The StandDown Texas Project

Former Prosecutor Backs Dunlap Commutation

"CO's Death Penalty System Too Broken to Use: Commute Dunlap's Sentence," is Richard Bloch's essay at Huffington Post.  He's the former Arapahoe County Chief Deputy District Attorney.

In the twenty years I spent with the Arapahoe County District Attorney's Office, I prosecuted dozens of homicides, including three death penalty cases. Based on my experiences, I believe that Colorado does not need and should not use capital punishment to maintain our public safety. I hope that Governor Hickenlooper commutes Nathan Dunlap's death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Having worked on many homicides, visited dozens of murder scenes, and, most importantly, spoken to many people who have committed violent actions against others, I understand from personal experience what so many studies show: that there is no evidence whatsoever that the death penalty deters crime and enhances public safety.

My work experience convinces me that the threat of a death sentence does not deter criminal activity. In my years as a prosecutor and in my subsequent private legal practice, I have observed that some of the most egregious crimes are committed due to mental illness, desperation, overwhelming emotions, and political extremism -- none of which are subject to rational cost/benefit calculations, like weighing potential criminal sentencing consequences.

And:

Our system is broken. Something is clearly wrong with our state when all the death sentences are coming out of one county. We are in a crisis when our state, which is 4.3 percent African-American, has a death row that is 100 percent African American. A broken system has produced flawed results.

One of these results is Nathan Dunlap's death sentence. That is why I join so many other individuals and groups speaking out to support clemency in this case. The crime he committed was horrific, and he should spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole, to ensure public safety and severe punishment for his crimes. Yet we cannot ignore that the system that sentenced Mr. Dunlap to die is a system in crisis. Colorado can do better; Colorado is better than that.

Westword posts, "Nathan Dunlap clemency backers cite broad support as calls for death continue," by Michael Roberts.

The campaign to either save Nathan Dunlap from the death penalty or execute the man convicted of four brutal murders at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in 1993 has turned into something of a public-relations competition. As the Arapahoe District Attorney's Office continues to dole out statements from victims and associates who believe he deserves the ultimate punishment, Dunlap's advocates are working to humanize him even as they emphasize broad support for Governor John Hickenlooper to alter his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

You can view the clemency petition and other supporting documents in Nathan Dunlap's case at the link.

Earlier coverage of Nathan Dunlap's case begins at the link.

Colorado News

"Gov. Hickenlooper boxed in on Nathan Dunlap," is the latest from Denver Post columnist Vincent Carroll.

We are used to impassioned rhetoric by those who oppose the death penalty. But George Brauchler, district attorney for the 18th Judicial District that includes Arapahoe County, and Matt Maillaro, his senior chief deputy who co-signed the letter to the governor, have no trouble mustering indignation of their own against those who would spare Nathan Dunlap, whose execution has been set for the week of Aug. 18.

Brauchler and Maillaro's 32-page rebuttal to Dunlap's plea for clemency is a tour de force of controlled but heated — and occasionally sarcastic — argument. And nowhere are they more effective than on racial bias.

I say that as someone who in February argued that the governor should commute Dunlap's sentence to life in prison without parole, which is what his attorneys officially requested this month. The death penalty in Colorado is rarely pursued and even more rarely achieved (exactly one execution since 1967), giving it a random, peculiar quality that mocks our commitment to equality before the law.

But racist is another matter.

And:

Hickenlooper could of course base his commutation on the the theory that "Mr. Dunlap was not cold or cruel," as his lawyers argue. "He was sick. He was a teenager suffering from bipolar disorder and psychosis, in the grip of his first full-blown manic episode" — and the jury never knew it. Brauchler and Maillaro pour scorn on that claim, too, and maybe the governor can determine which side's experts are more credible.

And if not? Then our broken death-penalty system — the one the governor intervened to save — will stagger into action and execute someone for only the second time in 46 years.

Earlier coverage of Nathan Dunlap's case begins at the link.

Denver Post Editorial Calls for Commutation in Dunlap Case

"Sympathy for Nathan Dunlap? No. Clemency? Yes.," is the Denver Post editorial.

Hickenlooper ought to grant the petition, but not because Dunlap is a miscast character caught in bad circumstances, no matter how hard his lawyers have worked hard to portray him in a sympathetic light.

He should spare Dunlap's life and relegate him to spend the rest of his days in prison because the death penalty is fundamentally wrong, and its application in Colorado is arbitrary.

Recently, two law professors at University of Denver studied the outcome of murder cases in Colorado. They examined 544 first-degree cases from 1999 to 2010 and found the death penalty was a punishment option in 92 percent of cases. However, prosecutors pursued the death penalty at trial in only 1 percent of cases.

And:

As recently as December, Hickenlooper expressed mixed feelings about the death penalty. "I wrestle with this, right now, on a pretty much daily basis," he said at the time.

We hope the governor concludes the arbitrary nature of the death penalty in Colorado is a strong enough argument to grant Dunlap clemency. The sporadic taking of life in the name of the state is not justice.

The Boulder Daily Camera publishes an OpEd, "Faith directs us to support clemency for Nathan Dunlap," written by Rabbi Joseph Black and the Rev. Jim Ryan.

For us, as men of God and leaders of our congregations of Colorado faithful, it is deeply troubling that our state may move forward with the execution of Nathan Dunlap. Our calling to serve God involves a responsibility to seek justice, and we must be especially mindful of our role in supporting the poor and the weak, while advocating for fairness for all. Despite his terrible crime and the suffering he caused, we pray that Mr. Dunlap will receive executive clemency and will serve his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

While our faith compels us to reject violence in all forms, we find the death penalty, an act of violence that is premeditated and carried out in our names, particularly abhorrent. We would be remiss in our spiritual commitment if we did not speak out about our belief that Mr. Dunlap's life should be spared.

And:

Our moral responsibility to our congregations and to all our fellow citizens is to strive to live in accordance with our own inner holiness. We work to make our society civilized, just, and merciful. We cannot condone or accept the execution of any person in our names. Such an execution would coarsen us and corrode our civic morality. As men of faith, we are commanded to speak out when we see injustice in our world. Because of this spiritual commitment, we respectfully ask Governor Hickenlooper to commute Nathan Dunlap's sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. We strongly believe this is the merciful, moral, and just action, which is in accordance with the teachings of our faiths.

KUSA-TV posts, "Family of Chuck E. Cheese killer Nathan Dunlap pleads for clemency," by Will Ripley.

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper will be reviewing a stack of documents in the Nathan Dunlap case.

Dunlap killed four people at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese on Dec. 14, 1993 and is set to be executed the week of Aug. 18.

Dunlap's petition for clemency includes never-before-seen interviews with his family.

Dunlap's defense team is trying to make case that years of psychological and sexual abuse led to his mental illness.

"Nathan Dunlap clemency appeal blasted by Arapahoe District Attorney," is by Karen Augé at the Denver Post.

In an impassioned, at times angry, rebuttal to Nathan Dunlap's petition for clemency, Arapahoe District Attorney George Brauchler calls on the governor to "take the courageous step" and reject the condemned killer's appeal.

The appeal, which asserted that Dunlap suffers from severe mental illness and is remorseful, offered no new evidence for saving Dunlap's life, Brauchler wrote in a 32-page response delivered Friday afternoon.

"He took the lives of four Colorado citizens, and justice requires he now pays with his own," Brauchler wrote.

The Boulder Daily Camera posts the AP report, "DA: Colorado governor shouldn't grant clemency to Nathan Dunlap."

The district attorney of the office that prosecuted a death-row inmate who killed four employees at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in 1993 is among those asking Gov. John Hickenlooper to take the "courageous step" of rejecting his clemency petition.

Nathan Dunlap's lawyers are seeking clemency while also fighting in court to try to spare him from execution for the Aurora slayings, which happened during a robbery. They say their client had undiagnosed bipolar disorder at the time.

Several letters to Hickenlooper that were released Friday say Dunlap's death sentence should be carried out. They were from Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler and Senior Chief Deputy District Attorney Matt Maillaro; the jury foreman in a separate Colorado death penalty case; and state Rep. Rhonda Fields.

Earlier coverage of Nathan Dunlap's case begins at the link.

Calls for Clemency in Colorado

The Boulder Daily Camera publishes an editorial, "Clemency for Nathan Dunlap."  It's written by Erika Stutzman for the Camera editorial board.

The Camera editorial board wants the governor to commute Dunlap's sentence to life in prison with no chance of parole.

We had hoped that Colorado would join a growing list of states that have repealed their death penalties. Dunlap still would be on death row if it had.

We have come to believe, however, that Dunlap is a good example of some of the very reasons we have pressed for Colorado to repeal the penalty. And for that reason, letting him die in prison -- but not through lethal injection -- is appropriate.

On Thursday, Maryland became the sixth state in just six years -- and the 18th state in the country -- to abolish the death penalty. These states have concluded that the death penalty is both capricious and racially biased.

"Defense: Colo man convicted of killing 4 in 1993 had bipolar disorder, should not be executed," is the AP report, via the Republic.

Lawyers for a man convicted of the 1993 ambush slayings of four people say he had undiagnosed bipolar disorder at the time and shouldn't be executed.

Nathan Dunlap's attorneys formally asked Gov. John Hickenlooper for clemency on Monday.

And:

Hickenlooper hasn't said how he would respond to a request for clemency. He met Friday and Saturday with victims' family members and others to hear their views.

Advocates for Nathan Dunlap issued the news release, "Former Judges and Prosecutors, Faith Leaders, the NAACP, CO Latino Forum, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Academics and Others Call on Governor Hickenlooper to Commute Nathan Dunlap’s Death Sentence to Life In Prison Without the Possibility of Parole."  Here's the text:

Citing racial bias, geographic concentration, and disproportionate usage in Colorado’s application of capital punishment, more than 20 former judges and prosecutors, faith leaders representing hundreds of Colorado congregations, the NAACP of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, the Colorado Latino Forum, the nation’s largest mental health advocacy organization, 75 academics from 6 Colorado universities, international voices and many others called today on Governor John Hickenlooper to commute Nathan Dunlap’s death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
 
The letters supporting clemency from the hundreds of distinguished Coloradoans accompanied a clemency petition filed today by Mr. Dunlap’s attorneys with the Governor’s office. A number of prominent individuals have signed letters in support of clemency, including former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Jean Dubofsky, former Arapahoe County Deputy District Attorney Richard Bloch, Archbishop of Denver, Samuel J. Aquila, Rabbi Joseph Black of Temple Emanuel, Pastor Patrick L. Demmer of the Ministerial Alliance of Denver, Reverend Dr. Jim Ryan of the Colorado Council of Churches, which represents over 850 member congregations, and many others have reached out to the Governor to express support for clemency, including renowned human rights leader and recipient of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
 
“We… urge you to grant clemency because the death penalty in Colorado is deeply flawed,” states a letter to Governor Hickenlooper, signed by former judges. “These facts depict a system that acts in an arbitrary fashion, based on factors such as race and geography…..Assuming that the death penalty may sometimes be appropriate, there is no principled reason for it to be applied in the circumstances of this case.”
 
The clemency petition also includes affidavits by several of the jurors from Mr. Dunlap’s trial who now say that if they had all the information at trial, they may not have voted for death.
 
In December 1993, Mr. Dunlap committed a horrific crime, killing four people and seriously injuring another. As the letters in support of clemency make clear, Mr. Dunlap should serve life in prison without the possibility of parole, and should never experience freedom again. The widespread support for clemency in his case reflects a consensus that Colorado’s death penalty system is broken.
 
Many of the supporters for clemency express concern in their letters that the death penalty in Colorado is not used proportionally, and it is concentrated geographically and by the profile of the prisoner, with racial bias and a bias towards younger offenders. Mr. Dunlap’s case exemplifies this unjust system. In a state that is only 4.3% African American, Colorado’s death row is 100% African American. Of the 64 counties in the state of Colorado, only one county, Arapahoe, is responsible for all the current death sentences in the state. All three men on Colorado’s death row committed their crimes when they were under the age of 21. A recent study of every murder conviction in Colorado from 1999-2010 found that while the death penalty was an option in 92% of those cases, prosecutors chose to pursue the sentence through the sentencing phase in less than 1% of cases.
 
“It appears that race, geography and youth largely determines who gets the death penalty in Colorado,” states a letter from the Colorado-Montana-Wyoming State Conference of the NAACP. “This is wrong and it must end….The death penalty in America has long been administered in a racially biased manner. Since its inception, people of color have been disproportionately condemned to death…”
 
“The very emblematic symbol of justice is a lady blindfolded, holding scales of justice in her hands, which is designed to suggest that justice sees neither your race, creed, color, nor your social standing, but that in Colorado is obviously not true, unless we are to believe that only African-Americans are worthy of the death penalty,” wrote Pastor Patrick L. Demmer, former President of the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance and Senior Pastor of the Graham Memorial Community Church of God in Christ.
 
Colorado has executed only one person in the last 45 years. If Mr. Dunlap is executed during the week of August 18 - 24, 2013, he will be the first person put to death in Colorado since 1997. Supporters for clemency cite serious concerns over the proportionality of capital punishment in Colorado.
 
“The arbitrary application of Colorado’s death penalty makes Mr. Dunlap’s sentence unacceptable and antithetical to the rule of law,” state 75 Colorado university professors in their letter in support of clemency.
 
The clemency petition provides details of Mr. Dunlap’s history of mental illness, which was also noted as a cause of significant concern by many groups who support clemency, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the nation’s largest organization representing people with mental illness and their families.
 
Mr. Dunlap suffers from bipolar disorder, and his family has an extensive history of mental illness going back five generations, including his mother who also suffers from bipolar disorder. Since the Colorado Department of Corrections finally began treating Mr. Dunlap’s mental illness in 2006, his mental health has been stable and his behavior exemplary.
 
“…failure to present any evidence of Mr. Dunlap's serious mental illness or the role of that illness in his behavior clearly prevented the jury from fairly and accurately assessing his culpability. Indeed, the Colorado death penalty statute expressly provides that a defendant's mental state may be mitigating, even if his mental illness does not rise to level of legal insanity,” state former prosecutors from Colorado and around the country.
 
At trial, a unanimous decision by the jury was required to impose the death sentence. No information was presented about Mr. Dunlap’s mental health issues, despite the fact that he was likely experiencing a manic episode at the time of the crime. Mr. Dunlap was 19 years old at the time.
 
Notably, three jurors now say that if they had known about Mr. Dunlap’s mental illness, it may have affected their decisions. Under Colorado law, if only one of them had not voted for death, Mr. Dunlap would not face execution today.
 
“Executions harm society by mirroring and reinforcing existing injustice. The death penalty distracts us from our work towards a just society. It deforms our response to violence in the individual, familial, institutional, and systemic levels. It perpetuates cycles of violence,’” states Lutheran Bishop James Gonia, one of 65 Bishops in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with over 4 million members. “Please be merciful and allow Nathan Dunlap to live out his natural life.” 
 
A letter signed by 18 Rabbis adds, “As members of a religious minority whose history is replete with injustice under the law, we are deeply concerned about how the death penalty is applied in Colorado…. As Colorado and other states continue to wrestle with our nation’s legacy of racial injustice, our citizens must be assured that desire for justice and our faith are never at odds.”
 
In the words of Archbishop of Denver, Samuel J. Aquila, “I pray that we will be a just society…rather than resorting to the violence of execution.”
 
Governor Hickenlooper has the power to stop Mr. Dunlap’s execution and commute his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Earlier coverage of Nathan Dunlap's case begins at the link.

Baltimore Sun: The Case Against Capital Punishment

That's the title of the Baltimore Sun editorial.  It has the sub-head: "The death penalty is arbitrary, prone to error, hard on the families of murder victims and ultimately immoral."

The Maryland Senate's vote today to repeal the death penalty was a milestone in an effort to remove from the law a sentence that puts vengeance above justice, fails to deter crime and provides for the families of victims not the closure they crave but instead years of frustration and heartache. With the 27-20 vote — a solid majority that included two Republicans and 25 Democrats — repeal supporters are already looking ahead to the possibility that Maryland could provide momentum for ending capital punishment in other states, and ultimately help convince the Supreme Court that the death penalty is cruel and unusual.

And:

Proponents of capital punishment contend that it affords true justice for the families of murder victims. But as a practical matter, it offers years of frustration and heartache. Death is the one punishment that cannot be taken back, so the criminal justice system has no choice but to afford substantial opportunities for post-conviction review. The decades of delay in the cases of some Maryland death row inmates are unusual, but the average time from sentencing to execution nationally is nearly 15 years, according to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Finally, and most profoundly, is the moral question. Is it right for the state to punish killing by killing? Capital punishment proponents say yes, that some people commit crimes of such profound evil that they forfeit their right to live in our society. But that can be accomplished with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Capital punishment serves not to render judgment on a killer's humanity but to diminish ours. It should be abolished.

Here are links to addtional news coverage of yesterday's vote by the Maryland Senate to repeal the state's death penalty.

Today's Wall Street Journal reports. "Maryland Moves to End Executions." It's by Ashby Jones.  There is an infographic at the link.

Maryland's Senate voted on Wednesday to repeal the death penalty, moving the state closer to becoming the sixth since 2007 to abolish capital punishment.

The vote in Maryland came amid deepening uncertainty over the death penalty, which was reinstated in many states after it was upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976.

While Maryland and 32 other states retain the power to sentence inmates to death, capital punishment faces a host of challenges, from the growing number of exonerations of convicts—often because of new DNA evidence—to the cost of prosecuting capital defendants to shortages of drugs used in lethal injections.

Since 2007, the death penalty has been abolished in five states: Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York.

"Maryland takes step to end capital punishment," is the Los Angeles Times report by Michael Muskal.

"Senate votes 27-20 to abolish death penalty," is by Steve Lash of the Daily Record.  There is a roll call listing of the final Senate vote at the link.

