August 3
LOUISIANA----female to face death penalty
DA in Louisiana to seek death penalty for mother of baby burned to death
The Natchitoches District Attorney’s Office has confirmed the state’s intention
to seek the death penalty in the case against a woman accused of burning her
son to death.
Hanna Nicole Barker, 25, was indicted on a charge of 1st-degree murder in
November 2018. A second woman, 27-year-old Felicia Smith, is also facing a
1st-degree murder charge.
The body of Barker’s 6-month-old son, Levi Cole Ellerbe, was found on July 18,
2018 off Breda Ave. after officers got a call about a fire. The infant was
taken to Natchitoches Regional Medical Center with 2nd- and 3rd-degree burns
over 90 % of his body. He and later airlifted to a hospital in Shreveport,
where he died from his injuries.
Barker, who officials have said was in a relationship with Smith, is accused of
asking Smith to kill the baby. According to the indictment, Smith said she took
the baby from Barker’s home, poured gasoline on him and sent him on fire before
going to work.
Barker initially claimed the baby had been kidnapped from her home in the
Mayberry Trailer Park, prompting a search involving several law enforcement
agencies.
Both Barker and Smith have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Barker’s trial date was set for January 13, 2020.
(source: KTAL news)
OHIO:
Man Indicted in 4 Family Slayings, Could Face Death Penalty----A man has been
indicted on 4 counts of aggravated murder in the slayings of his wife, her
parents and her aunt in an apartment home in southwest Ohio.
A man has been indicted on 4 counts of aggravated murder in the slayings of his
wife, her parents and her aunt in an apartment home in southwest Ohio, court
records showed Friday.
Grand jurors also specified in each count that Gurpreet Singh used a firearm
and killed more than 1 person, meaning he would face the death penalty if
convicted.
Butler County Jail records show that Singh, 37, was booked into the jail early
Friday morning after his return from Connecticut. The grand jury indictments
were made public nearly 8 hours later.
A message was left Friday for Singh's attorney, Charles H. Rittgers.
Singh had been arrested July 2 in a Walmart parking lot in Branford,
Connecticut.
He had called 911 on April 28 to say he found the four "on the ground and
bleeding" in a West Chester apartment where he also lived, some 20 miles (32.3
kilometers) north of Cincinnati. Each of the 4 killed had at least 2 gunshot
wounds in the head.
Police said there was food left on the stove, indicating the family was
preparing dinner that evening when they were shot.
Police said repeatedly during the investigation that they didn't believe the
community, where such violence is rare, was under threat or that the case was a
hate crime. That indicated that investigators believed the motive for the
crimes was personal.
West Chester Township Police Chief Joel Herzog called the slayings a "heinous
crime" but didn't discuss details or possible motive when announcing the
arrest.
Those killed were identified as Shalinderjit Kaur, 39; Amarjit Kaur, 58;
Parmjit Kaur, 62, and Hakiakat Singh Pannag, 59.
Singh has said he and Shalinderjit Kaur had been married 17 years and had three
children. Family members identified Parmjit and Hakiakat as his wife's parents,
and Amarjit as Parmjit's sister.
Singh, a truck driver, told The Cincinnati Enquirer he was often away from
home. Their three children were staying with other relatives at the time of the
slayings, and police have said they are safe.
In a statement after Singh's arrest, relatives of those slain said they were
thankful for the efforts of West Chester police, other law enforcement agencies
and the Sikh community of the Cincinnati region, and that they were praying for
Singh's conviction.
(source: Associated Press)
ARKANSAS:
Arkansas Supreme Court refuses to step down from case challenging its own
ruling against anti-death penalty judge
Justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday refused to recuse themselves
from a case claiming they improperly barred a Little Rock judge from hearing
death penalty cases because he exercised his religious liberty by attending an
execution vigil in his other role as a Baptist pastor.
The Supreme Court denied without comment Judge Wendell Griffen’s motion seeking
their disqualification from his petition to restore his authority to hear and
decide capital cases. Just 1 of the 7 members of the court, Associate Justice
Josephine Hart, favored turning the case over to special justices.
The Supreme Court hastily removed Griffen from all capital punishment cases
after he attended an anti-death penalty protest outside the governor’s mansion
on Good Friday in 2017. Before attending the vigil, Griffen, pastor of New
Millennium Church in Little Rock, signed an order temporarily blocking the use
of an execution drug allegedly obtained by the state by fraud.
McKesson Medical Surgical lnc., a major U.S. pharmaceutical firm, sued Arkansas
in 2017, claiming the Arkansas Department of Corrections intentionally sought
to circumvent the company’s policies to procure Pfizer’s vecuronium bromide
under the guise that it would be used for medical purposes.
