Month: April 2012

US – Death Penalty Support Is Declining

April, 25  source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com

The campaign to abolish the death penalty has been freshly invigorated this month in a series of actions that supporters say represents increasing evidence that America may be losing its taste for capital punishment.

As early as this week, Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, is poised to sign a bill repealing the death penalty in Connecticut. A separate proposal has qualified for the November ballot in California that would shut down the largest death row in the country and convert inmates’ sentences to life without parole.

Academics, too, have recently taken indirect aim: The National Research Council concluded last week that there have been no reliable studies to show that capital punishment is a deterrent to homicide.

That study, which does not take a position on capital punishment, follows a Gallup Poll last fall that found support for the death penalty had slipped to 61 percent nationally, the lowest level in 39 years.

Even in Texas, which has long projected the harshest face of the U.S. criminal justice system, there has been a marked shift. Last year, the state’s 13 executions marked the lowest number in 15 years. And this year, the state — the perennial national leader in executions — is scheduled to carry out just 10.

Capital punishment proponents say the general decline in death sentences and executions in recent years is merely a reflection of the sustained drop in violent crime, but some lawmakers and legal analysts say the numbers underscore a growing wariness of wrongful convictions.

In Texas, Dallas County alone has uncovered 30 wrongful convictions since 2001, the most of any county in the country. Former Texas Gov. Mark White, a Democrat, said he continues to support the death penalty “only in a select number of cases,” yet he says he believes that a “national reassessment” is now warranted given the stream of recent exonerations.

“I have been a proponent of the death penalty, but convicting people who didn’t commit the crime has to stop,” White said.

There is an inherent unfairness in the system,” said former Los Angeles County district attorney Gil Garcetti, a Democrat. He added that he was “especially troubled” by mounting numbers of wrongful convictions.

A recent convert to the California anti-death-penalty campaign, Garcetti said the current system has become “obscenely expensive” and forces victims to often wait years for death row appeals to run their course. In the past 34 years in California, just 13 people have been executed as part of a system that costs $184 million per year to maintain.

“Replacing capital punishment will give victims legal finality,” Garcetti said.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment, said California’s referendum marks a potentially “historic” moment in the anti-death-penalty movement in a state that houses 22 percent of the nation’s death row prisoners.

“Repeal in California would be a huge development,” Dieter said. “Just getting it on the ballot is big.”

Nationally, Dieter said, fading arguments for capital punishment as a deterrent to homicide and mounting numbers of wrongful convictions are “turning a corner” in the debate.

Democratic state Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, a sponsor of the bill to repeal Connecticut’s death penalty, said capital punishment’s “promise to victims and taxpayers is hollow.” In Connecticut, only one person has been executed in the past 52 years.

Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, said the country’s system of capital punishment is in need of change, but not elimination. He said there is “strong motivation,” though, to fix a system that can take 20 years for offenders to reach the death chamber following conviction.

“The vast majority of states (33, not counting Connecticut) still have the possibility of the death penalty,” Burns said.

“I don’t see a blowing wind that will dramatically change that,” he added.

 

REMEMBRANCE : Troy Davis

R.I.P Troy

We must all fight for justice, freedom, humans rights, Troy Davis must remain an example for the fight against the mistakes of U.S. laws! there are still many of “Troy Davis” in the death Row. Do not close our eyes because innocent people waiting for someone to lend a hand.

TEXAS – One Slated, One Stayed

april 26 source : http://www.austinchronicle.com

On the eve of the state’s 482nd execution since reinstatement of the death penalty, a federal court on April 24 issued a stay for Beunka Adams, who was slated to be executed tonight. Adams was convicted of the robbery and murder of Kenneth Wayne Vandever in 2002. Adams and co-defendant Richard Cobb were convicted of robbing a Rusk convenience store and then kidnapping Vandever and two female clerks. The pair then reportedly drove the three to a field, sexually assaulted one of the women and shot all three; the women survived, but Vandever did not. Adams has lamented his involvement in the robbery – “Due to financial burdans [sic], confusion, and drug abuse … I ended up getting into something I deeply regret,” he wrote in 2004 – but has also written online that he was not the triggerman. Adams alleges that although Cobb confessed to shooting the trio, that information was suppressed during his trial. Both men were given the death penalty. Cobb is still on death row. A federal judge in Texarkana stayed Adams’ execution reportedly in order to give the court an opportunity to consider whether Adams received ineffective assistance of counsel during the early stages of his appeal.