AFP posts, "Maryland moves to abolish death penalty," written by Romain Jeanticou in Washington, DC.

Earlier coverage of the historic Maryland Senate vote begins at the link.

An Update From Colorado

Denver Post columnist Vincent Carroll writes, "Let Hick grant clemency."  Here's an extended excerpt:

Imagine this unlikely scenario: Our supremely secular Colorado governor receives unsolicited moral advice from a Catholic prelate — and takes it seriously.

But it happened, according to John Hickenlooper's recent account on Colorado Public Radio. When Archbishop Charles Chaput left town 18 months ago for Philadelphia, he invited the governor to breakfast, where they spent a "significant amount of time" talking about the death penalty.

When Hickenlooper told Chaput he'd always been "sort of an eye for an eye person," Chaput retorted that "there's no language like that anywhere in the New Testament," adding that "to a large extent, Catholic theology is based upon forgiveness, and that only God has a right to make that decision."

"Just keep looking inside yourself," was Chaput's parting advice. "Just keep thinking about it, keep talking about it, and [clarity on the issue] will come to you."

Clarity from the governor may be needed sooner rather than later now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of Nathan Dunlap, who sits on death row for the 1993 murder of four at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese. And while you can never count out a good defense team, Dunlap's time is running out. Arapahoe County prosecutors last week said they'd consult with the attorney general and then file a motion asking the district court to "lift the current stay of execution, issue a warrant and set a week for the execution."

But Hickenlooper can stop that execution and, when the time comes, should.

He should commute Dunlap's sentence to life in prison without parole even if he hasn't fully arrived at Chaput's view of the death penalty. It should be enough for the governor that Dunlap's execution would be singularly absurd, from almost any standpoint you care to examine.

Colorado may not officially have abolished the death penalty — yet — but it may as well have.

Clarity from the governor may be needed sooner rather than later now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of Nathan Dunlap, who sits on death row for the 1993 murder of four at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese. And while you can never count out a good defense team, Dunlap's time is running out. Arapahoe County prosecutors last week said they'd consult with the attorney general and then file a motion asking the district court to "lift the current stay of execution, issue a warrant and set a week for the execution."

But Hickenlooper can stop that execution and, when the time comes, should.

He should commute Dunlap's sentence to life in prison without parole even if he hasn't fully arrived at Chaput's view of the death penalty. It should be enough for the governor that Dunlap's execution would be singularly absurd, from almost any standpoint you care to examine.

Colorado may not officially have abolished the death penalty — yet — but it may as well have.

"Colorado Death Penalty Called Unconstitutional By Attorneys, Scholars," is by Scot Kersgaard for the Colorado Independent.  It's via Huffington Post.

Colorado’s death penalty is not only massively expensive, critics say it is also unconstitutional because it is so randomly sought.

A study released last year by DU Law Professors Justin Marceau and Sam Kamin showed that from 1999 to 2010, 92 percent of 544 Colorado murders had at least one of the aggravating factors that need to be present for a defendant to be eligible for death, yet the death penalty was sought in only five of those cases — less than 1 percent.

The study was commissioned by Edward Montour’s legal defense team, and thus paid for by the state. Montour, already serving life without parole, is fighting to stay off of death row for a murder committed in prison.

One of his attorneys, David Lane, argues that while the Supreme Court has instructed states to narrow the field of who qualifies for the death penalty, Colorado has done the opposite, creating so many aggravating factors that death could be sought in just about every murder committed in Colorado. With 92 percent of Colorado murder cases being eligible for the death penalty, but with death being sought so rarely in the state, Lane says, “The only check is prosecutorial discretion.”

He notes that the only Colorado death filings recently have come from the 18th Judicial District of Douglas and Arapahoe counties where he says prosecutors “are in love with the death penalty.” With only one judicial district ever seeking the death penalty, Lane says the death penalty is pursued randomly in Colorado, thus making it unconstitutional.

Earlier coverage from Colorado begins at the link.

Ohio Task Force Continues Work Today

"Task Force On Capital Punishment To Meet Thursday," is the AP report, via WOUB-FM.

A state Supreme Court task force analyzing the effectiveness of Ohio's capital punishment law plans another meeting Thursday as part of its yearlong review.

Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor has convened the task force while making clear it won't debate whether the state should have the death penalty.

The committee of prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and death penalty experts is looking at a variety of issues, from how the law affects minorities to the role of clemency.

The committee also is studying whether death sentences are proportional, meaning that any one death sentence is similar to others that have also been handed down.

Earlier coverage of the Ohio Task Force begins at the link.  The Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio's Death Penalty website has additional information and future meeting dates.

Prosecutors on Capital Punishment

Prosecutors wield enormous power in charging decisions; some prosecutors are more aggressive in seeking a death sentence than others.  This exercise in prosecutorial discretion leads to a geographic disparity between jurisdictions in the application of capital punishment.

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports, "Death penalty policy changes for Jefferson County," by Jason Riley.  Here's the beginning:

For more than 15 years, the policy in the Jefferson County prosecutor’s office was fairly simple: Seek the death penalty in every murder case that qualified for it, unless there was a compelling reason not to.

Now, that policy — which defense attorneys argued was often a waste of time and money — is changing.

Newly elected Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Wine said he is implementing a more “intense selection” process and additional criteria for choosing capital cases — including the likelihood of jurors recommending the death sentence, given the evidence in the case.

Wine said he also may try something done in federal court in which prosecutors meet first with defense attorneys who want to present evidence and mitigating factors as to why they shouldn’t seek the death penalty.

“I feel like I’m given a certain amount of discretion, and I plan to exercise that discretion,” Wine said in an interview.

Attorneys who for years have prepared defenses for death-penalty cases only to see the charges reduced before trial welcome the shift.

“You ought to make sure the guy deserves it and you think there is a reasonable chance the jury would actually do it,” said public defender Mike Lemke, noting that it has been years since a Jefferson Circuit Court jury has handed down the sentence.

"Prosecutor: Death penalty system unfair to victims," is the AP report, via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Landis Shippert, of Platte City, thinks O'Dell should die for his crimes, but he said the prospect of spending the next several years in courtrooms listening to graphic details of his daughter's brutal slaying was too much for his family to bear.

"I'm a very faithful person and the Bible tells us we have to forgive," Shippert said. "One day I wanted to hate him, but I just can't. His family has lost a member, too."

Platte County prosecutor Eric Zahnd said he accepted O'Dell's offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence to spare the Shippert family of the continued nightmare of a capital murder trial. He said the state's death penalty process "puts victims' families in a tragic dilemma."

Zahnd, president of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, said the organization is looking for ways to streamline the system and cut out some of the appeals — especially in cases like O'Dell's in which the defendant confessed and was guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.

He said a bill filed by state Sen. Joe Keaveny, a St. Louis Democrat, to address costs of death penalty cases could open the door for a broader discussion of the state's capital punishment system.

Keaveny, a death penalty opponent, agreed that if his bill is approved, the results of an audit could lead to further discourse.

"If it's as expensive as I think it is, I would hope it sparks a much broader debate on the viability of the death penalty," Keaveny said. "We need to take some of the emotion out of criminal prosecutions, and in my mind, the death penalty is strictly driven by emotion.

Related posts are in the geographic disparity and prosecution index.

Maryland and the Death Penalty

That's the title of an editorial published in the New York Times on Saturday.

Maryland’s governor, Martin O’Malley, chose Jan. 15, the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., to announce his determination to repeal the state’s law allowing capital punishment. “Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence,” he said, quoting Dr. King.

The death penalty does not deter murders, the governor said, since states with the penalty have had higher murder rates than states without it. And prosecuting a capital case in Maryland costs three times as much as pursuing a homicide conviction that carries a sentence of life without parole. In short, the penalty has been a huge waste of taxpayer money on a policy that manifestly does not work. Significantly, he said, the state has gathered sobering proof that its use of the death penalty has been so unfair — so arbitrary and capricious — as to be unjust and immoral.

The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment reported in 2008 that the “administration of the death penalty clearly shows racial bias” and that the chances of a state prosecutor’s “seeking and imposing a death sentence differs alarmingly across jurisdictions in Maryland, even when the cases are similar.”

In addition, the reversal rate in Maryland death penalty cases has been stunningly high; it was 80 percent for the years 1995 to 2007, the commission reported. Prosecutors have withheld potentially exculpatory evidence. Judges have made decisions that were unfair to defendants. The police have forced involuntary confessions.

And:

As Governor O’Malley said: “We know what does not work. And we know that the way forward is always found through greater respect for the human dignity of all.”

The Baltimore Sun reports, "Death penalty repeal gains 4 co-sponsors over 2012," by Michael Dresser.

The Maryland Senate moved a little closer to a majority willing to vote for full repeal of the death penalty Friday as 21 senators -- four more than last year -- agreed to co-sponsor the legislation in that chamber.

This year the bill also has the full-fledged support of Gov. Martin O'Malley, improving its chances of prevailing and moving over to the House of Delegates.

Twenty-four votes are needed to pass a bill in the Senate. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller has said he believes there is a majority in favor of repeal in his chamber and that he can round up the 29 votes to stop a filibuster. Though he opposes repeal, Miller has said he will bring the bill to the floor this year if the votes are there.

Earlier coverage from Maryland begins at the link.

More Calls for Review of Florida's Death Penalty

"Florida's death penalty needs fresh look," is the Tampa Bay Tribune editorial.

Five states have repealed the death penalty in the last five years, with Connecticut being the latest to do so in 2012. But as other states have become disenchanted with the ultimate punishment in light of so many wrongful convictions, Florida has moved in the opposite direction. Last year was the second straight that this state ranked first in the nation in new death sentences. There is no political will to follow the enlightened path of abolition, but Florida should analyze why it's such an outlier. One likely reason is that the state doesn't require a unanimous jury recommendation for a death sentence, and that should be corrected.

Florida sentenced 22 people to death last year. Compare that to the more populous states of California, which sentenced 14 inmates, and Texas, the state with the highest number of executions, which put only nine new inmates on death row last year, according to a report by the Death Penalty Information Center. The count raises Florida's death row to 408 inmates. But even as the state adds to death row, it is finding problems with the legal process that led to those convictions and sentences. Florida also leads the nation in the number of inmates who have had their death sentences reversed. Out of 142 such cases, Florida accounts for 24 exonerations, acquittals or charges subsequently dropped, according to the center. Some of these were people shown to be innocent of the crime. Frank Lee Smith, for instance, was exonerated posthumously. The real perpetrator was identified after Smith died from cancer after he spent the last 14 years of his life on death row.

For years, Raoul Cantero has been urging the state Legislature to require a unanimous jury recommendation for death sentences. Cantero, a former Florida Supreme Court justice who was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush, saw how haphazardly the death penalty is applied and how that can lead to potentially fatal errors.

Today's Hernando Today publishes the column, "Florida needs to debate the death penalty," written by Rhonda Swan.

It defies logic that taking life honors life.

For the second year in a row, Florida has sent more convicted killers to death row than any other state.

And acting Palm Beach County State Attorney Peter Antonacci would like to send more. His office is now seeking the death penalty for all first-degree murder cases.

There were 22 new death penalty cases this year in Palm Beach County.

"You have a dead human being," Antonacci told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He said that by not seeking the death penalty, "we have cheapened the value of human life."

There are many ways we cheapen the value of human life. Sexism, racism, ageism, discrimination against gays, the disabled, atheists and others with different or no religious views are but a few examples.

A political and economic system that allows millions to go without food, shelter and health care is another.

"Legislator wants to abolish capital punishment," is by Bill Cotterell for Florida Current.

An attorney-law professor who opposes capital punishment for pragmatic fiscal reasons, as well as legal and moral grounds,  reintroduced her bill Friday to abolish the death penalty in Florida.

Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, D-Tallahassee, said she's not just making a symbolic gesture.

"The more people we can get educated about the death penalty, I think they will realize that opposition is mostly political posturing, rather than good policy," she told The Florida Current. "I actually believe we can show people that it's not a good way to spend public money."

Rehwinkel Vasilinda, a Tallahassee Community College law instructor starting her third legislative term, introduces the bill every year without so much as a committee hearing. Just how tough a tactical battle she's facing was illustrated in 2011, she said, when she offered her bill on the House floor as an amendment to another criminal-justice proposal.

WFOR-TV posts, "Florida Democrat Files Bill To Kill State’s Death Penalty."

It’s illegal in 17 states, and a new bill by a House Democrat would make it illegal in Florida.

A measure (HB 4005) to end the death penalty in Florida was filed Friday by Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, D-Tallahassee, the News Service of Florida reports.

Rehwinkel Vasilinda said in a statement that the death penalty is not cost-effective and doesn’t deter crime.

“When you analyze the numbers, state-sponsored execution is not the correct answer,” said Rehwinkel Vasilinda, who said the state spends more than $50 million a year on death penalty cases.

Rep. Vasilinda's news release announcing the legislation is available in Adobe .pdf format.

Florda's Capitol News Service posts, "Unanimous Death Sentences." 

Tampa cop killer Humberto Delgado arrived on death row last year after his jury recommended he be put to death by an 8 to 4 vote. In December, William Davis’ jury split 7-5 even though he had asked them for death. Neither man would have received death in any of the other 32 states that have the death penalty.

That’s because thirty-one other states require all members of the jury to vote for death. The 32nd, Alabama,  requires at least 10 of the 12 jurors to say someone should die. Sheila Hopkins of the Florida Catholic Conference, says it is time for Florida to join the rest of the nation. “You know I think people should be very concerned and disturbed that potentially people who can be innocent would be given a death sentence”, says Hopkins.

Earlier coverage from Florida begins at the link.

Palm Beach Post Editorial

Today's Palm Beach Post publishes the editorial, "Decision to seek death penalty deserves more scrutiny."  It's written by Andrew Marra for the Post editorial board.

When Carey Haughwout, Palm Beach County’s longtime public defender, calls a courtroom policy “crazy,” that’s a pretty good sign it deserves scrutiny. When her target involves something as grave as the death penalty, that’s a clue it’s a matter of serious concern.

And “crazy” is precisely the word Ms. Haughwout used to describe a new policy at the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office that has prosecutors seeking the death penalty at the start of every first-degree murder case they prosecute — including some cases in which the accused clearly seems to suffer from mental illness.

As the Post’s Jane Musgrave reported, under this policy the number of death-penalty cases the office is prosecuting has doubled, from 12 in 2009 to 24 in 2012. And Ms. Haughwout and other defense attorneys say it makes prosecuting cases more expensive and leads to a host of complications for suspects, the victims’ families and the lawyers involved.

It didn’t always work this way. Under former State Attorney Barry Krischer, a committee of senior prosecutors reviewed first-degree murder cases to decide if the evidence and circumstances warranted pursuing the death penalty. The decision can be complex, with attorneys weighing a host of aggravating and mitigating circumstances such as the suspect’s prior criminal record and the extent to which a murder appeared premeditated.

Under interim State Attorney Peter Antonacci, who officially steps down this month when newly elected State Attorney Dave Aronberg takes over, this committee system has been discarded. Mr. Antonacci says that, as the office’s ultimate decision-maker, it ought to be left to him alone to decide when his office pursues the death penalty. And he has decided that, at least at the outset, the best tack is to seek the death penalty in all first-degree murder cases.

And:

Incoming State Attorney Dave Aronberg didn’t comment for the article but has said he intends to reimplement a committee system to make death penalty decisions. Doing so would be the best way to unwind what appears to have become a costly and antagonistic tactic.

Earlier coverage from Palm Beach County is in this Florida Roundup.

Florida Roundup

"Death Penalty Question Revisited," is the December 23 report from AP filed by Bill Kaczor.  It's via the Lakeland Ledger.

The Florida Supreme Court will be asked to take another look at how judges should determine whether a death row inmate is mentally disabled.

The issue divided the high court last week in a 4-2 opinion upholding Freddie Lee Hall's death sentence for murdering Karol Hurst, a 21-year-old pregnant woman who was abducted while leaving a Leesburg grocery store in 1978. A co-defendant is serving a life sentence.

Defense lawyer Eric Pinkard, who works for a state office that represents death row inmates, said Friday that he will ask for a rehearing and, if that fails, may take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The federal high court has prohibited the execution of mentally disabled inmates as unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment, but it has allowed states to determine what constitutes mental disability.

The majority of Florida justices ruled Thursday in Hall's case that they are bound by precedent set in earlier decisions prohibiting anyone with an IQ of 70 or higher from being declared mentally disabled, regardless of other evidence to the contrary.

The Palm Beach Post reported, "Lawyers question necessity, cost of local state attorney’s avid pursuit of the death penalty in murder cases," on December 26.  It's by Jane Musgrave.

With his arm wrapped tightly around his wife, Naomi, Gerard Gonsalves seemed to be protecting her from the looming possibility that the loss of one son could cost them the other.

At a recent court hearing, the West Palm Beach couple looked on as psychologists and psychiatrists told a judge what they already knew: Their 24-year-old son, Brandin, suffers from a panoply of mental ills.

Since he was diagnosed at age 13, they tried to get him help to deal with his demons. The search ended in July when Brandin stabbed his 25-year-old brother 69 times in a fatal attack he has said was ordered by God.

Still reeling from the loss, the couple is now confronted with another: The state wants to kill their youngest son for killing their firstborn.

The case underscores the problems with a system State Attorney Peter Antonacci instituted when he was appointed in March, some defense attorneys say. Now, instead of asking a committee of top prosecutors to review every case to determine which accused killer should die for his or her crime, the office automatically seeks the death penalty in all first-degree murder cases.

“It’s crazy,” said Public Defender Carey Haughwout, whose office defends the indigent and represents about half of those charged with murder. “There’s no review done before they file a notice to seek the death penalty. My concern is that it’s handled as a matter of course.”

Under the policy, the number of death penalty cases has doubled from 12 in 2009 to 24 this year. That means costs — both financial and human — have increased as well.

