Sept. 6
TEXAS----impending execution
Jews call to halt death row inmate's execution, citing antisemitism ---- Mr.
Halprin was referred to as a “f****n’ Jew” and a “G*****n k**e,” Halprin’s
attorney, Tivon Schardl, said in a statement.
A number of Jewish groups and lawyers are urging the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals to stay the scheduled execution of a Jewish inmate who said his judge
was antisemitic.
In July, Dallas County Judge Lela Mays approved an Oct. 10 execution date for
Randy Halprin, who was part of the “Texas 7” group of prisoners who escaped
from a prison in the state in 2000. They were convicted and sentenced to death
for the murder of a police officer who responded to a robbery they committed. 4
of them already have been executed.
But Halprin, 41, said in an appeal in May that the judge who sentenced him in
2003, Vickers Cunningham, referred to him using antisemitic language. He wants
a new trial.
“Mr. Halprin’s trial judge, who presided over the death-penalty trial, made
critical decisions about what evidence the jury would hear, and sentenced Mr.
Halprin to die, was biased against Mr. Halprin, referring to him as a “f****n’
Jew” and a “G*****n k**e,” Halprin’s attorney, Tivon Schardl, said in a
statement.
Last year, The Dallas Morning News reported that Cunningham set up a trust in
2010 to give his children money if they marry a white Christian of the opposite
sex.
On Thursday, the American Jewish Committee, Central Conference of American
Rabbis, Men of Reform Judaism and Union for Reform Judaism filed an amicus
brief in support of his appeal. More than 100 Jewish Texas lawyers signed on to
the brief.
The brief said the issue at stake was not whether Halprin was guilty or not.
“[T]hose issues are irrelevant, because questions of guilt and punishment
follow a fair trial; they do not precede it,” it reads. “And if Judge
Cunningham is the bigot described in the application, a fair trial has not yet
happened.”
The groups call for the court to “stay the applicant’s scheduled execution, and
remand this case to the trial court for findings of fact and conclusions of
law.”
In June, the Anti-Defamation League filed an amicus brief in support of
Halprin’s petition.
(source: The Jerusalem Post)
*************
If Harris County is death penalty capital, how do Houston’s surrounding
counties stack up?
Fort Bend County: Spencer Goodman, 31, was executed on Jan. 18, 2000. Goodman
was convicted of the 1991 kidnapping and killing 38-year-old Cecile Ham. He was
later tracked down in central Texas after using Ham’s stolen credit cards.
There's no doubt that Harris County is the capital of capital punishment in
Texas.
But how do the counties surrounding Harris fare? Of the seven contiguous
counties (Montgomery, Galveston, Fort Bend, Brazoria, Liberty, Chambers and
Waller), Montgomery County takes the cake with 16 executions since 1982.
That's compared to the 130 inmates out of Harris County who have been executed
since that same year.
Galveston has 6 inmates who have been executed, while Fort Bend has 5 inmates,
Brazoria has 4 and Liberty has executed 3. Chambers has 1 inmate who has been
executed, while Waller has never sent anyone to death row.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
*************
Webb County District Attorney in pursuit of justice----An alleged killing spree
that shook the Laredo community is still being felt a year later.
The Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz says he has decided to seek the
death penalty against former Border Patrol agent Juan David Ortiz who is
accused of killing 4 people.
Alaniz says the death penalty is reserved for the most heinous crimes; the type
of crimes that are hard to fathom.
It’s also a case that garnered national attention and like all cases, his goal
is to seek the truth and justice for the victims of these horrific crimes.
The journey to seek the truth can take longer from case to case which takes a
lot of resources from the DA’s office to carry out a capital murder trial.
Alaniz says a case like this will have a team of 5 attorneys that are
designated to the trial who are in charge of organizing the evidence and
everything that is needed to present the case in court.
Because things can always change, Alaniz is in constant communication with the
victim’s families and other law enforcement agencies on how the case will be
developed.
The district attorney feels the decision to seek the death penalty falls
heavily on his shoulders.