Also scheduled to die, on May 2, is Anthony Bartee, even though advocates say further DNA testing is needed in his case. Bartee was slated to be executed earlier this year, but he was given a reprieve so that never-before-tested DNA evidence could be analyzed. He was sentenced to die for the 1996 murder in San Antonio of his friend David Cook. According to the state, Bartee shot the 37-year-old in the head and neck and then fled the scene on Cook’s motorcycle. Reportedly Bartee has maintained his innocence; he was with Cook at the time of the crime but was not the doer. His previous date with death was cancelled so that hairs found clutched in Cook’s hand could be tested; now, however, the Texas Coalition To Abolish the Death Penalty reports that although that testing is not yet completed, state District Judge Mary Román has issued a new death warrant for next week.

Related articles

TEXAS – Beunka Adams – execution’s Updates – Executed 6.25 p.m

source : http://abcnews.go.com

Last Statement:

First, I want to let my mom know not to cry, there is no reason to cry, everybody dies. Everybody has their time, don’t worry about me. I’m strong. To my family: my old man, my kids, daddy is sorry. I love each and every one of you. I’ll be looking for you. To my wife, I love you. The last two years have been the best. All my kids, mom, nieces, and nephews, I am proud of all of ya’ll. I love each and every one of ya’ll. I really love ya’ll.

To the victims, I’m very sorry for everything that happened. I am not the malicious person that you think I am. I was real stupid back then. I made a great many mistakes. What happened was wrong. I was a kid in a grown man’s world. I messed up, and I can’t take it back. I wasn’t old enough to understand. Please don’t carry around that hurt in your heart. You have got to find a way to get rid of the hate. Trust me, killing me is not going to give you closure. I hope you find closure. Don’t let that hate eat you up, find a way to get past it.

Linda, I love you, I appreciate you. I hate the way things turned out. Ms. Sheri, thank you. To the victims again, I hate the way all of this happened to ya’ll. I don’t think any good will come of this. I am going to see ya’ll again. I love ya’ll, be strong for me. Keep your heads up. I came into the world strong. I’ll leave the world strong. Warden, go ahead. I am sorry for the victim’s family. Murder isn’t right, killing of any kind isn’t right. Got to find another way.

The lethal injection of Beunka Adams, 29, was carried out less than three hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-day appeal to postpone the punishment, the fifth this year in Texas.

Adams expressed love to his family and apologized to witnesses, including one of the women who survived the attack and relatives of the man who was killed.

He said he was a stupid kid in a man’s body at the time of the crime.

“I’m very sorry. Everything that happened that night was wrong,” Adams said. “If I could take it back, I would. Not a day goes by I wish I could take it back. … I messed up and can’t take that back.”

He asked those gathered to not let any hate they had for him “eat you up.”

“Find a way to get past … I really hate things turned out the way they did. For everybody involved, I don’t think any good came out of it.”

Adams took about a dozen breaths, then began wheezing and snoring. Eventually, he became still. He was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m. CDT.                                         R.I.P Beunka 

3.57 pm

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to halt the scheduled execution of convicted killer Beunka Adams.

Beunka Adams is still waiting to hear from the U.S. Supreme Court. His attorneys asked the nation’s highest court to halt the execution, review his case and let him pursue appeals claiming he had deficient legal help at his trial and during earlier stages of his appeals.

12pm CST

At this very moment, Beunka Adams is being taken to the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas from the Polunsky Unit in West Livingston. Mr. Adams would have left A wing A pod in12 building of the Polunsky Unit shortly after 12:00 CST chained, cuffed and transported in a convoy that included ranking correctional officers who are heavily armed. At the end of a 40 minute drive to Huntsville, Mr. Adams will be escorted through the back gates at the Walls Unit into the section of the facility that houses the death chamber. Upon arrival, Mr. Adams will be strip searched for the last time, given a new set of clothing and escorted into a cell just a few steps away from the room that has the gurney.

Most of Mr. Adam’s time between arrival and execution will be spent on phone conversations with members of the free society to include his family and legal counsel. With TDCJ no longer providing special last meals to the condemned, Mr. Adams will be provided standard fare from the prison mess hall. He will be afforded the opportunity to take one last shower around 4 PM. It is unclear whether Mr. Adams elected to have a spiritual adviser present before and during the execution. The Warden of the Huntsville Unit will greet Mr. Adams upon arrival and explain the process for the day. The Warden then leaves and does not return until it is time for execution. Mr. Adams will be afforded an opportunity to make a final statement. The Associated Press representative, Michael Graczyk, will be present as a media witness and he will make information available to the public as they become available including Mr. Adams’ final words.

