[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., PENN., N.C., GA., FLA.
Oct. 25 NEW HAMPSHIRE: State Rep. Cushing: N.H. can live without capital punishment With a state Supreme Court ruling on the appeal of the state's only death row inmate expected soon, a coalition against the death penalty launched its campaign Thursday to end capital punishment next year. Rep. Renny Cushing, a Hampton Democrat whose father was murdered in 1988, is once again leading legislative efforts against the death penalty. "I think New Hampshire has come to the conclusion that New Hampshire can live without the death penalty," Cushing said during a press conference by the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty in the Legislative Office Building lobby, which was packed with supporters. Walter Murphy, former chief judge of the New Hampshire Superior Court, said the state is touted as the safest in the country. "Does anyone really think the death penalty is the reason for that when the death penalty hasn't been utilized since 1939?" he asked. Michael Addison - convicted of killing a Manchester police officer in 2006 - is the only person on the state's death row. The state Supreme Court heard arguments in Addison's case 11 months ago, including challenges to the constitutionality of the death penalty and whether it was unfairly applied to Addison - a black man whose victim was white. Murphy noted that 18 states and the District of Columbia have abolished capital punishment in the past 40 years. He was chairman of the commission that voted, 12-10, in 2010 to retain the death penalty after an exhaustive study. The Legislature expanded the death penalty to include murders committed during a home invasion, after a 2009 Mont Vernon machete attack left Kimberly Cates dead and her 10-year-old daughter maimed. Senate President Chuck Morse said Thursday he is skeptical of the need to abolish the death penalty. "Our statute is narrowly tailored and used sparingly, evidenced by the fact that the state has not used the penalty in over 70 years and currently has only 1 inmate, the convicted killer of a police officer, on death row," Morse said. "The possibility of the death penalty provides a deterrent against the most heinous crimes." Former Marlborough Police Chief Raymond Dodge said it's time to end "this imperfect and costly process." "There is no way to raise a wrongly convicted and executed person from the grave," Raymond said. He added that those on death row in other states who were exonerated highlight cases tainted by false eyewitness identifications, shoddy forensic work, bad lawyering and coerced confessions. The bishops of the state's Catholic and Episcopal dioceses - Peter Libasci and A. Robert Hirschfeld - also spoke in support of repeal. Libasci said the death penalty "only validates the taking of human life." Barbara Keshen, who heads the coalition, said the death penalty is a "cruel joke" on the families of murder victims, because it keeps them involved in the criminal justice system for years and years. The Legislature voted to repeal the death penalty in 2000, but then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen vetoed the bill. Gov. Maggie Hassan has said she supports repeal, but only if it wouldn't apply to Addison's sentence. Cushing's bill - if passed - would take effect Jan. 1, 2015. (source: Associated Press) *** Father's murder inspired legislator's crusade Shortly after Renny Cushing's father was murdered in 1988, a family friend came up to him and said, "Geez, I really hope the killer gets the death penalty." "I didn't know how to respond," said Cushing, a Democratic state representative from Hampton. "I realized the person had presumed I would change my position on the death penalty because my father was murdered." He said there exists a "widespread societal assumption" that all family members of murder victims want the death penalty for the killer. But for him, even as his father opened his front door one day to be met with "2 shotgun blasts that rang out and turned his chest into hamburger right in front of my mother," Cushing maintained his opposition to capital punishment. If he hadn't, he said, it wouldn't have just been his father who was taken from him, but his values as well. He didn't immediately become an activist - he said he preferred not to talk about the incident - but his position imposed upon him an obligation to speak out, "lest my silence on the issue be seen as me agreeing with the presumption" that he would want the death penalty. Long before he served his first term in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, Cushing testified as an advocate for victims' rights. He said most of his work after the murder went toward ensuring victims had rights to information and state assistance; at the time, he said, "everything was focused on the offender" with little help available for victims. He said there was a "crime spree" in the 1990s that led then-Attorney Gene
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, TENN., IND., ILL., MO.