Alaniz says he takes the family members feelings, and opinions into
consideration, but ultimately his responsibility is to the community at large.
This is not the first time that Alaniz has decided to seek the death penalty
but he says it never gets easier.
The District Attorney’s Office is hoping to begin the jury selection process by
the end of 2020 or early 2021.
In the meantime, Ortiz’s next hearing is set for October 8th.
(source: KGNS TV news)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Will North Carolina’s Supreme Court allow racism to remain a persistent factor
in death penalty?
In 2009, North Carolina passed the Racial Justice Act (RJA), which allowed
defendants to strike the death penalty from their cases if they could show that
racial discrimination was a factor in their prosecution. The law came as a
response to a series of exonerations of Black people who were falsely convicted
of crimes they did not commit by all-White or nearly all-White juries. The
legislature took a bold step to address was what suspected to be deeply
troubling evidence of racism infecting the death penalty—but no one knew for
sure what evidence uncovered by the RJA would find.
In 2010, people on death row began filing RJA claims. Four had hearings, and
the evidence uncovered was indeed stark, troubling, and clearly pointed to the
systemic ways that racism infects capital cases in North Carolina. The four
petitioners had death sentences reversed and were resentenced to life without
parole (LWOP).
But in 2013, the law was repealed by the same new legislature that targeted
Black voters with “surgical precision” in voter suppression, and the 4
petitioners were all sent back to death row without new trials. 2 additional
petitioners—who had uncovered evidence through the RJA but not yet had
hearings—were also subsequently denied their day in court.
On August 26-27, we, along with 5 other legal teams and the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund, Inc., will go before the North Carolina Supreme Court to
fight for the rights of the 6 petitioners to have their evidence recognized and
their death sentences overturned. The Attorney General for North Carolina will
ask the Court to do 1 of 2 things: Sweep clear and obvious evidence of racism
under the rug and pretend it does not exist or hold that, in 2019, it is fine
to use trials infected with racism as the vehicle to execute Black men.
In its quest to disregard the troubling evidence of racial bias, the State will
ask the North Carolina Supreme Court to overturn constitutional law, dating
back to the Civil War, protecting the right to have a legally filed defense
heard in court, regardless of whether those defenses are later repealed. North
Carolina established this legal principle in a case that dismissed prosecution
for multiple murders committed during the Civil War, based on a law granting
immunity for such acts, even though the law was later repealed. That precedent
has stood in North Carolina law for almost 150 years.
Hypocrisy often produces irony, and that is true here: A legal principle was
established to protect confederate soldiers for the massacres of civilian
children and men. Now, the North Carolina Supreme Court is being asked to
ignore this principle in a case challenging discrimination against Black jurors
at the life and death trials of persons of color. We can learn a lot by
studying who the law is selectively applied to benefit.
Allegations made in the 6 complaints and evidence produced in the hearings
included a prosecutor calling a defendant “a big Black bull;” a suggestion
during jury selection that a Black defendant should have been lynched; the use
of crime scene tape to section off the area behind the defense table, with the
defendant’s family forced to sit in the back of the courtroom, while the White
family of the victim sat in front behind the prosecutor; derogatory and
demeaning interrogation of Black jurors, including questions about whether a
juror had trouble reading and whether he had gone “straight-through” school,
implying he may have repeated grades.
One prosecutor wrote in his notes that a Black juror with a criminal history
was a “thug” while a White juror who trafficked in drugs was “a fine guy.” A
Black juror was described as a “Black wino,” while a White juror with a DUI
conviction was a “country boy, okay?”
There is evidence prosecutors were trained on how to give pre-planned responses
to Batson objections regardless of the evidence. At least one of the
prosecutors in the RJA cases persistently relied on this training to respond to
Batson objections to her decisions about removing Black jurors. One had the
audacity to read from a list of excuses and struck a Black juror for age,
despite the fact that she had let a white juror with the same birthday remain
immediately prior. When the judge noticed and asked her about it, she ran down
to the next reasons on her cheat sheet.