Haughwout and other defense attorneys say they hope the policy changes when State Attorney-elect Dave Aronberg takes office in January. Aronberg declined to discuss how he would decide which accused murderer deserves the death penalty. But on the campaign trail he promised to reinstitute the committee system that was used by his mentor, former longtime State Attorney Barry Krischer, who is helping him prepare to take office.

Three news articles focus on the 2012 DPIC report and Florida death sentences.  The South Florida Sun Sentinel published, "Florida leads nation in sending killers to Death Row," by Rafael Olmeda.  It's also available via Huffington Post.

Florida may be fourth in the nation when it comes to population, but we're still No. 1 when it comes to sending convicted killers to death row, according to a report from a national nonprofit group that studies the death penalty in America.

The Sunshine State sentenced 21 inmates to death in 2012 — more than California, more than Pennsylvania, and even more than Texas, which continues to lead in the number of inmates actually executed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

It's the second straight year in which Florida has held the top spot among the states that have a death penalty, but it still represents a big spike over last year, when we sent 13 people to death row. California came in second both years, having sent 10 inmates to death row in 2011 and 14 this year.

"Florida led the nation in death sentences in 2012, report says," by Jeff Weiner for the Orlando Sentinel.

A report by a national nonprofit group that studies the death penalty found that Florida remains among the most active states in using it and put more defendants on death row in 2012 than any other state.

The Death Penalty Information Center's report reveals that only nine states executed a prisoner this year, with Florida putting three to death. Texas, with 15, executed the most defendants, the report states.

However, the Sunshine State far exceeded other states in new death sentences: 21 defendants were sentenced to die in Florida through mid-December, the research says.

Also, "Report: Florida leads nation in new death penalty cases," is by Elaine Silvestrini for the Tampa Tribune.

As capital punishment declines in use and support nationwide, Florida leads the country in the number of death sentences handed down this year, according to a report by a group that advocates against the death penalty.

Florida judges sentenced 21 killers to death in 2012, followed by California with death sentences for 14 murderers, Texas with 9 and Pennsylvania with seven, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The four states accounted for 65 percent of the death sentences handed out in the United States.

Nationally, the number of death sentences issued was the second lowest since capital punishment was reinstated nationwide in 1976.

In Florida, Duval County sent the most inmates to death row this year, at four, according to information from the state Department of Corrections. Hillsborough and Pinellas counties each sent one person to death row this year.

Earlier coverage from Florida includes the year's final execution and questions of an inmate's competency to be executed.  Earlier coverage of the 2012 DPIC report is also available.

A Roundup of Repeal News Coverage From Colorado

It appears likely that Colorado state legislators will be taking up repeal legislation in their session this year.

"Death penalty: Representative Claire Levy says she is confident a repeal could pass," is Sam Levin's post for Westword.  Here's the beginning:

Before Representative Claire Levy proposes legislation to repeal the death penalty in Colorado, she wants to be sure that it can pass.

And after more discussions with her fellow lawmakers on the topic, she says it seems like the momentum is right to get rid of the death penalty -- even if one of her Democratic colleagues is adamantly opposed to the move.

"I can't say with certainty...but I'm getting more confident," Levy says. "Those of us who are sponsoring it want to be sure we are going to be able to pass it before we introduce it. We are getting in confident in that."

At a pre-legislative forum in December, reporters asked the leaders of the Colorado General Assembly whether it was likely that a proposal to repeal the death penalty would be considered this year. At the time, Democrats said it was a possibility and John Morse, the new president of the Senate, revealed that he would likely support a repeal, which he has opposed in the past.

And though the new legislative session hasn't yet begun, the possibility of a death penalty repeal has since gotten more attention, most recently with reports that Levy, a Democrat who represents Boulder, is exploring the potential for a bill.

Representative Rhonda Fields, an Aurora Democrat, told us last week that she has been and will remain strongly opposed to any efforts to get rid of the death penalty, calling the proposal "an insult to crime victims." For Fields, it is very personal: Two of the three inmates on death row in Colorado were responsible for the death of her son in 2005.

Today's Boulder Daily Camera endorses repeal in its editorial on the coming legislative session, "Colorado, 2013: Challenges and opportunities await." 

Some legislators have been talking about revisiting a bill to abolish the death penalty in Colorado, and such early talk has gotten some high-profile support including from Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett.

It's more expensive for the state to kill a murderer than to keep him in jail for life. The last time such a move was considered, the money saved from death penalty cases was going to be applied to reviewing cold cases. We agree with the death penalty opponents who argue that the punishment is unevenly applied and politicized; it wastes money and time; and that it doesn't serve as a deterrent to the types of crimes that qualify for it.

Last year, Connecticut became the 17th state to eliminate the death penalty, the fifth state to do so in just five years. Colorado should join that list.

The December 27 issue of the Denver Post also endorsed repeal in the editorial, "Why Colorado should end the death penalty."

Boulder state Rep. Claire Levy is reportedly testing the waters for a possible bill to end the death penalty in Colorado. We hope she takes the plunge. You can't pass legislation unless you try, and the stars may finally be aligned for success on this difficult issue.

As The Denver Post's Jessica Fender pointed out in an article Wednesday, several factors could work in favor of death-penalty opponents. Not only do Democrats control both the House and Senate, but Gov. John Hickenlooper has indicated he might be open to the idea. Although Hickenlooper did not support abolishing the death penalty when he ran for office in 2010, he now says that "capital punishment is another one of those things where I haven't come to rest on a position."

From our perspective, it would be better if the governor favored banning capital punishment outright, but maybe that's not far in the wings. In the meantime, if he's looking for reasons to embrace abolition, we'd be happy to help out.

Start with the fact that capital punishment is nearly extinct in Colorado already as a practical matter, with only one execution occurring in the past 45 years. Admittedly, part of the reason for this long dry spell has to do with court decisions at various times that pushed some inmates off death row. However, the bigger reason is that prosecutors don't often seek the death penalty and juries are reluctant to embrace it when they do.

The Denver Post news article referenced in the editorial is, "Death penalty foes may try to repeal Colorado's ultimate punishment," by Jessica Fender.  It's an excellent primer on the Colorado landscape.

Foes of capital punishment for months have quietly sought advice and support for a campaign to end Colorado's death penalty even as a series of horrific, high-profile murders have unfolded at home and nationwide.

Their adversaries — and some traditional allies — question the timing, saying fresh memories of mass shootings in Aurora and elsewhere, the slaying of 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway and other grisly crimes could turn lawmakers against potential legislation in 2013.

But those incidents could also strengthen efforts to end capital punishment, said state Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, who pointed out that the death penalty is either unlikely or impossible in many of the state's most recent cases.

"These are horrific crimes, but the death penalty will probably not be imposed. If anything, it reinforces the notion that (the death penalty) is outmoded," Levy said. "Why do we have this law on the books if it doesn't prevent these types of crimes?"

Three years after a prior attempt to end the death penalty failed, the political playing field looks more favorable, and advocates like Levy have added research critical of how the death penalty is applied to their arsenal.

On December 30, the Post reported, "Rep. Fields wants Colorado voters to decide death penalty question," also written by Fender.

A lawmaker who saw her son's killers sentenced to die says Colorado voters — and not 100 lawmakers under the state Capitol's golden dome — should decide whether to abolish the death penalty.

As state Rep. Rhonda Fields' Democratic colleagues attempt to gather support for ending capital punishment through legislation, she has started work on a bill that would put the death-penalty question on the 2014 ballot, she said.

Her counterproposal sets the stage for a political showdown on a traditionally touchy topic at the Capitol, where some key officials' stances against abolishing the death penalty have recently softened.

"Colorado lawmakers should not slam the door on justice for those who commit heinous crimes," Fields said. "I believe that society must be protected, and the voters should decide the fate of capital punishment."Colorado has executed one man since the death penalty was reinstated in Colorado in 1975. Three men currently wait on death row.

"Boulder DA in favor of axing death penalty," is written by Mitchell Byars for the Boulder Daily Camera.

As Colorado lawmakers consider repealing the death penalty, Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett said he would most likely be in favor of a bill doing away with capital punishment, a stance that is not surprising given Boulder's history -- or lack thereof -- with the practice.

Three years after a previous attempt to end the death penalty failed, some legislators -- including Boulder's Rep. Claire Levy -- have said they are once again looking into doing so. While Garnett said he would have to review the specific language of any proposed legislation to end it, he did say he supported doing away with the punishment.

"As the D.A. in Boulder I want to be a voice for a progressive approach to law enforcement and public safety," Garnett said. "I don't think the death penalty is a tool that is useful or should be a part of law enforcement in Colorado."

Garnett said the problem with the death penalty is a practical one. Very few cases ever meet the criteria to seek the death penalty, and because trials involving the death penalty take longer and often see more appeals, they cost prosecutors more to take to trial.

"If something is not working or not relevant, I tend to say, 'Why do we even have this on the books?'" Garnett said. "It just isn't used very often."

Westword reported on December 27, "Death penalty: As legislators consider repeal, John Morse says he's now supportive."  It's by Sam Levin.

With the new year comes a new legislative session, and there's already talk about a potential effort to repeal the death penalty in Colorado.

And John Morse, a Democrat and the new president of the Senate, says he is likely to support a repeal. This would be a major shift from his previous stance on the matter -- and it will be a personal struggle for him, he says.

And:

Representative Mark Ferrandino, the new speaker in Colorado, told reporters that he has spoken to both interest groups and other legislators about the death penalty, and said his opinion has not changed on the matter. "I voted in favor of a repeal and would continue to be in favor of repealing the death penalty," he said.

Earlier coverage from Colorado begins at the link.  Related posts are in the abolition and state legislation category indexes.

Connecticut Racial Bias Trial Resumes

"Conn. death penalty trial to resume," is the AP report, via the Danbury News Times.

A trial is scheduled to resume in the case of five Connecticut death row inmates who claim their prosecutions were fraught with racial and geographical biases.

The habeas corpus trial is set to continue Tuesday at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, with a video feed for the public available at Rockville Superior Court. The trial has been held on and off for the past three months.

Five of the 11 men on the state's death row claim their death penalties were prosecuted in arbitrary and discriminatory ways based on their race and where their trials were heard. Prosecutors deny the claims.

Six men on death row are black, four are white and one is Hispanic.

Earlier coverage from the racial bias trial begins at the link.  Additional Connecticut coverage is also available.

Connecticut Racial/Geographic Bias Trial Resumes

"Conn. death penalty trial to resume," is the AP report, via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

A trial is set to continue for Connecticut death row inmates who claim their prosecutions were fraught with racial and geographical biases.

Five of the 11 men on the state's death row are plaintiffs in the appeal trial being held at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers. The proceeding is set to resume Monday. It's been held on and off for the past two months, with a video feed for the public at Rockville Superior Court.

The inmates claim their death penalties were decided in arbitrary and discriminatory ways based on their race and where they were prosecuted. Prosecutors deny the claim.

Earlier coverage from Connecticut begins at the link.

Connecticut Racial Bias Trial Temporarily on Hold

"Death Penalty Bias Case Put On Hold," is Alaine Griffin's report in today's Hartford Courant.

The landmark case that challenges the death sentences of five of Connecticut's 10 death-row inmates based on racial and geographic bias was put on hold Wednesday because one of the expert witnesses is scheduled to travel out of the country.

Judge Samuel J. Sferrazza halted testimony in the trial's 13th day, saying evidence would resume later this month with additional witnesses and again in November when Stanford Law School Professor John J. Donohue III is expected to return from Italy.

Last month, Donohue – the inmates' key witness – testified that there are "strikingly large" disparities along racial and geographic lines when it comes to death penalty prosecutions in Connecticut. Attorneys for the inmates are planning to bring Donohue back to the witness stand.

The hiatus in the trial means the convicted killers - Sedrick Cobb, Todd Rizzo, Daniel Webb, Robert Breton Sr. and Richard Reynolds – may not know Sferrazza's decision on whether their death sentences should be overturned until the end of the year or early next year.

Battling experts' complex testimony – accompanied by numerical charts and tables – is at the heart of the case, which dates back two decades when Cobb first raised racial bias claims after he was sentenced to death for the 1989 rape and murder of 23-year-old Julia Ashe of Watertown.

And:

The trial began last month in an improvised courtroom in a prison dayroom at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, where death row is housed. The inmates, with their wrists and ankles shackled, sat with their attorneys during testimony.

Most of the testimony has come from Donohue and the state's expert, Stephan Michelson.

Donohue used his analysis of 4,700 murders in the state from 1973 to 2007 to bolster the inmates' claims that death sentences are influenced by race and geography instead of solely on the egregiousness of the crime and the culpability of the defendant.

Earlier coverage of the Connecticut racial bias trial begins at the line.

An Update From the Connecticut Racial Bias Trial

"State Witness To Dispute Death-Penalty Bias Evidence," is alaine Griffin's continuing coverage report for the Hartford Courant.

Testimony beginning Friday from a key state witness is expected to dispute a Stanford Law School professor's findings that he says shows racial and geographic bias play a part in how death penalty cases are prosecuted in Connecticut.

But lawyers for five of the state's 10 death-row inmates challenging their death sentences in a lawsuit said they will not only challenge the methodology of the work done by the state's expert witness, Stephan Michelson, but also they will question whether he is qualified to testify in a case about the death penalty.

The inmates' lawyers rested their case Thursday following days of direct questioning and cross-examination of Professor John J. Donohue III. Donohue, who has conducted studies and written about the impact law and public policy have on crime and criminal justice, has taught at Stanford and Yale.

Donohue testified that after reviewing nearly 4,700 murders in Connecticut from 1973 to 2007, he found that minority defendants in murder cases with white victims are three times more likely to receive a death sentence as white defendants in murder cases with white victims.

Donohue also testified that those eligible for death in the judicial district in Waterbury were sentenced to death at much higher rates than defendants tried elsewhere in the state.

Donohue's research showed that of the nearly 4,700 murders committed in those 34 years, 66 led to convictions of a capital felony and nine defendants received a death sentence.

Though state legislators in April abolished the death penalty for future offenses, the 10 men on death row and those with pending death-eligible cases still face execution. Last week, the state Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of the death penalty for the death-row inmates in light of the repeal. Those arguments will be made at a later date.

Earlier coverage of the Connecticut racial bias trial begins at the link; also available, news of the impact of repeal on existing death sentences.

Death Penalty in a State of Confusion

That's the title of an editorial published in the Sunday edition of the Durham Herald-Sun in North Carolina.

Stanley Peele, a columnist for The Herald-Sun and Chapel Hill Herald, wrote a three-part series on the death penalty that appeared in The Herald-Sun this week. He highlights a number of concerns with how the death penalty is implemented, and what the state of death row is today in North Carolina.

Death row is in limbo in North Carolina, thanks to a number of factors that have combined to result, in essence, in a moratorium on the death penalty in our state, in all but name.

No inmate has been put to death since Aug. 18, 2006, though 155 inmates remain on death row.

It is a relief that death row has ground to a halt. A system as rife with inconsistencies and potential unfairness as this one should not be used to deal out the ultimate punishment.

Peele, a judge who serves in an emergency capacity throughout the state, makes a number of compelling points in his series.

Defendants are more likely to get a death sentence in Wake County, which has 10 death row inmates, than Durham County, which has none.

About 149 cases stand to be litigated under the Racial Justice Act, a law that allows statistics to be used in order to show bias, and if bias is shown, a sentence would be reduced from death to life without parole. Those cases, Peele writes, may take years in some instances to decide. The Racial Justice Act was used in a case this year to reduce a sentence to life, although since that case it has been weakened by an amendment passed in July.

The state may be unable to find medical assistance to perform executions, with both the American Medical Association and North Carolina Medical Board opposed to having doctors attend. (North Carolina’s method of execution is lethal injection).

"Death sentences more likely in some counties than others," is the first of Stanley Peele's three-article series.

In North Carolina there were no executions between 1961 and 1984. Since then, we have had six years in which there were no executions, nine years in which there were one or two executions, five years with three executions, three years with four executions, and one year in which there were five executions.

There has been a marked drop in the number of death penalties imposed in North Carolina. In 1995, 34 prisoners were sent to death row. By 2007, the number dropped to seven; and starting with 2007, an average of 2.6 prisoners per year have gone to death row.

On Feb. 18, 2011, the death sentence of Isaac Jackson Stroud, of Durham, was commuted to life in prison without parole. The reason for this commutation was Stroud’s diminished mental state at the time of the murder. It is alleged that he could not understand why he was sentenced to death.

As a result, there are no prisoners from Durham County on death row.

It also means there are now eight counties in the central-northern part of the state that have no prisoners on death row. Those counties are Lee, Chatham, Orange, Durham, Person Granville, Vance, Warren and Franklin.

It is noteworthy that Wake County, which adjoins Durham and Orange Counties, has 10 prisoners on death row, the second-highest in the state. The county with the most people on death row is Forsyth with 13. Other counties with high numbers are: Cumberland with nine, Buncombe with eight, Randolph with eight and both Johnston and Gaston with seven. Fifty-six counties have prisoners on death row, and most of them have one or two prisoners there. Forty four counties have no death row prisoners.

Defendants have been more likely to get a death sentence in certain counties than others.

"Examining the death row population is complex," is the second article in the series.

There are 155 people on death row in North Carolina.

There have been no executions in North Carolina since Aug. 18, 2006. Is there a sensible way to deal with those on death row? Should they be kept there indefinitely?

Would it make sense to reduce the number of people on death row? And if this is done, how would it be done? One can say that this problem is so difficult that it nears impossibility. An attempt to rank them by the degree of cruelty or callousness of the offense for which they are on death row would be a grisly task, for the juries found all of them to be cruel and callous. Here are some possibilities:

The three-article series concludes with, "N.C. death penalty law remains in limbo."

There is a deadly war being fought. First, there are those who believe in the death penalty. Second, there are those who do not. Third, you have those in the middle. Some are undecided.