Last Meal: Same shit salad being fed to every other thug on the row that day

april 25 source :http://www.ketknbc.com

UPDATE:  Wednesday, April 25th, 2012:  The United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit just lifted Beunka Adams stay of execution. Adams was scheduled to be executed on April 26th, 2012 for his role in a 2002 killing in Rusk, Texas.

BEUNKA ADAMS’ EXECUTION IS ON AGAIN AS U.S. APPEALS COURT OVERTURNS STAY

Beunka Adams won a reprieve Monday from a federal district judge in Texarkana, but the Texas attorney general’s office challenged the ruling as improper, saying the judge had no jurisdiction and the appeal itself was improper. Adams’ attorneys contended he had deficient legal help at his trial and in early stages of his appeals.

A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit agreed with the state Wednesday and overturned Adams’ reprieve.

Adams’ lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. Attorney Thomas Scott Smithsaid an additional appeal would go to the high court Thursday.

VIRGINIA – lawyers: Executions are illegal practice of medicine

april 24, source : http://thedailyrecord.com

Virginia executioners who inject condemned inmates with lethal doses of drugs are illegally practicing medicine, pharmacy and anesthesiology without licenses, two Alexandria lawyers claim in a complaint filed Tuesday.

Attorneys Meghan Shapiro and Christopher Leibig asked the Richmond Circuit Court for an injunction halting the allegedly unauthorized practices.

The complaint says corrections officers are not checking to ensure that prisoners are properly anesthetized and unconscious before administering two lethal drugs: one that causes asphyxiation and another that stops the heart “with excruciating pain that has been likened to the feeling of having one’s veins set on fire.”

Virginia Department of Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor said prison officials had not seen the complaint and would not comment on pending litigation.

“I’m just trying to hold the Department of Corrections accountable,” Shapiro said in a telephone interview. “I don’t believe they should be able to operate outside the law.”

The complaint names the department’s director, its pharmacy supervisor and unnamed execution team leaders as defendants. By law, the executioners’ names are secret. But Shapiro said depositions of unnamed witnesses and other discovery materials in federal lawsuits show that the drugs, available only by prescription, are not being administered by licensed medical professionals.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment, said lethal injection has been challenged around the country on various grounds. California and Maryland have put executions on hold because of lethal injection issues.

However, Dieter said he is aware of no other challenge that has claimed executioners are violating medical licensing laws and regulations.

“In almost all cases, there are lethal injection challenges accompanying appeals as these executions get close,” Dieter said.

No executions are scheduled at this time in Virginia, which has executed more people than any state except Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Dieter said the federal government and all 34 death penalty states use lethal injection, although some have other methods available as backup. In Virginia, condemned inmates are allowed to choose between injection and electrocution. If they decline to choose, they get the injection.

The administration of those intravenous drugs by unlicensed personnel has been problematic, according to the complaint filed by Shapiro and Leibig.

“They have no idea what they’re doing,” Shapiro said in a written statement.

The lawyers claim that along with failing to determine whether a prisoner is unconscious before administering the lethal drugs, Virginia’s executioners have administered recalled drugs, misused a drug for general anesthesia and made mistakes in paperwork documenting the handling and administration of chemicals.

Execution teams also have spent substantial time during training sessions planning barbecues, picnics and other events, the filing says.

Stephen A. Northup, executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said Virginians “should be concerned, if not shocked” by the allegations.

No hearing date has been set.

Related articles

ARIZONA – Samuel Villegas Lopez – execution – May 16 RESCHEDULED

 Inmate 043833, Samuel V. Lopez

On October 29, 1986, Lopez broke into the apartment of 59-year-old Estafana Holmes. Lopez raped, beat, and stabbed Ms. Holmes. Her body was found nude from the waist down, with her pajama bottoms tied around her eyes. A lace scarf was crammed tightly into her mouth. She had been stabbed 23 times in the left breast and upper chest, three times in her lower abdomen, and her throat was cut. Lopez’ body fluids matched seminal fluids found in Ms. Holmes’ body.

