[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLORIDA
Nov. 30 FLORIDA: Death penalty sought for man accused of Cape cold case murders The state attorney’s office will seek the death penalty against Joseph Zieler, the man accused of murdering Lisa Story and Robin Cornell in Cape Coral in 1990. Detectives arrested Zieler in September after getting a DNA hit on the 32-year-old case. Story was babysitting 11-year-old Cornell when they were brutally murdered in their Cape Coral apartment. Both women were suffocated and sexually assaulted. The grand jury indicted Zieler for two counts of first-degree murder (source: NBC news)___ A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu DeathPenalty mailing list DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty Unsubscribe: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/options/deathpenalty
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., NEB., NEV., CALIF., WASH., USA
Nov. 30 OKLAHOMA: 13 Oklahoma death row inmates now eligible for execution James Chandler Ryder, convicted of killing a woman and her son over some personal belongings in 1999, is now the 13th Oklahoma death row inmate who has exhausted appeals and is eligible for an execution date. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined, without comment, to review Ryder's appeal. It was the fifth time since the high court's new term began in October that justices have rejected the final appeal in an Oklahoma capital case. In such instances, the Oklahoma attorney general typically moves quickly to request an execution date from the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. But problems with lethal injections in Oklahoma have led to a pause in executions while the state Department of Corrections reviews the process. The last execution in Oklahoma was in January 2015. And executions won't resume immediately after the Corrections Department decides it is ready. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has said he would wait at least 150 days after the review is complete before requesting execution dates. Earlier this month, Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot question that gives state constitutional protection to the death penalty - and death sentences already handed down - even if a particular execution method is ruled to be in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled against a method and has twice upheld lethal injection protocols, including Oklahoma's in 2015. Ryder, who is now 54, was convicted of killing Daisy Hallum and her adult son, Sam Hallum, in Pittsburg County in a dispute over possessions Ryder had been storing with them. Ryder received the death penalty for killing Daisy Hallum and life without parole for killing Sam Hallum. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the death sentence in January. (source: The Oklahoman) NEBRASKA: AG: 3 inmates likely first in line for death penalty Jose Sandoval, Carey Dean Moore and John Lotter could be the 1st Nebraska death row inmates to have execution dates set, according to Attorney General Doug Peterson. Gov. Pete Ricketts on Tuesday dismissed concerns about a lack of transparency in proposed changes to Nebraska's lethal injection protocol. The proposal announced Monday by the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services would allow the state prisons director to choose the drug or drugs to be used in an execution and would keep the identity of the supplier of drugs confidential. It also would keep the drugs and method of administration secret until 60 days before a death warrant is requested. At that point, the information would be shared with the condemned inmate. "Claims of secrecy really just aren't founded," Ricketts said during a news conference Tuesday at the Capitol. He said the proposed rules are intended to protect the drug provider and that the 60-day window of notification provides flexibility for the state to change the drug it uses while still giving inmates "plenty of time" to appeal. "We're really not changing anything about confidentiality," Ricketts said, but the protocol would "give the state flexibility to carry out the execution." The state has not been able to buy 2 of the 3 drugs in its current protocol, sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide, in several years. Of the states that executed people so far this year: * Florida used a 3-drug protocol of midazolam to render the inmate unconsciousness, vecuronium bromide to induce paralysis and potassium chloride to stop the heart. * Alabama used midazolam, rocuronium bromide to stop breathing and then potassium chloride. The state plans to use midazolam for a scheduled Dec. 8 execution. 3 Nebraska death row inmates, Carey Dean Moore, Jose Sandoval and John Lotter, have exhausted their state and federal appeals, according to Attorney General Doug Peterson, and could be 1st in line to have execution dates set. * Moore, 59, killed 2 Omaha cab drivers in the course of 2 separate robberies and has been on death row for 36 years. * Sandoval, 37, was convicted of 7 murders and sentenced to death 13 years ago for killing 5 people at a Norfolk bank. * Lotter, 45, was convicted on 3 counts of 1st-degree murder in Richardson County, 1 targeted because she was transgender. He has been on death row 20 years. Peterson would not speculate on when an execution might take place. Some other attorneys have said it could take years to schedule one. A public hearing on the new death penalty protocol proposal, which was unveiled three weeks after voters overwhelmingly reversed the Legislature's repeal of the death penalty, is set for Dec. 30. "This is just a process," Peterson said. "Whenever regulations are adopted, they have to go through the administrative process of having a hearing." Once the steps are complied with, it becomes the protocol of the
