January 26
VIRGINIA:
Capital murder defendant granted expert to help avoid death penalty
A man facing a capital murder charge and — if convicted — the potential of the
death penalty will be able to add an expert in prison violence risk assessments
to his team, a judge determined Friday.
Kevin Josue Soto Bonilla, 21, also faces charges of gang participation, robbery
and abduction for pecuniary benefit. He’s 1 of 5 men charged with murder in the
March 2017 death of 17-year-old Raymond Wood, of Lynchburg. All 5 have been
charged with participating in the violent street gang MS-13 and 2 have either
faced jury trial or pleaded guilty to their charges.
None of the defendants have been sentenced. 4 of them, including Soto Bonilla,
are charged with capital murder, which can result in the death penalty if
convicted.
Soto Bonilla was scheduled for a jury trial starting Feb. 26. Aaron Houchens,
one of his attorneys, said at the end of a motions hearing Friday he
anticipates asking to postpone the trial to provide time for a prison violence
risk assessment.
Defense attorneys sought the assessment because Bedford County Commonwealth’s
Attorney Wes Nance has indicated he’ll be pursuing the death penalty if Soto
Bonilla is convicted. Further, Nance said he’ll be asking for the death penalty
by arguing 2 legal factors: vileness of the alleged crime and Soto Bonilla’s
future dangerousness.
Houchens and Anthony Anderson, Soto Bonilla’s second attorney, filed a motion
to hire an expert on prison violence risk assessments to help establish he’s
not likely to commit another violent crime “if he is sentenced to life
imprisonment rather than death,” the only two sentencing options for a
conviction of capital murder.
“Given the length of the Defendant’s pre-trial incarceration, his lack of a
criminal record, his age and other particularized factors applicable to this
Defendant, a prison risk assessment is one form of mitigation evidence that the
jury in this case should be permitted to consider,” Houchens wrote in the
motion.
Houchens said in court the jury likely will be left with a “strong inference”
that members of the MS-13 gang commit crimes while in prison by the time any
sentencing phase of the trial would occur.
(source: The News & Advance)
OHIO----impending execution postponed/re-set
Gov. Mike DeWine delays killer’s execution, orders review of lethal-injection
drugs
Gov. Mike DeWine on Friday postponed the execution of murderer Warren Henness
from Feb. 13 to Sept. 12 following a recent judicial ruling that Ohio’s
lethal-injection cocktail will “very likely cause him severe pain and needless
suffering.”
In a release, DeWine said that he has also directed Ohio’s prisons agency to
assess the state’s current options for execution drugs and examine possible
alternative drugs.
On Jan. 15, federal magistrate judge Michael Merz ruled that the three drugs
Ohio has used since last year for executions – midazolam (as a sedative), a
paralytic drug, and potassium chloride (to stop the heart) – are likely
unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual punishment.” Merz cited testimony from
medical witnesses that high doses of midazolam and other drugs cause pulmonary
edema, causing a painful drowning sensation comparable to the torture tactic of
waterboarding.
However, Merz allowed Henness’ execution to proceed because, under a 2015 U.S.
Supreme Court ruling, death row inmates challenging how they will be put to
death must show that an alternative means of execution is “available,”
“feasible,” and can be “readily implemented.”
Henness’ proposed alternatives -- drinking secobarbital in a sweet liquid such
as apple juice, or an oral injection of four drugs – were rejected by Merz on
the grounds that neither method has ever been used to carry out an execution,
they would take more than an hour to kill Henness, and that there isn’t a
proven way to obtain the drugs.
DeWine, in his statement, noted that Henness has appealed Merz’s ruling, but
the governor said he delayed the execution because of the magistrate judge’s
opinion.
David Stebbins, Henness’ attorney, said in a statement Friday: “We commend
Governor DeWine for his leadership and for ensuring the justice system operates
humanely in Ohio.”
Henness was convicted of murdering his drug-abuse counselor, Richard Myers, in
1992. Prosecutors said Henness kidnapped Myers, shot him five times at an
abandoned water-treatment plant, severed Myers’ finger to get his wedding ring,
then drove around in Myers’ car for several days forging his checks and using
his credit cards to get cash and buy crack cocaine.
Henness has maintained his innocence.