The data corroborate all of this anecdotal evidence and prove that racial bias
in North Carolina’s death penalty is systematic—not the work of a few isolated
bad actors. The state’s own statistical expert conceded that the patterns of
exclusion of Black jurors in the cases suggested racial discrimination. A
Michigan State University study conducted in connection with the RJA examined
the decisions of prosecutors across the state involving over 7,000 jurors, in
173 capital trials, over 20 years. The study found that (across all time
periods and geographic areas) race played an “overwhelming” role in jury
selection in the state. A subsequent study, conducted by former prosecutors
from Wake Forest Law, found the same patterns. All of this evidence is clear,
shameful, and undeniable.
The state has continually argued that all of the evidence of blatant racism in
all 6 cases should be ignored or that it just does not matter. Those positions
are especially shameful in light of North Carolina’s legacy of racial terror
and lynching. EJI calculated 123 lynchings in North Carolina between 1877 and
1950. This legacy of executions should be a stark reminder of the role race has
played in who is executed in North Carolina.
Sweeping this under a rug won’t work: There is no rug big enough to hide the
stench of this evidence. More than a century of North Carolina law says you get
your day in court even if the law is repealed. Seventy-three years of lynchings
and evidence of extensive racial bias in the death penalty say enough is
enough. If North Carolinians are to have any faith in their legal system, the
Court must intervene and set this right. Our democracy depends on it.
(source: pridepublishinggroup.com)
FLORIDA----female faces death penalty
Sievers murder trial slowing down 'Killer Grandma' case----Lois Riess is facing
a 1st-degree murder charge and the death penalty
The woman accused of killing her husband in Minnesota then killing a stranger
on Fort Myers Beach to steal her identity was in court Thursday morning.
Lois Riess is facing a 1st-degree murder charge and the death penalty.
Riess is being represented by public defenders. In court Thursday morning, her
attorneys noted delays in this case because of other on-going death penalty
cases for their office. Jimmy Rodgers, one of the men accused of killing Bonita
Springs doctor Teresa Sievers, is also facing the death penalty and is using
the same public defenders. Sievers was murdered more than 4 years ago and the
case has yet to go to trial. Dozens of motions continue to delay the case, but
a trial date is expected for October 1.
The judge has set Riess' next pre-trial conference hearing in December, hoping
to get her case moving forward.
Riess is accused of killing her husband in Minnesota last spring. Investigators
believe she traveled south to Florida, hitting multiple casinos on the way to
Fort Myers Beach. Once she got to Lee County, deputies said she befriended a
woman named Pamela Hutchinson, killed her in her condo, then stole her car and
identity.
In brand new documents released from investigators in Minnesota, detectives
believe Riess' husband hadn't been seen in 16 days. His co-workers said they
knew something was up after they received text messages from his phone that
used punctuation; his friends said he didn't use punctuation in texts.
Riess told friends and family her husband had gone on a fishing trip, then was
sick so they shouldn't bother him in the house. Really, investigators believe
Riess shot him several times, at least once in the chest, killing him in their
bathroom. According to the new documents, Riess covered her husband's body in a
blanket.
The dubbed "Killer Grandma" took off to Texas and was eventually captured at a
restaurant in South Padre Island. Detectives said the gun that was used to kill
her husband was the same one used to kill Hutchinson. The gun was found in
Riess' Texas hotel room.
(source: WBBH news)
MISSOURI:
IACHR Urges the United States to Stay the Execution of Russell Bucklew
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) urges the United States
of America to stay the execution of Russell Bucklew, which is scheduled to take
place on October 1, 2019, in the state of Missouri, and to grant him effective
relief. The United States is subject to the international obligations derived
from the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the American
Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man since it joined the OAS in 1951.
Accordingly, the IACHR urges the United States, and in particular the state of
Missouri, to fully respect its international human rights obligations.
On May 20, 2014, the IACHR granted precautionary measures in favor of Russell
Bucklew, requesting that the United States refrain from executing him pending
the Commission’s investigation of the allegations raised in his petition.