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----TEXAS, PENN., VA., N.C., S.C., OHIO
Nov. 30 TEXAS: Supreme Court Justice Makes Powerful Plea For The Disabled On Death Row A narrow majority of justices at the U.S. Supreme Court appeared ready to side with a Texas death row inmate and further refine the constitutional prohibition on executing the mentally deficient. The justices are charged with deciding whether the courts may use non-clinical or outdated medical information in assessing whether a person is intellectually disabled, and therefore protected from capital punishment. The justices found that executing a mentally disabled person is an unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment in 2002. They further developed that ruling in Hall v. Florida in 2014, finding that courts may not use a rigid threshold IQ test, but must rely on a range of clinical factors. In this case, a death row convict named Bobby James Moore challenged the state of Texas' use of components called the Briseno factors, which assist courts in making findings concerning intellectual disability. These 7 factors are derivative of Lennie Smalls, from Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." Moore was sentenced to die for his role in the robbery of a grocery store which resulted in the death of a clerk. He attempted to vacate his execution by proving he is intellectually disabled, but failed in a state appeals court. The parties would not contest that Moore is developmentally challenged (he could not add or subtract until his teenage years, for example), but disagree as to his status as intellectually disabled. Though the Briseno factors are not the primary test the Texas courts use to make findings of mental deficiency, they do help inform and shape such findings. In this case, the lower court also relied on a 1992 edition of the American Association on Mental Retardation, which is no longer current. Clifford Sloan, Moore's attorney, characterized Texas' non-clinical factors as "harmful and inappropriate lay stereotypes." Sloan said reliance on medical frameworks is a "life and death question that goes to the human dignity of the intellectually disabled." Chief Justice John Roberts, sounding perturbed, repeatedly wondered if Moore's lawyers were raising arguments and issues unrelated to the question the Court granted review on. Roberts' concern seemed to draw sympathy from Justices Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito. Elsewhere in the argument, Kennedy suggested a conflict existed between Texas' practice and up to date medical standards. He also was troubled by the possibility that a mentally deficint individual could fail Briseno factors scrutiny and still be executed, as has happened on at least 3 occasions, according to an American Bar Association amicus brief. Justice Stephen Breyer, the Court's clarion death penalty opponent, made a powerful intervention during Sloan's argument, asserting that national standards could not possibly be set for assessing mental deficiency, given the extreme subjectivity involved in such diagnoses. To his thinking, it follows that disparate outcomes will result. "There will be a bunch of easy cases. And then there are going to be cases like your client who has been on death row for 36 years. And there will be borderline cases ... what is the Court supposed to do? Are we supposed to have all those hearings here? I mean, you've made very good arguments for your client. There are probably several others in the country in different states which may have different standards. And if you have some view that the law in this area should be law, i.e., that it should be uniform across the country, point me to something that will tell me how a district judge should go about making this determination in borderline cases." "And if you 23 want my true motive, I don't think there is a way to apply this kind of standard uniformly across the country, and therefore, there will be disparities, and uncertainties, and different people treated alike, and people who are alike treated differently," he added. Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller argued that the states were not bound to strictly adhere to a particular organization's clinical definition of intellectual disability. He also argued that the Briseno factors are merely a secondary test the Texas courts use in addition to a constitutionally-valid 3 part test. He also aggressively rebuted the notion that the Briseno factors were derived from Lennie Smalls. "Lennie, and the character from "Of Mice and Men," was never part of the test," he said. "It's not part of the test. It was an aside in the opinion, and the Court said it was not going to address that separate question and instead adopted the clinical standards." A decision is expected in the coming months. (source: dailycaller.com) PENNSYLVANIA: Manuel Sepulveda is off death row Convicted killer Manuel Sepulveda is off death row and now serving life in prison without parole, following a new sentence imposed
