Georgia executions rise, while death sentences plummet

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZT7r0tI_CoteKE4ISeLaPSO51cJVn-PH33GvjewtfqvjQ989vuJOcBt9aa3hzoi3Pim78vESXck0GU7c5FgW_72D_ByoUjtJ6u08QUAIW2WhJQAqa67yIwLVr6XuRWlFM80mA7Np-Xpw/s1600/Georgia+death+chamber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Georgia's death chamber" border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZT7r0tI_CoteKE4ISeLaPSO51cJVn-PH33GvjewtfqvjQ989vuJOcBt9aa3hzoi3Pim78vESXck0GU7c5FgW_72D_ByoUjtJ6u08QUAIW2WhJQAqa67yIwLVr6XuRWlFM80mA7Np-Xpw/s400/Georgia+death+chamber.jpg" title="Georgia's death chamber" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Georgia's death chamber</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">It's Georgia's new death penalty paradox: the state is executing inmates at a record clip, but prosecutors almost never seek the death penalty anymore, and juries refuse to impose it when they do.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During each of the past 2 years, Georgia executed 5 inmates. If, as expected, the state carries out another execution later this year, it will have put more people to death - 6 - in 2016 than in any single year since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment 4 decades ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the last time a Georgia jury imposed a death sentence was in March 2014. And district attorneys have been turning away from death as a sentencing option, more often allowing killers to receive sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A decade ago, state prosecutors filed notices of intent to seek the death penalty against 34 accused killers. That number dropped to 26 in 2011 and to 13 last year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">How many times have Georgia DAs sought the death penalty so far this year? Once. And this was against a man accused of killing a priest - a clergyman who had signed a document saying if he died a violent death he did not want his killer to face the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The incongruity of the increasing numbers of executions and the plummeting numbers of death sentences took both prosecutors and defense attorneys by surprise.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Wow," Atlanta criminal defense attorney Akil Secret said. "Maybe the times are changing."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The precipitous declines raise the question of whether prior capital sentences were justified, Secret said. "If a life-without-parole sentence is sufficient for today's worst crimes, why isn't it sufficient for those crimes from the past where death was imposed?"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In March, Secret represented 1 of the only 2 defendants to face death-penalty trials in Georgia this year. In both cases, juries in Fulton and Newton counties unanimously voted for sentences of life without parole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter also expressed surprise at the ongoing trends.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It's certainly one of those odd occurrences," said Porter, who has three pending capital cases. "But part of me says these (current) executions were cases where the sentences should have been carried out long ago. Also, the option of life without parole was never an option for them. It's almost apples and oranges."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Asked whether he thought cases that received death sentences in the past should now be reconsidered for life without parole, Porter quoted a passage from the "Dune" science fiction series, "If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Is the death penalty no longer necessary?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Brian Kammer, head of a nonprofit agency that represents condemned killers through their final appeals, said many inmates would not have been sent to death row had they been represented by competent lawyers. Today, he said, the state has a dedicated office with highly trained public defenders with the resources to thoroughly investigate their clients' backgrounds.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Had such legal teams with adequate resources been available to these recently executed prisoners at the time they were tried originally, I am confident they would be alive today," Kammer said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court used a Georgia case to abolish capital punishment. In 1976, in another Georgia case, the high court reinstated the death penalty. Since that ruling, Georgia has executed 65 condemned killers. There are now 63 inmates on death row.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is a consensus among state prosecutors and defense attorneys as to why the death penalty is not being sought as frequently as it was in the past and why juries are reluctant to impose it. 7 years ago, state lawmakers unanimously voted to allow prosecutors to obtain a life-without-parole sentence without having to file a notice to seek the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It has made an enormous difference," said Chuck Spahos, head of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia. "When you start talking about the expense, the years of appeals and the length of the process that goes on and on and having to put victims' families through that with no closure, the availability of life without parole with a guilty plea has become an attractive option."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Years ago, some state prosecutors sought the death penalty because all they really wanted to do was send a defendant to prison for the rest of his or her life, said Jerry Word, head of Georgia's Capital Defender Office. "Now they no longer have to seek death to get what they really want. And the polls show that the public is becoming much more comfortable with life without parole."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>'We've lost our sense of outrage'</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Doug Pullen, who made a name for himself obtaining death sentences as a Columbus district attorney in the early 1990s, said he believes society has become desensitized to violence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We've lost our sense of outrage at such things," said Pullen, who later served as a judge until he resigned amid an ethics probe. "For me personally, and I think for a large portion of my age group, it's just absolutely appalling."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A defense attorney once told him that the death penalty would become so expensive and time-consuming it would die a natural death, Pullen said. "I guess I knew it was coming, but that it got here this fast kind of surprises me."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not only are death sentences rare, death sentences once routinely imposed for certain types of murders have become nonexistent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lawyers representing Brandon Astor Jones tried unsuccessfully to stop his execution in February. In 1979, Jones was sentenced to death for killing the manager of a Cobb County convenience store during an armed robbery. But death sentences for these kinds of armed robbery cases have not been imposed in Georgia in the past 20 years, an appeal filed on Jones' behalf said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Layla Zon, the district attorney for Newton and Walton counties, said after she took office in 2010 she reviewed cases in which death sentences were obtained by her predecessors more than a decade ago. "You'd never get the death penalty in most of those cases today," she said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"To me, it seems like a gunshot killing of a single victim is not going to rise to the level in jurors' minds of what it takes to impose a death sentence," Zon said. "Torture, depravity of mind, the killing of a child. That's what it takes."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A recent motion filed on behalf of Rodney Young, sentenced to death in Newton County in 2012 for killing his ex-fiancee's son, accused Zon of being "pathologically enthralled" with the death penalty. It said she has sought death at a rate unmatched by any other district attorney in Georgia and noted she had a battery-powered toy electric chair, called "Death-Row Marv," in her office.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Zon, who said the toy was in her office when she became DA and that she has since removed it, said she seeks death in cases that warrant it. Since 2011, there have been 13 death-penalty trials in Georgia, with 4 taking place in Newton. Zon's office also obtained 2 of the state's 5 death sentences during that time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last month, Ashley Wright, district attorney of the Augusta Judicial Circuit, filed the first and only notice to seek death so far this year. She is seeking it against Steven James Murray, who is accused of kidnapping Catholic priest Rene Robert, forcing him into the trunk of his car and then driving him to Burke County, where he shot and killed him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After the notice was filed, Wright said, Robert's Catholic diocese in St. Augustine, Fla., sent her a document that Robert had signed years ago. The document said that in the event he died a violent death, Robert, who had protested against executions, did not want his killer to get the death penalty no matter how heinous the crime or how much Robert had suffered.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wright said she is proceeding with the capital prosecution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We make our decisions based on the facts and the law, not public opinion," she said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 18, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

