New Mexico lawmakers will consider a bill to restore the death penalty, which was made illegal in the state nearly a decade ago. See the story in the Thursday (Jan. 11) edition of The Taos News.
January 8, 2018
Federal prosecutors filed a rare “Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty” on Monday in Detroit in the case of a gang suspect who is charged with a raft of murderous crimes.
And Billy Arnold, 31, likely won’t be the only member of the Seven Mile Bloods to be fighting for life in U.S. District Court in Detroit, according to court officials.
Arnold is one of several members of the gang facing charges where the death penalty may be applied, officials said Monday. The Department of Justice is reviewing those cases to determine whether the death penalty should be invoked, they said.
Although Michigan was the first state to ban the death penalty in state courts — in 1847 — capital punishment can still be sought in federal cases. Arnold was charged in March 2016, along with six other gang members, with murder in aid of racketeering, attempted murder, RICO conspiracy and other crimes. The Seven Mile Bloods gang has been linked in court pleadings to trafficking in prescription pills and to using violence to protect their sales turf.
Arnold, in particular, “has demonstrated a lack of remorse (and) participated in the killings of more than one victim,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said in blunt language filed Monday in the case. Prosecutors say Arnold is known by nicknames “B-Man” and “Killa.” He was released in March 2015 from state prison, after serving several years for convictions in state courts on assault and gun charges.
JANUARY 8, 2018
WASHINGTON, The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday paved the way for a black Georgia inmate to challenge his 1991 death sentence for killing his sister-in-law after he argued the case was tainted by a racist white juror who questioned whether black people have souls.
The justices, in a 6-3 unsigned decision, threw out a lower court’s decision that had rejected his biased jury assertion. Keith Tharpe was found guilty and sentenced to death by a jury of 10 white people and two black people in Georgia’s Jones County. The allegations of racial bias arose from an interview with one of the jurors years later, not comments made during the trial
Monday’s ruling means the case will return to lower courts and gives Tharpe a chance to avoid execution.
Tharpe had been scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection in a Georgia state prison on Sept. 26 but the Supreme Court granted his last-minute stay application so it could have more time to decide whether to hear his appeal.
Tharpe, 59, kidnapped and raped his estranged wife, Migrisus Tharpe, and used a shotgun to kill Jaquelin Freeman, her sister, in September 1990, according to court records.
Three of the court’s conservatives, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, dissented from Monday’s decision.
Thomas, the court’s only black justice, is also from Georgia. He pointed out in his dissenting opinion that the court’s decision will “delay justice” for the victim, who was also black.
“The court’s decision is no profile in moral courage,” Thomas said.
In 1998 Tharpe’s lawyers, as they were preparing an appeal in the case, spoke with the trial jurors including a man named Barney Gattie, who has since died.
“After studying the Bible, I have wondered if black people even have souls,” Gattie told Tharpe’s lawyers in an affidavit, according to court papers.
Gattie also told the defense lawyers that there are two kinds of black people, one who he called “regular black folks” and another group he referred to using a racial slur.
“Because I knew the victim and her husband’s family and knew them all to be good black folks, I felt Tharpe, who wasn’t in the good black folks category in my book, should get the electric chair for what he did,” Gattie added.
The 12-person jury, including its two black members, voted unanimously to sentence Tharpe to death.
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