America's deadliest prosecutors: five lawyers, 440 death sentences

<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/AVvXsEjK_Bjrlq_Ew3eBzYQ2XTj0DyYoqz59uXvZ51JrTM0ChWlfTeN5dFYPJZW45Ws7P6vY9e5yGyjOAIo5scV8GvuyYva7U7TcKbobSpD5OypLItONlkdhfe_L_B2elFeAlo3S7W6XRQSD_5k/s1600/Bob+Macy+of+Oklahoma+County.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Bob Macy of Oklahoma County" border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK_Bjrlq_Ew3eBzYQ2XTj0DyYoqz59uXvZ51JrTM0ChWlfTeN5dFYPJZW45Ws7P6vY9e5yGyjOAIo5scV8GvuyYva7U7TcKbobSpD5OypLItONlkdhfe_L_B2elFeAlo3S7W6XRQSD_5k/s400/Bob+Macy+of+Oklahoma+County.jpg" title="Bob Macy of Oklahoma County" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bob Macy of Oklahoma County</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Harvard report highlights the lion-sized role in modern death penalty of just four men and a woman, and how capital punishment is a ‘personality-driven system’</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As head prosecutors in their counties, just five individuals have been responsible for putting no fewer than 440 prisoners onto death row. If you compare that number to the 2,943 who are currently awaiting execution in the US, it is equivalent to one out of every seven.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Or express the figure another way: of the 8,038 death sentences handed down since the death penalty was restarted in the modern era 40 years ago this week, some one in 20 of them have been the responsibility of those five district attorneys alone.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The five are profiled in a new report from Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project. Titled America’s Top Five Deadliest Prosecutors, the report highlights the lion-sized role in the modern death penalty of just four men and one woman. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They are: Joe Freeman Britt of Robeson County, North Carolina; Donnie Myers of Lexington, South Carolina; Bob Macy of Oklahoma County; Lynne Abraham of Philadelphia County; and Johnny Holmes of Harris County, Texas.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Just how extraordinary this elite club of lawyers is can be seen in the biography of Bob Macy. Until his death in 2011, he was known as Cowboy Bob because of his traditional frontier dress sense: he always wore cowboy boots, a large cowboy hat, a black string tie, a black suit and a white shirt.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Over the course of 21 years as the top prosecutor in Oklahoma County, Macy put 54 people on death row. That gave him the distinction of sending more people to their potential deaths than any other district attorney in the nation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And many did actually go to their deaths. According to records compiled by the Fair Punishment Project, 30 of those prisoners were executed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That might have presented an ethical burden to some, but not to Macy. As he sat beneath his Tombstone poster, he ruminated on the “patriotic duty” of prosecutors to aggressively pursue death sentences. He was proud of having sent a 16-year-old, Sean Sellers, to the death chamber before the US supreme court banned the execution of juveniles in 2005.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/29/us-deadliest-prosecutors-death-penalty-five-attorneys-justice-system" target="_blank">Click here to read the full article</a></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: The Guardian, Ed Pilkington, June 30, 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>

H. McCollum L. Brown North Carolina Oklahoma Pennsylvania Prosecution misconduct Texas USA America's deadliest prosecutors: five lawyers, 440 death sentences

Bob Macy of Oklahoma County Harvard report highlights the lion-sized role in modern death penalty of just four men and a woman, and how capi...

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Oklahoma: Jurors choose death penalty for Oklahoma City man convicted of rapes, murder

