[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., N.C., FLA.
Aug. 22 TEXAS: Capital murder charge filed for woman's death on west side of town A man already charged with killing his girlfriend could now face the death penalty. Ronald Jackson appeared in court Friday as prosecutors upgraded his charges to capital murder in the beating death of 38-year-old Jennifer Herrera. Prosecutors say Jackson kidnapped Herrera with the intent of killing her and that is the reason for the upgrade. She was found dead last September inside a westside home. Jackson was arrested later that night during a traffic stop. His trial date is scheduled for November 16th but that is likely to be delayed. (source: KRIS tv news) CONNECTICUT: Death penalty, murder case rulings expose rift in high court 2 major rulings this year on the death penalty and a murder case yielded highly unusual criticism from Connecticut Supreme Court justices against their colleagues, reaching levels of acrimony that some legal experts say hasn't been seen since the 1990s. The recent conflicting opinions shine a rare light on the people whose decisions have had wide-ranging effects on residents of the state, whether it was approving gay marriage, abolishing the death penalty or ruling Hartford schools needed to be desegregated. I think it does show a depth of passion, said Todd Fernow, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. You really know where these people are coming from. I think we all benefit by that. The last thing you want is a decision that is robotic and psychically distant from the issues of the day. The court ruled 4-3 on Aug. 13 to abolish the death penalty for the 11 men on the state's death row, overturning a 2012 state law that eliminated the death penalty for future crimes only. Chief Justice Chase Rogers wrote a dissenting opinion saying there was no legitimate legal basis for the majority's decision. She also joined Justices Peter Zarella and Carmen Espinosa in accusing the majority justices of tailoring their ruling based on personal beliefs. I can only conclude that the majority has improperly decided that the death penalty must be struck down because it offends the majority's subjective sense of morality, Rogers wrote. The majority opinion, written by Justice Richard Palmer, took issue with Rogers' comments, accusing her of refusing either to consider or to recognize the import of the words of our elected officials, the actions of our jurors and prosecutors, the story of our history, the path trodden by our sister states, and the overwhelming evidence that our society no longer considers the death penalty to be necessary or appropriate. Justices Dennis Eveleigh and Andrew McDonald and now-retired Justice Flemming Norcott Jr. joined Palmer in the majority. Espinosa used especially strong language in her dissents in the death penalty ruling and in a 4-2 decision in March that granted a new trial for Richard Lapointe, a brain-damaged man sentenced to life in prison for the 1987 killing of his wife's 88-year-old grandmother. Espinosa wrote that the Lapointe decision was unfettered judicial activism and a gross parody of judicial economy, and she accused the majority of being partial toward Lapointe. Justice is most certainly not attained by doffing one's judicial robe and donning an advocate's suit, Espinosa wrote. The majority opinion, again written by Palmer, took Espinosa, who arrived on the court in 2013, to task. Rather than support her opinion with legal analysis and authority ... she chooses, for reasons we cannot fathom, to dress her argument in language so derisive that it is unbefitting an opinion of this state???s highest court, Palmer wrote. Justice Espinosa dishonors this court. Fernow said he thought Espinoza???s language has been particularly forceful. I think that Justice Espinosa has brought a more intense language in advancing her positions here and perhaps has been directly name-calling the people she disagrees with in ways that have led Justice Palmer and others to take umbrage at it, he said. Palmer, Espinosa and Zarella declined to comment for this story. Rogers said in a statement that despite the strong disagreements, the court is functioning well, as shown by its 134 decisions issued since last September. There is no question that some of the issues that we are called upon to decide are extremely challenging and it should not come as a surprise to anyone that on occasion we do not agree about the result in a case and strongly express our views in our opinions, she said. Acrimonious and lively language is nothing new in the world of state and federal appeals courts. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is known for his colorful dissents. Espinosa's dissents may be the most strongly worded on the Connecticut court since those of former Justice Robert Berdon, who retired in 1999 after 8 years on the high court. Berdon accused fellow
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., N.C., FLA., LA.
