July 23
PENNSYLVANIA:
Lawmakers Weigh In On Legal Effort To End Capital Punishment In Pennsylvania
A group of Republican state senators has urged the Pennsylvania Supreme Court
to reject an attempt to overturn the death penalty. 2 death row inmates contend
that the punishment is administered in an unconstitutional way, but the
Republicans say that only the legislature can decide to repeal the death
penalty.
State Sen. Camera Bartolotta (R-Monongahela) is one of the 13 legislators who
made that argument in a friend-of-the-court brief filed earlier this month.
“The Supreme Court can only decide if something is constitutional or not,”
Bartolotta said. “They’re not a branch of government that writes legislation or
puts things in statute.”
Her position echoes that of the state attorney general's office, which said in
its brief filed last week that action by the justices would be based on
“factually unsettled matters of policy entrusted to the legislative branch, not
constitutional issues to be resolved by courts.”
In addition, the office noted that both the state and U.S. Supreme Courts have
upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty in the past.
But the inmates who brought the case argue that new evidence shows
Pennsylvania’s capital punishment system is discriminatory and prone to error.
In a brief submitted in February, they cite a legislative report that was
released last summer. It found that since 1972, 6 death row inmates have been
exonerated while just 3 have been executed. And as of May 2018, 150 inmates
sentenced to death since 1978 have had their convictions or sentences
overturned due to ineffective assistance of counsel, according to the report.
Today, there are 131 Pennsylvania prisoners on death row, according to the
inmates.
The legislative study found that whether defendants are sentenced to death
depends on the county in which they are prosecuted. The race of the victim was
also shown to be a factor. Cases involving white victims were more likely to
result in a death sentence, regardless of the race of the accused perpetrator,
the report said.
The Republican state senators write in their brief, however, that the report
was meant to provide guidance to the legislature, not “to stand in for judicial
fact-finding or to eliminate important policy debates.”
State Rep. Dan Miller (D-Mount Lebanon), who opposes capital punishment, said
the report’s findings raise constitutional questions on which courts have the
authority to rule.
“Just because the legislature refuses to review something doesn’t mean that the
courts should be taking a blind eye to its constitutional ramifications,”
Miller said.
But Bartolotta, who belongs to the Senate Judiciary Committee and co-chairs her
chamber's criminal justice reform caucus, countered that lawmakers will address
the issue.
“That’s exactly what we’ve been doing,” she said. “We only got the report back
last year. So now, we go back in the fall, now that the budget was done in June
... and I am sure the judiciary committee and other committees are going to be
taking those findings ... and then moving forward.”
Miller, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, doubts the GOP-controlled
legislature will follow through.
“I don’t know how long people need to control majorities, control committees,
and then feign some sort of interest in these topics before people realize that
they are not going to make any progress on it,” Miller said. “These things are
not going to change. They have no interest in doing so.”
Nonetheless, state Rep. Frank Ryan (R-Lebanon County) has said he plans to
introduce a bill to repeal the death penalty with state Rep. Chris Rabb
(D-Philadelphia County) in the fall.
Former state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery County) was the chair of the
Senate Judiciary Committee before retiring last year. He said he tried to bring
the death penalty up for a committee vote, but could not get enough support to
bring it up.
But, the former lawmaker believes the political climate has changed.
“It wasn’t long ago when there was overwhelming support for the death penalty
among people in Pennsylvania,” Greenleaf said. “That has changed significantly.
And of course … the number of other states that have repealed the death penalty
is high as well. So things are going in that direction.”
21 states have outlawed capital punishment, according to the Death Penalty
Information Center. Pennsylvania is 1 of 4 states where governors have halted
all executions, even though the law permits them.
Bartolotta said Gov. Tom Wolf should stop his practice of granting reprieves to
all death-row inmates, which he has done since 2015.
“We should honor the jury’s decision. We should honor the rule of law,”
Bartolotta said. “If we don’t like the law, we should change the law. But you
have to do it the right way.”
The Washington County lawmaker did not say whether she personally supports the
death penalty.
If the state Supreme Court were to strike down capital punishment in the case
at hand, it would be an “unusual” step, according to University of Pittsburgh
law professor and 90.5 WESA legal analyst David Harris.
That’s because the death-row inmates have asked the state’s high court to
exercise what’s called “king’s bench jurisdiction” and take up the case instead
of waiting for lower courts to rule on it.