Oct. 25 OHIO: Convicted murderer indicted in stabbing death A Youngstown man who already served 30 years in prison for murder was indicted on an aggravated murder charge Thursday in the stabbing death of a Columbiana County woman and he could face the death penalty. David Hackett, 51, was indicted by a Mahoning County grand jury on one count each of aggravated murder with death penalty specifications and rape, and 2 counts of kidnapping. The rape and kidnapping charges carry repeat violent offender specifications. He is being held on a $2 million bond. Police said Hackett stabbed Collena Carpenter, 30, of Homeworth, dozens of times. Her body was found Oct. 14 lying in a pool of blood on the ground on West Avenue across from the old city water department building on the city's West Side. A pile of her belongs was found a short distance away. Detectives said Hackett and Carpenter knew each other. Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction records show Hackett was convicted in 1979 of aggravated murder and aggravated robbery from a case originating in Mahoning County. He was paroled in April of 2009. (source: WKBN News) * Test for the truth In May, the Ohio Supreme Court opened the door to new DNA testing in the case of Tyrone Noling. A 5-2 majority reversed a lower court decision and sent the question to Judge John Enlow of the Portage County Common Pleas Court. Earlier this month, attorneys for Noling filed a motion asking the court to permit testing of additional evidence. The request makes sense - if the objective is justice, or at least addressing the mounting doubt about the Noling conviction. A jury found Noling guilty of the 1990 killings of Cora and Bearnhardt Hartig in their house in Atwater Township. He has resided on death row the past 17 years. The indictment of Noling didn't come until 5 years after the episode, described by prosecutors as a robbery that turned into murder. Key to the conviction was the testimony of 3 friends of Noling at the scene. They long ago recanted, citing coercion by the prosecution. On their own, these reversals might be played down. Striking is how they fit into a pattern, the case against Noling having eroded so substantially. Noling and his friends were involved in earlier robberies in Alliance. At the Hartig house, there was no physical evidence linking them to the crime. Nothing was taken from the house. If many in prison proclaim their innocence, know further that Noling's gun didn???t match the murder weapon. He passed a polygraph test. 4 years ago, attorneys for Noling learned through a public records request about an alternative suspect. The information wasn't shared at the trial. Yet the person in question lived near the Hartigs and eventually murdered a young woman. He received a death sentence and was executed. Noling wants to apply the more sophisticated DNA testing of today to a cigarette butt found on the driveway. (He already has been excluded.) A search for the truth requires such a step. So does state law, the legislature in 2010 expanding the concept of a "definitive" DNA test. As the Supreme Court stressed, a test must be performed if it hasn???t been conducted yet and the outcome could be "determinative," or likely change the result of a trial. Find the presence of an alternative suspect, including a 2nd possibility, an insurance agent for the Hartigs who refused to take a polygraph, and that surely would be the result. It would be especially so in view of the collapsing case of the prosecution on other fronts. Logic follows: If the cigarette butt is tested, then a jewelry box and shell casings should be tested, too. The prosecution has argued that both were touched by the killer. Recent advances in DNA testing make possible gaining decisive evidence from each item. An opportunity exists to clear up the many uncertainties about whether Tyrone Noling murdered the Hartigs. More, the state must take necessary care to ensure that Ohio avoids the grievous mistake of executing an innocent man. (source: Editorial, Akron Beacon Journal, Oct. 23) *** Youngstown man could face death penalty for murder of former Columbiana County woman The indictment of a Youngstown man for the stabbing death of a former Homeworth, Ohio woman includes a specification for the death penalty. The Mahoning County Grand Jury handed up a 4 count indictment Thursday against 51-year-old David Hackett for allegedly murdering 30-year-old Collena Lynn Carpenter. The indictment also charges Hackett with kidnapping and rape. Investigators tell 21 News that Carpenter had been stabbed more than sixty times before her body was found in a vacant lot along West Avenue in Youngstown last week. Carpenter had been staying with Hackett and his fiancee in Youngstown. At the time Carpenter's death,Hackett was out on parole from a life sentence for
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news---S.DAK., ARIZ., CALIF., USA