<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/AVvXsEizhsxOghf6t_EoulQnD5iQwJ7LVIj-Aj8mpOIUM2avsA_gVKlkW93p43TVsaHOap36Sdov4UqUuSLM8kJOCG25_6L-prDAGo6gH4HEH0kEfo0LORQJ2AwdqtAttbfyjLTlzrfWhVlTMPk/s1600/Oklahoma+death+chamber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Oklahoma death chamber" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizhsxOghf6t_EoulQnD5iQwJ7LVIj-Aj8mpOIUM2avsA_gVKlkW93p43TVsaHOap36Sdov4UqUuSLM8kJOCG25_6L-prDAGo6gH4HEH0kEfo0LORQJ2AwdqtAttbfyjLTlzrfWhVlTMPk/s400/Oklahoma+death+chamber.jpg" title="Oklahoma death chamber" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oklahoma death chamber</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">Jurors on Wednesday chose the death penalty as punishment for an Oklahoma City man convicted of raping his girlfriend and her friend before fatally beating the friend.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Oklahoma County jury deliberated less than an hour.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last week, the jurors found Albert Ray Johnson, 49, guilty of 1 count of 1st-degree murder, 1 count of assault and battery with intent to kill, 2 counts of forcible oral sodomy, 2 counts of 1st-degree rape, 2 counts of forcible anal sodomy, 2 counts of kidnapping and 1 count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After convicting Johnson last week, the jury chose life in prison as punishment for each count except the count of murder. Jurors on Wednesday decided the punishment of death for the murder count after listening to closing arguments.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Prosecutors said Johnson forced his girlfriend to invite over a female friend so he could "rape and kill" her. Johnson was accused of threatening to kill his girlfriend and her 8-year-old daughter if she didn't comply with his request.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The former girlfriend testified during the trial and told the jury she was forced to call her friend, Rachel Rogers, 24, to her home in The Village. Prosecutors said the call to Rogers occurred about 1:30 a.m. June 13, 2014.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When Rogers arrived at the home shortly after the call, Johnson pulled her inside and put a knife to her throat, the girlfriend testified. The victim said Johnson then raped both of them at knifepoint.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After the rapes, Johnson tied up the women and beat them with metal objects, prosecutors said. Johnson fatally beat Rogers with a dumbbell, "crushing her face," prosecutors said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: The Oklahoman, June 23, 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>

Oklahoma USA Oklahoma: Jurors choose death penalty for Oklahoma City man convicted of rapes, murder

Oklahoma death chamber Jurors on Wednesday chose the death penalty as punishment for an Oklahoma City man convicted of raping his girlfriend...

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7th Oklahoma death row inmate now eligible for execution date

<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/AVvXsEh_Ft0ztXGrsuu5sUplIO9Xf1Ueo6opr-mKL_OgKIUpEkx9UlltAQ6Yx2XMmA8FoUxFaBIz7olFyoAUnYMFhPyXtSDux2EJlg83yFhwj_8HHpsgyExAleuSDMkLa4fO7YX5imJeJcUq_Bc/s1600/The+Oklahoma+State+Penitentiary+in+McAlester.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Oklahoma State Penitentiary" border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Ft0ztXGrsuu5sUplIO9Xf1Ueo6opr-mKL_OgKIUpEkx9UlltAQ6Yx2XMmA8FoUxFaBIz7olFyoAUnYMFhPyXtSDux2EJlg83yFhwj_8HHpsgyExAleuSDMkLa4fO7YX5imJeJcUq_Bc/s400/The+Oklahoma+State+Penitentiary+in+McAlester.jpg" title="Oklahoma State Penitentiary" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oklahoma State Penitentiary</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the final appeal on Monday of Oklahoma death row inmate Scott Eizember, whose 2003 crime spree resulted in the deaths of an elderly couple.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since Eizember has exhausted his appeals, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt would normally ask the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to set an execution date.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, Pruitt has asked that all executions be delayed until the Oklahoma Department of Corrections finishes a report on the state's lethal injection process. Pruitt told the state appeals court in January that it would be inappropriate to move forward with executions while the protocol is being investigated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pruitt said he would not request an execution date until at least 150 days after the corrections department has issued its report.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state has not executed an inmate since January 2015.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are now 7 Oklahoma death row inmates who have exhausted their appeals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The investigation of the state's lethal injection protocol was prompted by the discovery that a pharmacy had delivered the wrong drugs for the Sept. 30 execution of Richard Glossip.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Before that, the constitutionality of the state's lethal injection protocol had gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and was narrowly upheld. The challenge stemmed from the trouble-plagued execution in 2013 of Clayton Lockett.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Eizember, who is now 55, was given the death penalty for killing A.J. Cantrell in the Creek County town of Depew.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Eizember had taken Cantrell and his wife, Patsy, hostage in their home; A.J. Cantrell grabbed his shotgun and shot at Eizember, but his shot killed his own wife. Eizember then beat Cantrell to death with the gun.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Eizember was convicted of 2nd-degree felony murder for Patsy Cantrell's death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After killing Cantrell, he shot a man and beat a woman who were related to his ex-girlfriend and lived across the street from the Cantrells. After days in hiding, he forced a couple to drive him to Texas, then beat the husband and tried to shoot the wife before he was captured.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his arguments last year that 2 jurors in his trial should have been excused because they were improperly biased in favor of the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined without comment to review the appeals court decision.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: The Oklahoman, June 14, 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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Oklahoma State Penitentiary The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the final appeal on Monday of Oklahoma death row inmate Scott Eizember, whose 20...