There are some legislators and judges who do not believe in the death penalty, but who cannot express their opinions. Legislators cannot express their opinion because they think to do so would be political suicide. Judges cannot do so because they are sworn to uphold the law.

There is a further complication. It is one thing to believe in the death penalty. Yet the closer a prisoner comes to an execution date, the more there is a tendency to be open to finding reasons to stay the execution.

The prospect of an actual execution weighs heavily upon us all.

Some judges may agree with the Michigan State University study citing bias in North Carolina death row cases, and other judges may disagree. If this happens, then we will have some prisoners who will be removed from death row and some who will not. This will mean our handling of death row cases will be unbalanced.

Earlier coverage from North Carolina begins at the link.  Thanks to Gerda Stein for distributing.

Related posts are in the geographic disparity and race indexes.

Connecticut Supreme Court to Examine Repeal Impact

"State Supreme Court To Consider If Death Penalty Repeal Should Affect Current Cases," is Alaine Griffin's breaking news report in the Hartford Courant.

The state Supreme Court has agreed to take up the issue of whether the recent repeal of Connecticut's death penalty can apply only to future crimes.

In a ruling Thursday, the state's highest court granted a request by Eduardo Santiago, whose death sentence was overturned in June, for written briefs and arguments on a legal filing that raises questions about the repeal's impact on those who committed capital crimes before the new law was passed.

The new law abolishes the death penalty for future capital crimes committed in Connecticut but allows executions for those who committed similar crimes before April, when the repeal took effect.

Thursday's ruling was issued as five of the 11 inmates on Connecticut's death row continue to fight their death sentences in a landmark habeas corpus trial being held at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers where death row is housed. The issue in that case is whether the death penalty has been implemented in a racially and geographically biased way.

It was not known early Friday whether Thursday's ruling would affect the trial.

Before the trial began, the inmates tried unsuccessfully to raise the issue of the repeal's impact on their death sentences. The judge said claims stemming from the repeal raise legal questions distinct from the evidence being presented at the habeas trial.

The Supreme Court on Thursday gave attorneys for Santiago until Nov. 13 to file briefs. The state will then have 60 days to respond. A hearing could be held sometime early next year.

Courant reporter Griffin has been covering the racial bias trial.  Her latest article is, "Witness: "Strikingly Large" Disparities In Death Penalty Cases."

A key witness for five death row inmates challenging the fairness of their death sentences testified Wednesday that there are "strikingly large" disparities along racial and geographic lines when it comes to the death penalty in Connecticut.

Stanford Law Prof. John J. Donohue III testified that minority defendants whose victims were white were three times more likely to receive a death sentence than white defendants whose victims were white.

Donohue reviewed 205 death-eligible cases in Connecticut from 1973 to 2007, including 141 in which the defendants were charged with capital felony, which made execution possible.

Where defendants are prosecuted is significant, too, Donohue testified, saying that one judicial district stood out - Waterbury. Those eligible for death there were sentenced at much higher rates than defendants tried elsewhere in state, he testified.

Donohue said former Waterbury State's Attorney John A. Connelly was "outspoken" about the death penalty and he was "criticized for his overzealousness." So, Donohue said, "looking at Waterbury was a natural thing to do."

In Waterbury, between 1973 and 2007, of the 12 death penalty eligible cases that were examined, four resulted in a death sentence, for a 33.3 percent rate. During that time, there were 193 death eligible cases in other areas of the state that were examined. Of those, five, or 2.6 percent, resulted in a death sentence.

Both Waterbury cases in which the defendant was a minority and the victim was white resulted in death sentences. In the rest of the state, two of 32 cases in which the defendant was a minority and the victim was white resulted in a death sentence, for a rate of 6.3 percent.

Donohue said he looked closely at the "egregiousness" or atrociousness of each crime, identifying the number of victims, who the victims were, how much a victim suffered and the culpability of the defendant. He said he concluded that the administration of the death penalty in Connecticut does not correspond to the egregiousness of the crime.

Earlier coverage from Connecticut and Connecticut's repeal of the death penalty begins at the links. Coverage of Eduardo Santiago's case is also available.

Related posts are in the geographic disparity and race indexes

You can also view the abstract of John Donohue's study, Capital Punishment in Connecticut, 1973-2007: A Comprehensive Evaluation from 4686 Murders to One Execution.

More Sacramento Bee Editorials in Support of Prop. 34

The Bee is publishing editorials all week in support of Prop. 34, breaking capital punishments issues out one by one.  Both editorials feature graphics.

Today's Bee publishes, "Death penalty deters murders? Evidence doesn't bear that out."

Ever since California added the death penalty to its penal code in the 1870s, supporters have argued that the threat of executions would make potential murderers think twice before committing heinous crimes.

The Bee made that argument numerous times in its early years, and many politicians and prosecutors have offered it since. But does the evidence show that capital punishment deters murders, even when applied frequently and expeditiously? Research suggests it does not.

One obvious way to look at the problem is to compare the murder rates in states with executions and those without.

For example, compare the homicide rates in California, New York and Texas, as the National Research Council has done. From 1974 to 2009, the homicide rates in those three states tracked virtually identically – going up at the same time in the late 1970s and late 1980s and all declining dramatically since then.

Yet during that time Texas had 447 executions and New York had none; California had 13. Clearly, something other than executions has had an effect on declining murder rates. And that clearly is what we should focus on.

And:

Those who support the death penalty and those who oppose it will hew to their positions regardless of the evidence on deterrence. In the end, it is our values that will have to decide the matter.

"Death penalty is applied unevenly statewide," is the editorial from the Tuesday Bee.

A bedrock principle of our legal system is that justice is applied equally. No matter who you are or where you live, you're the same in the eyes of the law.

But in California, the most serious punishment – the death penalty – is not being applied equally.

Whether defendants get the death penalty depends as much, if not more, on where they did their crime as what they did. This disparity can't be considered evenhanded justice.

In fact, the vast majority of death sentences are being handed down in a handful of Southern California counties. In effect, the death penalty has already ended in most counties.

In the first half of 2012, there were 11 death sentences imposed in the state. Nine were in Los Angeles or Riverside counties.

Last year, California juries delivered only 10 death sentences, the fewest since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1978. Eight were in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties. Those three counties also accounted for 24 of 29 death sentences in 2009 and 16 of 29 in 2010, according to the ACLU of Northern California.

And:

Yet without a solution, the death penalty will continue to be applied unfairly across the state. Are we really willing to accept that someone could get life – or death – based on which side of a county line the victim happened to die?

That leaves far too much to the whims of fate. That is not evenhanded justice.

Still to come, "Why can't California carry out executions like Texas? It is not a legal system we would want to emulate," in tomorrow's edition.  On Friday, "Why voters should support Proposition 34, which would end the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole."

Earlier coverage from California begins at the link; you can also jump to the earlier Bee editorial.

More on Prop. 34 at SAFE Caliornia.

Related posts are in the deterrence and geographic disparity category indexes.

Connecticut Racial Bias Trial Continues Today

The Hartford Courant is providing extensive coverage of the trial.  Today's Courant reports, "Death Row Inmates Continue Fight To Overturn Sentences."  It's by Alaine Griffin.  Here's the beginning:

The trial challenging the death sentences of five of Connecticut's death-row inmates will shift Tuesday morning to competing experts' analysis of whether race and geography played a role in prosecutors' decisions to seek executions.

The testimony is expected to be complex as attorneys attempt to sort through the methodology, underlying assumptions and statistical theories – key evidence Superior Court Judge Samuel J. Sferrazza will use to decide whether the condemned inmates' death sentences should be overturned.

Though state legislators in April abolished the death penalty for future offenses, the 11 men on death row still face execution. And, there are three pending death-eligible cases, including the case of Jose Jusino, charged with killing his prison cellmate three years ago. Jusino's trial began Monday.

Before the bias trial began, the inmates tried unsuccessfully to raise the issue of whether the death penalty should still apply to those already on death row. Sferrazza said the new claims stemming from the repeal raise legal questions distinct from the unique statistics-based analysis evidence that will be presented in the discrimination trial.

That evidence is expected to come from Stanford Law School professor John Donohue III, whose research has concluded that race and geography do play a factor in capital punishment in Connecticut, bolstering the claims of the black, white and Hispanic death row inmates who say the system is both arbitrary and biased.

Donohue, who used to teach at Yale University, reviewed capital cases in Connecticut from 1973 to 2007, finding that minority defendants whose victims were white were more likely to be sentenced to death than others.

Those facing capital charges in the city of Waterbury, according to Donohue, were at least seven times as likely to be sentenced to death as in other judicial districts. Former Waterbury State's Attorney John A. Connelly has prosecuted six men who were sentenced to death.

The state is being represented by a team of prosecutors from the chief state's attorney's office. They are expected to vigorously challenge Donohue's findings, pointing to evidence they say shows that race and geography did not affect the administration of the death penalty in Connecticut. Their own expert, Stephan Michelson, in his testimony is expected to dispute Donohue's findings, saying his conclusions were flawed and that erroneous inclusions of non-death eligible cases in a Donohue report forced Michelson to alter his own report.

"Death Row Inmates' Hopes Rest On Bias Data," also by Griffin is from the Monday Courant.

When the landmark case that challenges the death sentences of five of Connecticut's 11 death-row inmates resumes Tuesday, testimony will shift to competing experts' analysis of whether race and geography played a role in prosecutors' decisions to seek executions.

The testimony is expected to be complex as attorneys attempt to sort through the methodology, underlying assumptions and statistical theories – key evidence Superior Court Judge Samuel J. Sferrazza will use to decide whether the condemned inmates' death sentences should be overturned.

Though state legislators in April abolished the death penalty for future offenses, the 11 men on death row still face execution. And, there are three pending death-eligible cases, including the case of Jose Jusino, charged with killing his prison cellmate three years ago. Jusino's trial began Monday.

"Conn. Court Examines Alleged Death Penalty Bias," is Diane Orson's report from today's edition of NPR Morning Edition.  There is audio at the link.

A legal case under way in Connecticut, involving a group of death row inmates, has attracted some national attention. The trial resumes Tuesday and centers on whether there's been race, gender and geographic bias in Connecticut's death penalty cases.

Earlier coverage of the Connecticut trial begins at the link.

Related posts are in the geographic disparity and race category indexes.

Continuing Coverage of Connecticut Racial Bias Trial

"Prosecutors Spared Further Grilling In Death Penalty Bias Case," is thee Hartford Courant report written by Alaine Griffin.  Here's the beginning of this detailed article.

At the prison where he sent one of the state's most notorious killers to death row, the state's top prosecutor testified on a makeshift witness stand Wednesday in an unusual and long-awaited trial challenging the fairness of Connecticut's death penalty.

Five of the 11 men on death row, dressed in yellow jumpsuits, their wrists and ankles shackled, looked on while seated at metal tables bolted to the floor as Chief's State's Attorney Kevin T. Kane explained that state laws – not written policies or guidelines – help prosecutors decide when to seek the ultimate punishment for killers in capital cases.

How prosecutors decide whether to seek execution was the focus of the first day of testimony in the trial on claims by the condemned killers that Connecticut's death penalty – recently abolished but still applicable to those on death row - is racially, ethnically and geographically biased.

Kane, under questioning from attorney Richard Reeve, who is representing death row inmate Daniel Webb, convicted of the 1989 kidnapping and murder in Hartford of Diane Gellenbeck, testified that prosecutors look to the state's "very precise" death penalty statutes, Supreme Court decisions and police reports related to the crime. He said prosecutors also discuss the case with victims' families and review police interviews with witnesses.

And though in some cases evidence may have supported charging someone with a capital crime, Kane said he did not always file such a charge.

"And you did that because you believe you had unfettered discretion?" asked attorney David S. Golub, who represents Sedrick Cobb, convicted of the 1989 kidnapping, rape and murder of Julia Ashe of Watertown.

"I'm a little hesitant to use the word unfettered," Kane said. "I believe I had discretion to do that."

Kane, who was the New London state's attorney from 1995 to 2006, the year he was appointed chief state's attorney, said though he was aware of informal discussions through the years among prosecutors about whether there should be formal guidelines, ultimately "there were no specific policies directed to capital felony cases."

Kane had prosecuted serial killer Michael Ross, the last person put to death in Connecticut.

"No Guidelines on Seeking Death Penalty in Connecticut, Official Testifies in Trial Forced by 5 Death Row Inmates," by Randall Beach for the New Haven Register, via the Litchfield County Times.

There are no written or oral guidelines as to how state’s attorneys in Connecticut decide whether to seek capital felony charges and the death penalty, according to a top judicial official’s testimony Wednesday in a lawsuit by death row inmates.

Five of the 11 men on death row Wednesday began their habeas corpus trial on their allegation that the state’s death penalty law carries a racial, ethnic and geographic disparity. They want their death sentences changed to life in prison without parole.

Connecticut abolished the death penalty this year but that does not apply to those already on death row.

Under questioning by attorney Richard Reeve, who represents Daniel Webb, Chief State’s Attorney Kevin T. Kane acknowledged the state’s attorneys in each judicial district do not have any written guidelines or policies, nor oral ones, when they decide whether a defendant should be charged with a capital felony and whether to seek the death penalty.

But Kane said the state’s attorneys study statutes and court rulings in making their decisions. He said these criteria are “very precise.”

However, attorney David Golub, representing Sedrick Cobb, referred Wednesday to a “different” standard that was used by John Connelly when he was state’s attorney for the judicial district of Waterbury. Connelly sought and achieved the conviction of four of the 11 men on death row.

The trial, expected to last most of September, is being conducted with unusual logistics. Approximately 10 reporters sat in a Rockville Superior Court basement courtroom, watching a live feed from Northern Correctional Institution in Somers. Superior Court Judge Samuel Sferrazza was in the prison, with attorneys, court staff and the five inmates, who were in yellow prison garb.

"Conn. death row inmates fight sentences," by Mason Kroll and Matthew Lloyd-Thomas for the Yale Daily News.

The trial of seven Connecticut death row inmates seeking to overturn their death penalties on the basis of judicial bias began Wednesday at the Northern Correctional Institute in Somers, Conn.

The seven inmates, all convicted of murder before the repeal of Connecticut’s death penalty last spring, claim that racial and geographic bias unjustly affected their sentencing. The inmates’ case is largely drawn from the research of former Yale Law School and current Stanford Law School professor John Donohue III GRD ’86, who analyzed discriminatory bias in capital cases within the Connecticut justice system from 1973 to 2007.

When Connecticut became the 17th state to abolish the death penalty on April 25, legislators worded the repeal legislation so that it did not apply to those who had been sentenced to death before the repeal date.

The trial, presided over by Judge Samuel Sferrazza, began with testimony from Chief State Attorney Kevin Kane, according to the Hartford Courant. Amid security concerns, it is taking place in a makeshift courthouse in the prison, with a live video stream for the media screened 15 miles away in a courthouse in Rockville, Conn. Donohue, a noted statistician, will serve as an expert witness for the inmates and will likely give testimony next week, he said.

Donohue began work on the study six years ago, while he was still a Yale Law School professor specializing on the use of the death penalty as a deterrent, and completed it in 2011. The study, which has not yet been published, examined the 4,686 murders committed in Connecticut over three decades and the resulting nine sustained death sentences. Since 2007, two more men have been sentenced to death, bringing the state’s total number of death row inmates up to 11. Donohue said he and a group of Yale Law School students created an “egregiousness rating system” that considered victim suffering, victim characteristics, defendant’s culpability and the number of victims.

The study, according to Donohue, revealed that minorities who kill whites are three times as likely to receive the death penalty as whites who kill whites and six times as likely to be put to death as minorities who kill minorities. Additionally, the study found that the application of the death penalty is not correlated to the egregiousness of the crime, as rated by the study’s index. In fact, cases with both white perpetrators and victims were, on average, more egregious. Together, these findings suggest racial and geographic bias in the state’s use of the death penalty, according to Donohue.

“The facts seem to suggest that the state would not comply with the constitutional standards for running a death penalty regime,” Donohue said.

Earlier coverage of the Connecticut racial bias trial begins at the link.

Death Penalty Repeal Comes Into Focus

The Day of Connecticut publishes the above-titled editorial, as a death penalty bias trial begins.

In the past legislative session this newspaper applauded the General Assembly and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy for repealing the death penalty, despite it being a politically unpopular stance. The Day has grounded its long-held editorial opposition to state executions on several principles. Humans make mistakes, but an execution is a mistake no one can correct. Societies should take the high moral ground and not kill murderers in eye-for-an-eye retribution. Imposition of the death penalty can be arbitrary, and because of appeals, often ends up costing taxpayers more than a life sentence without parole.

But while applauding repeal, we pointed to the moral equivocation that led the governor and majority in the legislature to end the death penalty only going forward. The 11 men on death row, at least according to the law, are still to be executed unless they successfully appeal their death sentences. This was a political contrivance, a way of repealing the death penalty without having to also repeal the sentences of those previously convicted and waiting on death row.

The backdrop of the legislative debate was, of course, the continuing legal proceedings stemming from the heinous Cheshire murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters Hayley and Michaela.

And:

A highly unusual trial is set to begin today at the state prison at Somers. Seven of the 11 death-row inmates will challenge the constitutionality of Connecticut's capital punishment statute. Their primary evidence will be the exhaustive 2011 study by Professor John J. Donohue III, of the Stanford Law School's National Bureau of Economic Research. Mr. Donohue reviewed 4,686 murders committed in Connecticut from 1973-2007.

He found that imposition of the death penalty in Connecticut was "arbitrary and capricious" with "no meaningful difference between capital-eligible murders in which prosecutors pursue capital charges and those in which prosecutors do not." Supposedly reserved for the "worst of the worst," in reality many of the most egregious murderers never faced the death penalty, Mr. Donohue found.