“The only way I see the death penalty writ large being overturned is if [the
justices] pay attention to that [legislative] report,” which revealed systemic
defects in how capital punishment is used in Pennsylvania, Harris said.
The court is set to hear oral arguments Sept. 11.
(source: WESA news)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
Judge denies request to delay death penalty trial in fatal 2017 bank robbery
A judge has denied a request to delay the death penalty trial of the man
accused of a deadly South Carolina bank robbery.
Brandon Council is accused of killing two female CresCom Bank employees and
taking approximately $15,000 in cash during a 2017 robbery in Conway.
Last week, a judge approved a request to seal certain documents. They include
attorney-client communications and defense strategy.
Council is being held at the Darlington County Jail. He was moved from the
maximum-security unit at the Florence County Jail after filing a motion to be
moved into the general population.
Council claimed he needed to be moved to effectively communicate with his legal
team.
(source: WCBD news)
OHIO:
Cleveland man faces death penalty in quadruple slayings of ex-girlfriend, 2
children and neighbor
A Cleveland man accused of shooting his ex-girlfriend to death, setting a fire
that killed his 6-year-old son and the boy’s 2-year-old sister and killing a
neighbor could face the death penalty if he’s convicted of the crimes.
A grand jury on Monday handed up a 26-count indictment charging Armond Johnson
Sr. with multiple counts of aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated
arson, kidnapping and endangering children in the July 9 slayings of Takeyra
Collins, Armond Johnson Jr., Aubree Stone and David Cousins.
Johnson, 26, is also charged with tampering with evidence and weapons charges.
He is being held in the Cuyahoga County Jail on $5 million bond.
“Armond Johnson brutally murdered 4 people including his own son,” Cuyahoga
County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said in a statement. “His callous actions
along with his extensive violent criminal history demands that he receive the
ultimate punishment.”
Johnson shot Collins, his 25-year-old ex-girlfriend, in the stomach and back at
her home on East 63rd Street near Fleet Avenue in the city’s Slavic Village
neighborhood, court records say.
He set fire to the home using a yet-to-be determined accelerant in an attempt
to cover up the slaying. He then ran from the house, leaving the 2 children
inside, court records say.
Johnson later returned to the scene and encountered Cousin, a neighbor coming
home from work who went to Collins’ house to see what was going on. Johnson
shot Cousins in the head and chest in a field next to the house, police said.
Cousin had nothing to do with the family and was killed “simply for being
there," Cleveland police Lt. Ali Pillow said at a news conference the day of
the slayings.
Cleveland police were investigating Cousins’ killing when they smelled smoke
coming from Collins’s house and discovered the fire, police said.
Investigators found the bodies of 6-year-old Armond Jr. and his 2-year-old
sister, Aubree, in the house. Both died from smoke inhalation, the Cuyahoga
County Medical Examiner’s Office said.
(source: cleveland.com)
ARIZONA:
Migrant should face death penalty in QuikTrip clerk's murder, prosecutors say
Prosecutors have asked an Arizona appeals court to let them pursue the death
penalty against a Mexican immigrant charged with murder in the 2015 shooting
death of a convenience store clerk in Mesa.
A lower-court judge ruled two weeks ago that prosecutors could no longer seek
the death penalty against Apolinar Altamirano because of intellectual
disabilities. They said Altamirano had completed only the 5th grade and needed
special education courses, but none was offered in rural Mexico where he lived
before moving to the United States.
/ In an appeal filed a week ago, prosecutors asked the Arizona Court of Appeals
to reinstate their effort to seek the death penalty in the shooting death of
21-year-old QuikTrip clerk Grant Ronnebeck, arguing the judge failed to make an
overall assessment of Altamirano's ability to meet society's expectations of
him.
The judge "did not give any consideration at all to Altamirano's ability (to)
adapt and adjust to the requirements of daily life as an adult," prosecutors
wrote in the appeal.
They noted Altamirano learned to drive at an early age, traveled on his own to
the United States as teenager, operated rental properties in the United States,
served as an elder in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and
advised his mother on visas and exchange rates.
Joel Brown, one of the lawyers representing Altamirano, didn't return an email
Monday seeking comment on the appeal.