Learning that the state was potentially holding the product to use in lethal
injections, McKesson immediately requested and was assured that the product
would be returned. The company issued a full refund to the state and made
several additional requests for the product, but it was never returned.
Griffen signed a temporary restraining order on April 14, 2017, citing a threat
of imminent and irreparable harm and finding evidence that the drug company
would likely win the case on the merits if it were to proceed to trial.
The next day the state’s Republican attorney general asked the Supreme Court to
lift the temporary restraining order and remove Griffen from hearing the case.
The Supreme Court gave Griffen until 9 a.m. the Monday after Easter to respond.
When he didn’t meet the deadline, justices disqualified him not only from the
property dispute but all cases involving the death penalty or the state’s
execution protocol, whether criminal or civil.
In his July 10 motion asking the Supreme Court justices to disqualify
themselves from his attempted reinstatement, Griffen said the court bypassed
legal procedure – thereby not giving him enough time to respond — and that
justices allowed political pressure to influence their rush to judgment.
He said a number of white legislators had voiced displeasure with Griffen, who
is African-American, both for his participation in the death penalty protest
and other “extra-judicial published writings and comments made in his capacity
as an ordained Baptist pastor in the religion of Jesus.”
The state Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission dismissed an ethics
complaint against Griffen on June 12.
Griffen said the Supreme Court ruled against him in retaliation “for exercising
his religious freedom” and “out of discriminatory racial animus” based on his
African-American ancestry and racial identity.
Because of that, he argued, it “might reasonably be questioned” whether the
justices would rule impartially in his petition to have his judicial authority
restored.
“It is ironic that the same justices who barred me for not recusing because of
my general views on a topic which was not even before me at the time, will not
recuse themselves despite their specific negative views of me — a litigant who
is before them right now,” Griffen said in a statement quoted by the Associated
Press.
(source: Baptist News)
SOUTH DAKOTA:
Deadline set for death penalty decision in Rapid City vehicle murder case
The Pennington County State’s Attorney Office will decide by Oct. 1 whether it
intends to seek the death penalty if a Rapid City woman is convicted of murder
for allegedly fatally hitting a woman with her car at a Walmart parking lot in
May.
Lara Roetzel, deputy state's attorney, said in court Thursday, Aug. 1, that she
needs more time to make a decision since the family of victim Kimberly Clifford
is not yet emotionally ready to be consulted on the matter.
Rochelle Seminole, 48, is charged with premeditated first-degree murder for
allegedly purposely killing Clifford by driving her SUV into her at the Walmart
parking lot on North Lacrosse Street on May 26.
If Roetzel decides to ask for the death penalty and Seminole is convicted, a
jury would decide whether to sentence Seminole to death or life in prison
without parole. If capital punishment is not pursued and Seminole is convicted,
she would spend the rest of her life in prison.
Many witnesses told police they saw Seminole and Clifford fighting in the
parking lot before Seminole hit or attempted to hit Clifford with a SUV and
then backed up before plowing into the woman, launching her into the air before
she landed in a storm drain, according to police reports. Clifford, a
37-year-old from Rapid City, was found unconscious and bleeding from the mouth
with a tire track over her body. She died soon after she was taken to the
hospital.
Seminole also faces 2 DUI-related charges that carry a maximum sentence of one
year in jail. Seminole smelled like alcohol and had bloodshot eyes, incoherent
speech and difficulty walking, the police reports say. A field test found she
had a .270 blood alcohol content. The legal limit is .08.
Seminole is expected to return to court for a hearing at 10 a.m. on Aug. 29.
(source: inforum.com)
USA:
Is Trump Using the Death Penalty as an Election Strategy?
Attorney General William Barr’s decision to order the resumption of federal
executions, presumably at the order of Donald Trump, was treated by most of the
media as a one-day story. It seemed to come out of the blue, and to have no
strategic thought behind it — just another nasty, impulsive conservative policy
emanating from an administration that continually emits such unpleasant
proposals.
But I believe there was nothing impulsive about it. This was the springing of a
political trap intended to shore up the “law-and-order” credentials of an
inherently lawless administration. The decision also appears aimed to force the
hand of Democrats — to get them to go on record opposing the death penalty, and
thus, by extension, be seen as “weak on crime” and somehow simpatico with the
five men who now stand to be executed later this year.
On one level, this is simply “politics as usual.” U.S. politicians have a long
and sordid tradition of politicizing the death penalty during election season.
It’s low-hanging fruit, since, even though opposition to capital punishment has
risen in recent years — some polls show it’s now at its highest level in
decades — over the years, polling has shown that the U.S. public has
consistently supported capital punishment.
George H.W. Bush similarly sought to play on pro-death-penalty fervor when
running his infamously racist Willie Horton ad against his Democratic opponent,
Michael Dukakis, during the 1988 presidential campaign — an ad that opened by
touting Bush’s pro-death penalty credentials.