Most alarmingly, minority defendants who committed death-penalty-eligible murders of white victims were six times as likely to receive a death sentence as were minority defendants who committed death-penalty-eligible murders of minority victims. And minority defendants who murdered white victims were three times as likely to receive a death sentence as white defendants who murdered white victims.

"Prosecutors Will Take Stand In Death Penalty Bias Trial," is Alaine Griffin's news report for the Hartford Courant.  Here's an extended excerpt:

Chief State's Attorney Kevin T. Kane is expected to be one of the first witnesses Wednesday in the long-awaited habeas corpus trial on claims by condemned killers that Connecticut's death penalty is racially, ethnically and geographically biased.

Kane and other state prosecutors – including New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington, who successfully sought the death penalty for Cheshire home invasion killers Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky – will likely testify about their decisions to pursue death by lethal injection for certain accused murderers, and sentences of life in prison for others.

Starting Wednesday and for several weeks, the judge, lawyers, court staff and witnesses in the case will travel to Northern Correctional Institution in Somers where the trial is being held in a prison dayroom. Northern houses Connecticut's death row.

The public can view the proceedings through a live video feed being shown at Superior Court in Rockville where habeas corpus petitions are usually heard. The unusual trial plan was created after correction officials expressed safety concerns about the death row inmates all being in the same courtroom at once in Rockville.

Under the new plan, according to court documents, each of the seven inmates in the case will attend the trial while seated at stainless steel tables bolted to the floor.

Repeal of the death penalty by lawmakers earlier this year raised questions about whether the discrimination trial should be put on hold until the state Supreme Court decides the constitutionality of the repeal for future crimes.

The historic vote at the legislature in April abolished the death penalty for future crimes but allows executions for those who committed capital crimes before the new law was passed.

Superior Court Judge Samuel J. Sferrazza decided to move ahead with the case, which has languished for years. Sferrazza in July rejected requests by the death row inmates involved in the habeus corpus trial to amend their petition to raise new issues related to the state's decision to abolish capital punishment for future crimes.

Sferrazza said those issues could be raised in a separate petition without delaying consideration of the discrimination claims.

Death row inmates' claims of bias date back to 1994 when Sedrick Cobb asked for the opportunity to present statistics to demonstrate that racial discrimination influenced the death penalty.

The updated AP filing is, "7 Connecticut death row inmates challenging sentences."  It's also available via the Lichfield Register Citizen.

Connecticut death row inmates who have sued the state to get their sentences overturned, argue that race and geographic bias played a part in their criminal prosecution.

Seven of the 11 men on Connecticut's death row are plaintiffs in the case. They claim their penalty was decided in an arbitrary and discriminatory way based on their race and where they were prosecuted.

The trial of their lawsuit is scheduled to begin Wednesday at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers. The public can watch by video feed at Rockville Superior Court, about 15 miles away.

Connecticut abolished the death penalty this year, but the ban applies to capital cases since April 25.

And:

The plaintiff inmates, all sentenced before 2008, are Sedrick Cobb, Daniel Webb, Richard Reynolds, Robert Breton, Jesse Campbell, Lazale Ashby and Todd Rizzo.

"Connecticut Prepares for Trial over Death Penalty," is Joe Palazzolo's post at the Wall Street Journal Law blog.

The study, by Stanford University professor John Donahue, showed that minority defendants who murdered white victims were three times as likely to receive the death sentence as white defendants who murdered white victims. The study also found that minority defendants who murdered white victims were about six times as likely to receive the death penalty as minority defendants who murdered minority victims.

“The issue is whether the death penalty in Connecticut has been administered in a discriminatory or arbitrary way,” David Golub, a Stamford attorney representing condemned killer Sedrick Cobb, told the AP.

State prosecutors hired their own expert who disputes much of the Donahue report, which was commissioned by the chief public defender’s office.

The link above will take you to the abstract of John Donohue's study, Capital Punishment in Connecticut, 1973-2007: A Comprehensive Evaluation from 4686 Murders to One Execution.

Earlier coverage of the Connecticut racial bias lawsuit and trial preview begins at the link.  Related posts are in the geographic disparity and race indexes.

Connecticut Trial Begins

"A Trial on Death Row," is the New York Times report by Lincoln Caplan.

An extraordinary trial is scheduled to begin Wednesday in Connecticut, held at the prison housing the state’s death row. The petitioners are inmates sentenced to death for violent felonies, who are seeking to have their sentences reduced to life without parole on the ground that the death penalty in Connecticut is unconstitutional because it has been randomly imposed on a small group of people.

In April, Connecticut became the 17th state to abolish the death penalty and the fifth in five years. But that law does not apply to those already sentenced. The inmates in this case will be presenting evidence compiled by John Donohue, a Stanford law professor, who studied how capital punishment was imposed in every Connecticut murder case from 1973 (when the state passed a death penalty law) to 2007. His analysis dispelled the erroneous claim that only the “worst of the worst” among criminals are given the death penalty. Instead, he found that the penalty has been applied with “arbitrariness and discrimination” based on race and geography, and that death row inmates are indistinguishable from other violent offenders who escaped capital punishment.

The Day publishes the AP filing, "Trial challenging Ct.'s death penalty to begin."  It's  by Dave Collins.

One of the most unusual trials in recent memory in Connecticut is set to begin this week, when seven of the 11 men on the state's death row will be brought into a makeshift courtroom at a prison in Somers as they challenge the fairness of the death penalty.

The inmates are suing the state, alleging racial and geographic biases in how prosecutors seek the death penalty and seeking to have their death sentences overturned. After seven years of legal wrangling, the trial is scheduled to start Wednesday.

"The issue is whether the death penalty in Connecticut has been administered in a discriminatory or arbitrary way," said David Golub, a Stamford attorney representing condemned killer Sedrick Cobb.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers agreed to hold the trial in a vacant housing unit at the Northern Correctional Institution and provide a video feed for the public about 15 miles away at Rockville Superior Court. The inmates will sit at tables in a prison day room with their attorneys, while other tables will be set up for Judge Samuel Sferrazza and prosecutors, according to lawyers in the case and Correction Department officials.

And:

The key evidence for the inmates is a study by Stanford University professor John Donahue, a former Yale University professor who reviewed the nearly 4,700 murders in Connecticut from 1973 to 2007. Among those, Donahue said 205 were death penalty-eligible cases that resulted in a homicide conviction, and defendants in 138 of the 205 murders were charged with capital felony.

The end results of those murder prosecutions were 66 capital felony convictions, nine death sentences and the execution of serial killer Michael Ross in 2005.

Donahue said he found that minority defendants who murder white victims are three times as likely to receive a death sentence as white defendants who murder white victims. He also found that minority defendants who commit death penalty-eligible murders of white victims are six times as likely to receive a death sentence as minority defendants who commit death penalty-eligible murders of minority victims.

The study, which was commissioned by the chief public defender's office, also concluded that Connecticut's capital punishment system was arbitrary and includes geographic biases.

Donahue said that although the death penalty is usually reserved for the "worst of the worst" cases, eight of the nine death sentences affirmed between 1973 and 2007 were not among the 15 most egregious cases. He said death penalty-eligible defendants in Waterbury were sentenced to death at much higher rates than such defendants elsewhere in the state.

"A comprehensive assessment of this process ... reveals a troubling picture," Donahue wrote in the study. "Overall, the state's record of handling death-eligible cases represents a chaotic and unsound criminal justice policy that serves neither deterrence nor retribution."

State prosecutors disagree with the study's findings and deny any biases in the way death penalty cases are pursued.

Earlier coverage of the Connecticut racial bias trial begins at the link.  Related posts are in the geographic disparity and race indexes.

Coverage of Connecticut's repeal of the death penalty is also available.

Jefferson County Texas

Today's Beaumont Enterprise reports, "The number of SE Texas prisoners on Death Row could increase dramatically," by Heather Nolan.

Once known as the source of the most death row inmates per capita, Jefferson County could see a new spike in the number of prisoners awaiting execution if prosecutors ask for and get the death penalty in more than a dozen capital murder cases now awaiting trial.

Since Texas instituted the death penalty in 1923, 23 inmates from Jefferson County have been sentenced to die. That's the sixth-highest overall total in the state, behind much-larger counties including Harris, Dallas and Bexar.

"I guess we know what we're doing," Assistant District Attorney Ed Shettle said recently from his downtown Beaumont office.

"We've done it quite a bit and ... we know what it takes to be successful."

Now, only one inmate from Jefferson County - Elroy Chester - is on death row, but that number could increase dramatically if prosecutors decide to seek the death penalty in the 15 capital murder cases awaiting disposition.

And:

The number of inmates sentenced to death across the state and in the county has dipped dramatically in recent years, which many people say is partially a result of a 2005 law that made life without parole an option in capital murder cases.

Beaumont defense attorney Doug Barlow said that option has "changed the playing field greatly."

One of the concerns under the old statute, he said, was that a defendant theoretically could be released from prison. Prior to the 2005 law, a capital murder defendant who was not sentenced to death could be sentenced to life in prison with the option for parole after 40 years.

"When the Legislature changed it only to the option of life without parole or the death penalty, that took the death penalty off the table in a lot of cases," he said.

Related posts are in the geographic disparity and prosecution indexes.

Colorado Death Penalty Law Unconstitutional, Study Contends

That's the title of a news report in today's Denver Post written by John Ingold.

Colorado prosecutors could seek the death penalty in the vast majority of first-degree murder cases in the state but instead pursue it so infrequently that the state's capital-punishment system is unconstitutionally arbitrary, three law professors argue in a new study.

The conclusion could be earth-shaking for the Colorado criminal-justice system, at a time when prosecutors in Arapahoe County are deciding whether to pursue the death penalty against Aurora shooting suspect James Eagan Holmes. It could have more direct implications in the looming death-penalty sentencing hearing of Edward Montour — whose defense team initiated the study and included it in a motion.

"This is a groundbreaking study," said David Lane, one of Montour's defense attorneys.

Colorado law says a person must be convicted of first-degree murder, the most serious murder charge, and also meet an extra aggravating factor to be eligible for a death sentence. To conduct the study, the professors — in a first-of-its-kind effort in Colorado — assembled a list of all homicide cases between 1999 and 2010, then identified which of those cases were first-degree murder cases.

The study finds that 92 percent of the state's 544 first-degree murder cases in that time span contained at least one of the aggravating factors that make the case eligible for the death penalty. But prosecutors filed notices of intent to seek the death penalty in only 15 murder cases during that span and pursued the death penalty at trial in only five of those cases — a 1 percent rate among death-eligible cases.

"Under the Colorado capital sentencing system," the authors write in their report, "many defendants are eligible but almost none are actually sentenced to death. Because Colorado's aggravating factors so rarely result in actual death sentences, their use in any given case is a violation of the Eighth Amendment."

The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

The study was conducted by University of Denver law professors Justin Marceau and Sam Kamin and Rowan University professor Wanda Foglia with funds provided by Montour's defense team.

And:

Montour's team has now included the new study into a motion asking a judge to cancel Montour's sentencing hearing and find the Colorado death- penalty law unconstitutional.

The Pueblo Chieftain reports, "Three inmates jailed on death row; Colorado has not executed a prisoner since 1997."  It's by Tracy Harmon.

While prosecutors in Arapahoe County ponder whether to seek the death penalty for theater shooting suspect James Holmes, the state still maintains its execution room at Colorado State Penitentiary.

"The death chamber still is at CSP. An execution would be at CSP at this point in time," said Katherine Sanguinetti, Colorado Department of Corrections spokeswoman.

The state has three death row inmates — all incarcerated at Sterling Correctional Facility. All three were convicted for murders in Arapahoe County, where Holmes also is accused of killing 12 patrons and wounding another 58 on Friday at an Aurora movie theater.

And:

Fifteen years ago, the number of death row inmates was five. One of them actually was executed and only one — Dunlap — remains on death row. The state's last execution came Oct. 13, 1997, when Gary Lee Davis, 53, was given a lethal injection at Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City.

Today's Denver Post also reports, "New Arapahoe County DA will get biggest case on first day in office — Holmes," by Carlos Illescas.

It will be the biggest case of his career, and it will begin the very moment he takes office.

The new district attorney in Arapahoe County will be dealing with the prosecution of a man who allegedly shot up a movie theater, killing 12 people and injuring 58 others.

A story that is still making national headlines will bring with it maybe the biggest decision of his career as well: whether to seek the death penalty against James Eagan Holmes, the man charged with the brutal midnight attack carried out during the premiere of the new Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises."

That's because it's a question not likely to be left to current District Attorney Carol Chambers, who is term-limited and will leave office in January

after eight years as the top prosecutor in Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties.

Instead, that decision will ultimately come from one of two men who are vying in November to replace Chambers: Democrat Ethan Feldman or Republican George Brauchler.

It's a matter of timing: The sheer movement of the calendar will likely preclude Chambers from making that call should Holmes be convicted in the July 20 Aurora theater shooting.

Holmes is not scheduled to face a preliminary hearing until mid-November, and no date has been set for a possible trial. And even if things started moving more quickly, Holmes' lawyers may want to drag out proceedings so that when the window opens up to seek the death penalty, Chambers — who has sought the ultimate penalty six times during her tenure — is already out of office.

Earlier coverage from Colorado begins at the link.

Initial Ruling in Connecticut Racial Bias Lawsuit

AP posts, "Judge: Inmates Can’t Bring Up Death Penalty Repeal."  It's via the Hartford Courant.

A judge has ruled that the state's recent repeal of the death penalty can't be raised as an issue in a long-running lawsuit by death row inmates challenging the fairness of capital punishment in Connecticut.

Superior Court Judge Samuel Sferrazza (sfer-AH'-zah) in Rockville said in Thursday's decision that there's no reason to add the repeal issue at such a late stage in the lawsuit because inmates can file new appeals raising the issue. The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in September.

And:

The seven-year-old lawsuit claims the state's process for deciding when to seek the death penalty in murder cases was fraught with racial and geographic biases.

Earlier coverage of the Connecticut racial bias suit begins at the link.

An Update on the Connecticut Racial Bias Lawsuit

Today's Hartford Courant reports, "Death Row Inmates Press Question About New Law Abolishing Executions."  It's by Alaine Griffin.

Since the death penalty repeal was signed into law in April, defense attorneys have been looking for ways to challenge the law's unusual prospective provision, an issue many believe will most likely be taken up by the state's highest court.

But that is not stopping lawyers from raising the issue in state court.

In Rockville Superior Court Tuesday, a defense attorney for one of the death row inmates suing the state over whether prosecution of death penalty cases in Connecticut is legally fair, pushed for resolution to questions about the constitutionality of capital punishment in the state in light of the repeal.

"It really is an issue that's crying out for a decision," Stamford attorney David S. Golub said during a hearing on a lawsuit filed by death row inmates who charge that there is racial, ethnic and geographic disparity in the way the death penalty has been administered in Connecticut.

The legislative repeal abolishes the death penalty for future capital crimes committed in the state but allows executions for those who committed capital crimes before the new law was passed.

In June, the issue was raised at a hearing for Richard Roszkowski, a Trumbull construction worker convicted in 2009 of killing his former girlfriend, her 9-year-old daughter and his former roommate in Bridgeport.

Roszkowski's death sentence was overturned and he is awaiting a new penalty phase in his case.

Judge Samuel J. Sferrazza, the judge in the upcoming habeas corpus trial on death row inmates' claims, scheduled for Sept. 5, held off on weighing in on the matter Tuesday.

Questions about the repeal surfaced during arguments Tuesday on a defense motion to amend the convicts' claims in the case. Sferrezza did not rule on whether inmates can include questions about the new law's prospective provision in their existing petition. He said he would make that decision possibly later this week.

Prosecutors Michael E. O'Hare and Michael Proto agreed that questions about the prospective provision need to be resolved but say the racial disparity civil trial — which has been pending for years — is the not the case in which to resolve them. They said death row inmates can raise the matter in individual court filings.

"Death Row Legal Team Seeks to Argue Abolition For All," by Hugh McQuaid for CT News Junkie.

Lawyers for at least eight of the 10 men sentenced to death in Connecticut argued Tuesday that the state’s repeal of the death penalty was pertinent to their lawsuit alleging that capital punishment is too arbitrary to be constitutional.

The lawsuit rests upon the claim that Connecticut’s death sentence is imposed arbitrarily, with racial and geographic factors making certain offenders more likely to be sentenced to death.

In Rockville Superior Court on Tuesday morning, a team of lawyers argued that Judge Samuel Sferrazza should allow them to amend their complaint to account for the legislature’s repeal of the death penalty for future offenders.

Attorney David Golub said the prospective nature of the new law made the death sentence even more arbitrary because it allows some offenders to be executed while precluding other offenders guilty of similar crimes simply because of the date the crimes were committed.

“If I commit a crime on Monday I get the death penalty. If I commit the same crime on Tuesday I do not,” Golub said. “... It doesn’t make sense.”

However, lawyers from the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office asked the judge to deny the request to change the lawsuit. Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Proto said that rendering illegal the death sentences of the inmates already set to be executed was not lawmakers’ intent when they passed the bill back in April.

Proto said that the legislative enactment was not within the parameters of what the court was tasked with addressing. He said amending the complaint would also add more delays in a case where delay already is inevitable.

"Bias suit may include challenge of new death law," is the AP report, via the Hour.

The lawsuit, in which inmates claim the state's death penalty is racially and geographically biased, is set to go to trial on Sept. 5.

Golub asked Judge Samuel Sferrazza to expand the suit so lawyers could include arguments that the new law is unfair because Connecticut's recent death penalty repeal applies only to future crimes, and not to those already sentenced to death.

The judge did not immediately rule on Golub's request.

Earlier coverage of the Connecticut racial bias lawsuit begins at the link.  Related posts are in the geographic disparity and race indexes

Trial Update on Connecticut Racial Bias Questions

"Death row inmates back holding trial in prison," is the Connecticut AP report, via the Day.

Connecticut death row inmates who are suing the state over alleged racial and geographic biases in the state's death penalty are supporting a plan to hold the trial in a prison instead of a courthouse.