PROCEEDINGS

Presiding Judge: Hon. Peter T. D’Angelo
Prosecutor:Paul Ahler
Defense Counsel: Joel Brown
Start of Trial: April 16, 1987
Verdict: April 27, 1987
Sentencing: June 25, 1987
Resentencing: August 3, 1990

Aggravating Circumstances
Especially heinous, cruel or depraved

PUBLISHED OPINIONS
State v. Lopez (Samuel V.), 163 Ariz. 108, 786 P.2d 959 (1990).
State v. Lopez (Samuel V.), 175 Ariz. 407, 857 P.2d 1261 (1993).

affidavit of Samuel villegas Lopez (us.court) pdf file

petition for post conviction relief (us court) pdf file

………………………………………………………

May 23, Source : http://www.kpho.com

The Arizona Supreme Court has denied a petition to review the case of a death row inmate set for execution next week.

Lawyers for Samuel Villegas Lopez had asked the state’s high court to review a lower court’s order dismissing his petition for post-conviction relief on March 30.

The state Supreme Court issued its ruling Wednesday without comment. There’s no immediate response from Lopez’s attorneys.

The 49-year-old Lopez is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection May 16 at the state prison in Florence in what would be the fourth execution in Arizona this year.

Lopez was convicted of raping, robbing and stabbing a 59-year-old woman to death in her Phoenix apartment on Oct. 29, 1986, after what court records described as a “terrible and prolonged struggle.”

————————————————–

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Arizona’s top court issued a stay of execution on Tuesday for death row inmate Samuel Villegas Lopez, a day before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection, to address claims that he had been denied a chance at a fair clemency hearing.

Villegas Lopez was sentenced to death for raping 59-year-old Estafana Holmes and stabbing her to death in a violent, drawn-out assault at her Phoenix apartment in 1986

The Arizona Supreme Court rescheduled his execution for June 27 so that attorneys could address claims that he was denied a fair clemency hearing because some members of the state clemency board had not received a mandated four-week training course.

“We conclude that the interests of justice are best served by staying the pending execution and forthwith issuing … a new warrant of execution, for June 27,” the court said in its ruling.

“The period between now and the new execution date will allow training of new board members and a clemency hearing to be subsequently held by the board,” it added.

He had been due to die by lethal injection at 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning, at the state prison in Florence, some 60 miles southeast of Phoenix.

—————————————————-

Update may 9, 2012 source : http://azcapitoltimes.com

The Arizona Supreme Court has denied a petition to review the case of a death row inmate set for execution next week.

Lawyers for Samuel Villegas Lopez had asked the state’s high court to review a lower court’s order dismissing his petition for post-conviction relief on March 30.

The state Supreme Court issued its ruling Wednesday without comment. There’s no immediate response from Lopez’s attorneys.

The 49-year-old Lopez is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection May 16 at the state prison in Florence in what would be the fourth execution in Arizona this year.

Lopez was convicted of raping, robbing and stabbing a 59-year-old woman to death in her Phoenix apartment on Oct. 29, 1986, after what court records described as a “terrible and prolonged struggle.”

……………………………………………………………………

Update may  7, 2012 source : http://www.azfamily.com

PHOENIX, ARIZ.– Lawyers for a death row inmate set to be executed next week will ask the courts to put a hold on the execution because of concerns about how new members were appointed to the Arizona’s Executive Clemency Board, and whether those new members have had adequate training.

Samuel Villegas Lopez is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday May 16 for the brutal rape and murder of Phoenix woman Estefana “Essie” Holmes in 1986. At his clemency hearing on Monday, his attorneys walked out, claiming the appointments of three new members to the board violated state law.

Kelley Henry, a federal public defender who has worked on Lopez’ case for more than a decade, said she believes there have been at least 16 violations of state statutes surrounding the appointments of the new members.

Among her allegations: that the state violated open meeting laws by failing to properly post information about board vacancies, that the new members have not had the four weeks of training required by statute, and that one of the board members has a clear conflict of interest voting on death penalty cases.

After Henry presented the board with her concerns, the members went into a closed-door executive session for close to an hour. When they re-opened the meeting to the public, they said they believed they could fairly continue the hearing, but Henry and her team disagreed and walked out.

“As we know it at this time, this board does not have the authority to conduct the hearing, or move forward,” Henry said.

After the meeting new board Chairman Jesse Hernandez accused Henry of “grasping at straws” and said he and the other two new members, Melvin Thomas and Brian Livingston, are “more than qualified to serve on the board.”

