March 3
MISSOURI----impending execution
Missouri Gives Russell Bucklew Execution Date of March 20, 2018
Russell Earl Bucklew is scheduled to be executed at 6 pm CST, on Tuesday, March
20, 2018, at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Corrections Center in Bonne
Terre, Missouri. He has been granted a stay of execution. 49-year-old Russell
is convicted of killing 27-year-old Michael Sanders on March 21, 1996, at
Hickory Hollow trailer park in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri. Russell also
kidnapped, beat, and raped 21-year-old Stephanie Pruitt. Russell has spent the
past 14 years on Missouri's death row.
Russell Bucklew, a former electrician, met Stephanie Pruitt in the summer 1995,
while she was married to another man, with whom she had 2 children. By fall of
1995, Stephanie was divorced and dating Bucklew, whom she knew as Rusty. Around
Christmas, Stephanie discovered she was pregnant, however, she lost the baby on
Valentine's Day and the relationship between Stephanie and Bucklew was over.
Stephanie claims they broke up and Bucklew moved back into his parent's house.
Bucklew said they just needed a few days apart to cool off.
When Bucklew returned, he discovered that Michael Sanders was now living with
Stephanie in Bucklew's trailer. Bucklew was furious and put a knife to Mike's
throat, telling him to get out or he would kill him. Stephanie moved in with
Mike a few days later.
Stephanie and Bucklew had another confrontation when she retrieved some of her
clothes from Bucklew's trailer. Stephanie, chained to a bed, agreed to meet
Bucklew on March 21, 1996, and leave with him. Bucklew let her go. On March 21,
1996, Bucklew, after stealing guns, handcuffs, duct tape, and a car from his
cousin, secretly followed and watched Stephanie all day. His goal was to catch
her with Mike. When he saw return to Mike's trailer, he decided that she was
not going to meet him and decided to kill Mike and kidnap her.
Bucklew knocked on the door of Mike's trailer. 6-year-old John Michael and
4-year-old Zach were playing Super Nintendo when they heard the knock. John
Michael unlocked the door, at which time, Bucklew kicked the door in. He was
armed with a .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun, a .22 caliber revolver, extra
ammunition, and holsters for the guns which were strapped to his body, 2
knives, 2 sets of handcuffs, a pair of rubber gloves, and a roll of silver duct
tape.
Michael exited the bedroom where he had been talking with Stephanie about
Bucklew. Stephanie's father had loaned them a shotgun, but Michael barely knew
how to use it. Nonetheless, he took it with him to confront Bucklew. Michael
ordered his kids to the bedroom. Bucklew, furious that Michael had a weapon,
shot Michael 4 times. All 4 bullets passed through the body.
Bucklew handcuffed Stephanie and took her with him. While handcuffing
Stephanie, John Michael ensured that he and his brother were hiding. After
hearing Bucklew drive away, the kids remained hiding for a time before
emerging. John Michael and Zach were with their father as he died. John Michael
later testified and identified Bucklew as the man who killed his father.
Bucklew forced Stephanie to perform several sexual acts, eventually raping her.
Bucklew, with Stephanie in the vehicle, later got into a high speed chase with
the police, which ended with him being shot and captured.
3 months later, before Bucklew went to trial, he escaped from prison by hiding
in a garbage bag. A manhunt for Bucklew began as soon as correctional officers
realized he was missing. Once again, it ended after a high speed chase. This
time, though, he did not shoot back: he raised his arms and surrendered.
Russell Bucklew was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for his crime.
Russell was previously scheduled to be executed in 2014, however his executed
was stayed by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals and then by the Supreme Court of
the United States, when the 8th Circuit lifted their stay. The stay was granted
over concerns about the possibility of Russell's 8th Amendment rights being
violated due to his rare medical condition. According to Russell, he has a
congenital condition that causes blood vessels to weaken and be malformed, and
tumors to form in his nose and throat. He argued that this could lead to the
lethal injection drugs not being circulated properly, leading to pain and
suffering. The condition also causes his airway to shrink, which could cause
Russell to suffocate. He also claims to have constant pain in his face, which
requires pain medication every 6 hours. Russell fears he will have a prolonged
and painful death. Missouri argued against a stay of execution, noting that
Russell has previously had surgery with the use of anesthesia without any
problems.