Inmates' lawyers said in a court document filed Friday that the plan by state officials was "adequate." The plan calls for the trial to be held at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, which houses death row, beginning in September and be broadcast via a live video feed to Rockville Superior Court so the public can watch.

The trial would be held in one of the prison's dayrooms, where each inmate and his lawyer would sit together at their own table.

Nine of the 10 men on death row are plaintiffs in the appeal. The state repealed capital punishment for all future crimes earlier this year.

Inmates objected to an earlier plan by the state to hold the trial in Rockville and allow them to watch video feeds in their cells.

The plan to hold the trial in the prison still needs approval by a judge. A hearing on issue is scheduled for July 25 in Rockville.

And:

Six death row inmates are black and three are white, when blacks make up only 10 percent of the state's population. Inmates' lawyers also say several inmates on death row were prosecuted in Waterbury, bolstering claims of geographic bias.

Earlier coverage of questions of racial bias in Connecticut's death sentences begins at the link.

Also from Connecticut, "Death row inmate says new law unfair," by AP writer Pat Eaton-Robb.  It's via the Wilmington News Journal.

Daniel Webb is awaiting execution for the 1989 kidnapping and murder of a Connecticut bank executive, but he believes he is also paying a price for another, unrelated crime that has heavily influenced the state's debate on capital punishment.

Webb told The Associated Press in a death row interview that he thinks there would be no capital punishment in the state if not for the public's desire to execute the men responsible for the 2007 home-invasion slayings of a mother and her two daughters in suburban Cheshire. The only survivor of that crime, Dr. William Petit, lobbied to keep the death penalty for the men who killed his family, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky.

"Dr. Petit is angry with them and with his anger he wants to kill all of us," said Webb, who spoke by telephone from behind a glass window. "Now you are trying to increase my suffering and take away the little that I had because you want to make Komisarjevsky suffer. That's not right."

Webb was sentenced to die for the slaying in Hartford of Diane Gellenbeck, a 37-year-old Connecticut National Bank vice president, who was taken from a downtown parking garage and shot to death near a local golf course as she ran from an attempted sexual assault.

The state legislature in April abolished capital punishment, but only for future crimes. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and key state lawmakers had insisted on that as a condition of their support for repeal in a long-running debate that focused on the Petit case.

Earlier coverage of the racial bias lawsuit and Connecticut's repeal of the death penalty begins at the links.

Racial & Geographic Disparities in Connecticut Death Sentences

There are more issues surrounding Connecticut's existing death sentences.  In April, the state abolished the death penalty for future cases.  Another challenge to the existing death sentences has been lodged following passage of the repeal legislation.

"Trial set for challenge to Conn. death penalty," is the AP report via the CT Post.

After seven years of legal wrangling, a trial date has been set for an appeal by death row inmates alleging racial and geographic biases in how state prosecutors seek the death penalty.

A trial before Rockville Superior Court Judge Samuel Sferrazza is scheduled to begin Sept. 5, a date set by another judge Friday. But lawyers in the case say there could be more delays because Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and state lawmakers repealed the state's death penalty for future capital crimes this year. The inmates' attorneys say they're still deciding whether to raise the repeal issue in the bias case.

Some say racial bias case make sense

Prosecutors and defense lawyers in the state expect the constitutionality of the repeal for future crimes only to be decided at a later date by the state Supreme Court. Some attorneys in the bias case say it makes sense to put their trial on hold until after the high court decides the issue.

"Why would you continue this huge piece of litigation ... if the repeal is not valid prospectively?" asked public defender Michael Courtney, who is representing home invasion triple killer Steven Hayes.

State prosecutors say they would oppose any effort in the bias case to raise the repeal issue.

"Our position is that the racial disparity litigation should go forward as soon as possible," said Mark Dupuis, a spokesman for the chief state's attorney's office.

The Hartford Courant reports, "Legal Question: Should Death Row Inmates Be Allowed In Court Together?."  It's written by David Owens.

Lawyers representing 10 of the state's 11 death row inmates in a challenge the fairness of the way the death penalty is administered in Connecticut will be ready to proceed with the trial Sept. 5, the lawyers told a Superior Court judge Friday. First, however, a key logistical issue will have to be addressed — whether the 10 condemned men will be allowed in a courtroom at the same time.

Attorneys representing 10 of the state's 11 death row inmates in a challenge to the fairness of the way the death penalty is administered in Connecticut told a judge Friday they will be ready to proceed with the trial on Sept. 5.

First, however, a key logistical issue will have to be addressed — whether the 10 condemned men will be allowed in a courtroom at the same time.

The habeas corpus trial was to have started Tuesday, but was delayed after one of the lawyers had a medical issue. The inmates are claiming that there is racial, ethnic and geographic disparity in the way the death penalty is applied. The recent repeal of the death penalty in Connecticut for future crimes is also expected to be raised in the trial.

The trial is scheduled to take place in Superior Court in Rockville. The lawyers were supposed to be in a courtroom and the death row inmates were supposed to be at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, where they would monitor the trial using a video link.

Judge Elliot N. Solomon, the attorneys representing the state and the state Department of Correction thought the issue was settled.

But J. Patten Brown III, the attorney representing death row inmate Todd Rizzo, said Friday he never agreed to such an arrangement. He said his client's right to be present at the trial is guaranteed by state law, the state constitution and the U.S. Constitution. Several of the other attorneys agreed.

Earlier coverage from Connecticut begins at the link.

Ohio News Roundup

"Ohio death penalty review committee meets again," is an AP report via the Dayton Daily News.

A state Supreme Court task force analyzing the effectiveness of Ohio's capital punishment law planned another meeting Thursday as part of its yearlong review.

Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor has convened the task force while making it clear it won't debate whether the state should have the death penalty.

The committee of prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and death penalty experts are looking at a variety of issues, from how the law affects minorities to the role of clemency.

The committee is also studying whether death sentences are proportional, meaning that any one death sentence is similar to others that have also been handed down.

Also from Ohio, AP's Andrew Welsh-Huggins files, "Death as bargaining chip? Ohio prosecutor slammed."  It's via the Coschocton Tribune.

Within days of a drug-related slaying in suburban Cleveland, six men were indicted on charges that carried the possibility of a death sentence. Six months later, all had been allowed to plead to lesser charges, including four who received probation and never went to prison.

In short, the men quickly went from facing the possibility of being strapped to a gurney and having 5 grams of pentobarbital injected into their veins, to prison sentences more typical for robbers and thieves.

"It probably was a negotiating tool," said defense attorney Reuben Sheperd, who represented defendant Alex Ford. "You'll be more motivated than you were in other circumstances."

Such scenarios are typical in the county home to Cleveland, where prosecutor Bill Mason pursues dozens of offenders on capital charges each year at added expense to taxpayers and at the risk of some defendants ending up on death row for charges that would be minor elsewhere, even as the number of death penalty prosecutions plummets in Ohio and nationwide, according to an analysis of records by theAssociated Press.

Elsewhere in Ohio, prosecutors are pursuing only the most heinous crimes as death penalty cases and are refusing to plea bargain, or are using a 2005 law that allows them to seek life with no chance of parole and never place capital punishment on the table.

And:

Defense attorneys have long complained about the high number of capital indictments in Cuyahoga County, a practice that precedes Mason but that he continued after first taking office in 2000. But now one of the state's most conservative and pro-death penalty prosecutors is weighing in.

Joe Deters, prosecutor in Hamilton County, renewed questions about Cuyahoga County's approach during meetings of an Ohio Supreme Court task force. The group, which meets again Thursday, is looking for ways to improve the state's death penalty law.

"To use the death penalty to force a plea bargain, I think it's unethical to do that," Deters said in an interview.

Earlier coverage of Ohio's Joint Task Force to Study Administration of the Death Penalty begins at the link.

Commentary From Colorado

"It's time to kill the death penalty," is the title of Barry Noreen's column in the Colorado Springs Gazette.

No one likes to go easy on crime in an election year and there was no attempt to end Colorado’s death penalty law during this session of the Colorado General Assembly.

Too bad, because the ultimate sanction is unevenly applied in Colorado, it’s irrational, it does not serve as a deterrent to murder and costs us a lot of money. And there’s always that chance that we convict people who are innocent.

Last week, Robert Dewey, 51, was exonerated of the rape and murder charges he was convicted of in 1996 in Mesa County after DNA evidence proved he could not have been the killer.

Good thing we didn’t execute Mr. Dewey, right?

And:

Cold-blooded killers belong in prison for life, but death penalty cases cost more money than the cost of a prison cell. And lethal injections don’t make us safer.

Earlier coverage from Colorado begins at the link.  Related posts are in the abolition and column category index.

Study Vindicates N.J. Justice's Stance Against Capital Punishment

That's the title of a Newark Star-Ledger editorial.  It appeared in the Saturday edition.

New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Virginia Long was a voice of reason as our state agonized over ending the death penalty. Now, as she heads out the door to retirement, an important new study confirms she got it exactly right.

To explain why she consistently voted against capital punishment — often as the sole dissenter — Long said: “It was the randomness of the application that was constantly bothering me.’’

That’s how the death penalty, which New Jersey eliminated five years ago, is still being applied in other states — haphazardly. Not based on the heinousness of the crime, this new study found.

It was conducted by Stanford law professor John Donohue, who used Connecticut as an example. After analyzing all murder cases over a 34-year period, he found that the death penalty doesn’t punish the worst criminals, as it’s intended to. Inmates on death row were indistinguishable from equally violent offenders who escaped that penalty.

The whole sentencing process, which is similar to that of other death penalty states, is utterly arbitrary, he concluded. The nature of the crime bore almost no relationship to how the case turned out.

Among the 29 defendants who had a death penalty hearing in Connecticut, there was no clear difference in the level of depravity or egregiousness for the 17 who got life without parole and the 12 sentenced to death.

The process is also discriminatory. Black defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death if their victim is white. Defendants in certain geographic areas are also more likely to end up on death row.

The scholarly study is "Capital Punishment in Connecticut, 1973-2007: A Comprehensive Evaluation from 4,686 Murders to One Execution," by John J. Donohue of Stanford Law School.  The paper's abstract available at the link.

More from Connecticut and this legislative session's repeal dialgoue begis a th the link.

Additional Coverage of ABA Missouri Report

The ABA Missouri Assessment Report is available at the link.

Today's Kansas City Star reports, "Missouri death-penalty cases should be reduced, study says."  It's by Jason Hancock.

Missouri should narrow the kinds of cases subject to the death penalty so that only the most serious murders are eligible, according a two-year study sponsored by the American Bar Association.

The state also should prohibit the execution of the severely mentally ill and do a better job of preserving forensic evidence such as DNA samples. it said.

The study, which does not take a position on whether the death penalty should be legal, was released Thursday and conducted by a panel of law professors, private attorneys and federal judges who had been nominated to the bench by Republican and Democratic presidents.

They said serious problems with the death penalty in Missouri must be addressed to ensure fairness in the system and prevent an innocent person from losing his or her life.

“It is the ultimate penalty, and we’ve got to get it right every time,” said Douglas Copeland, a St. Louis attorney who served on the panel.

Among the panel’s other suggestions: improving standards for defense counsel in death penalty cases; revising jury instructions to help jurors better understand their roles in death penalty cases, and narrowing the number of cases subject to the death penalty.

“We discovered important procedural and resource changes that could dramatically reduce errors and inconsistencies in Missouri’s death penalty system,” said Paul Litton, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

"Study recommends changes to Missouri death penalty system," by Elizabeth Crisp for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Missouri prosecutors too often are given the opportunity to seek the death penalty in murder cases, according to a new report.

Aside from limiting the types of cases in which the death penalty can be sought, the American Bar Association-sponsored report makes more than 25 recommendations that it says would improve fairness in the use of capital punishment here. The recommendations range from new evidence preservation policies to laws that aim to protect the mentally disabled.

Currently, prosecutors can use one of 17 aggravating circumstances to argue for death sentences in murder cases.

“Under the current law, virtually any murder is eligible for the death penalty,” said St. Louis attorney Douglas Copeland, who co-chaired the assessment committee that drafted the recommendations.

And:

Missouri is the 10th state for which the ABA has sponsored a death penalty report.

Copeland said the committee members’ views on the death penalty were split. The ABA has sought a moratorium on use of the death penalty in the United States, but the Missouri group did not consider whether the state should end the use of capital punishment, he said.

Instead, the goal, Copeland said, was to “minimize the risk of executing the innocent” and make sure that capital punishment is used only in the most egregious cases.

“Everyone must recognize that it is the ultimate penalty and one that cannot be undone,” he said. “We must get it right every time.”

"Bar Association: Missouri death penalty needs reform," by Jessica Machetta at MissouriNet.  There is video at the link.

A Missouri law panel says crimes punishable by the death penalty are too broad in our state. The American Bar Association report calls for consistency and clarification in state law.

Missouri is the tenth state for which the American Bar Association has released an in-depth analysis — 400 pages worth — of the death penalty. St. Louis Attorney Douglas Copeland was on the panel that has examined the system for two years.

He makes one thing clear — it was not the panel’s function to decide whether there should be a death penalty, or that a moratorium should be implemented.

The Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys responded to that by issuing a statement that says, “Missouri’s prosecutors are pleased the ABA did not recommend a moratorium on the death penalty, as they have in many other states. They obviously realize that, while there is always room for improvement, Missouri’s criminal justice system is fundamentally sound.”

The group did identfiy several factors it says leads to possible inconsistencies in sentencing, including mental illness, preservation of DNA evidence and trial court instruction for jurors. Now, prosecutors can argue to a jury that someone should be sentenced to death, the report says. It lists 17 aggravating circumstances that give prosecutors a wide birth for recommending the death penalty.

"Commission finds death penalty unevenly applied in Missouri," by Dick Aldrich at Missouri News; also with video..

The goal of the assessment team was not to support or rally against the state’s current capital punishment law. Rather, panel member Douglas Copeland said the panel’s assignment was to conduct a review of the laws, procedures, and practices by which the death penalty is implemented in Missouri.

“We kind of left our opinions on the death penalty at the door,” said panel spokesman Douglas Copeland, a private practice attorney from St. Louis.

Overall, the committee found that inconsistencies in Missouri’s laws lead to broad interpretations that in turn lead to inconsistent sentencing. University of Missouri Law School professor Paul Litton said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty should be reserved only for the most extreme cases of murder. Litton said the assessment team found 17 aggravating circumstances in Missouri law that trigger the death sentence, with many creating broad categories under which a criminal can receive a death sentence.

“As a result, the aggravating circumstances provide little guidance to prosecutors with respect to sentencing decisions,” said Litton.

Professor Rodney Uphoff of the University of Missouri School of Law said Missouri courts hand out the death sentence in a seemingly arbitrary manner.

“And the problem with that is, in a run of the mill armed robbery that sadly ends in a murder, that young man gets the death sentence, when across the state, somebody who commits a double homicide only gets life, or life without the possibility for parole,” Uphoff said. “We’re not criticizing prosecutors, what we’re saying is when you look at crimes across the state, you shouldn’t have a vastly different sentence for somebody who commits a crime on end of the state and not on the other end of the state.”

The report concludes that the state legislature is going to have to work out a solution to the statutory problems to bring more consistency to the death penalty process in Missouri.

Earlier coverage of the ABA Missouri Assessment Report is at the link.

ABA Assessment in Missouri

"Study says Missouri death penalty too broad," is the AP post by David A. Lieb, via the Kansas City Star.  It's also available via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Missouri has too many reasons for which prosecutors can pursue the death penalty against murder suspects and needs to do a better job of preserving forensic evidence such as DNA samples, according to a report being released Thursday.

 The report is the result of a two-year study sponsored by the American Bar Association that was conducted by a panel of law professors, private-sector attorneys and federal judges who had been nominated to the bench by Republican and Democratic presidents. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report before it was to be publicly released later Thursday at a Capitol news conference.

 The study notes that Missouri has 17 "aggravating circumstances" that give prosecutors wide discretion by which they can argue to jurors that someone should be sentenced to death. One justification, for example, is that the murder was "wantonly vile." The result is that the circumstances "are so broadly drafted as to qualify virtually any intentional homicide as a death penalty case," the report says.

 The report recommends narrowing the law so that only the most serious murder cases are eligible for the death penalty.

Also from Missouri, KMOX-AM reports, "Death Penalty Under Review."

The death penalty in Missouri is again under scrutiny, and this time the concern is the cost.   A senate committee heard testimony from a number of people including the Deputy Director of the Missouri Public Defender System, Dan Gralike.

“I am personally familiar with one death prosecution. It had to be retried because because of various errors five times since 1992. I estimate the cost to the state to be well over three or four  million dollars simply for the cost of the public defender.” said Gralike.

A bill under consideration would have the state auditor study the cost of Missouri’s death penalty.   Republican Representative Stanley Cox testified some crimes deserve the death penalty and the option should not be eliminated.

The ABA Missouri Assessment is available at the ABA Moratorium Implementation Project website.

Late last year, a Kentucky Assessment was released.  Related posts, including other state assessments, are in the ABA index.

Ohio Justice Pfeifer

"Ohio justice rejects death penalty law he wrote," is the AP post written by Andrew Welsch-Huggins, via the New York Times.  It's also available via the San Francisco Chronicle.  Here's an extended excerpt:

As a young state senator 30 years ago, Paul Pfeifer helped write Ohio's death penalty law. Today, as the senior member of the state Supreme Court, he's trying to eliminate it.

It's not uncommon for sitting judges to change their mind on the death penalty — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun famously said in 1994 he would no longer "tinker with the machinery of death" — but Pfeifer may be the only one to argue so ardently against a capital punishment law he himself created, and yet continue to rule on death penalty cases.

"I have concluded that the death sentence makes no sense to me at this point when you can have life without the possibility of parole," Pfeifer said in his most recent public comments, testifying in December in favor a bill to abolish Ohio's law. "I don't see what society gains from that."