Georgia Inadequate counsel LWOP USA Georgia executions rise, while death sentences plummet

Georgia's death chamber It's Georgia's new death penalty paradox: the state is executing inmates at a record clip, but prosecuto...

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Connecticut: Steven Hayes First Death-Row Inmate Resentenced to Life

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjupDOOQ_kGW75wUXen7jGk3JClRfHwJY9BGEt7heOM7YCNB1npL0qIqekFnb6jV21sGOCp7kPCK3iwRGGLyESu4UTIDliJK6_0VEnBN1XBSCUaHNsV8GqrPQYAOCZrVK9lP5aNqFQXP9c/s1600/Steven+Hayes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Steven Hayes" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjupDOOQ_kGW75wUXen7jGk3JClRfHwJY9BGEt7heOM7YCNB1npL0qIqekFnb6jV21sGOCp7kPCK3iwRGGLyESu4UTIDliJK6_0VEnBN1XBSCUaHNsV8GqrPQYAOCZrVK9lP5aNqFQXP9c/s320/Steven+Hayes.jpg" title="Steven Hayes" width="263" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steven Hayes</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">NEW HAVEN >> Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue scolded Steven Hayes for “the depravity of your character” Wednesday as he vacated the death sentence originally imposed in the Cheshire triple-homicide and resentenced him to six consecutive life terms in prison with no chance of parole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hayes was convicted in 2010; co-defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky was convicted in 2011. A Superior Court jury in New Haven convicted Hayes on many counts, including murder, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree sexual assault.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Komisarjevsky also <a href="http://www.nhregister.com/article/NH/20111013/NEWS/310139954" target="_blank">was found guilty of murder and numerous other counts</a> in the deaths of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17. Both men received death sentences but the state <a href="http://www.nhregister.com/government-and-politics/20160526/connecticut-supreme-court-upholds-abolishment-of-death-penalty" target="_blank">Supreme Court last year ruled the death penalty isunconstitutional</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Komisarjevsky is scheduled to receive a sentence similar to that of Hayes next month.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hayes and Komisarjevsky broke into the Petit house at about 3 a.m. July 23, 2007, and beat Dr. William Petit Jr. on the head with a baseball bat as he was lying on a couch in the sunroom downstairs. They tied him up in the basement. Then the perpetrators tied the girls and their mother to beds upstairs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Later that morning, Hayes forced Hawke-Petit to drive with him to her bank and withdraw $15,000. Shortly after they returned to the house, Hayes raped and strangled her and one of the two perpetrators applied a match to gasoline that had been spread throughout the home. The girls died upstairs in the fire.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Petit was able to escape from the basement and crawl out of the house to seek help from a neighbor minutes before the fire erupted. Hayes and Komisarjevsky crashed the Petit vehicle into a police barricade nearby as they fled and were apprehended.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Petit, who testified during both trials and spoke at length and with great emotion about his family during the sentencings, was not in the courtroom Wednesday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Gary Nicholson, who prosecuted both defendants during their trials alongside State’s Attorney Michael Dearington (who recently retired), explained Petit’s decision not to appear.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I spoke to Dr. Petit about a week ago,” Nicholson told Blue. “He said he did not wish to take the opportunity as a victim to appear in court and make a statement. He said none of his other family members would be here. They’ve already said what they cared to say.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nicholson said he, too, had already said what he needed to say during the trials and sentencings. But he added that for “this horrendous crime, we ask for consecutive sentences, for the maximum sentence.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hayes, who now has a long beard and was wearing a yarmulke because of his religious conversion in prison, nodded and smiled at the reporters in the courtroom who covered his trial. He is much thinner than he was when he committed his crimes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When Blue gave Hayes a chance to speak, he declined to do so. His attorney, New Haven Public Defender Thomas Ullmann, who defended Hayes during the trial, also refrained from making a statement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Blue, who presided over both of the trials, told Hayes as he stood before him, “I think the jury verdict spoke eloquently and the Petit family spoke quite eloquently. With the gravity of these crimes and the depravity of your character, nothing more needs to be said.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One by one, Blue handled each of the 16 original counts on which Hayes had been convicted. He began by vacating the three murder counts. He did this because a U.S. Supreme Court ruling specified this should be done with lesser included offenses of capital counts. Thus Blue also vacated the first-degree sexual assault count.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But Blue imposed sentences of life in prison without parole for murder with multiple victims, murder of a victim under 16, three counts of murder of a victim of a kidnapping and murder of a victim of sexual assault.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In addition, Blue imposed 25-year sentences for each of four first-degree kidnapping counts, five years for third-degree burglary and one year for second-degree assault.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Because Blue made all of the sentences consecutive rather than concurrent, he noted the total is six consecutive sentences of life without possibility of parole, “followed by 106 years.