Please pray for peace and healing for the children, now adults, who witnessed
this horrific event. Please pray for peace and healing for the family of Mike
Sanders. Please pray for peace and healing for the family of Stephanie, who was
murdered on June 8, 2009, by her husband. Please pray for strength for the
family of Russell. Please pray that if Russell is innocent, lacks the
competency to be executed, or should not be executed for any other reason that
evidence will be presented prior to his execution. Please pray that Russell
will come to find peace through personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if he
has not already.
(source: theforgivenessfoundation.org)
COLORADO:
State appeals court affirms jailing of Mennonite who won't testify in death
penalty case----Court must decide if there's a compromise that would bring
Greta Lindecrantz to the witness stand
The Colorado Court of Appeals on Friday affirmed a contempt of court ruling,
thereby keeping a Mennonite investigator, who is refusing to testify in a death
penalty case, in jail.
The judges listened to arguments for about an hour from attorneys representing
Greta Lindecrantz, the 67-year-old who has been in jail since Monday for
contempt of court, and Arapahoe County District Judge Michelle Amico, who sent
her there.
The 3-judge panel did not make an immediate decision, although Presiding Judge
Jerry Jones said they would consider the case carefully and quickly. He opened
the hearing by saying, "We are acutely aware this is a very serious matter."
Later in the day, the panel affirmed the ruling.
"Ms. Lindecrantz is in a tough spot - caught between the proverbial rock and a
hard place. We take no pleasure in declining to extricate her. But the state of
the law being what it is, decline we must," Judge Jones said in the ruling.
Judges Robert D. Hawthorne and Diana Terry concurred.
"I am obviously disappointed," said Mari Newman, Lindecrantz's attorney. "The
court had no interest in finding a way for her to testify without abandoning
her religious beliefs."
Lindecrantz was called to testify by the 18th Judicial District Attorney's
Office in an appeals hearing being held for Robert Ray, a man sentenced to
death in 2009 for a murder-for-hire plot to kill 2 witnesses in another murder
case. The appeals hearing, which is mandatory, is challenging the work done by
his original defense team, and Lindecrantz served as an investigator on that
team.
She has said that testifying on behalf of the prosecution would put her at odds
with her Mennonite faith, which is opposed to the death penalty.
A lawyer representing Amico told the appeals court that allowing someone to
refuse to participate in a criminal proceeding because of religious beliefs
would cause disarray in the courts.
"Ms. Lindecrantz's position has opened a Pandora's Box," said Matthew Grove,
assistant solicitor general.
Newman had asked the court if her client could take the stand as a
court-sponsored witness, rather than one for the prosecution.
(source: Denver Post)
UTAH:
HB379: Controversial bill would eliminate death penalty in Utah
The Utah Legislature is considering a bill that would make it illegal for the
state to seek the death penalty.
HB379 has began its way through the Legislature. It passed in House committee
on Feb. 21.
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Gage Froerer, R-Huntsville, said the bill originated
when he read about the staggering cost of the death penalty in a recent report
from the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice.
The report estimates Utah spent $40 million on 165 death-eligible cases between
1997 and 2016. Only 2 of the 165 cases resulted in death sentences.
"It became clear in my mind that we really need to examine the policy," Froerer
said.
BYU law professor Stephanie Bair said the move to abolish the death penalty in
Utah is not surprising, in part because of declining public support.
In 2016, the Pew Research Center found American support for the death penalty
was at its lowest point in 4 decades.
Bair also said many states have abolished the death penalty because there is no
reliable evidence showing the death penalty deters people from committing
murders.