After the U.S. Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972, states spent several years rewriting their laws; those enacted by Florida, Georgia and Texas ultimately met the court's threshold for constitutionality. Other states had to follow those models to have their laws upheld. Ohio's first attempt, in 1974, was found unconstitutional, but the second try, when Pfeifer was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was enacted in 1981 and has never been successfully challenged. Lawmakers pledged at the time to draft a law reserved for the most heinous murders.

At least two county prosecutors say Pfeifer should stop ruling on death sentences, including Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters, who said that Pfeifer's actions were inappropriate. "It gives rise to a credible inference that he cannot be fair to both sides," Deters said recently.

Pfeifer's position is unusual but on solid legal ground as long as he keeps his opinions out of his rulings, said Marianna Bettman, a University of Cincinnati law professor and former state appeals court judge.

Ohio has 148 inmates on death row. Executions are temporarily on hold while federal courts review the state's lethal injection procedures, but that delay is not expected to last forever. The Democrat-sponsored bill to abolish the death penalty has little chance of passing.

Pfeifer, a Republican, has always charted his own course on the court. For years he was a member of a foursome — two Democrats and two moderate Republicans — dubbed "the Gang of Four" for a series of 4-3 rulings that critics said were anti-business and favored Democrats and their causes. He's also not afraid of mud-slinging: In his spare time, the lifelong farmer raises Black Angus cattle.

Pfeifer had been on the court only two years when, in 1994, he dissented on a vote upholding the death penalty for a man sentenced to death for shooting his ex-girlfriend at the elementary school where she worked as a custodian. Already, he appeared to be having his doubts, writing that "the death penalty is special" and should be "reserved for those committing what the state views as the most heinous of murders." That defendant, John Simko, died of natural causes on death row in 1997.

Pfeifer made similar statements in court opinions over the years. He took his position public in 2001, calling unsuccessfully for an independent panel to review the law. He began to complain that prosecutors were overusing the statute, seeking death sentences in domestic quarrels that went bad instead of for the worst of the worst killers.

He often cites the case of Richard Nields, who murdered his girlfriend in their southwestern Ohio home in 1997, then stole her car and travelers' checks, as an example of overreaching by prosecutors.

"This case is not about robbery," Pfeifer wrote in his dissent to the court's 2001 decision upholding Nields' death sentence. "It is about alcoholism, rage and rejection and about Nields' inability to cope with any of them." Ultimately, Gov. John Kasich agreed and last year changed Nields' sentence to life without parole.

In January 2011, Pfeifer made his strongest statements to date, calling on Kasich to empty death row.

Pfeifer says he's required as a judge to take positions to make laws better, hence his current stand. He's also required to rule according to the law and the Constitution, which he says he does. Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor says she's comfortable Pfeifer is following the law and not showing bias.

Since 2001, Pfeifer has written the majority opinion upholding death sentences in five cases, dissented in two others and upheld death sentences while disagreeing on aspects of the decision in four other cases.

The ABA Journal posts, "Ohio Justice Who Helped Write Death Penalty Law Now Opposes It."  It's by Debra Cassens Weiss.

An Ohio Supreme Court justice who helped write the state’s death penalty law as a state legislator in 1981 is now speaking out against it.

In December, Justice Paul Pfeifer testified in favor of a bill to abolish capital punishment, the Associated Press reports. "I have concluded that the death sentence makes no sense to me at this point when you can have life without the possibility of parole," he said.

Earlier coverage of Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pheifer on capital punishment begins at the link.

Ohio Justice Continues to Speak Out

"Justice Paul Pfeifer rethinks death penalty," is by Henry S. Conte in the Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum.

Bucyrus native Justice Paul E. Pfeifer has indicated in recent years that the death penalty statute he helped establish needs to be taken away.

"I think a little bit of it comes from personal experience, but I think it has more to do with what the Legislature has done now, which is what we were trying to do in the Senate before," Pfeifer said.

The senior associate justice of the Ohio Supreme Court was referring to the law that now allows a life sentence with no hope of parole.

"I always felt as though a life sentence without the possibility of parole was the preferred sentence," Pfeifer said. "It is a death lottery the way it is now. It depends on where you commit the offense as to whether or not the death penalty is sought.

"I know that Joe Deters (prosecutor) in Hamilton County -- his attitude is that they are all death penalty cases. It is just the luck of the draw as to where it happens."

And:

"There is a change coming, but I don't think it is going to be this year. It may be three, four or five years from now, maybe even a decade. I think we have a hard time claiming high moral ground as a nation with a straight face if we continue to have the death penalty. Most of the developed countries in the world do not have it. You can't even be in the European Union if you have it, and Canada doesn't have it."

Earlier news coverage from Ohio includes the state's ongoing lethal injection problems and the Ohio's Joint Task Force to Study Administration of the Death Penalty. 

There is also additional coverage of Justice Pfeifer's call for repeal. 

In 2007, an ABA assessment team issued a report detailing problems with the state's administration of capital punishment.  The complete ABA Moratorium Implementation Project's Ohio Assessment report is available via the ABA.

 

From Denton, Texas

"DA’s office: Death penalty not appropriate in 2 recent cases," is the Denton Record-Chronicle report written by Donna Fielder.

In a state known for its relatively high rate of murder cases that result in executions, Denton County has not sought the death penalty since District Attorney Paul Johnson took office in 2007.

But that is not to say Johnson is against the death penalty or won’t seek it, said his first assistant Jamie Beck.

“He is 100 percent in favor of it,” Beck said in an interview. “I guarantee that when the right case comes, he will seek it.”

The death penalty can be sought only in certain circumstances that include murder of a child younger than 10, murder in the course of another felony crime, murder of a police officer or firefighter in the course of duty, murder for financial reimbursement, murder of a judge for retaliation, murder in the course of escape from a penal institution and murder inside a penal institution.

Some recent horrendous crimes have not met the district attorney’s criteria.

And:

Since Johnson’s term began, there have been seven cases in which the death penalty was an option. Beck said that in each case the evidence did not rise to the level of seeking it. A 17-year-old female defendant was not eligible for execution because of her age, Beck said. The others were convicted of capital murder and were sentenced to life without parole.

Since the option of life without parole became law in 1995, the number of cases in which the death penalty has been sought statewide has gone steadily down, Beck said. Formerly, a life sentence could result in parole after 40 years. The option of life without parole has changed the trend in death penalty sentences, she said.

The Random Horror of the Death Penalty

That's the title of an editorial column in the Sunday New York Times.  It's written by Lincoln Caplan, a member of the Times' Editorial Board who writes about the Supreme Court and legal issues.  A graphic accompanies the column.  It's a must-read.

The Supreme Court has not banned capital punishment, as it should, but it has long held that the death penalty is unconstitutional if randomly imposed on a handful of people. An important new study based on capital cases in Connecticut provides powerful evidence that death sentences are haphazardly meted out, with virtually no connection to the heinousness of the crime.

A number of studies in the last three decades have shown that black defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death if their victim is white rather than black. But defenders of capital punishment often respond to those studies by arguing that the “worst of the worst” are sentenced to death because their crimes are the most egregious.

The Connecticut study, conducted by John Donohue, a Stanford law professor, completely dispels this erroneous reasoning. It analyzed all murder cases in Connecticut over a 34-year period and found that inmates on death row are indistinguishable from equally violent offenders who escape that penalty. It shows that the process in Connecticut — similar to those in other death-penalty states — is utterly arbitrary and discriminatory.

And:

In 1972, the Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia struck down state death-penalty laws that lacked guidelines on how the penalty should be applied. It found that with only 15 percent of death-eligible murder convictions in Georgia leading to a death sentence, imposition of the penalty was “freakishly” rare — and therefore arbitrary and unconstitutional. The rate in the Donohue study is far more extreme at 4.4 percent.

The court also said in Furman that a death-penalty system must have a “meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which it is imposed from the many cases in which it is not.” Clearly, Connecticut’s system fails this requirement. Because it’s a small state, Professor Donohue was able to conduct a comprehensive study of every capital murder case with a conviction. But Connecticut’s lessons also apply to bigger states, like California, Texas and Ohio, where prosecutors even in neighboring counties use drastically different factors to impose the death penalty.

In 2011, the number of new death sentences imposed in the United States fell by 25 percent to 78, the lowest number since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. This “freakishly” rare application — among the thousands of murder cases a year — is strong evidence that every state system is arbitrary and capricious. The death penalty in Connecticut is clearly unconstitutional, barbaric and should be abolished, as it should be everywhere.

More on the 1972 case of Furman v. Georgia, in which the Supreme Court ruled existing death penalty laws unconstitutional - as well as the 1976 case of Gregg v. Georgia, via Oyez.

The Arbitrary Nature of Capital Charging

"Dallas criminal courts judge rules death penalty unconstitutional," is the title of Jennifer Emily's Dallas Mornign News report of December 25th.

A state district judge in Dallas County has ruled that a Texas death penalty statute is unconstitutional because it allows prosecutors to arbitrarily seek capital punishment.

Prosecutors are appealing Judge Teresa Hawthorne’s decision and have filed a motion to recuse her from Roderick Harris’ capital murder case.

Hawthorne acknowledged when making her ruling last week that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and other courts have “consistently rejected” the reasons that she found the statute unconstitutional, according to a transcript of the hearing. But she said changes in the law can still be made.

Hawthorne, who could not be reached for comment later, said she refused to be a “rubber-stamp judge.” The Democrat took office in January and is a former public defender.

“My decision is not an act of unabashed judicial activism,” she said Monday from the bench. “I remember when women and blacks could not vote. I remember when so-called witches were burned. I remember when gays had to hide to be in the military. My decision is not to buck the system or stir the waters.”

And:

Hawthorne ruled that she believed:

The Legislature failed to define terms like “continuing threat” and “moral blameworthiness” for jurors deciding between a life or death sentence.

The Legislature’s definition of mitigating evidence is vague.

State law prevents jurors from knowing that one vote for life can keep a defendant from receiving a death sentence.

The law allowing a judge to enter into evidence “any matter that the court deems relevant to sentence” means that each judge hearing a case has the power to influence a sentence.

“The law should not be arbitrary or capricious,” Hawthorne said in court.

In 2010, a state district judge in Harris County also ruled the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional.  A hearing the judge held was shut down by the Court of Criminal Appeals early last year.  That case against John Edward Green Jr. ended in a plea agreement.

Racially Biased Testimony Should Not Stand

That's the title of an editorial in today's Houston Chronicle on the Duane Buck case.

In January 2009, when Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos took office, she lost no time in making good on her campaign promise to restore that department's integrity, left in tatters by her disgraced immediate predecessor.

Among her many innovations, she created programs for the most vulnerable crime victims, pushed for a regional crime lab, improved DNA protocols, and established a post-conviction review unit, which has secured the release of several wrongfully convicted inmates.

Now, we appeal to Lykos to address another serious issue, and hopefully take steps to see that justice is done: It's the case of death row inmate Duane Buck, who was convicted in the 1995 murders of his former girlfriend and her male friend, and at issue is whether racially charged statements had played a role in his receiving the death penalty.

And:

In September, the United States Supreme Court temporarily stayed Buck's execution, so they could review his request for a new punishment hearing. A week ago Monday, the court denied Buck's petition, leaving his fate in the hands of Texas officials. Lykos could now request that another execution date be set.

Our sincere hope is that she does not make that request, but instead that she "confess error," in legal terms, and also prevail on Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to do the same, meaning they would not oppose Buck's request for a new sentencing hearing. Lykos told the Chronicle's Lise Olsen that she would "carefully evaluate the arguments of Mr. Buck's lawyers and his supporters" before deciding her course ("Racial pattern in death penalty," Page A1, Sunday).

Earlier coverage of Duane Buck's case and Harris County death penalty sentencing practices begins at the link.

BET News provides additional coverage to journalist Lise Olsen's reporting on Harris County death penalty cases, "Blacks Received 12 of the Last 13 Death Sentences in One Texas County."  It's by Jamie Katz.

Broken down by race, the population of Harris County, Texas, does not seem unusual or lopsided in any way: Census data indicates that the county, which contains the city of Houston, is 61 percent white, 18 percent Black, 38 percent Latino (a category that includes white and non-white), 6  percent Asian, and less than 1 percent Native American and others.

What is unusual, and very lopsided, is the racial breakdown of men sentenced to the death penalty in Harris County. According to a report by Lise Olsen in the Houston Chronicle, 12 of the last 13 men sentenced to death in the county were Black. The other man was Latino.

These figures bear out a pattern that has been documented nationwide, of African-Americans disproportionately being sentenced to capital punishment. But Harris County does enjoy a special, if macabre, distinction: It sends a lot of convicts to the death chamber. In fact, over a period of several decades, Harris County sentenced more people to death than any other state, except for Texas as a whole. Which means that the statistics on capital punishment are based on a larger sample size, as grim as that fact may be.

The Chronicle report picks up where earlier studies left off. A 2008 article in The Houston Law Review found that not only were defendants of any background who kill whites more likely to receive the death penalty, but the race of the defendant by itself plays an important role in explaining the severity of the punishment.

The case of Duane Buck, an African-American from Houston convicted in a double murder, has given the issue new urgency in Harris County. At his sentencing 14 years ago, testimony was permitted from a former prison psychiatrist who claimed that Blacks are more dangerous than whites.

The 2008 Houston Law Review article is the work of University of Denver scholar Scott Phillips, who conducted a detailed examination of the role of race in Harris County death sentences.  Earlier coverage of his scholarship begins at the link.

More on Harris County Death Sentences

"Study Finds Racial Pattern In Texas Death Penalty Sentencing," from Black Voices News is at Huffington Post.

The connection between race and capital punishment has been a hot topic this year, but a new study has found a shocking pattern in the way one Texas county sentences people to die.

Of the last 13 men that have been sentenced to death in Harris County, 12 of them are black, according to an analysis of prison and prosecution records by the Houston Chronicle. The discovery has prompted some local lawyers to ask for an investigation and calls for more debate around the administration of capital punishment.

"The more the defendant looks like you the harder it is to kill him — human nature being what it is," said Robert Murrow, one of the county's capital defense attorneys. "It's something we have to be thinking about. It's an issue we never should get too far out of the front of our consciousness."

The role of race in death penalty sentencing became a major issue in the county when the U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution of Duane Buck, after reviewing the testimony of a psychologist who said during the trial that black people were more likely to commit violence. Buck's appeal of his pending execution was rejected last week. Although the inmate's supporters pleaded with Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos, she told The Chronicle she has not yet made a decision.

"Before we take any action, we will carefully evaluate the arguments of Mr. Buck's lawyers and his supporters," she told the news source. "He will receive fair and thorough consideration of his claims."

Lise Olsen's enterprise reporting in the Houston Chronicle was noted yesterday.  Also, University of Denver scholar Scott Phillips conducted a detailed examination of the role of race in Harris County death sentences.  Earlier coverage of his scholarship begins at the link.

Earlier coverage of Duane Buck's case begins at the link.

The Florida Symposium

"Legal experts focus on Florida's death penalty," is the AP report on yesterday's symposium.  It's by Bill Kaczor, via Florida Today.  A slightly different version is available from the St. Augustine Record.  Here's an extended excerpt:

A panel that included legal experts, academics and lawmakers on Monday renewed a push for changes to try to make Florida’s death penalty more just and prevent innocent people from being executed.

Participants’ views about their chances of success ranged from hopeful to despairing in a state that leads the nation with 23 death row inmates who have been exonerated.

“It seems to be a problem that may not be able to be solved,” said former State Attorney Harry Shorstein of Jacksonville. “What the public doesn’t understand is how expensive this litigation has been over the years.”

Shorstein, who participated by telephone, supports the death penalty but said he’s troubled with the lack of movement toward fixing its problems.

Florida State University’s law school sponsored the forum to mark the fifth anniversary of an American Bar Association study that criticized the state’s death penalty procedures and made a number of recommendations.

One was that juries be unanimous in recommending death sentences. Florida is the only death penalty state that lets juries make sentencing decisions or recommendations by a simple majority. Florida judges have the final say but must give great weight to jury recommendations.

State Sen. Thad Altman for a second year is sponsoring a bill (SB 772) that would require unanimous findings of aggravating factors as well as death sentence recommendations. His legislation failed without so much as a committee hearing earlier this year.

“I’m hoping ... we can at least get a hearing,” the Viera Republican told other panel members. “I don’t think that’s asking too much.”

The panel’s moderator, Mark Schlakman, senior program director at Florida State’s Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, was more optimistic.

Schlakman noted the new bill would apply only to crimes committed after Oct. 1, 2012. Prosecutors had been worried about it being retroactive to existing cases.

Also, since the last legislative session, U.S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez in Miami has ruled Florida’s death sentence law is unconstitutional because jury recommendations don’t have to be unanimous. The state is appealing. “Irrespective of where the appeal goes, it underscores the concern about that process,” Schlakman said in an interview.

Some lawmakers have opposed changes because they were afraid that might result in more appeals. Martinez’ ruling shows the opposite may be the case, Schlakman said.

In a prerecorded video presentation, former Florida Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero said the high court as long ago as 2005 had urged unanimous jury recommendations.

The Florida News Service posts, "Symposium Advocates Unanimous Jury Verdicts in Death Penalty Cases," by Mike Vasilinda.

Meeting in the shadow of the state capitol, judges, lawyers, prosecutors and others debated how the death penalty is imposed.

“It’s the least that we can ask, that before we give the ultimate sentence to someone, that we require a unanimous verdict,” Sen. Thad Altman (R-Brevard) said.

At 24, Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations. Faulty eyewitness testimony is often the blame.

“The mind is not like a tape recorder,” Mike Minerva with the Innocence Project said. “It does not retain whatever images the person thought that they had

The experts say one of the biggest determinants of who gets death is simply which county your tried in.