Trump invokes Ronnebeck killing
The case against Altamirano has been cited by President Donald Trump, who has
railed against crimes committed against American citizens by immigrants who are
the United States illegally. Trump, who has created a new office to serve
victims of immigration crimes and their relatives, has invoked such crimes at
rallies, pointing cases in which people were killed by immigrant assailants who
slipped through the cracks.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
We must stop sentencing people of color to death in Los Angeles County
Across the country, people of goodwill increasingly recognize that death
penalty is a racist, immoral system that is broken beyond repair. Yet, it
appears that Los Angeles County has yet to get the message.
Since 2012, 22 people have been sentenced to death and all of them are people
of color. That is more than the amount of people sentenced to death in Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia combined, and higher than
anywhere else in the country.
Indeed, our county has uncritically embraced capital punishment as a means of
accountability while simultaneously costing taxpayers millions and failing to
make us safer. Numerous studies have found that the death penalty has little to
no deterrent effect on crime, is rife with racial inequality, and according to
the Equal Justice Initiative, for every 9 people executed, 1 has been
exonerated. That is why I and over 75 other legal professors and scholars have
written an open letter demanding an end to this arbitrary and discriminatory
practice in Los Angeles County.
Throughout the United States, a growing number of reform-minded prosecutors are
rejecting the death penalty and embracing smart justice policies including
rehabilitation programs and new approaches to reviewing and prosecuting serious
crimes. Despite the growing movement towards meaningful and practical reforms,
Los Angeles has taken a backseat to embracing forward-thinking policies. This
approach has left us stuck in the past and disproportionately killing people of
color.
California has historically been a leader when it comes to progressive policies
and much-needed reforms. Our state led and continues to be at the forefront of
minimum wage increases, Medicaid expansion, climate justice, LGBTQ rights,
marijuana legalization, and other advancements. Why then is Los Angeles abusing
the outdated and biased practice of capital punishment, especially when violent
crime is at a historic low?
District Attorneys hold tremendous power in the justice system. District
Attorneys decide who gets charged, what crimes to charge, and they have
enormous influence over the punishment meted out. As officers of the court,
they must pursue justice, not revenge. As elected officials, they have a duty
to listen to the will of the people of Los Angeles County, who have rejected
capital punishment in the last two elections. Most importantly, they have the
power to end the abhorrent and anachronistic practice of state-sanctioned
killing. That means that L.A. County’s reliance on the death penalty could end
now if Jackie Lacey is courageous enough to implement meaningful criminal
justice reform.
Use of discretion to oppose the death penalty is not without precedent. As the
District Attorney of San Francisco, Kamala Harris refused to pursue the death
penalty. In March, Governor Newsom issued a moratorium on the death penalty,
putting a halt to all executions.
Nationally, capital punishment is becoming increasingly obsolete and death
sentences are plummeting. Last year, juries returned death sentences in just 42
murder cases, compared to 315 in 1996. Throughout the United States, more than
21 jurisdictions have abolished the death penalty; 5 jurisdictions have issued
a moratorium on executions, and 8 jurisdictions, including the federal
government, have shown significant declines in death penalty sentencing.
Yet, District Attorney Lacey continues to seek the death penalty despite its
many harms.
In Los Angeles County, the use of the death penalty actively targets and
punishes those who are least able to afford a quality defense. A new report
from the ACLU shows that out of the 22 death penalty verdicts during DA Lacey’s
tenure, 8 defendants had lawyers who were previously or subsequently disbarred,
suspended or charged with misconduct. And a ninth defendant had a lawyer who
repeatedly fell asleep throughout his trial. According to numerous studies, the
quality of defense counsel is the single biggest factor in determining whether
someone will be sentenced to death. In the United States, whether you live or
die should not turn on whether you can pay for a good lawyer.
In addition to class disparities, there are significant racial biases inherent
in the death penalty. Across the country researchers have found that
African-Americans are more likely than their white counterparts to be sentenced
to death, even when controlling for other factors. As a result of the
intersection of race and class, those who are non-white and poor face a greater
risk of execution. Unsurprisingly, of the 2700 people on death row nationwide,
46 % are black and 13 % are Latino.
Similar patterns exist in California, where individuals on death row are 36 %
black and 24 % Latino. Moreover, a study of California’s death penalty found
that although 27.6% of murder victims are white, 80% of those sentenced to
death were convicted of killing a white victim. Given these trends, it’s no
coincidence that since 1978, when California reinstituted the death penalty,
all 5 people on death row who have been exonerated in California were people of
color.