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Immediately after court adjourned, a reporter asked Nicholson if he had imagined being back in court on such a procedure. “Not this quickly,” Nicholson replied. “It is what it is.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Asked about Dearington’s decision not to come to the courtroom for the resentencing, Nicholson said, “He’s probably on a beach somewhere. I’m sure he’s enjoying his retirement.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also after court adjourned, Ullmann noted Hayes’ convictions are being appealed. Although Ullmann is not handling the appeal, he did note one of the grounds for it: on the second day of the trial, one of the jurors told Blue he didn’t like the way the prosecutors were presenting their case. The defense team wanted him to remain on the jury but Blue dismissed him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A hearing was held recently in the case against Komisarjevsky, who claims that key withheld information about the Cheshire police response should be considered as his attorneys appeal his conviction. They are calling for a new trial.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state Supreme Court also eventually will rule on whether Komisarjevsky deserves a new trial because of newly raised appeals issues, such as his original defense team not seeing all of the <a href="http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20151113/calls-detail-how-police-reacted-in-deadly-cheshire-home-invasion" target="_blank">Cheshire police dispatch tapes </a>from the day of the crime.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ullmann called Hayes’ resentencing “a momentous and historic day.” He explained, “The first person who was sentenced to death is now sentenced to life without possibility of release.” Ten other men who have been on death row await resentencings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ullmann added, “It’s a relief for many of us lawyers who have worked on this for so long, to see the elimination of this barbaric punishment from our laws.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ullmann said he had “never lost faith” that this day would come. But he added, “I wasn’t sure that in my lifetime I’d see this happen.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He noted, “Connecticut has joined the movement where our whole nation is getting to, ultimately to eliminate the death penalty across the country. We’re getting to the point where it’s close to being abolished totally.” Nineteen states have eliminated capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ullmann pointed out the only person put to death in Connecticut in recent decades was serial killer Michael Ross in 2005, because he “volunteered” to be killed; he dropped his appeals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“So the state never achieved getting somebody executed against their will,” Ullmann said. “It was an incredibly failed criminal justice policy. The costs to the state were enormous. This money could have been used for victims and treatment programs.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ullmann, who joined a vigil of capital punishment opponents outside the prison when Ross was executed, said, “It’s such a relief to me not to ever have to attend (witness) an execution. We’ve moved forward in our criminal justice system.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ullmann declined to reveal what Hayes said to him after the resentencing. As for Hayes’ yarmulke, Ullmann said, “He’s been practicing the Jewish faith for quite some time. He sees a rabbi in prison. He’s pretty principled about that.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ullmann also addressed the question of Hayes’ mental state, especially given his suicide attempt during jury selection. “I’ve tried to talk him out of suicide. We’ve spent a lot of time doing that.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And so is Hayes now on a better path? “I would say it fluctuates,” Ullmann replied. “Life on death row was not pleasant.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During an interview with the New Haven Register in Northern Correctional Institution in September 2013, Hayes expressed remorse for what he had done. Facing the possibility of execution at that time, he said, “Death for me will be a welcome relief and I hope it will bring some peace and comfort to those who I have hurt so much.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: <a href="http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20160615/steven-hayes-once-on-death-row-for-cheshire-triple-killing-resentenced-to-6-life-terms-in-prison" target="_blank">New Haven Register</a>, Randall Beach, June 15, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Convicted Killer 1st Death-Row Inmate Resentenced to Life</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">1 of 2 men sentenced to death for the slayings of a mother and her 2 daughters during a 2007 home invasion in Connecticut has been resentenced to life in prison.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Steven Hayes is the 1st of 11 death-row inmates to be resentenced since the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in August that their sentences violated the state constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">State lawmakers abolished Connecticut's death penalty in 2012, except for those already sentenced to death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A judge on Wednesday imposed six consecutive life sentences on Hayes for the murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, 17-year-old Haley and 11-year-old Michaela, in Cheshire.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hawke-Petit's husband and the girls' father, Dr. William Petit, was badly beaten but survived.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Associated Press, June 15, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