"I would say that many people who support the death penalty take a
retributivist stance," Bair said. "They believe that people who commit certain
crimes deserve to die, regardless of whether their death ever deters someone
else from committing the same crime in the future."
Bair said it is up to the Utah Legislature to decide if retribution is worth
the costs of maintaining the death penalty.
Rep. Cheryl Acton, R-West Jordan, is 1 of the 4 representatives who opposed the
bill in committee.
"For me, it's really not a matter of cost," Acton said. "I don't think justice
should be determined by cost."
Acton said when she was deciding how to vote on the bill, "oppressed" was the
only word that came to her mind.
"I believe that society is oppressed by crime, and society sometimes has to
say, 'no'," Acton said. "There are limits. The limit is depraved murder. It
can't be tolerated."
Acton also said the Legislature should wait to make the decision until a later
session. Rep. Stephen Handy, R-Layton, sponsors HB70, which directs a study to
analyze the costs of the death penalty compared to lifetime sentencing.
"We might as well wait until we have that study," Acton said. "Good data drives
good policy, as they always say over here."
(source: The Daily Universe)
*****************
Death Penalty Repeal Bid in Conservative Utah Fizzles Again----A Utah lawmaker
is abandoning his effort to repeal the death penalty.
A Utah lawmaker on Friday abandoned his effort to repeal the death penalty,
saying the measure didn't have quite enough support.
With five days remaining before legislators adjourn, Republican Rep. Gage
Froerer said it wasn't worth taking up time to debate the emotional subject.
"I was hopeful that Utah would be one of the first red states to take this,
because the trend obviously is to do away with the death penalty," he said.
"I'm convinced whether its next year or five or 10 years from now the death
penalty will go away."
It's the s2nd time in recent years that a GOP-backed effort to end capital
punishment in the state has fizzled. Among the biggest hurdles were crime
victims who wanted the option to seek capital punishment.
Froerer, a Republican from Huntsville who is not seeking re-election this year,
said he hopes another legislator will continue the effort.
He and House Speaker Greg Hughes, also a Republican, argued that ending the
death penalty should be a conservative position because conservatives are
"Pro-Life," believe the government is imperfect and should be limited.
Utah came close to repealing the death penalty 2 years ago but the measure
didn't have enough support in the House. This year, Froerer said he believes
about 34 members of the 75-member House would have voted for repeal, and a
debate may have swayed a few more votes but the tally would have been
razor-thin.
Across the U.S., 19 states and the District of Columbia have overturned or
banned the death penalty.
Froerer's proposed ban would not have applied to cases where the death penalty
has already been sought and the nine men on Utah's death row still would have
been facing execution.
Gov. Gary Herbert said last month that he believes society has the right to
"eradicate" people who commit egregious crimes, but because appeals from death
row inmates can drag on for decades, he said capital punishment can be unfair
to the families of victims.
The move to end capital punishment in the conservative state came 3 years after
Utah voted to reinstate the firing squad as a backup method for executions.
Hughes, who voted to reinstate the firing squad, says that if the government is
going to execute people, there's no need to "sanitize" a brutal act by relying
solely on lethal injections.
(source: Associated press)
IDAHO:
Coleman facing death penalty
Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall has filed notice that he intends to
seek the death penalty against a Washington state man accused of repeatedly
stabbing a cab driver and allowing the man to slowly bleed to death.
Marshall put the defense in Jacob Corban Coleman???s first-degree murder case
on notice that the state intends to prove aggravating factors in the slaying of
Gagandeep Singh. Those factors include the especially heinous, atrocious or
cruel nature of the murder and the circumstances surrounding its commission,
which demonstrated an utter disregard for human life, according to the notice.
Marshall filed the notice on Tuesday, 1st District Court records show.
Coleman, a 20-year-old Puyallup resident, is accused of hailing a ride from
Singh after arriving at Spokane International Airport on Aug. 28, 2017. Coleman
flew from Seattle intending to enroll at Gonzaga University, but the school
said he was not a prospective student of the university.