As for questions regarding the amount of training they’ve one, Hernandez said the training process has been started and that’s within the confines of the law.

Lopez’ attorneys plan to file a lawsuit in court Tuesday asking a judge to step in.

In the meantime, at least one board member, former Attorney General Jack LaSota, said he believed Governor Brewer should vacate the warrant for Lopez’ execution to allow time for the issues to be addressed.

“I think the man is entitled at this point to a hearing by a board that has been determined to be appropriate,” LaSota said, adding, “I think our board is appropriate.”

Matt Benson, a spokesman for the Governor, said the Executive Board of Clemency and the selection committee charged with selecting candidates for the vacant seats acted fully within the law.

Benson said the allegations were nothing more than an attempt to delay justice for the family of Lopez’ victim.

Lopez’ attorneys originally planned to argue before the board that their client’s sentence should be commuted to life without parole because of inadequate legal counsel during his trials and initial appeals.

May 3 , 2012

Us court appeals : pdf file

Update May 2, 2012  Source : http://ktar.com

PHOENIX — Lawyers for an Arizona death-row inmate are fighting his upcoming execution.

Samuel Villegas Lopez’s attorneys argued in one filing Tuesday that three newly appointed clemency board members are unprepared to consider his arguments for mercy.

In another filing Tuesday, they argued that the state Department of Corrections is violating Lopez’s constitutional rights by repeatedly violating its own execution protocol.

Lopez, 49, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection May 16 in what would be the fourth execution in the state this year.

Lopez was convicted of raping, robbing and stabbing Estafana Holmes, 59, to death in her Phoenix apartment in October 1986, after what court records described as a “terrible and prolonged struggle.”

Petitioner – Appellant,: SAMUEL VILLEGAS LOPEZ
Respondent – Appellee,s: CHARLES L. RYAN and GEORGE HERMAN, Warden, Arizona State Prison – Eyman Complex
Case Number: 12-99001
Filed: May 1, 2012
Court: U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Nature of Suit: P. Petitions – Death Penalty
Previous Case: Lopez, et al v. Stewart, et al (2:1998cv00072)
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ARIZONA – Thomas Arnold Kemp – Execution -10:00 a.m – EXECUTED 10:08 am

april 25, source : various

Thomas Kemp, 63, was pronounced dead at 10:08 a.m. local time at the state prison in Florence, about 60 miles southeast of Phoenix, a state official said.

Kemp was defiant to the end.

“I regret nothing,” he said as his last words.

Then he trembled as the drugs coursed through his veins, took some deep breaths and went still.

Kemp’s last meal was cheeseburger, fries and root beer; boysenberry pie with strawberry ice cream

Thomas Arnold Kemp, 63, is scheduled to be given a lethal injection at 10 a.m. at the state prison in Florence. If it proceeds as planned, the execution will put Arizona on pace to match its busiest year for executions and make it one of the busiest death-penalty states in the nation.

He was, and remains, a hard case. At his sentencing, he saidKe his only regret was not killing an accomplice who turned him in. Kemp did admit to “a deep and abiding sense of remorse,” he said, that his friendship kept him from killing the accomplice.

But he had no remorse for killing Hector Juarez, whose naked body he left in the desert near Marana.

At his sentencing, Kemp noted that Juarez was not an American citizen and he offered up a diatribe against Mexican immigrants that made it clear he had no intention of seeking mercy for the killing, telling the court, “I spit on the law and all those who serve it.”

Kemp’s attorney at the time argued that Kemp had a personality disorder that made him perceive everyone else as dishonest and opportunistic, and therefore moved him to do anything he could to get something for himself.

He still refuses to ask for mercy. He chose not to appear before the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency earlier this month.

Kemp was sentenced to death for kidnapping Hector Soto Juarez from outside Juarez’s Tucson home on July 11, 1992, and robbing him before taking him into the desert near Marana, forcing him to undress and shooting him twice in the head.

Juarez, 25, had just left his apartment and fiancee to get food when Kemp and Jeffery Logan spotted him. They held him at gunpoint and used his debit card to withdraw $200 before driving him to the Silverbell Mine area, where Kemp killed Juarez.

The two men then went to Flagstaff, where they kidnapped a married couple traveling from California to Kansas and made them drive to Durango, Colo., where Kemp raped the man in a hotel room. Later, Kemp and Logan forced the couple to drive to Denver, where the couple escaped. Logan soon after separated from Kemp and called police about Juarez’s murder.