Abolition Commutation Connecticut LWOP USA Connecticut: Steven Hayes First Death-Row Inmate Resentenced to Life

Steven Hayes NEW HAVEN >> Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue scolded Steven Hayes for “the depravity of your character” Wednesday as he ...

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Measure to repeal California's death penalty qualifies for the November ballot

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd6T7Wrv-JmT6gLhuIBC8jNKy99J5jFlpnwzNDYc_gqqgRqMmuEIR1slDOVw2-NpW7BHwgC6wRA57gtVuGGsLfDtBlk-A0biXMUpFaPfwuRuHyjxUiaLMy9h0LPDXP3n_0etecIyID9WI/s1600/California+Death+Row_+A+guard+stands+watch+over+the+condemned+prisoners+housed+in+East+Block+during+a+media+tour+of+death+row+a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="California death row" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd6T7Wrv-JmT6gLhuIBC8jNKy99J5jFlpnwzNDYc_gqqgRqMmuEIR1slDOVw2-NpW7BHwgC6wRA57gtVuGGsLfDtBlk-A0biXMUpFaPfwuRuHyjxUiaLMy9h0LPDXP3n_0etecIyID9WI/s400/California+Death+Row_+A+guard+stands+watch+over+the+condemned+prisoners+housed+in+East+Block+during+a+media+tour+of+death+row+a.jpg" title="California death row" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">California death row</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">California voters will be asked this fall whether to repeal the state's 38-year-old death penalty, as elections officials announced Friday that an initiative to abolish the law has earned a spot on the Nov. 8 ballot.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Backers of the initiative gathered almost 405,000 voter signatures, according to the final tally conducted by county elections officials.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The initiative, championed by former "M*A*S*H" actor Mike Farrell, would eliminate the death penalty for first-degree murder. The most serious punishment would become life in prison without the possibility of parole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That would include the 743 inmates now on death row, the largest condemned population of any U.S. state and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-ln-death-row/" target="_blank">one beset with cases of extreme mental illness </a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Whether you look at the death penalty from a taxpayer, a criminal justice or a civil rights perspective, what is clear is that it fails in every respect," said Farrell in a written statement Friday evening. "We have to do better in California."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Only 13 inmates have been executed since the current law was enacted in 1978, with none in the last decade after <a href="http://www.latimes.com/la-me-pol-ca-execution-protocol-20151105-story.html" target="_blank">legal challenges against the execution drugs administered by prison officials </a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The initiative would require mandatory work while behind bars for those convicted of murder, with wages going to debts owed to crime victims.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The independent Legislative Analyst's Office has estimated that in the long run, the ballot measure would reduce state government expenses by as much as $150 million a year, due the elimination of legal challenges to death sentences.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A similar ballot measure, Proposition 34, <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/11/proposition-34-california-death-penalty.html" target="_blank">was defeated by voters </a>in 2012. A <a href="http://www.latimes.com/la-me-ln-death-penalty-ballot-20151030-story.html" target="_blank">pro-death penalty initiative may also appear on the November ballot </a>, after supporters also turned in signatures last month.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">November's <a href="http://www.latimes.com/la-pol-ca-november-ballot-measures-20160516-snap-story.html" target="_blank">field of statewide propositions will probably produce the longest statewide ballot since March 2000 </a>. Besides the two death penalty measures, voter signatures on eight other initiatives are now being checked. The deadline for Secretary of State Alex Padilla to certify the list of ballot measures is June 30.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-essential-politics-measure-to-repeal-california-s-death-1466215480-htmlstory.html" target="_blank">Los Angeles Times</a>, John Myers, June 18, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div>

Abolition California Costs LWOP Mike Farrel USA Measure to repeal California's death penalty qualifies for the November ballot

California death row California voters will be asked this fall whether to repeal the state's 38-year-old death penalty, as elections off...

