Delaware Senate Committee Approves Repeal Bill & a Case Noted

Today''s Wilmington News Journal reports, "Panel OKs repeal bill; Measure to end executions sent to Senate."  It's by Jonathan Starkey.

A Delaware Senate committee approved legislation Wednesday repealing the state’s death penalty after a 90-minute debate that included emotional testimony from a police chief who responded to a murder scene and a man who sat on Maryland’s death row before being exonerated.

Kirk Bloodsworth was convicted and sentenced to death by a Maryland jury in 1984 for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old and spent nine years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence. He told legislators to consider his story when deciding whether to abolish capital punishment.

“We can’t afford the risks of executing an innocent person,” Bloodsworth said. He also extended an olive branch to police officials in the hearing who oppose the repeal effort, saying, “You are the people who keep us safe, not the death penalty.”

William Topping, chief of the Georgetown Police Department, recounted the night he responded to the scene of a 1992 murder and told lawmakers about the 2009 murder of Georgetown Patrolman Chad Spicer. Topping insisted that the worst offenders deserve the ultimate punishment.

And:

Sen. Karen Peterson, a Stanton Democrat, is sponsoring Senate Bill 19, which heads to the Senate floor Tuesday.

“The death penalty does not work when it comes to deterring crime,” Peterson said during the hearing. Peterson also says it’s too costly for the state to prosecute and defend capital cases, and not worth the possibility that an innocent Delawarean could be mistakenly put to death.

"Bill repealing Del. death penalty, sparing current death row inmates, clears Senate panel," is the AP report, via the Washington Post.

A bill that would repeal Delaware’s death penalty and spare the lives of 17 killers already on death row cleared a Senate committee on Wednesday and is heading to the full Senate for a vote.

Members of the Senate Executive Committee voted 4-2 to release the bill after hearing from both supporters and opponents.

I also want to note a high profile Delaware case that is in the news.  On Tuesday, the News Journal reported, "Charges dropped in slaying of man in wheelchair," by Sean O'Sullivan.

Medford Holmes, the 33-year-old who was facing a possible death sentence in September for allegedly shooting a man in a wheelchair to death in 2011, has had all charges against him dropped and has been released.

The abrupt turnabout comes after Abdullah Talib-Din – a victim of the shooting and the state’s star witness at Holmes’ September trial that ended in a hung jury – changed his story about who shot him and Antonio Smith in April 2011.

“We are very pleased with the result,” said Holmes’ attorney Brian Chapman today, but he added that the case never should have been a death penalty prosecution to begin with because the evidence was so weak.

Both today and at the September trial, Chapman noted that prosecutors had no direct evidence tying Holmes to the scene or crime – no video, no fingerprints, no DNA, no weapon – and no clear motive.

And:

Chapman said that Holmes maintained his innocence through his two years of incarceration and through the trial. Witnesses also testified Holmes was at home, far from the scene, at the time of the shooting. The fact that this case went to trial with the state seeking the death penalty “should open some eyes about the process,” said Chapman.

Prosecutors had been set to re-try Holmes for the murder of Smith, 35, and the attempted murder of Talib-Din in June, though the state was not seeking the death penalty at the retrial.

Earlier coverage of the Delaware repeal legislation begins at the link.