The IACHR adopted Admissibility Report No. 54/14 on July 21, 2014. On May 10,
2018, the Commission adopted Merits Report No. 71/18 in which it concluded that
the United States was responsible for violating Russell Bucklew’s rights to
life, liberty and security of the person, to a fair trial, to protection from
arbitrary arrest, and to due process of law. In that report, the Inter-American
Commission concluded that the United States failed to provide him with
effective access to judicial protection regarding his right to be free from
cruel and inhuman punishment and torture in the context of the application of
lethal injection as the method of execution and further, that the amount of
time that he had spent on death row, over 20 years, greatly exceeded the length
of time that international and domestic courts have characterized as cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment.
Russell Bucklew suffers a rare, congenital medical condition that presents a
concrete risk of excessive suffering and pain during his execution. On April 1,
2019, the Supreme Court of the United States rejected the argument that
Missouri’s current lethal execution protocol amounted to “cruel and unusual”
punishment under the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States,
holding that “[t]he Eight Amendment forbids ‘cruel and unusual’ methods of
capital punishment but does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death”, and
finding that his defense had failed to establish the existence of an
alternative method of execution that would reduce the suffering.
In Merits Report No. 71/18, the IACHR recommended that the United States grant
Russell Bucklew effective relief. Taking into account its conclusions on the
lack of an effective remedy to challenge the method of execution, the time that
Russell Bucklew had already been held on death row, his rare medical condition
and the significant risk, due to that condition, that his execution would cause
excessive suffering incompatible with the American Declaration, the Commission
recommended that his sentence be commuted, that he be transferred out of death
row, and that the State ensure that his conditions of detention be compatible
with his human dignity. Despite having made this recommendation in 2018, the
State has not adopted actions to comply with it.
The Inter-American Commission reminds the State that, in carrying out the
execution of Russell Bucklew, it would commit a grave and irreparable violation
of the fundamental rights to life and to not receive cruel, infamous or unusual
punishment protected by Articles I and XXVI of the American Declaration.
Further, it would mean that the State has failed to comply with the
recommendations of the IACHR, an action which contravenes the United States’
international human rights obligations as an OAS Member State under the OAS
Charter and related instruments.
The Commission also urges the United States to comply with the non-repetition
measures recommended in the merits report, specifically, that it should review
its laws, procedures and practices to ensure that persons sentenced to the
death penalty have access to effective judicial remedies to challenge the
possible impact of the method of execution on their fundamental rights, and
that it should adopt a moratorium on the execution of persons sentenced to
death.
The Inter-American Commission has dealt with the death penalty as a crucial
human rights challenge for decades. While a majority of OAS Member States has
abolished capital punishment, a substantial minority retains it. In this
regard, the Commission notes that the United States is currently the only
country in the region that is carrying out executions under the death penalty.
The Commission further notes with concern the announcement of the Federal
Government of the United States on July 25, 2019, to resume the execution of
federal inmates on death row. In this sense, the IACHR reiterates the
recommendation made in its report “The Death Penalty in the Inter-American
Human Rights System: From Restrictions to Abolition”, that States impose a
moratorium on executions as a step toward the gradual disappearance of the
death penalty.
A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the
IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on
Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect
for and to defend human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to
the OAS in this area. The Commission is composed of seven independent members
who are elected in an individual capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who
do not represent their countries of origin or residence.
(source: oas.org)
ARKANSAS:
Arkansas man charged with capital murder in cellmate's death
Prosecutors have filed a murder charge against the man accused of killing his
cellmate last month while he was awaiting trial on a separate murder charge
related to fatally shooting a woman earlier this year.
Washington County Prosecuting Attorney Matt Durrett said Thursday he filed a
capital murder charge against Dekota James Harvey.
Arraignment is set for Monday in circuit court. Capital murder is punishable by
either life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.
A deputy found Harvey on Aug. 27 waiting at the door of his cell in the county
jail and Luis Cobos-Cenobio laying on his back on the floor by his bunk bed.