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Texas Death Row Inmate Sentenced to Life over Intellectual Disability

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0oO7tSsNoo8yBrLGz1rhGsPcd7qpFCyzMZFvDkAdDXXc9HtF-KWE8JlLAFWB-hzEm8hAK6ZnEa_5ulzd0Cc5CgwNcV8h43R1_zhUeTKKe0M521WgOVBHrLXeAqt8uJDztBd2NKl9m5hg/s1600/Jose-Martinez.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Jose Noey Martinez" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0oO7tSsNoo8yBrLGz1rhGsPcd7qpFCyzMZFvDkAdDXXc9HtF-KWE8JlLAFWB-hzEm8hAK6ZnEa_5ulzd0Cc5CgwNcV8h43R1_zhUeTKKe0M521WgOVBHrLXeAqt8uJDztBd2NKl9m5hg/s320/Jose-Martinez.jpg" title="Jose Noey Martinez" width="234" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jose Noey Martinez</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">A man who fatally stabbed a 68-year-old woman and her 4-year-old granddaughter during a 1995 burglary in Hidalgo County will no longer face execution after he has been determined to be intellectually disabled.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, changed Jose Noey Martinez's sentence Wednesday to life in prison. The court agreed with a lower court's ruling that Martinez, now 40, “is a person with intellectual disability” and “is constitutionally ineligible for a death sentence.” Martinez had been on death row almost 20 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Martinez broke into the home of Esperanza Palomo to steal a TV and stereo, according to court documents. Palomo was babysitting her blind granddaughter, Amanda. Shortly after breaking in, Palomo confronted Martinez with a baseball bat. He stabbed the grandmother, who fell to the ground immediately, and raped her.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After killing the woman, Martinez told law enforcement, he heard the granddaughter crying in another room, court documents show. He told officers that he stabbed her to death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A Hidalgo County jury found Martinez guilty of capital murder in 1996 and sentenced him to death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On appeal, Martinez's attorneys had claimed that he is mentally retarded and argued that executing him would violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once the Texas Department of Criminal Justice receives paperwork from the appeals court, Martinez will be taken to the Byrd Unit in Huntsville, agency spokesman Jason Clark said in an email.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"He will be interviewed, and information will be gathered about his family structure, criminal and social behavior, drug and alcohol involvement, military and institutional experience, as well as education and employment history," he said. "The results of the tests and interviews are the basis for classification decisions that determine the unit of assignment, the level of security supervision, housing and job assignments and time-earning status."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: The Texas Tribune, Jonathan Silver, June 15, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

Commutation LWOP Mental retardation mentally incompetent inmates Texas USA Texas Death Row Inmate Sentenced to Life over Intellectual Disability

Jose Noey Martinez A man who fatally stabbed a 68-year-old woman and her 4-year-old granddaughter during a 1995 burglary in Hidalgo County w...

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Utah lawmaker wants to speed up death penalty process

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzRIyTOiQ7L7bLtrR2qXEtGlcNCfZomtj3p1KqAaLza6uXlN5qIjyjs-h9xBgaXPiM3AczrSNn6Z8KGPu5kZbl8lDaZ5oNGU18mpFuzy2UQc_PO807wxN-niLjW_F7tev2qA1zeuEhYJU/s1600/Utah+House+of+Representatives.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Utah House of Representatives" border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzRIyTOiQ7L7bLtrR2qXEtGlcNCfZomtj3p1KqAaLza6uXlN5qIjyjs-h9xBgaXPiM3AczrSNn6Z8KGPu5kZbl8lDaZ5oNGU18mpFuzy2UQc_PO807wxN-niLjW_F7tev2qA1zeuEhYJU/s400/Utah+House+of+Representatives.jpg" title="Utah House of Representatives" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A Utah lawmaker is once again targeting the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rep. Paul Ray (R-Clearfield), well known for bringing the firing squad back to Utah, says inmates sit on death row too long.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He wants them to die quicker.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If you're sentenced to die, you're going to die for doing that," Ray said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Republican plans to look for ways to shorten the process, holding up 2 states -- Virginia and Texas -- as examples.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Typically, 7 to 10 years is how long somebody's on death row" in those states, Ray said. "We may look at putting in some of the measures that they have to expedite the time on death row."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Utah has 9 inmates on death row. All but 1 have remained there more than 15 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Every time Ray touches the death penalty on Utah's Capitol Hill, it ignites a political firestorm. That will be the case this time as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I don't understand his fascination with the death penalty," said Kent Hart, executive director of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hart says Ray's latest effort is contrary to Utah values.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If that process is shortened, Utah would be joining other states like Virginia and Texas who I don't think value human life like Utah does," Hart said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ray says he expects opposition, but he still plans to bring this issue to Capitol Hill on Wednesday in the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee. After studying it, Ray hopes to draft a bill later this fall.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last session the Utah Senate passed a bill that would get rid of the death penalty, but that bill failed in the House.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: KUTV news, June 14, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Report: Each death row inmate costs Utah $1.66 million</span></b><br /><br />A new state report finds that each death row inmate in Utah costs $1.66 million more in taxpayer money than one sentenced to life in prison without parole.<br /><br />State lawmakers weighed the costs of capital punishment Wednesday at a hearing that came after the legislature both brought back the firing squad and seriously considered eliminating death sentences altogether.<br /><br />Some lawmakers sharply questioned whether the state could really save that much money if they did away with capital punishment, pointing to costs like care for elderly inmates.<br /><br />Republican Rep. Paul Ray of Clearfield sponsored the proposal that brought back the firing squad as a backup execution method, and now wants to streamline the death-penalty appeals process from about 30 years to 15 or less. Critics say that could give defendants short shrift.<br /><br />Source: Associated Press, June 15, 2007<br /><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

