[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., MISS., LA., IND.. NEV., CALIF.
June 25 FLORIDA: 2nd suspect in Super Bowl murders due in courtChristopher Vasata found guilty in killings of 3 people in Jupiter on Super Bowl Sunday. Marcus Steward faces trial. A trial date is expected to be set later today for the 2nd man charged in a triple murder in Jupiter. Marcus Steward is also facing the death penalty in connection to the murders at a rental home on Mohawk Street on Super Bowl Sunday in 2017. A jury last week found Christopher Vasata guilty for his role in the killings of 24-year old Brandi El Salhy, 20-year-old Kelli Doherty and 26-year-old Sean Henry. The same jury will return on Wednesday to recommend a punishment for Vasata. He could get life in prison or the death penalty. (source: WPEC news) *** Murder trial begins today for Scott Nelson in kidnap, killing of Jennifer Fulford The trial of Scott Edward Nelson, the man accused of kidnapping an Altamonte Springs woman from her employer’s home and killing her, will begin this morning at the Orange County Courthouse. A jury was seated Friday in the 1st-degree murder case after a 2-plus-week selection process. Opening statements are expected when the case resumes 9 a.m., after which prosecutors will begin calling their witnesses. Nelson, 55, is facing the death penalty in the killing of 56-year-old Jennifer Fulford, who worked as a personal assistant and caretaker at the Winter Park home of Reid Berman. Fulford was reported missing Sept. 27, 2017, after she didn’t show up to pick up Berman’s son from school. Her purse was found next to a toilet at Berman’s home, but her wallet, cellphone and tablet were missing. Fulford’s husband, Robert, noticed a suspicious withdrawal of $300 from their joint checking account and, hours later, a 2nd withdrawal attempt that was denied. ATM surveillance video captured a man police later identified as Nelson with fresh cuts and scratches on his hands during the 2nd attempt. Winter Park police found Fulford’s Hyundai SUV in the parking lot of the Colonialtown Publix 2 days after she disappeared. A blood-stained towel, T-shirt and gold watch found in the hatchback’s trunk matched DNA from Nelson and Fulford, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Her body was found 3 days after she went missing in a wooded area of southwest Orange County. The medical examiner determined Fulford had been stabbed and suffocated, court records show. Her entire face was covered in duct tape, and her wrists and ankles were bound. Nelson, a transient on federal probation from a 2010 bank robbery, was arrested Oct. 1 by U.S. Marshals at a Jacksonville motel. A month later, he offered detectives a confession in exchange for “better treatment in custody, including a single cell with a bottom bunk and more food or a food server job,” court records show. Nelson’s attorneys have argued detectives coerced him into incriminating himself by promising to help, but Circuit Judge Keith White ruled prosecutors could use the police interview as evidence. The defense has raised concerned about Nelson’s mental health, but White deemed Nelson competent to stand trial. White told jurors last Friday that he estimates the trial will continue through July 12. (source: Orlando Sentinel) ALABAMA: Supreme Court Orders Documents Unsealed In Death Penalty Case The U.S. Supreme Court ordered documents unsealed Monday in a death penalty case out of Alabama after a motion was filed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and NPR. The blacked-out information, a rarity for the Supreme Court, involves the drugs and protocol Alabama uses for executions. The filings were redacted before the execution of convicted murderer Christopher Price earlier this month. Price had wanted to be executed with nitrogen gas, which he contended would be less painful than death by lethal injection with the drug midazolam. Alabama ultimately used midazolam in his death. The deletions were done at the insistence of the state of Alabama, the reporters committee noted. The Supreme Court has found itself mired in bitter debates about the death penalty, but it previously hasn't hidden those disputes from the public. "The state did not provide any explanation for its asserted need for secrecy," the reporters committee noted. It added that Alabama only cited its need "to reference certain material ... designated 'confidential.' Alabama has no legitimate interest that justifies sealing either its lethal injection protocol or expert evidence regarding the effects of midazolam." The reporters committee further noted that in even in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971 — a case in which the government claimed a national security interest in barring publication — the briefs were not redacted. They were available to the press and public, and oral arguments were conducted publicly, with only parts of the court appen
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
June 25 GLOBAL: How to Understand the Death Penalty and Development of Doctrine Recent developments in Rome on the subject of capital punishment have led to many anguished discussions on whether a change authorized by Pope Francis in the moral stance of the Church on the death penalty is a development of Church teaching which binds people in conscience to obedience. On Aug. 8, 2018, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), stated that Pope Francis had approved a change in No. 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good. Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption. Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.’” Cardinal Ladaria maintained that since the Church has always upheld the right of the state to punish with the death penalty, this was a development of doctrine. Was he right? It must be stated at the outset that whether something is a development of doctrine is a theological opinion not revealed truth. Before any judgment can be made about whether a specific teaching is a true development of doctrine, it would be good to clarify what the term “development” or “evolution” of dogma means according to the mind of the Church. True Growth The Catechism of the Catholic Church topically treats the idea of doctrinal development as part of the growth of the Catholic Church in its understanding of the faith. After proclaiming that faith is a response to the supernatural knowledge communicated to the Church through Revelation, the Catechism rightly states that the 2 sources of this revelation are the word of God as spoken (Tradition) and the word of God as written (Scripture). The agency that Christ himself chose to interpret and faithfully hand on Revelation is the magisterium of the pope and the bishops. The Catechism then states: “in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, sacred Scripture and the magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls” (94-95). Traditional Development The clearest Patristic source for the idea of development of doctrine is Vincent of Lerins. In his Instructions (Chapter 23: PL 50, 667-668), Vincent explains that there is a “development in religion.” Development, Vincent says, means “that each thing expands to be itself while alteration means that a thing is changed from one thing into another.” Though the Church understands and applies the teaching of Christ, Vincent says, never are such applications an alteration but an expansion “only along its own line of development, that is, with the same doctrine, the same meaning and the same import.” Souls develop in the same way as bodies, which may grow but “remain what they were.” He clearly states: “The doctrine of the Christian religion should properly follow these laws of development, that is, by becoming firmer over the years, more ample in the course of time, more exalted as it advances in age.” This sort of growth in the Church is known as homogeneous and not heterogeneous development. A future understanding of the faith cannot contradict but only expand on a former one. If this teaching expands our understanding, it is homogenous; if it contradicts it, it is heterogeneous. Revelations Catholicism has never supported the idea of progressive revelation, which can change from age to age or country to country and is culturally conditioned. Christ is the prime revealer and prime revelation, and the Church’s magisterium is his servant — not culture’s servant. While the pope (or any of the faithful) may have insights into the teachings of the Church, the formal revelation that Christ came to make on earth concluded with the death of the Twelve Apostles. Whatever progressive understanding of the faith may occur through the centuries in councils or papal teachings cannot add one iota to the faith of the apostles nor contradict it. There cannot be seven sacraments taug
