
(source: nashvillepublicradio.org)
ARKANSAS:
Lawmakers Working on Changes to Capital Punishment Law
Executions are on hold in Arkansas until lawmakers pass several changes to
current state law.
They're working on legislation right now to debate in the session over the next
few months.
One measure would protect the supply chain for any lethal injection drugs.
Another would respond to an Arkansas Supreme Court ruling. It found the
director of the Arkansas Department of Correction should not be the only one to
determine the competency of a death row inmate.
"Those 2 items will have to be addressed in this session before we will be in a
position to set any additional dates in the future," says Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
The governor says lawyers are working on the logistics of the legislation, but
couldn't get into specifics.
(source: KARK news)
WASHINGTON:
Bill aims to abolish death penalty
A bill to take the death penalty entirely off the books has been introduced by
state Sen. Maureen Walsh, R-College Place.
Senate Bill 5539 was filed by Walsh and state Sen. Reuven Carlyle at the
request of Attorney General Bob Ferguson. If passed, the legislation would
allow only a sentence of life imprisonment without parole as the punishment for
aggravated 1st-degree murder.
Joining Walsh and Carlyle were state Senators Karen Keiser, Marco Liias, Jamie
Pedersen and Lisa Wellman. The bill has been referred to the Senate Law and
Justice Committee.
The state Supreme Court ruled in October that the death penalty is invalid
because it is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner. The 8 men on
death row at Washington State Penitentiary have since had their sentences
converted to life imprisonment.
(source: Union-Bulletin)
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