Costs LWOP Texas USA Utah Virginia Utah lawmaker wants to speed up death penalty process

A Utah lawmaker is once again targeting the death penalty. Rep. Paul Ray (R-Clearfield), well known for bringing the firing squad back to Ut...

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Sentenced to death: A waiting game for 'the worst of the worst'

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXedosnEnVevuCSuR7FGA0a05RqQxdGHO51jX3RE4m572xRFlpLP4tCHfgfA0m-mgdcd_wMOMu2NdmdHZwSrXhzy8KFzy3OceZ9n1muRQd0gcon4RrwgMqhvjYsk_0AwvVGWeG7BaY780/s1600/Solitary+Confinement.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXedosnEnVevuCSuR7FGA0a05RqQxdGHO51jX3RE4m572xRFlpLP4tCHfgfA0m-mgdcd_wMOMu2NdmdHZwSrXhzy8KFzy3OceZ9n1muRQd0gcon4RrwgMqhvjYsk_0AwvVGWeG7BaY780/s400/Solitary+Confinement.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When Antwan Andre Anthony was sentenced to death in April for the 2012 killings of 3 convenience store workers in Farmville, it marked the end of a long wait for justice and the start of another.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Anthony, 33, became the fourth man since the early 1990s to be sentenced to death for a conviction of murder in Pitt County. He is one of 150 death row inmates in North Carolina. Before Anthony, the last inmate to be received on death row was in 2014.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Most of North Carolina's death row inmates - 111 of the 151 - have been there for 15 years or longer, with much of that time spent in the appeals process. The state also has had a de facto moratorium on the death penalty, and the last execution was 10 years ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Will Anthony ever meet the fate assigned to him by a jury and judge in Pitt County? It's not likely, according to Frank Baumgartner, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has spent nearly 20 years studying the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"65 % of the time, death sentences are overturned on appeal, and those reversals might come 3 years later, 5 years later, 10 years later, but that's an especially shocking number," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Across the country, more than 8,000 death sentences have been handed down, but many of those sentences are overturned, with the defendant then receiving a sentence of life without parole, Baumgartner said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The 2nd-largest number of people who have been sentenced to death have simply languished on death row for 20 or 30 years," he said. And the least likely outcome is that the person will be executed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Nationally, it's not uncommon that the few executions that do take place, the crimes took place in the '80s," Baumgartner said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The average delay is about 20 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For Anthony, Baumgartner said, "what happens now is going to be a very long waiting game."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Automatic appeals</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Anthony and other defendants sentenced to death automatically are entitled to 2 rounds of appeals, 1 on the state level and another on the federal level, Baumgartner said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is not uncommon for the process to take 10 to 20 years, said Jeff Welty, associate professor of public law and government at the School of Government at UNC.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Generally, there are 4 steps to the appeals process, he said. In the initial step, called the direct appeal, the inmate and his defense team identify what they believe to be legal errors during trial and appeal to the N.C. Supreme Court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If that's not successful, we go to step 2, which is sometimes called the state collateral review, and at that point, the defendant files something called motion for appropriate relief and they file it with the superior court in the jurisdiction where they were tried," Welty said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That already has happened in the Anthony case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Anthony's attorneys filed a motion for appropriate relief about a week after he was sentenced on grounds that a sheriff's office employee reportedly made improper comments within earshot of jurors during the trial. The comments allegedly included the employee's opinion on what should happen to Anthony.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A hearing to determine if that occurred and if it is cause for a new trial or sentencing hearing is scheduled for Aug. 1.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The grounds for reversal have to be very serious findings from appellate court," Baumgartner said. "It would have to be some very serious flaw that could have changed the outcome, either in the trial for guilt or more likely in the penalty phase."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If the superior court does not rule in favor of the defendant on a motion for appropriate relief, the defendant can appeal that decision to the state Supreme Court, Welty said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If that step doesn't bear fruit, then the case moves on to step 3, which is federal habeas review," he said. "... The idea there is to allow federal courts to take a look and make sure that state courts are carrying out their constitutional responsibilities."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That process begins in federal district court and can be appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia and ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If all of those avenues of appeal fail, the defendant's last opportunity is to make a request for clemency to the governor, Welty said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Sticking points</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">North Carolina is 1 of 31 states where the death penalty is legal. It has been abolished in 19 states. While North Carolina has not declared any official moratorium on the death penalty, there have been no executions since 2006.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"There's been a whole bunch of litigation about different aspects of the death penalty that has had the effect of creating a de facto moratorium," Welty said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 3 sticking points have been the requirement that a licensed physician be present during an execution, concerns about the lethal injection procedure and uncertainty surrounding claims filed under the now-repealed Racial Justice Act.