Ohio, like many other states with the death penalty, has struggled to obtain
lethal-injection drugs since European pharmaceutical companies cut off further
sales on moral and legal grounds.
After the controversial execution of killer Dennis McGuire in January 2014,
Ohio imposed a three-year moratorium on executions as it worked to find a new
lethal-injection protocol – and suppliers willing to sell the state the drugs.
Since the moratorium was lifted in 2017, Ohio has executed three people using
the current three-drug cocktail – all without complications or unexpected
problems.
(source: cleveland.com)
NEBRASKA:
Nebraska Supreme Court dismisses suit from death-row inmates
The Nebraska Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit Friday filed by 8 death-row
inmates who argued that their sentences were invalidated by the Legislature's
repeal of capital punishment in 2015, before voters overturned the ban.
Justices denied the inmates' request for a declaration that their sentences
were no longer valid, upholding a decision issued by a district court judge.
But the state's highest court left open the possibility that the inmates could
raise similar arguments when challenging their convictions individually.
"We conclude that the inmates have equally serviceable remedies and accordingly
affirm the district court's dismissal" of the case, Chief Justice Michael
Heavican wrote in the opinion.
The inmates argued that the Legislature's 2015 vote to override Republican Gov.
Pete Ricketts' veto and abolish the death penalty effectively reduced their
sentences to life in prison. A petition drive led by death penalty supporters
suspended the repeal law before it could go into effect and placed the issue
before voters, who reinstated capital punishment in the 2016 general election .
The lawsuit also contended that the petition drive was invalid because Ricketts
helped finance it, which the inmates said violated constitutional separation of
powers. It further claimed that Ricketts should have been listed as an official
sponsor of the petition because of his contributions and his close ties to
activists who spearheaded the petition drive.
The court rejected those arguments.
In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska said the ruling
doesn't address its clients' claims that they may no longer be executed.
"We look forward to resolution of these claims in the individual
post-conviction proceedings the court has ruled that each prisoner must
undertake," said Danielle Conrad, the group's executive director. "While we
respect that Nebraskans of goodwill hold different viewpoints on the death
penalty, these and other concerns about transparency, accountability and
fairness will persist beyond this case."
Nebraska carried out its 1st execution in more than t2 decades in August, using
a never-before-tried combination of lethal injection drugs. Days before the
execution, Nebraska corrections director Scott Frakes acknowledged in an
affidavit that the state probably wouldn't be able to obtain another batch of
drugs in the future.
State officials refused to disclose their supplier, despite doing so in past
cases, which prompted still-pending lawsuits from the ACLU of Nebraska and the
state's 2 largest newspapers. The Nebraska Supreme Court is expected to rule in
those public-records lawsuits as well.
(source: Associated Press)
**************************
Nebraska Supreme court rules to uphold validity of death sentences
Inmates on Nebraska's death row will continue to face the death sentence after
a ruling Friday by the Nebraska Supreme Court.
The ACLU of Nebraska had challenged the validity of their death sentences. The
group argued that when the Nebraska Legislature repealed capital punishment in
2015, the law was in effect long enough to convert the death sentences of the
11 men then on death row to life in prison.
The civil rights organization claimed that the 2016 vote by Nebraskans to
restore capital punishment only pertained to future cases.
But on Friday, the State Supreme Court agreed with a district court judge's
decision to dismiss the lawsuit.
The court ruled the inmates on death row had other legal avenues to challenge
the validity of their death sentences, rather than ruling directly on the
declaratory action sought by the ACLU.
Because of the dismissal on technical grounds, the seven-page ruling, written
by Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Heavican, did not address the arguments
raised by the civil rights organization.
The ACLU, in a statement Friday, said it plans to pursue those issues in
individual, post-conviction appeals on behalf of the inmates.
"Today’s ruling does not resolve our clients’ claims that, after the
Legislature’s 2015 repeal of the death penalty, they no longer may be
executed," said Danielle Conrad, executive director of the ACLU of Nebraska.
"We look forward to resolution of those claims in the individual
post-conviction proceedings the court has ruled that each prisoner must
undertake."
The ACLU has actively opposed the death penalty, saying it is a waste of
government resources, that minorities and low-income offenders are more likely
to have the sentence imposed, and that the process lacks transparency.