May 2 TEXASimpending execution(s) Texas plans 3 executions as courts mull secrecy of lethal drugs As Oklahoma continues to feel the aftershocks from its botched execution attempt on Tuesday, attention is turning to Texas, where a key secrecy ruling is expected to be made later this month. The next US execution is scheduled for 13 May in the nation's most-active death penalty state, where Robert Campbell is set to be given a lethal injection for the abduction and murder of Alexandra Rendon, a bank employee, in Houston in 1991. The 41-year-old will be put to death using the sedative pentobarbital, but the source of the drug remains unknown amid a series of legal skirmishes, as in Oklahoma, over whether the state is allowed to withhold fundamental details about the deadly chemicals in its possession. Texas has been at the heart of the execution secrecy debate in recent weeks as it has continued to execute prisoners after refusing to comply with freedom of information requests seeking to reveal the quantity and origins of its latest set of drugs. This onset of coyness contradicted previous rulings by the Texas attorney general's office stating that such information should be available to the public. While lawyers for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and death-row inmates litigated the issue in various state and federal courts, Texas officials asked the office of Greg Abbott, the state attorney general, for a new ruling. That request was filed on 25 March and the deadline for a decision is 29 May, though it can be extended by a maximum of 10 days, according to a spokesperson for Abbott's office. Critics of capital punishment said that the messy and alarming way in which Clayton Lockett died in Oklahoma - ultimately of an apparent heart attack after the failure of an execution that was to use an experimental drug cocktail - underlined the dangers of a lack of transparency. What we saw in Oklahoma certainly reverberates in Texas, where the TDCJ refuses to disclose their drug supply, said Kristin Houle, executive director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. The biggest takeaway from Oklahoma is that secrecy doesn't work. The botched nature of Mr Lockett's execution started weeks ago when Oklahoma closed its doors and refused to provide information to Mr Lockett's lawyers, said Maurie Levin, one of the lawyers working on secrecy litigation. Lawyers for Campbell are considering how to pitch possible last-minute appeals in the light of what happened on Tuesday. Officials in Texas should be gravely concerned over the events in Oklahoma. Texas, like Oklahoma, continues to insist on keeping secret the source of the drugs it uses in executions, which precludes any meaningful institutional oversight, said Rob Owen, one of Campbell's attorneys. Transparency is absolutely indispensable to avoiding horribly botched executions like Mr Lockett's. We are still considering what steps might be taken in Mr Campbell's case to try and ensure no such outrage takes place in Texas on 13 May. The TDCJ updated its website on Thursday afternoon to reveal that another three executions have been scheduled for August, September and January. Litigation related to recent Texas death penalty cases is ongoing as lawyers for inmates argue that a lack of available details about drugs which are likely sourced from lightly-regulated compounding pharmacies means that prisoners cannot be certain they will avoid a painfully inefficient death that violates their constitutional right not to suffer a cruel and unusual punishment. In documents filed to a federal appeals court in New Orleans on Wednesday, lawyers seeking transparency in Texas described the current dispute over access to information as a stand-off between inmates and executioners. They added that Lockett's fate gruesomely underscores the importance of transparency, judicial oversight, and the crucial importance of keeping some doors open to death-sentenced inmates to assert their right to be executed in a manner that comports with the eighth amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Lawyers for the TDCJ have previously argued that concerns are baseless since the state now has a solid track record of properly carrying out executions using single-drug pentobarbital since mid-2012 and has conducted its own drug-quality tests. The state also contends that secrecy is increasingly necessary to ensure potential suppliers are not scared off by negative publicity or threats of violence made by anti-capital punishment activists. Death penalty opponents say that officials have exaggerated the risk and are asking for secrecy as a way to hide questionable and ever-more desperate attempts to source drugs that have become scarce mainly because of Europe-led boycotts. Lawyers for Michael Yowell, who was executed last October, alleged in a court document