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The Medical Board took the position that doctors couldn't participate in executions, and that caused litigation between the state and the Medical Board," Welty said. A bill that became law last year removed that requirement and allows for other medical professionals, a nurse practitioner for example, to be present instead of a doctor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One of the next hurdles is the contention about lethal injection.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Around the country, there's been so many controversies about lethal injections that have gone wrong," Baumgartner said, "so you can bet your bottom dollar that when they schedule the 1st execution, there will be litigation about what drug will be used and how can we guarantee the safety of the drug supply and where do they get the drugs, and all those complicated wranglings will start happening about the lethal injection process."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6fUKet9Z3xSW14vetEBoUiVqQ0uqhmT3q7jepKCdbhSlY9rUKLrOCO-tvOmIoGfQgCDaFcHweHXzwNW_9CLXJEm2CJ97Q_VQsuJOLTt9NH65AUiHBSCijEAup3WkXBB3N8WVIJh-QZ0/s1600/pfizer-world-headquarters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6fUKet9Z3xSW14vetEBoUiVqQ0uqhmT3q7jepKCdbhSlY9rUKLrOCO-tvOmIoGfQgCDaFcHweHXzwNW_9CLXJEm2CJ97Q_VQsuJOLTt9NH65AUiHBSCijEAup3WkXBB3N8WVIJh-QZ0/s320/pfizer-world-headquarters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last month, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer took steps to prevent distribution of its products for use in lethal injections. Pfizer limited the sale of seven of its products to wholesalers, distributors and direct purchasers under the condition that the products would not be resold to correctional institutions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pfizer's move further complicates the lethal injection process in states that used its products for that purpose.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There already is ongoing litigation over the Racial Justice Act, which was enacted in 2009 and allowed inmates to challenge their death sentences based on racial disparity statistics, related mostly to jury selection, Baumgartner said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nearly all death row inmates filed claims under the act, and 4 cases were heard in court, with each defendant seeing success. But the act was repealed last year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A Cumberland County judge assigned to hear the 4 inmates' appeals on Thursday volunteered to remove himself, following months of arguments by defense attorneys that he had conflicts of interest. Another judge will be assigned to hear the appeals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Lawyers will be arguing probably for more than another year about whether the inmates who filed have a right to have their case heard under a law that no longer exists," Baumgartner said. "You have to be a lawyer to figure that one out, but it's still part of the landscape here in North Carolina, so I don't think we're going to be looking at the resumption of executions anytime soon."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>'Worst of the worst'</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Experts say there has been a sharp decline in the number of death sentences. In the last 5 years, 7 men have been sentenced to death in North Carolina.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Between 1993 and 1999, the number of defendants to receive the death penalty statewide generally was in double-digits. Now, the number of death sentences each year ranges from 0 to 3.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The main reason is prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty as much, and juries are loathe to hand it out anymore," Baumgartner said. That may be because a high number of the accused have had their convictions overturned after it was determined they were innocent, he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"There's been about 1,400 executions nationally since 1976 and 158 exonerations," he said. "In North Carolina, there have been 42 (executions) and 5 or 6 exonerations. So it's almost like 1 in 10. That's a pretty scary, pretty low batting average of getting it right."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some might ask why the state even goes to bat for the death penalty if so many sentences are overturned and there have been no executions in the last 10 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The death penalty is still on the books," Pitt County Assistant District Attorney Clark Everett said. "I think you have to have the death penalty there for the worst of the worst. It's got to be there.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"You have to do it because who knows what's coming next week," he said. "If you don't follow the law and have some threshold where you say, 'Alright, this is a death penalty case,' then it pretty much puts you in a situation where you're never going to be able to."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The threshold includes 3 components: The murder must be particularly horrible, a double or triple homicide, for example; overwhelming evidence of guilt; and a defendant with significant criminal or violent history.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Juries who have found a defendant guilty in a capital trial face the task of determining if he should receive a sentence of life in prison without parole or death, but for now, Baumgartner says there isn't much of a difference.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The odds are that the person won't be executed, even though the state may try its best to make it happen," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nationally, there is only a 13 % chance it will be carried out, he said. Among those, the executions come decades later, after several appeals, which serve as a routine reminder of the crime. But defendants sentenced to life without parole are not guaranteed the same automatic appeals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"LWOP is a death penalty by another name because you don't leave prison alive, and there's nothing light about that penalty," Baumgartner said. "It's like 2 forms of a death penalty we're talking about: one where you get automatic appeals and the most likely outcome is you end up on LWOP eventually, just after many years of appeals, and the other is you just go straight to LWOP, and that's the end of the story."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For Anthony, the process is just beginning.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"What will happen now is he'll get automatic appeals, and there will be a lot of money spent and, most likely, he'll never be executed," Baumgartner said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It's just a tragedy all the way around," he said, "because it's not helpful to anybody in the system to have a death penalty in name only."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Reflector.com, June 12, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