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Death penalty chaos around the country

<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimYBP1BQaJwUCowTHuxQQorJRyiEcc6q7eX0TUJ5lX96FIQnguLq0khhNt3iMnMeazKt88AopltRg1vzEKFVywVEU6Mo_MSYp2OksGSjgLRUookvEU7xLU-b3cOwTFUuAO5F3ef2KECjY/s1600/death+penalty+eliminated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimYBP1BQaJwUCowTHuxQQorJRyiEcc6q7eX0TUJ5lX96FIQnguLq0khhNt3iMnMeazKt88AopltRg1vzEKFVywVEU6Mo_MSYp2OksGSjgLRUookvEU7xLU-b3cOwTFUuAO5F3ef2KECjY/s400/death+penalty+eliminated.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Nevada just became the ninth death penalty state to go a decade or more without an execution. Add those nine to the 19 states without capital punishment, and you have 28 states that have abandoned executions in either law or practice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And in the remaining states? The death penalty is in complete chaos.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Florida’s death penalty law has already been thrown out twice in 2016. The first ruling came from the U.S. Supreme Court in January. The Florida legislature then passed a “fix” to the law, and last month a Miami judge threw it out again. Alabama’s death penalty law is similar to Florida’s, and the Supreme Court sent a death sentence back for review for the third time this week because of those similarities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Meanwhile, prosecutors in Georgia have come under fire for illegally keeping African Americans off the jury in a death penalty case. The Supreme Court overturned the sentence with a vote of 7-1. The defendant is one of many black men sentenced to die by an all-white jury across the south.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lethal injection debacles continue as states struggle to find drugs, hide their processes in secrecy, or carry out executions with outright “systemic ineptitude.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Oklahoma is back at the heart of the lethal injection controversy. A grand jury released 106 pages of scathing critiques last month, citing “inexcusable failures” in the state’s execution process. According to the Washington Post, the grand jury:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“…paints these officials as careless and, in some cases, reckless. The missteps described by the grand jury include a pharmacist ordering the wrong drug for executions, multiple state employees failing to notice or tell anyone about the mixup and a high-ranking official in the governor’s office urging others to carry out an execution even with the incorrect drug.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The same secrecy and lack of oversight found in Oklahoma is common in other states, too, and has contributed to execution problems in Missouri, Georgia, and Ohio.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And now Pfizer, the last remaining, FDA-approved supplier of lethal injection drugs, declared it no longer wants to be in the execution business. Pfizer announced sweeping new restrictions on the distribution of some if its drugs, preventing them from being used in executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The last death penalty holdouts show that the only way to have a death penalty is to accept bias, ineptitude, and arbitrariness. It’s only a matter of time before the death penalty is gone for good.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: <a href="http://ejusa.org/death-penalty-chaos-around-the-country/" target="_blank">Equal Justice USA</a>, Sarah Craft, June 7, 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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Nevada just became the ninth death penalty state to go a decade or more without an execution. Add those nine to the 19 states without capita...

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