Logan led police to Juarez’s body, and Kemp was arrested. Logan was later sentenced to life in prison.

Kemp has argued that his conviction was unfair because then-prosecutor Kenneth Peasley repeatedly told jurors that Kemp’s homosexuality was behind Juarez’s kidnapping and murder, and that the jury hadn’t been properly vetted for their feelings about gay men.

Outside of wishing he had killed Logan when he had the chance, Kemp said at his sentencing that he had no regrets.

“I don’t show any mercy, and I am certainly not here to plead for mercy,” he said at the sentencing, a time when most defendants convicted of first-degree murder argue that they should be spared the death penalty.

“The so-called victim was not an American citizen and, therefore, was beneath my contempt,” Kemp said and then referred to Juarez using a racial slur. “If more of them ended up dead, the rest of them would soon learn to stay in Mexico where they belong.”

Kemp did not respond to a recent letter from The Associated Press asking whether he feels the same way after nearly 20 years on death row.

In a letter written March 29, Kemp said such a hearing “provides public humiliation of the prisoner without any chance that the board might actually recommend a commutation.”

The letter was provided to the AP through Kemp’s Tucson attorney, Tim Gabrielsen.

“In light of the board’s history of consistently denying requests for commutations, my impression is that a hearing in my case would be nothing short of a dog and pony show,” Kemp wrote.

Related articles

OKLAHOMA – Court upholds Oklahoma death row inmate’s sentence

april 23, source : http://www.bnd.com

OKLAHOMA CITY — A federal appeals court on Monday upheld an Oklahoma conviction and death sentence for a man who killed people in three different states, rejecting an argument that he suffers from bipolar disorder and lacked the mental capacity to waive his right to a jury trial.

Steven Ray Thacker, 41, asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to grant him a new trial in the December 1999 stabbing death of Laci Dawn Hill, 25, of Bixby. Thacker pleaded guilty in state court to first-degree murder, kidnapping and first-degree rape. Following a sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced Thacker to death for the murder conviction.

In its 62-page decision, the appeals court rejected Thacker’s arguments concerning competency and inadequate counsel. He claimed his defense attorney was ineffective in advising him to enter a blind guilty plea and not filing a motion to withdraw the guilty plea.

Thacker has also been convicted and sentenced to death in Tennessee for the Jan. 2, 2000, killing of a tow truck driver, Ray Patterson. He was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Forrest Boyd on Jan. 1., 2000, inside his home in Aldrich, Mo.

In the Bixby slaying, officials say Hill had advertised a pool table for sale at her Tulsa County home and Thacker answered the ad. Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents said Thacker admitted to pulling a knife on Hill and demanding money. He also allegedly said he took a credit card from her, forced her into his car and drove her to a cabin in Chouteau, where he raped and strangled her.

Hill was stabbed twice in the chest, wounds that penetrated her left lung and caused her to bleed to death, according to the appellate court’s decision.

Thacker had called Patterson to tow his car after it broke down as he was driving from Missouri toward Dyersburg, Tenn. Patterson towed the car to a service station, and Thacker tried to pay him with a stolen credit card. When the card was rejected, Thacker stabbed Patterson because he knew Thacker was wanted in other states, authorities said.

Thacker is currently in the custody of the Tennessee Department of Corrections, according to Jerry Massie of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. Online prison records indicate Thacker is confined at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

Thacker’s defense attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Randy Bauman, declined comment on the appellate court’s decision.

TEXAS – New execution date set for Balentine august 22

april 20 source : http://amarillo.com

Balentine

Prosecutors have secured the third execution date in more than a decade for an Amarillo man convicted in the 1998 killings of three Amarillo teens, according to court records.

The state is set to execute John Balentine, 43, on Aug. 22, according to an order from 320th District Court Judge Don Emerson.

Since his 1999 capital murder conviction, Balentine has eluded two execution dates after state and federal judges have stayed his executions, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records. Most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court declined last month to hear his appeal and lifted the stay.

un 15 2011 Application (10A1226) granted by the Court. The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Scalia and by him referred to the Court is granted pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the issuance of the mandate of this Court.
Mar 21 2012 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of March 23, 2012.
Mar 26 2012 Petition DENIED.

In a letter to Emerson, Lydia Brandt, Balentine’s attorney, said prosecutors are needlessly rushing an execution date as she plans to file a federal case on behalf of her client.