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When Antwan Andre Anthony was sentenced to death in April for the 2012 killings of 3 convenience store workers in Farmville, it marked the e...

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Cheshire Killers Could Be Resentenced To Life In Prison Next Week

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRU_WPvvuEreAmNnd4WpNBT3tcsQPYv-E6IYUG4U8dVxEXXHb_yS56YKoeDRz88MuELr1ReiEC2qP4l44M-JYmo6Zkc1JQzx4FYuN13UEu2q6cMbSPOSwEn9He3zfraUV_BMx40cXjbis/s1600/Northern+Correctional+Institution+in+Somers%252C+Connecticut%252C+USA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Somers Northern Correctional Institution, Connecticut" border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRU_WPvvuEreAmNnd4WpNBT3tcsQPYv-E6IYUG4U8dVxEXXHb_yS56YKoeDRz88MuELr1ReiEC2qP4l44M-JYmo6Zkc1JQzx4FYuN13UEu2q6cMbSPOSwEn9He3zfraUV_BMx40cXjbis/s400/Northern+Correctional+Institution+in+Somers%252C+Connecticut%252C+USA.jpg" title="Somers Northern Correctional Institution, Connecticut" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Somers Northern Correctional Institution, Connecticut</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The death sentences of the Cheshire home invasion killers could be changed to consecutive life sentences at 2 separate hearings next week, the 1st proceedings to be held since last month's Supreme Court ruling that spared the lives of Connecticut's 11 formerly condemned murderers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue has scheduled arguments on pending motions by Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky that say the killers' prison sentences should be corrected now that the state's highest court has said the death penalty is unconstitutional for all in Connecticut. Hayes' hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. Komisarjevsky's case will be heard June 17.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The motions to correct the death sentences were filed in November following the Supreme Court's initial August 2015 ruling outlawing capital punishment for all in the state. When that ruling was appealed, Blue stayed the motions until after the justices ruled again on the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Following the May 26 decision, prosecutors in the Hayes case filed a motion June 3 saying that Blue should impose consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for Hayes. Prosecutors' response in Komisarjevsky's case could not be obtained Thursday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Connecticut abolished the death penalty in April 2012 but made the law prospective, meaning it applied only to new cases and kept in place the death sentences already imposed before the bill was passed. The provision was added after the high-profile trials of Hayes and Komisarjevsky, who were sent to death row for killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, during a July 2007 home invasion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The men tied up and tortured the family as they ransacked the Petit home for cash and valuables. Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted Michaela, and Hayes raped and strangled Hawke-Petit. The house was doused with gasoline and set on fire. Hayley and Michaela died of smoke inhalation. The daughters' father and Hawke-Petit's husband, William Petit Jr., survived but was severely injured.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After the 2012 repeal of the death penalty, attorneys representing those on death row challenged the law, saying it violated the condemned inmates' constitutional rights. The state Supreme Court agreed to take up the prospective issue during a hearing in April 2013.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In August 2015, the justices ruled 4-3 to ban capital punishment for all defendants, saying in the majority decision that Connecticut's death penalty no longer fit with societal values and served no valid purpose as punishment, a ruling they echoed in a decision last month that essentially ended prosecutors' fight to keep execution possible for those already on death row.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After last month's ruling, Chief State's Attorney Kevin T. Kane said prosecutors would "move forward" and seek resentencing for the 11 death-row prisoners. His office is currently working with defense attorneys on how to handle the remaining - and older - cases of Robert Breton, Sedrick "Ricky" Cobb, Daniel Webb, Richard Reynolds, Todd Rizzo, Jessie Campbell III, Russell Peeler Jr., Lazale Ashby and Richard Roszkowski.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once the inmates are resentenced, state officials will have to determine whether the inmates should remain or be transferred out of Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, the state's highest security prison.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While on death row, inmates were subjected to solitary confinement and more restrictions than inmates sentenced to life without parole. They were housed in single cells and received fewer recreation hours and less access to prison programs and visitors.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Hartford Courant, June 10, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

Abolition Connecticut LWOP USA Cheshire Killers Could Be Resentenced To Life In Prison Next Week

Somers Northern Correctional Institution, Connecticut The death sentences of the Cheshire home invasion killers could be changed to consecut...

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