Beyond the death penalty being a moral failure, it is also extremely costly to
taxpayers. Trials for death penalty cases can cost millions of dollars and it’s
estimated that California death penalty expenses total at least $139 million
per year.
I have spent years studying and teaching the effects of our criminal justice
system and systems of punishment on people of color, women and those whose
identities are at that intersection. I have seen firsthand how racial
discrimination, gender stereotypes and class bias destroys lives and corrodes
our system of justice. As a result, I know that true justice can only be
achieved through sensible sentencing, violence-prevention education and
counseling programs – not an overzealous use of capital punishment.
We still have an opportunity to course-correct and become leaders once again by
demonstrating what responsible, safe and healthy communities can look like. We
can do that by ending our use of the death penalty. District Attorney Lacey,
the power is in your hands and we are counting on you.
(source: Opinion; Priscilla Ocen is a Professor of Law at Loyola Law School,
where she teaches criminal law, family law and a seminar on race, gender and
the law. She is also the Vice-Chair of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Civilian Oversight Commission----Los Angeles Daily News)
*****************
Gavin Newsom’s death penalty moratorium isn’t saving California money. Here’s
why
When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order halting the death penalty in
California, he argued the system has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. But
without cooperation from prosecutors, there’s no evidence his action is saving
the state any money.
In general, death penalty trials are far more expensive than those for people
facing a maximum sentence of life without possibility of parole. It’s also more
expensive to house inmates on death row than in a regular prison unit.
Newsom’s moratorium granted temporary reprieves for death row inmates, closed
the state’s execution chamber and withdrew the state’s lethal injection
protocol. It doesn’t stop capital cases from proceeding. “The moratorium stops
executions,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty
Information Center. “It doesn’t stop the machinery of death from moving
forward.”
That means the financial effect of the moratorium will be determined by
district attorneys, who decide whether to pursue capital charges, said Dunham,
whose organization is critical of the way the death penalty is administered in
California but doesn’t have a position on the death penalty itself.
In the four months since Newsom halted executions, California prosecutors have
continued to pursue capital cases, which can cost millions of dollars. Death
penalty-related costs in the state budget also do not appear to have decreased.
Funding for the state-funded Habeas Corpus Resource Center, which helps people
sentenced to death who can’t afford lawyers to appeal their cases, actually
increased – from about $16.64 million to nearly $16.8 million.
Costs for keeping inmates on death row also have not changed, said corrections
department spokeswoman Terry Thornton. California is housing 710 male inmates
on death row at San Quentin State Prison and 24 female inmates sentenced to
death at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.
“We’re still housing them and feeding them and everything else,” Thornton said.
“None of that has changed.”
2 days after Newsom signed the order, Merced County prosecutors announced they
would pursue the death penalty for Santiago Martinez in connection with a
jailhouse slaying.
The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office is still pursuing multiple existing
death penalty cases. Newsom’s moratorium has not affected the office’s work,
said Shiara Davila-Morales, a spokeswoman.
San Mateo District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe, who previously served as president
of the California District Attorneys Association, said prosecutors across the
state agree.
“We’ve all arrived at the same conclusion,” Wagstaffe said. “We need to
continue to do our jobs. The law is still on the books.”
Newsom’s office pointed to a widely cited study in the Loyola of Los Angeles
Law Review that found California taxpayers spent about $4.6 billion on the
death penalty system between 1978 and 2011. During that time, the state
executed just 13 people.
The study found the largest share of spending — roughly $2 billion — went to
pre-trial and trial costs. Roughly $1.7 billion went to appeals and about $1
billion covered incarceration costs.
Those costs could go down if California Supreme Court justices side with
defense attorneys trying to block capital murder trials while Newsom’s
moratorium is in effect.
In a petition filed with the court this month, lawyers for a man facing five
capital murder charges argue jurors cannot fairly decide to put someone to
death while the moratorium is in place.
Under Newsom’s order, the jurors will “be unable to assume a death sentence
will result in an execution and be unable to comprehend fully the gravity of
their decision,” lawyers for Cleamon Johnson argued.
In response, prosecutors said that argument is a ploy to turn the moratorium
“into a judicial abolition of the death penalty in California.” Concerns about
the moratorium can be handled during jury selection for Johnson’s trial,
prosecutors said.