Opportunism on this issue easily crosses party boundaries, too. Four years
after Dukakis’s mauling at the hands of Bush, Democratic candidate Bill Clinton
sought to inoculate himself from charges of being a wishy-washy liberal by
refusing a plea for clemency and instead signing a death warrant against Rickey
Ray Rector, a man with a traumatic brain injury. Today, that opportunism runs
in reverse at times, with Democrats seeking the presidential nomination also
playing politics on the issue; candidates such as Joe Biden who in previous
years went out of their way to establish their “tough-on-crime” credentials are
now falling over themselves to align with progressive primary voters in their
opposition to the death penalty.
And yet, because of the broader Trumpian moment, Barr’s announcement can’t be
dismissed as simply cruel politics as usual, as a Republican hack pandering to
a conservative GOP base in election season.
Trump isn’t simply opportunistic when it comes to executions — he has
fetishized the state-sanctioned shedding of blood.
Trump isn’t simply opportunistic when it comes to executions — rather, he has
long been utterly obsessed with capital punishment. He has fetishized the
state-sanctioned shedding of blood. Back in the late 1980s, the real estate
mogul took out ads in New York newspapers calling for the execution of the five
young Black men whom the media dubbed the Central Park 5 — all youth who were
wrongfully accused of attacking and raping a white jogger.
Even after a huge body of evidence emerged to exonerate the teens, showing that
they had been framed for a crime they hadn’t committed, and even after the
state settled a wrongful conviction lawsuit, Trump never apologized for his
shameful role in this case.
If there’s a chance to stir the pot and contribute to the overheated rhetoric
when it comes to executions, Trump has always wanted to take it. During his
2016 election campaign, he made the horrendous claim that not only should those
deemed “terrorists” be executed but that their families should also be killed.
More recently, at campaign rallies he has called for the “swift” execution of
people who kill police officers; presumably, in his understanding, this means
doing away with all the time-consuming appeals that stand between a sentence
being read out in court and actually being carried out.
At his rallies in 2016, Trump’s supporters frequently called for Hillary
Clinton to be hanged or shot for treason. And while Trump himself didn’t
directly embrace such calls, he also didn’t make any effort to distance himself
from them. The frenzy and blood-lust was politically expedient, and so Trump
let it run on.
Trump has made the horrendous claim that not only should “terrorists” be
executed but that their families should also be killed.
Once it became seen as “acceptable” to call for one’s political opponents to be
jailed or even executed, so it also became commonplace. Trump has repeatedly,
in the years since, described his political opponents and those who have
investigated him and his campaign as “traitors.” This is a very specific charge
carrying with it the possibility of execution as a punishment. One doesn’t
bandy about such allegations casually. They are designed to convince Trump’s
base that he is surrounded by mortal enemies, and to similarly convince that
base that any and all responses are politically and legally justified against
them. That’s the base that now, routinely, physically threatens writers and
politicians, TV reporters, journalists, entertainers, and anyone else who dares
to call Trump out for his actions.
It is in this context that Barr’s embrace of the federal death penalty ought to
be viewed.
As Trump has shown with his white nationalist rants over the past weeks,
there’s no low that he won’t stoop to as he seeks to shore up his base in the
run-up to next year’s elections. Combine the racism of Trump’s tweets about
“the Squad”, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings and now Al Sharpton, and the
obsession with the meting out of state-sanctioned violence, and you have the
likely tenor of the next year-and-a-half of politics in a nutshell.
The Department of Justice’s renewed embrace of capital punishment isn’t about
“public safety” — it’s about pandering to the basest emotions. It’s all part of
the cacophony of fury and blood-lust that passes for politics in Trump’s
degraded vision of the United States.
(source: Op-Ed; Sasha Abramsky is a freelance journalist and a part-time
lecturer at the University of California at Davis, Turthout.org)
***********************
Mississippi man charged with Kansas City murder will face federal death penalty
Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty for two men charged in 2 Kansas
City-area murders; 1 of the accused is from Mississippi.
The U.S. Attorney’s office said Wednesday the decision involves 30-year-old
Shawn Burkhalter, of Kansas City, and 25-year-old Joshua Nesbitt, of Crowder,
Mississippi.
The announcement comes after the U.S. Justice Department announced last week
that it would resume executing federal death row inmates.
Both face several charges, including using a firearm to commit murder and
murdering a potential witness.
The men are accused of killing Anthony Dwayne Johnson and Danny Lamont Dean in
2015 while trying to steal drugs they intended to sell.
Prosecutors also allege Burkhalter and Nesbitt planned to kill or threaten
Johnson to stop him from testifying in court or talking to law enforcement.
A superseding indictment on Tuesday contained additional charges against the 2
men.
(source: Associated Press)
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