Judge O.H. Eaton is a retired circuit judge from Seminole County with doubts.  For 15 years he has taught a required class for judges that qualifies them for murder cases.

“That whether a person lives or dies has more to do with the judicial assignment than the facts of the case,” Eaton said. “Now, if that doesn’t show you that we’ve got a broken system, I don’t know what does.”

Yesterday's preview begins coverage from Florida; coverage of the Florida ABA Assessment is also available.  A 2009 symposium at the FSU law school also examined issues raised in the ABA review.

Harris Death Penalties Show Racial Pattern

That's the title of Lise Olsen's report in today's Houston Chronicle.  It's subtitled, "12 of the last 13 men condemned in the county have been black."

The last white man to join death row from Harris County was a convicted serial killer in 2004. Since then, 12 of the last 13 men newly condemned to die have been black, a Houston Chronicle analysis of prison and prosecution records shows.

The latest death sentence was handed down in October to a Hispanic.

The role of race in capital punishment has emerged repeatedly this year in the unsuccessful appeals by Duane Buck, an African-American from Houston convicted in a double murder. His 1997 sentencing featured testimony from a former prison psychiatrist who claimed blacks are more dangerous than whites.

Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos, elected as a reformer, has overseen decisions about whether to seek the death penalty since 2009. Her staff says the decisions are "race neutral" and "fact based."

"Whether to seek the death penalty in a capital murder case is the most solemn and profound decision that I must make," Lykos told the Chronicle. "It is agonizing and gut-wrenching."

As part of its review of the last seven years of death sentences, the Chronicle also examined capital cases first prosecuted in the 1980s and 1990s that were reviewed again after successful death row appeals. Since November 2004, five men have been re-sentenced to death - three white, one black and one Hispanic.

Robert Morrow, one of the county's busiest capital defense attorneys, called the string of consecutive African-Americans who received new death sentences from 2004-2011 startling. He said those numbers alone should prompt additional research and debate - especially since relatively few participate in the local decision-making process as jurors or as prosecutors.

"The more the defendant looks like you the harder it is to kill him - human nature being what it is," Morrow said. "It's something we have to be thinking about. It's an issue we never should get too far out of the front of our consciousness."

And:

Harris County has a long history of aggressive prosecution of capital cases.

More than a third of the state's current 305 death row inmates came from Harris County. So did half of the 121 black inmates on death row, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice data.

Blacks account for about half of recent murder arrests in Harris County. But they more often get charged with capital murder than whites or Hispanics, an analysis of more than 300 recent court cases by the Chronicle shows.

Related posts are in the race and geographic disparity indexes.  University of Denver scholar Scott Phillips conducted a detailed examination of the role of race in Harris County death sentences.  Earlier coverage of his scholarship begins at the link.

More on Duane Buck's case at the link.

The Week Looks at the Death Penalty

The weekly magazine's current in-deptah briefing is, "The death penalty in decline."

How many countries have the death penalty?
Capital punishment laws are on the books in 91 countries, but only 23 of them carried out any executions last year. The U.S. executed 46 people last year, and 37 so far this year — more than any other country, except for the dictatorships of China, North Korea, Iran, and Yemen. In most parts of the modern world, the practice appears to be in steep decline. Since 1976, a total of 123 countries have effectively abolished the death penalty as a barbaric legacy of the past. All signs point to an unmistakable downward trend, says Mario Marazziti, co-founder of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. "There is worldwide growth of a new moral standard of decency and of respect for human rights," he said, "even the rights and lives of those who may have committed severe crimes."

Is that trend likely to extend to the U.S.?
It already has, in parts of the country. Illinois scrapped the death penalty in March of this year, and New Jersey did so in 2007. Lawmakers in California, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, and Maryland introduced legislation this year to abolish the death penalty in those states. A recent Gallup poll found that the U.S. public's approval of the death penalty had dropped by 19 percentage points over the past 17 years, and currently stands at 61 percent, the lowest level since 1972. And although 34 states retain capital punishment laws, only 11 states executed prisoners last year, down from 20 in 1999. In effect, the death penalty has become a regional practice: Texas, Oklahoma, and Virginia alone account for more than half of U.S.

And:

A warden's change of heart
Three times in his 22-year career in Florida's corrections system, warden Ron McAndrew presided over an execution in the electric chair. Each time, his private doubts grew. During the third execution he witnessed, the condemned prisoner's head burst into flames, and McAndrew had to give the order to continue. "This is wrong," he decided. McAndrew, now a prison consultant, joined a small group of ex-wardens turned death penalty abolitionists, including Jeanne Woodford of San Quentin in California and Donald Cabana of Parchman Penitentiary in Mississippi. These wardens say that participating in the planned, cold-blooded killing of human beings has haunted them, and that it inflicts lasting trauma on corrections officers. "Many colleagues turned to drugs and alcohol from the pain of knowing a man died at their hands,'' McAndrew said. "The state dishonors us by putting us in this situation. This is premeditated, carefully thought-out ceremonial killing." He advocates "an alternative that doesn't lower us to the level of the killer: permanent imprisonment.''

Coverage of the statement on capital punishment by former wardens is at the link; Ron McAndrew has spoken of the trauma prison staff suffer.

Use of Federal Death Penalty in Western District of New York

"William Hochul puts death penalty to frequent test," is the Buffalo News report by Dan Herbeck.

It's hard to find a federal prosecutor anywhere in the nation who has filed as many potential death penalty cases as William J. Hochul Jr., the U.S. attorney for Western New York.

So far, none of those cases has led to an execution.

But they have cost taxpayers a bundle of money -- more than $661,000 in the past year.

Since taking office in March 2010, Hochul has filed potential death penalty cases against 24 people. That's more than those filed by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Miami or any city in Texas.

In fact, among the 94 federal prosecutors throughout the land, only two others -- both from New York City-area districts far more populous than Western New York -- have filed as many potential death penalty cases with Washington as Hochul in the past two years.

So far, Washington has not approved any of Hochul's cases for a death penalty prosecution, though a dozen decisions are pending before the U.S. attorney general. But it often takes months from the time a U.S. attorney files a potential death penalty case until the attorney general decides whether to pursue the death penalty. As a result, the Buffalo and Rochester federal courts where Hochul files cases spent more than $661,000 during his first full year in office on lawyers and other defense costs for defendants in the early stages of death penalty-eligible cases.

The $661,000 is more than the combined amount spent by the region's four previous U.S. attorneys on death penalty-eligible cases over the previous 11 years. During those 11 years, a total of 12 death penalty-eligible cases were filed. Hochul has filed twice that many in less than two years.

"The numbers in Buffalo are not part of a national trend. It does not appear to be something that is coming out of Washington. It's something that Mr. Hochul does far more often than almost any other federal prosecutor," said James P. Harrington, one of a handful of Buffalo defense lawyers who are certified to handle death penalty-eligible cases.

And:

Nationally, the Justice Department has authorized about 500 death penalty prosecutions -- only one in Western New York -- since Congress reinstated federal capital punishment in 1988. And since 1988, only three men in the nation have been federally executed. There have been no federal executions in more than eight years.

Also:

Though hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on such cases since Jones was put to death, no one has been executed under the federal death penalty since. At least 66 federal defendants have been sentenced to death since 1988, but their executions have been held off by legal appeals.

According to court statistics, federal death penalty prosecutions can cost up to eight times as much as a non-death penalty prosecution.

Death penalty experts estimate the Justice Department and the courts spend at least $86 million a year on federal death penalty cases. They can only estimate because the Justice Department declines to say how much of its $28 billion annual budget goes toward death penalty prosecutions.

Related posts are in the federal death penalty and geographic disparity index.

The Death Penalty’s De Facto Abolition

That's the title of an editorial from the Saturday edition of the New York Times.

A new Gallup poll reports that support for the death penalty is at its lowest level since 1972. In fact, though, the decline, from a high of 80 percent in 1994 to 61 percent now, masks both Americans’ ambivalence about capital punishment and the country’s de facto abolition of the penalty in most places.

When Gallup gave people a choice a year ago between sentencing a murderer to death or life without parole, an option in each of the 34 states that have the death penalty, only 49 percent chose capital punishment.

That striking difference suggests that more Americans are recognizing that killing a prisoner is not the only way to make sure he is never released, that the death penalty cannot be made to comply with the Constitution and that it is in every way indefensible. But there are other numbers that tell a more compelling story about the national discomfort with executions.

And:

Only one-seventh of the nation’s 3,147 counties have carried out an execution since 1976. Counties with one-eighth of the American population produce two-thirds of the sentences. As a result, the death penalty is the embodiment of arbitrariness. Texas, for example, in the past generation, has executed five times as many people as Virginia, the next closest state. But the penalty is used heavily in just four of Texas’s 254 counties.

Opposition to capital punishment has built from the ground up. It is evident in the greater part of America’s counties where people realize that, in addition to being barbaric, capricious and prohibitively expensive, the death penalty does not reflect their values.

Coverage of the latest Gallup poll results is at the link.

Pat Lykos: Texas' Capital Punishment Avenger

That's the title of Ben Crair's profile at Daily Beast.

Change was the message of the 2008 election, but you wouldn't have expected it from Pat Lykos, Houston's chain-smoking, Cadillac-driving Republican district attorney. She was elected three years ago to the office once run by Johnny B. Holmes—the deadliest prosecutor in modern U.S. history. "I say without apology that if you murder someone here, the state of Texas is going to kill you," Holmes once said. His handlebar mustache showed he wasn't kidding.

Between 1979 and 2000, Holmes built Harris County, Texas, into the execution capital of the nation. Since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, Harris County has sent more prisoners to the death chamber than any state in the country. Holmes was just as ruthless with lesser criminals, once seeking a life sentence for a substitute teacher who sold a joint to a student. "Harris County was the standard bearer of everything bad in criminal justice for a long time," says Jeff Blackburn of the Innocence Project of Texas.

And yet, with Lykos at the helm, the office has undergone an astonishing turnaround. The Harris County D.A.'s office won the Innocence Project of Texas' “Honesty and Integrity in Prosecution Award” last fall. Under Lykos, the county "is becoming the single most powerful example of how to change this system and make it work right," Blackburn says. Lykos isn't just sending fewer people to death row; she's using her prosecutorial power to set the innocent free.

"It's a triple tragedy," says Lykos, who has recommended three exonerations so far—the latest just last month. "You have someone who's wrongfully convicted; there's no justice for the victim or for society; and thirdly the actual predator is free to continue his or her deprivations."

The exonerations are the result of Lykos' post-conviction review unit, which is investigating hundreds of prisoners' innocence claims. The unit is the second of its kind in Texas after Dallas County, where District Attorney Craig Watkins has exonerated 10 prisoners since 2007. (Lykos has not matched Watkins' total in large part because the Houston Police Department Crime Lab was so bad; Dallas' independent crime lab preserved old evidence while the HPD often neglected or threw it away.) What distinguishes Lykos is her politics. While Watkins is a Democrat, Lykos is a self-described "Goldwater-Reagan Republican" who became Harris County's first female criminal court judge in 1980, when the rest of the bench was Democratic.

And:

Despite her surly streak—which persists to this day, according to former prosecutors—Lykos' work as a judge may have disposed her to take a more balanced approach to defendants' rights than had career prosecutors like Holmes: After all, she had to consider both sides of every trial. "She is actually willing to listen to people whose viewpoints differ from hers, and for people who have been doing this kind of work in Harris County for a long time, that is something that has been missing from that office," says defense lawyer David Dow, founder of the Texas Innocence Network.

Related posts are in the prosecution index.

The Latest News From Illinois

Today's Chicago Sun-Times carries the OpEd, "The case against capital punishment."  It's by Thomas R. Sullivan, Chairman of Illinois Capital Punishment Reform Study Commission.  He's a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

During the past 10, much of my time and energy has been devoted to studying our capital punishment system.

As co-chairman of the Governor’s Commission on Capital Punishment (2000-2002), I participated in heart-rending interviews of family members of murder victims and heard moving statements by men who were convicted, sentenced to death and imprisoned for murders they did not commit.

As chairman of the General Assembly’s Capital Punishment Reform Study Committee from 2003 to 2010, I participated in four public hearings, during which we heard the views of many of our citizens about the death penalty. We spoke at length with police and sheriff personnel, prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges. Members of both groups had great sympathy for those who lost a family member as a result of a murder. We sympathized with the men (and their family members) who had been wrongfully convicted of murders and who spent years behind bars.

As a result of these experiences, I have come to the firm conclusion that the death penalty system is extremely expensive, does not deter crime or serve any valid purpose and cannot be reformed to prevent more mistaken death sentences.

And:

So far as I am able to determine, there is no real evidence to support the theory that capital punishment deters crime. Consider this: Following a moratorium on executions in 2000 — and the commutation of more than 160 death sentences to life without parole in 2003 — the Illinois murder rate has declined. Does it follow that commuting death sentences and prohibiting executions deters murder?

An ever-growing number of states do not have the death penalty. No member of the European Union may have it. We can do just fine without capital punishment.

The death penalty diverts our attention and money from the real problems in our society that lead to crime, for example, poverty, unemployment, housing, education and health issues. The Reform Committee recommended that part of the money now spent on capital cases be made available to the families of crime victims. Rather than spending millions to support state killings, would it not be wiser to use the funds to assist crime victims?

The General Assembly was wise and courageous to pass legislation abolishing the death penalty. I respectfully urge Gov. Quinn to sign it.

The Belleville News-Democrat reports, "Death penalty advocates, foes waiting on Quinn: 'Why ... keep an evil person here?'"  It's by Beth Hundsdorfer.

First, there were the reforms, then a blanket commutation of all death row inmates by former Gov. George Ryan who then imposed a moratorium on executions that has stayed in place since 2000.

Earlier this month, Illinois lawmakers did something even proponents of the death penalty and reformers didn't expect. They passed a bill abolishing the death penalty. The bill is on Gov. Pat Quinn's desk awaiting his signature.

Advocates on both sides of the issue are encouraging phone calls and letters to the governor to sway his decision, but the pen still remains on Quinn's desk. Quinn has said he will "follow my conscience" on the issue.

Earlier coverage from Illinois begins at the link.

Additional Coverage of Justice Pfeifer's Call for Ohio Repeal

"Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer wants to scrap the death penalty," is the title of Reginald Fields' report for today's Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer, who helped write the state's death penalty law, now wants Gov. John Kasich to end capital punishment in Ohio.

But a spokesman for the governor said Kasich will continue to support the death penalty.

Pfeifer, a Republican, was a state senator and chairman of the Senate's Judiciary Committee in 1981 when the death penalty became the law.

But safeguards lawmakers put in place to prevent inequities have not worked, said Pfeifer, citing racial and geographical disparities in how the penalty has been administered. Pfeifer called the use of capital punishment a "lottery."

"It has bothered me from the beginning," Pfeifer, who won a new term in November, told reporters on Wednesday. He made his initial comments about the death penalty on Tuesday during his swearing-in ceremony at the court.

"To my surprise, the next thing I know I'm at the Supreme Court having to deal with these cases where people are sentenced to death under a statute I was very involved in writing," he said.

Pfeifer said an option for life in prison without parole was wrongly excluded from the earlier legislation. He said justices have never used the discretion the law gives them to look beyond legal arguments and use their own common sense to determine whether a person should be on death row.

With 157 people on Ohio's death row and the state executing people at rapid clip, the justice said it's too late to fix the system.

"I think the best answer is for the governor to just commute them all and that we do what Illinois has done and say we don't need the death penalty in Ohio any longer," Pfeifer said.

Alan Johnson writes, "Pfeifer: Revise constitution, end death penalty," for the Columbus Dispatch.

The Ohio Constitution is "a mess," clogged with casinos and livestock standards, and should be streamlined and revised, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer said yesterday.

Pfeifer, a maverick Republican who began his 19th year on the court this week, also said the death penalty should be abolished in Ohio and laws should be passed requiring more transparency in campaign finance.

And:

Pfeifer, the senior justice on the Supreme Court, also reiterated remarks he made Tuesday at his swearing-in ceremony in which he urged fellow Republican Gov. John Kasich to commute all death sentences to life without the possibility of parole.

Pfeifer, who as a state senator was a co-author of Ohio's 1981 capital-punishment law, said he now feels it should be abolished, primarily because it's being used for cases for which it was never intended.

"I think the time's right on this one. Politically it's right. ...You have Republicans in every direction. ... With that political configuration, it would be the most opportune time to seriously debate and discuss whether or not we have the death penalty."

Pfeifer said he will talk to both the governor and legislative leaders about his position.

Kasich faces the first execution on his watch Feb.17, when Frank Spisak of Cuyahoga County is scheduled to die by lethal injection.

Asked about the governor's response to Pfeifer's comments, Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said, "Gov. Kasich supports capital punishment." He declined to elaborate.

The Ravenna Record-Courier has, "Ohio justice: It's time to abolish death penalty," by Marc Kovac.

Is it time for Ohio to consider abolishing the death penalty?

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer thinks so, telling an audience in Columbus Tuesday that the existing state law on capital punishment makes it “exceedingly difficult for this statute to be administered in a fair and just way.”

He added, “Gov. [John] Kasich and the governors after him, I believe, need to consider commuting all of those sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and I think it’s time for Ohio to at least entertain the discussion of whether or not we are well served by having a death penalty.”

Pfeifer made the comments Tuesday, after he and fellow Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger took their ceremonial oaths of office. Both won new terms to the state’s high court in November.

Pfeifer said most of the 157 people currently serving on Death Row were sentenced prior to a law change that allows judges to issue sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

And since the latter, few death penalties have been handed down.

He cited Illinois as a recent example of a state where lawmakers have moved to end capital punishment. Ohio lawmakers should consider doing the same.

And:

He added, “I encourage all in the Legislature, all who have a responsibility on this, to entertain a thoughtful discussion and to look at the question in a serious way. I think the time has come for us to make that change.”

Earlier coverage of Justice Pfeifer' call for repeal is at the link.