Kelly Cantrell, public information officer for the sheriff's office, said the
initial indications were Cobos-Cenobio was strangled. No weapons were found in
the cell.
Harvey, of Fayetteville, was arrested in March in connection with the shooting
death of Elizabeth Dawson. He has pleaded not guilty to capital murder in that
case.
(source: arkansasonline.com)
****************
Ark. death row inmate asks court for new DNA testing----The inmate was spared
from execution 2 years ago
An Arkansas death row inmate who was spared from execution 2 years ago asked
the state Supreme Court on Thursday to allow new DNA testing of evidence that
his attorneys say could exonerate him.
Attorneys for convicted murderer Stacey Johnson and for the state appeared
before the court over the testing requested of evidence from the 1993 killing
of Carol Heath. Johnson is appealing a lower court's ruling denying the request
for additional testing. Johnson's attorneys say there were major limitations in
DNA testing when Johnson was convicted of Heath's murder. The items they're
seeking to test include the rape kit and a towel found at the scene.
"All that Mr. Johnson is asking is that before the state go forward with the
irreversible punishment of execution, that he be allowed to subject this
evidence to precisely the kind of testing that would be used if this murder
were committed today," Olga Akselrod, a staff attorney with the Innocence
Project, told justices.
The state, however, argued that the DNA evidence can't outweigh other evidence
that proves Johnson's guilt and called the request an attempt to continue
delaying his execution.
"What (Heath's family) is entitled to is closure, and they haven't gotten that
closure," Solicitor General Nicholas Bronni told the court.
Arkansas doesn't have any executions scheduled. The last of the state's lethal
injection drugs expiredin January and the state has not replaced them.
Johnson was 1 of 8 inmates Arkansas sought to execute in April 2017 before the
state's supply of a lethal injection drug expired. Johnson and 3 other inmates
were spared by the courts. Johnson's execution was stayed so a lower court
could hear arguments on the request for additional evidence. The Supreme
Court's makeup hasn't changed since it halted Johnson's execution in a 4-3
ruling.
Bronni repeatedly faced heated questioning from Justice Jo Hart, who asked
about the state's resistance to the additional testing.
"What is it you're afraid of finding out with the testing?" she said.
Johnson's claims faced skepticism from Justice Shawn Womack, who was among the
3 justices who opposed the inmate's stay 3 years ago. Womack questioned how
capital cases could be resolved if the court was asked repeatedly to revisit
them.
"How do we ever get to finality?" he said.
Johnson's case is being considered as the state awaits a ruling in a federal
lawsuit challenging its use of the sedative midazolam in executions. A federal
judge hasn't ruled since holding a trial in the case in May.
(source: Associated Press)
UTAH:
The Justice Files: The execution of Ron Lafferty----Utah man closer to death by
firing squad after losing appeal
He went eye to eye with Ron Lafferty the convicted killer who is on death row.
Dr. Noel Gardner was appointed by the courts to evaluate Lafferty in 1993. But
he continued his meetings with Lafferty over the course of several years when
the need for a psychiatric evaluation was needed.
Gardner made his final report in 2012 and never wavered from his findings that
Lafferty was competent to stand trial or understood the appeal process.
“I told him he was quite narcissistic and told him ‘my you’re quite a student
and brilliant’ and he liked that,” said Dr. Gardner.
Gardner had a degree in theology and using that background clicked with
Lafferty.
In 1984, Lafferty had a revelation that he must kill his sister-in-law, her
child, and 2 others.
That year, he and his brother Dan carried out that order. They went into the
home of their brother Allan in American Fork.
Allan’s wife, Brenda was brutally stabbed to death as was their baby daughter.
His brother Dan was convicted of the murders but avoided the death penalty when
a juror held out. He was sentenced to life in prison.
After 2 trials, Ron Lafferty was sentenced to die in 1996. But over the next
decade, he appealed on several issues including competency.
And Dr. Gardner was there to evaluate Lafferty when summoned. The psychiatrist
tapped into Lafferty’s religious views and described them this way.