“Worse, setting an execution date, knowing that further litigation is imminent, will needlessly inflict more suffering on the victims’ families,” Brandt’s letter said.

Brandt has said the defendant’s trial attorney did not include any evidence of Balentine’s violent and abusive childhood, which might have swayed jurors toward life in prison.

A Potter County jury found Balentine guilty in 1999 of fatally shooting Edward Mark Caylor, 17; Kai Brooke Geyer, 15; and Steven Brady Watson, 15. Authorities said he fired .32-caliber pistol shots into the heads of all three teens as they slept in an East 17th Avenue home.

Prosecutors said the incident stemmed from an argument between Balentine and Caylor, whose sister had been in a relationship with Balentine.

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CALIFORNIA – Californians to vote on abolishing death penalty

april 24 source : http://www.foxnews.com

SAN FRANCISCO –  California voters will soon get a chance to decide whether to replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A measure to abolish capital punishment in California qualified for the November ballot on Monday, Secretary of State Debra Bowen said.

If it passes, the 725 California inmates now on Death Row will have their sentences converted to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It would also make life without parole the harshest penalty prosecutors can seek.

Backers of the measure say abolishing the death penalty will save the state millions of dollars through layoffs of prosecutors and defense attorneys who handle death penalty cases, as well as savings from not having to maintain the nation’s largest death row at San Quentin State Prison.

Those savings, supporters argue, can be used to help unsolved crimes. If the measure passes, $100 million in purported savings from abolishing the death penalty would be used over three years to investigate unsolved murders and rapes.

The measure is dubbed the “Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act,” also known as the SAFE California Act. It’s the fifth measure to qualify for the November ballot, the secretary of state announced Monday. Supporters collected more than the 504,760 valid signatures needed to place the measure on the ballot.

“Our system is broken, expensive and it always will carry the grave risk of a mistake,” said Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin who is now an anti-death penalty advocate and an official supporter of the measure.

The measure will also require most inmates sentenced to life without parole to find jobs within prisons. Most death row inmates do not hold prison jobs for security reasons.

Though California is one of 35 states that authorize the death penalty, the state hasn’t put anyone to death since 2006. A federal judge that year halted executions until prison officials built a new death chamber at San Quentin, developed new lethal injection protocols and made other improvements to delivering the lethal three-drug combination.

A separate state lawsuit is challenging the way the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation developed the new protocols. A judge in Marin County earlier this year ordered the CDCR to redraft its lethal injection protocols, further delaying executions.

Since California reinstated the death penalty in 1978, the state has executed 13 inmates. A 2009 study conducted by a senior federal judge and law school professor concluded that the state was spending about $184 million a year to maintain Death Row and the death penalty system.

Supporters of the proposition, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, are portraying it as a cost-savings measure in a time of political austerity. They count several prominent conservatives and prosecutors — including the author of the 1978 measure adopting the death penalty — as supporters and argue that too few executions have been carried out at too great a cost.

“My conclusion is that he law is totally ineffective,” said Gil Garcetti, a former Los Angeles County district attorney. “Most inmates are going to die of natural causes, not executions.”

Garcetti, who served as district attorney from 1992 to 2000, said he changed his mind after publication of the 2009 study, which was published by Judge Arthur Alarcon of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and law professor Paula Mitchell.

Opponents of the measure, such as former Sacramento U.S Attorney McGregor Scott, argue that lawyers filing “frivolous appeals” are the problem, not the death penalty law.

“On behalf of crime victims and their loved ones who have suffered at the hands of California’s most violent criminals, we are disappointed that the ACLU and their allies would seek to score political points in their continued efforts to override the will of the people and repeal the death penalty,” said Scott, who is chairman of the Californians for Justice and Public Safety, a coalition of law enforcement officials, crime victims and others formed to oppose the measure.

The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, meanwhile, remains one the biggest backers of the death penalty in the state and opposes the latest attempt to abolish it in California. The foundation and its supports argue that federal judges are gumming up the process with endless delays and reversals of state Supreme Court rulings upholding individual death sentences.

The foundation on Thursday filed a lawsuit seeking the immediate resumption of executions in California. The foundation’s lawsuit, filed directly with the state Court of Appeal, argues that since the three-drug method has been the subject of so much litigation — and the source of the execution delays — a one-drug method of lethal injection like Ohio uses can be substituted immediately.

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