news postings will resume Sunday Oct. 25 SOUTH DAKOTA: Judge denies attempt to stop death penalty case A Sioux Falls judge has denied a motion to halt death penalty proceedings against a state prison inmate based on an allegation of insufficient funding of his public defenders. Lawyers for James Vernon McVay, 43, argued this morning that their office is understaffed based on national guidelines from the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. Minnehaha County Public Defender Traci Smith said her office's workload is too heavy to offer McVay adequate counsel for his upcoming pre-sentence hearing. Smith has requested and been denied additional staff attorneys for the past 2 years as her client load has increased. Smith told Judge Peter Liebermann that with only 22 lawyers and 3 representing McVay for a 6-week jury hearing in March, it won't be possible for her team to provide the best possible defense for him. Based on national guidelines and her office's caseload, she said, the public defender's office should have had 25 lawyers on staff in 2012 and is on pace to need 28 in 2014. The State's Attorney's Office has 25 lawyers, Smith said, and the backing of the law enforcement and state crime lab experts. "It isn't just a matter of parity of resources, it's about meeting our ethical obligation and our responsibility to our client," Smith said. "If we aren't given the resources we need, the state should be precluded from seeking the death penalty." State's Attorney Aaron McGowan told Lieberman that Smith's numbers skew the real picture of funding for lawyers in Minnehaha County. 3 of McGowan's lawyers handle civil matters, he said, meaning there are only 22 lawyers to handle criminal issues. Those lawyers have to contend not only with defense lawyers from Smith's office, but with the 5 attorneys in the Public Advocate's Office and the 50 or so private lawyers hired to represent clients in cases with multiple defendants. "Our numbers are deflated because of the actual number of defendants we're dealing with," McGowan said. The state's attorney's office receives less funding from the county for education, training and expert witnesses than the Public Defender and Public Advocate's offices as well, he said. Judge Lieberman told Smith he understood her concerns and recognizes that the assistance of law enforcement will always tip the scales in the state's favor, but there are more defense lawyers than prosecutors on the county dole and that commissioners have done a good job managing the scare resources they have. "Unfortunately, since 2008, we've been dealing with shrinking resources, not expanding resources," Lieberman said. The judge also said that the 3 lawyers handling McVay's case - Smith and deputies Amber Eggert and Michelle Thomas - have given their client a "first-rate defense." "I can't see where the defense can in any way be faulted for not doing something they should have done," he said. "If anything the defense would suffer from, it would be over-enthusiasm." McVay pleaded guilty but mentally ill to 1st-degree murder in the July 2, 2011, stabbing death of 75-year-old Maybelle Schein. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty due to what they've described as a wantonly vile act committed as part of a home invasion and robbery. McVay was captured near Madison, Wisc., and told police and a television reporter that he'd killed Schein as the 1st step in a plan to rob and kill his way to Washington, D.C., to assassinate President Barack Obama. On Wednesday, Smith's team argued, unsuccessfully, that jurors ought to be shielded from the television interview and that the death penalty was improper for a mentally-ill client. They had previously argued to suppress a law enforcement interview, in which McVay admitted to walking away from a minimum security transition unit at the penitentiary, shoplifting cough syrup and alcohol then spending the night in a park praying to Lucifer for the strength to kill. (source: Argus Leader) ** Judge To Allow TV Interview In McVay Death Penalty Hearing The interview James McVay did with a Madison, Wisconsin TV station just days after being arrested for the murder of a Sioux Falls woman will be allowed at his death penalty hearing. McVay has pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the July 2011 murder of Maybelle Schein. He was arrested later the same the day of the murder in Schein's car in Madison, Wisconsin. During a jailhouse interview with a Local TV station, McVay said Schein's murder was the beginning of a cross-country killing spree that would end with the assassination of the President. At a motions hearing Wednesday morning, Judge Peter Lieberman said he will allow the interview during the death penalty hearing because "it is highly relevant for the jury to know how McVay feels about the crime." Ben Dunsmoor is in the courtroom and wil