“(The views were) so idiosyncratic, unusual, odd, eccentric and extreme that I
think it fooled a lot of experts thinking that he was seriously mentally ill,”
said Dr. Gardner.
He was one of several psychiatrists that evaluated Lafferty on behalf of the
courts.
Gardner found that Lafferty wasn’t suffering from mental illness but had a
severe personality disorder.
Lafferty along with his brother was pursuing a polygamous lifestyle and
abandoned his Latter-day Saint faith.
The brothers were now members of the School of Prophets in Utah County. Gardner
said Lafferty’s views were pieced together from books and the pioneers.
“But that is completely different from what we see in patients with severe
mental illness where these ideas come up from nowhere,” he said.
As for the crime itself, Gardiner claimed Lafferty implicated himself and
understood those comments could be used against him.
He said Lafferty blamed the federal government for his troubles. He told
Gardner that he was the “victim of an unjust system” and the government
shouldn’t “murder” him.
“(He said) that’s proof that they are evil but he said if they’re going to do
it, I want to be executed by firing squad and they can have the blood on their
hands,” said Gardner.
He said that line of thinking isn’t from someone who suffers from mental
illness.
Others who evaluated Lafferty disagreed with his conclusions but in the end, a
federal judge found Lafferty competent.
Meanwhile, Lafferty’s appeals are nearly exhausted and many believe his days
are numbered after his latest appeal was denied.
(source: ABC News)
CALIFORNIA:
California man who rapped about burying girlfriend charged in girlfriend's
murder ---- Robert Anthony Camou has been charged in the death of his
girlfriend who disappeared earlier this summer.
A California man who officials say was on video rapping about burying his
girlfriend has been charged in the death of his girlfriend.
Prosecutors in Los Angeles County charged Robert Anthony Camou with killing his
girlfriend, who disappeared in July and whose body has not been found, the
district attorney's office said Wednesday.
A decision to seek the death penalty has not yet been made.
Camou, 27, of Monrovia, faces 1 count of murder with a special circumstance
allegation of killing a witness in the death of a woman identified by the
district attorney's office as Amanda C., 31.
Prosecutors believe that Camou killed the woman on or about July 29 while out
on bail on an April charge of battering his girlfriend.
A video of Camou rapping about burying his girlfriend surfaced in July, NBC Los
Angeles reported, but it was not immediately clear Wednesday night whether it
played any role in the murder charge.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office in early August named Camou a suspect
in the disappearance of Amanda Kathleen Custer, who was believed to have been
taken against her will after a domestic violence incident on July 29.
The sheriff's office also said at that time that it was aware of a video
showing Camou rapping.
(source: NBC News)
**********************
Death row inmate sentenced for 1998 Compton murders dies in San Quentin state
prison; investigated as suicide
A man sentenced to death in 2000 for taking part in the murder of four people,
including a Corona man, at a Compton car wash died Thursday at San Quentin
State Prison, officials said.
The death of 48-year-old Aswad Pops is being investigated as a suicide, though
the cause of death will not be determined until an autopsy is conducted,
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials said in a
statement.
On Jan. 25, 1998, Pops and his accomplice, Byron Paul Wilson, murdered the
Compton car wash’s owner, Charles Hurd, 33, and 3 of his employees, Michael
Hoard, 41, Shawn Potter, 20 and Jessie Dunn, 36, prison officials said.
According to a Los Angeles Times report from 1998, Hurd was a resident of
Corona. The other 3 men were Compton residents. At the time, investigators
believed the murders were a result of drug robbery gone wrong, the Times
reported.
Pops was sentenced to death in April 2000 and since then has been on San
Quentin’s death row, officials said. He was among 731 other inmates on
California’s death row.
Since 1978, when California reinstated capital punishment, 27 inmates awaiting
execution have committed suicide, 82 inmates have died from natural causes,
while 14 have died from other causes with one that is pending further
investigation, according to CDCR numbers. 13 people have been executed in
California.
In March of this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order placing .
The order also withdrew the state’s lethal injection protocol and immediately
closed the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison.
(source: douglasdigitaldaily.com)
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