Supporters of the death penalty, including Gov. Pete Ricketts, say it is a just
penalty for the most heinous crimes and that it be a deterrent to keep those
those sentenced to life in prison from harming prison guards or other inmates.
Attorneys with the Nebraska Attorney General's Office rejected the ACLU's
arguments, saying that the Legislature doesn't have the power to overturn
sentences imposed by judges, and that the will of the people, in restoring the
death penalty, would be frustrated by nullifying the death sentences.
(source: Omaha World-Herald)
IDAHO:
Ohlson defense files motions to take death penalty off the table
The defense for Jackson, Wyo., resident Erik Ohlson filed 5 new motions with
the court this week looking to thwart the Teton County Prosecutor’s Office from
seeking the death penalty at sentencing.
Ohlson is charged with murdering Driggs resident Jennifer Nalley in 2016. He
also is charged with killing Nalley’s unborn baby of 12 weeks and with one
count of burglary. He could face the death penalty if convicted.
In the motions, the defense is looking to, “declare the death penalty
unconstitutional,” and “unguided, arbitrary, and capricious.”
In another motion the defense is also hoping to control jury selection.
Ohlson’s court-appointed defense attorneys Jim Archibald and John Thomas are
arguing that excluding jurors who have a moral objection to the death penalty
results in juries that tend to be “whiter, more conservative, more male, more
sexist, more conviction-prone, more death-prone, and more biased against
defendants.”
And finally, the defense is making a motion seeking a “proportionality review”
whereby Ohlson is requesting that his “defense be allowed to present evidence
in a pretrial setting to determine whether the prosecution’s decision to seek
the death penalty is disproportionate to the punishment imposed on others
accused of similar crimes.”
Teton County Prosecutor Billie Siddoway wrote in an email to the Teton Valley
News that the only motion set to be heard in front of Seventh District Judge
Bruce Pickett on Jan. 31 is whether her office should have to disclose its
email messages to Nancy Nalley, the victim’s mother.
Siddoway said the Feb. 21 hearing could consider the new motions filed this
week.
”I previously filed a memorandum arguing that challenges to the death penalty
are premature until the death penalty has been or is about to be imposed,” she
said. “The court’s decision on that argument may influence when it hears these
new motions.”
According to the Idaho Department of Correction website, nine Idaho inmates are
on death row. Also according to the department, three inmates have been
executed since Idaho enacted a new death penalty statute in 1977.
Pickett heard the motion from the defense seeking to dismiss the second count
of murder earlier this month. As for the dismissal of count 2 of murder,
Ohlson’s defense argued in its submitted brief, “An embryo or fetus in its 1st
trimester does not have a right to life,” as cited from Roe v. Wade. “A woman
and her doctors can kill an embryo or fetus in its first trimester without
repercussions from the law.”
Pickett is still considering the motion.
The defense also made a direct appeal to Pickett to allow a contact visit with
Ohlson’s mother, Virginia Ohlson. The defense’s request was made, “To help Mr.
Ohlson sort through offers to settle and advise him with regard to possible
outcomes and ramifications of such outcomes on settlement negotiations.”
Pickett granted two contact visits for Ohlson with his mother at the Madison
County Jail .
Ohlson was arrested in July 2016 after he crashed his truck into an electrical
pole on 2500 South, just 3 miles from Jennifer Nalley’s cabin in Driggs where
she lay dead from 8 gunshot wounds suffered that same night, according to the
Teton County Coroner’s report. Ohlson was arrested for a DUI and later
confessed to killing Nalley. However, his confession was thrown out after the
court determined that the Idaho State Police failed to provide legal counsel to
Ohlson during the interrogation.
Ohlson is being held in Madison County Jail and his court trial is set for July
in Bingham County.
(source: The Post Register)
WYOMING:
Legislators should support repeal of the death penalty
Our Wyoming legislators have proposed a repeal of the death penalty with the
introduction of House Bill 145. I support this bill for the following reasons.
Even the guilty have a right to life. Not even a murderer can lose his dignity
as a person created in the image and likeness of God. As Pope Francis recently
stated, “In the light of the Gospel, the death penalty is inadmissible because
it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” This teaching
centers on the awareness of the respect due to every human life.
(source: Letter; Bishop Steven Biegler, Diocese of Cheyenne----wyomingnews.com)
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