Coleman, according to prior testimony in the case, had Singh drive Coleman to a
friend's home in Hope, although he later told sheriff???s investigators that it
was a ruse to lure Singh to a secluded area. Coleman also had Singh take him to
Walmart in Ponderay, where he purchased a hunting knife authorities said was
used to kill to Singh.
After overshooting Hope and driving to Clark Fork, the cab doubled back and
stopped in Kootenai, where Coleman is accused of perpetrating the onslaught.
Singh, a 22-year-old Spokane Valley resident, was stabbed more than 20 times
and bled to death inside the minivan over an extended period of time in which
Coleman rendered no aid, court records indicate.
Coleman was ordered to stand trial following a preliminary hearing in
magistrate court last fall. A detective testified that Coleman confessed to
perpetrating a ferocious attack on Singh.
"I attacked him like a feral animal," Det. Phil Stella recalled Coleman saying
during the confession.
Coleman, who remains held without bail, is scheduled to be tried in April.
It's the 1st time a capital case has been prosecuted in Bonner County since
1996, when Faron Earl Lovelace was convicted of the 1st-degree kidnapping and
murder of Jeremy Scott.
Lovelace confessed to killing and burying Scott in the remote Upper Pack River
Valley of the Selkirk Mountains in 1995. Lovelace and Scott shared white
supremacist and anti-government beliefs, and Lovelace believed Scott was a
government informant.
Lovelace told investigators he took Scott at gunpoint and held him through the
night during which time they talked, discussed religion and prayed. The
following day, Lovelace executed Scott with a .38-caliber gunshot to the back
of his head.
Lovelace was convicted by a Bonner County jury a 1st District judge sentenced
him to death, which triggered an automatic review by the Idaho Supreme Court.
The high court affirmed Lovelace's conviction but vacated the death sentence in
2003 in order to comport with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling which held that
juries, not judges, must determine whether aggravating circumstances exist in a
criminal matter.
Lovelace was resentenced in district court in 2005 and was ordered to serve a
life sentence without possibility of parole.
Lovelace, 60, is imprisoned at the Idaho State Correctional Institution south
of Boise, according to the Idaho Department of Correction.
(source: bonnercountydailybee.com)
CALIFORNIA:
State High Court Upholds Death Penalty In 1998 Murder Of Lafayette Woman
The California Supreme Court in San Francisco today unanimously upheld a death
sentence for the murder of a Lafayette woman during a robbery of her home in
1998.
Joseph Perez, now 46, was convicted in Contra Costa County Superior Court in
2001 of the murder of Janet Daher on the afternoon of March 24, 1998, as well
as burglary, robbery of her jewelry and theft of her Mercedes Benz car.
He was sentenced to death by Judge Peter Spinetta in January 2002.
Perez was 1 of 3 men charged and convicted of the murder. According to
defendant Maury O'Brien, who became a prosecution witness, the trio originally
planned to rob a drug dealer in Fairfield but instead, after snorting cocaine,
got off BART in Lafayette and decided to rob one of the upscale houses in the
neighborhood.
They entered the house Daher shared with her husband and teenage daughters
through an open garage door and found her painting watercolors in the kitchen,
where Perez knocked her to the floor. O'Brien testified that after he mentioned
the name of the third assailant, Lee Snyder, Perez said they had to kill Daher.
Snyder and Perez took Daher to her bedroom, strangled her with a telephone cord
and Perez additionally stabbed her multiple times, according to the trial
testimony.
The high court rejected a series of appeal claims by Perez, including arguments
of errors in jury selection, an alleged conflict of interest by his defense
lawyer, and flaws in California's death penalty law.
Perez can appeal further through a habeas corpus petition in the federal court
system. His lawyer on appeal, Richard Ellis, was away from his office today and
not available for comment.
Snyder, who was 17 at the time of the murder, was convicted and sentenced in
2001 to life in prison without parole.
O'Brien pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced in 2007 to 25 years to life
in prison.
(source: Bay City News Service)
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