“Jurors are routinely asked to set aside these types of things in order to
reach a just verdict based on the evidence and the law,” they wrote.
Newsom has said he wants to end the death penalty permanently through a ballot
initiative. He tried and failed to do that in 2016. Voters instead supported a
counter-measure intended to speed up executions.
Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said the moratorium won’t stop
her from filing capital charges against people suspected of egregious crimes.
Schubert’s office is pursuing the death penalty against Golden State Killer
suspect Joseph James DeAngelo.
“The voters of California have passed a law saying they want the death penalty.
That’s the law,” she told The Sacramento Bee just after Newsom announced his
action. “He cannot preclude a prosecutor or DA’s office from seeking it.
There’s nothing stopping us from seeking capital punishment in a case where we
feel it’s appropriate.”
Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, has introduced legislation that would
put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot in November 2020 to end
the death penalty. He said he worked closely with Newsom’s office on the
proposal.
Levine said he thinks it will have a better shot than Newsom’s 2016 initiative,
which failed by about 6 % points.
Although death penalty costs are significant, both Levine and Newsom say it’s
not the main reason they oppose capital punishment.
“It’s not the primary factor that weighs on me,” Levine said. “I am overwhelmed
by the possibility that we could execute an innocent person.”
On the other side, death penalty supporters argue the moratorium denies victims
justice.
“Every one of the victims at the hands of these people had their life brought
to an unfair ending… Many of them were clearly tortured in their final moments
of life,” said Assemblyman Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale, a retired California Highway
Patrol officer. “That sense of brutality needs to not be forgotten and
dismissed.”
Wagstaffe from San Mateo County pointed to a capital case his office is
pursuing against a man charged with sexually assaulting and murdering a
17-month-old girl. Unless voters overturn the death penalty, Wagstaffe said
it’s his duty to continue prosecuting the case, regardless of the governor’s
moratorium.
If he stops pursuing the charges and executions resume under the next governor,
he would have failed to uphold the law, Wagstaffe said.
“We then would have wasted all this time,” he said. “I don’t think I would have
been doing my duty, and that’s what all the DAs are feeling.”
********************
Does pausing the death penalty save money?----Gov. Gavin Newsom put a
moratorium on the death penalty in California on March 13, 2019, sparing the
lives of more than 700 death-row inmates.
Back in March, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order that placed a
moratorium on the death penalty in California, he cited the system as a
multi-billion dollar waste of taxpayer dollars.
But per The Sacramento Bee’s Sophia Bollag, there’s no evidence that halting
executions has saved the state money.
“In general, death penalty trials are far more expensive than those for people
facing a maximum sentence of life without possibility of parole,” Bollag
writes. “It’s also more expensive to house inmates on death row than in a
regular prison unit.”
The executive order didn’t permanently end the death penalty in California,
which is why capital cases can still proceed.
District attorneys told The Bee that they’re following the law “still on the
books.” So prosecutors are still pursuing the death penalty, which “can cost
millions of dollars.” And, according to Bollag’s reporting, the state budget
still appears to allocate the same resources to capital punishment-related
costs.
In fact ?— Dollars set aside for the state-funded Habeas Corpus Resource Center
increased from about $16.64 million to nearly $16.8 million.
The temporary reprieve shut the state’s execution chambers and ended the lethal
injection protocol. But Newsom is aiming for something more.
He said he hopes for a ballot initiative to permanently end the death penalty
in California, which he failed to accomplish in 2016. Assemblyman Marc Levine,
D-San Rafael, wrote legislation intended for the November 2020 ballot that, if
approved by California voters, would enshrine in the California constitution a
permanent end to capital punishment.
(source for both: Sacramento Bee)
*************************
State Supreme Court overturns death sentence for Kern sheriff’s deputy who
killed 2 women
The California Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence of a Kern County
sheriff’s deputy who killed 2 young women more than 30 years ago.
The court’s ruling said a prosecution witness falsely testified David Keith
Rogers had sexually assaulted her.
The woman has expressed varying degrees of doubt in the years following her
testimony that Rogers, now 72, was the man who assaulted her, according to
court documents.
She said, “I am now more concerned than ever that I wrongly identified David
Rogers as the man who attacked me.”
The court’s decision overturns the death sentence, but lets stand the two
first-degree murder convictions. Rogers will serve life without parole.
The prosecution used the woman’s testimony during its closing argument in the
penalty phase. The justices found that, although it was only briefly mentioned,
the prosecutor’s “dramatic invocation of (the woman’s) terror” added to the
impact of her testimony on the jury.
The court found the woman had a propensity to change her story and add
“significant details bolstering her accusations against (Rogers),” the
documents says. She gave inconsistent versions of incidents in which she
claimed Rogers molested her in jail.
The Attorney General has argued the jury would have sentenced Rogers to death
regardless of whether the woman testified. The justices disagreed in the
unanimous ruling authored by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye.
“Contrary to the Attorney General’s contention, false testimony likely had a
significant effect on the outcome of the penalty phase,” Cantil-Sakauye wrote.
Rogers was convicted in 1988 of two counts of murder in the deaths of Janine
Benintende, 20, and Tracie Clark, 15. Benintende was killed in early 1986, and
Clark a year later.
Both women had been working as prostitutes. Their bodies were found in the
Arvin-Edison Canal, and both had been shot multiple times with bullets from a
.38-caliber gun.
Bullets, tire tracks, shoe prints, and eyewitness testimony led to Rogers being
identified as a suspect.
When confronted by sheriff’s detectives — his colleagues — Rogers admitted to
killing Clark but denied involvement in Benintende’s death. His defense
centered around claims he was mentally disturbed due to physical and sexual
abuse as a child.
“3 mental health professionals testified (Rogers) suffered from a dissociative
disorder involving memory loss and possible multiple personality disorder
stemming from severe childhood sexual and physical abuse,” according to court
documents.
(source: KGET news)
*************************
Calif. Supreme Court to Consider Freezing Death Penalty Trials----In March,
Gov. Newsom announced a moratorium on the execution of California's death row
inmates
In the wake of Governor Gavin Newsom's (D.) moratorium on the death penalty,
the California Supreme Court is now weighing whether to order a halt on capital
litigation in the state.
The state high court ordered a temporary stop to the sentencing trial of Jade
Douglas Harris, the Los Angeles Times reports, as it weighs whether Newsom's
moratorium means Harris, charged with 3 murders, cannot receive a fair trial.
In March, Newsom announced an indefinite moratorium on the execution of
California's 737 death row inmates. The moratorium — which flew in the face of
the regularly expressed will of California voters at the polls — saw the
state's death chamber closed, which Newsom has promised will remain true so
long as he is governor.
But while executions have been halted, death penalty prosecutions continue, at
least in the jurisdictions of some state attorneys. Harris's attorneys pose the
question of whether their client can receive a just sentence, given the
uncertainty now shrouding the death penalty's future.
Thanks to Supreme Court precedent, death penalty cases have 2 phases: one in
which the defendant is found factually guilty or innocent, and a 2nd in which a
separate jury weighs "aggravating" and "mitigating" facts about the crime and
the defendant to determine if the death penalty is merited. Harris's lawyers
have argued that in order for this 2nd phase to be fair, jurors have to believe
that if they hand down a death sentence, it will actually be carried out.
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation and a
death penalty expert, told the Times that this concern was overwrought.
"Newsom's moratorium only lasts for the duration of his term as governor.
Nobody sentenced today would be executed within the next 7 years anyway,"
Scheidegger said. "And everybody pretty much knows that."
Still, the state Supreme Court seems to think the issue is at least serious
enough to merit further hearing. It has until August 30th to decide whether to
take the case in full.
Meanwhile, the continuation of capital prosecutions has thrown a wrench into
one of Newsom's justifications for the moratorium: not having to pay the
exorbitant costs of death penalty trials. The promised savings have failed to
materialize, the Sacramento Bee reports.
That is because executions themselves are exceedingly cheap — drugs like
thiopental, pentobarbital, and midazolam just do not cost much. What is
expensive is prosecuting death penalty cases, thanks largely to the two-phase
process, and to the efforts of abolitionists to drag out cases. It also costs a
great deal to house California's death row inmates, who are now de facto
life-without-parole convicts as long as Newsom is in office.
"The moratorium stops executions," Robert Dunham, executive director of the
Death Penalty Information Center, told the SacBee. "It doesn't stop the
machinery of death from moving forward."
(source: The Washington Free Beacon)
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