Jeffrey Williams was executed in Texas for the murder of Houston police officer Troy Blando in 1999. Allan Turner has this story in the Houston Chronicle. The US Supreme Court order denying a stay and a writ of certiorari is here. No dissent is noted.
Recently in Death Penalty Category
What punishment should society impose on a prisoner, already in for life, who murders a correctional officer?
1) Death.A jury in Everett, Washington made the correct choice today. Steve Miletich has this story for the Seattle Times.
2) No punishment at all (i.e., a meaningless additional prison sentence).
Maryclaire Dale reports for AP:
Dr. Kermit Gosnell gave up his right to appeal and in return will spend life in prison. Gosnell, 72, was found guilty Monday of first-degree murder in a case that became a flashpoint in the nation's abortion debate.Unless Pennsylvania reformed its glacial capital appeals process, there would be no chance of the 72-year-old Gosnell being executed anyway. (If they got the job done in 6 years, like Virginia, it would have been a strong possibility.)
Former clinic employees testified that Gosnell routinely performed illegal abortions past Pennsylvania's 24-week limit, that he delivered babies who were still moving, whimpering or breathing, and that he and his assistants dispatched the newborns by "snipping" their spines, as he referred to it.
CBS is reporting that abortionist/butcher Kermit Gosnell has been sentenced to life imprisonment on two of the three first degree murder charges of which he was convicted. The deal is that he escapes the death penalty in exchange for his agreement to forego all appeals.
I hate to say it, but this is probably a wise move for the prosecutors. Given Gosnell's age (72), the possibility that all the controversy about abortion might have produced at least one holdout juror, and that getting from conviction to actual execution in Pennsylvania takes years, if it ever happens, I reluctantly conclude that this was the smart thing to do.
Only three people have been executed in the Keystone State since Gregg effectively reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The last execution there was of Gary Heidnik, in 1999, eleven years after his conviction and sentence (and Heidnik was a "volunteer").
Gosnell's cruelty was savage, and his murders multiple, but even had the jury decided on death, he very likely would have run out the clock before departing this planet on his own. The only consolation, if one wants to call it that, is that his time in prison is likely to be less than fully pleasant.
Last February, I noted a bizarre ruling out of King County, Washington (Seattle and vicinity), in which a trial judge said it was improper for a prosecutor to consider the strength of the evidence in deciding whether to seek the death penalty. Utter nonsense. Residual doubt should be, and is, considered by both prosecutors and juries.
Sara Jane Green reports in the Seattle Times on argument before the Washington Supreme Court yesterday:
Sara Jane Green reports in the Seattle Times on argument before the Washington Supreme Court yesterday:
A King County judge overstepped his bounds when he ruled that prosecutors can't seek the death penalty against the two people accused of killing a family of six on Christmas Eve 2007 in Carnation, the state Supreme Court was told Thursday.And of course the defense plays the race card:
King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor James Whisman argued that under the state's death-penalty statute, "discretion is placed with the prosecutor" to decide whether to seek capital punishment.
Continue reading Strength of the Evidence.
When the story of the Cleveland horror first broke, I said that the crimes, however horrible, could not be capital because there was no murder.
Now we have learned more. There may indeed have been murders in the house of horrors. Brandon Blackwell reports for the Plain Dealer:
Now we have learned more. There may indeed have been murders in the house of horrors. Brandon Blackwell reports for the Plain Dealer:
The man accused of kidnapping and imprisoning Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight in his home could face the death penalty, says Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty.
McGinty said Thursday that he will pursue charges against Ariel Castro "for each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies" during the women's decade of captivity.
Continue reading Murder Charges in the Cleveland Horror.
Michael Graczyk reports for AP:
Update: Ed Marshall informs us in the comments that Justice Scalia denied the application on his own, so there will not be an order of the Court.
Congress vested the stay power in individual justices (see 28 U.S.C. §2101(f)), so the procedure is to apply to the justice assigned to the circuit from which the case comes. For Texas (Fifth Circuit), that is Justice Scalia. However, the Court established long ago (in a case related to the Aaron Burr conspiracy) that a power vested in individual justices may be exercised by the full court. For stays of execution in capital cases, the usual practice is for the individual justice to refer the stay application to the court for decision.
Why wasn't that done in this case? Probably the time crunch. It is also possible that Justice Scalia conferred with his colleagues informally and determined the full court would deny it before issuing the denial individually.
Update 2: The docket is now available here.
The SCOTUS denial is not on the high court's website as of this writing.HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A Texas death row inmate convicted of killing a fellow drug dealer while robbing him outside of a Waco convenience store 10 years ago has been executed.
Carroll Joe Parr received a lethal injection Tuesday evening. Appeals to block the punishment were rejected last week in the state and federal courts. And last-day appeals filed by Parr himself were denied at the U.S. Supreme Court and his trial court.
Update: Ed Marshall informs us in the comments that Justice Scalia denied the application on his own, so there will not be an order of the Court.
Congress vested the stay power in individual justices (see 28 U.S.C. §2101(f)), so the procedure is to apply to the justice assigned to the circuit from which the case comes. For Texas (Fifth Circuit), that is Justice Scalia. However, the Court established long ago (in a case related to the Aaron Burr conspiracy) that a power vested in individual justices may be exercised by the full court. For stays of execution in capital cases, the usual practice is for the individual justice to refer the stay application to the court for decision.
Why wasn't that done in this case? Probably the time crunch. It is also possible that Justice Scalia conferred with his colleagues informally and determined the full court would deny it before issuing the denial individually.
Update 2: The docket is now available here.
Every news source is reporting the horrifying story from Cleveland. Debbi Wilgoren has this story in the WaPo:
Three women and a 6-year-old girl rescued from a house in Cleveland Monday night after years in apparent captivity have been medically evaluated and are in good health, police said Tuesday morning.If Ariel Castro is convicted of holding these women prisoners for years, how will our society punish him? By holding him prisoner for years. Does anybody have a problem with that? Will there be protests that "it is wrong to hold people prisoner to show that it is wrong to hold people prisoner"? Will there be sanctimonious declarations that by holding them prisoner we are lowering ourselves to their level? There weren't any such protests for Phillip Garrido, to my knowledge, and I doubt there will be any for Castro.The girl is believed to be the daughter of Amanda Berry, the woman who triggered her own rescue and that of her fellow captives by flagging down a neighbor and begging him to help her escape.
Berry, now 27, disappeared in April 2003, a day before her 17th birthday, after calling her sister to say she was getting a ride home from her job at a Burger King. Gina DeJesus went missing a year later, at age 14, while walking home from middle school. The oldest of the women, Michelle Knight, disappeared in August 2002, when she was 20 years old.
* * *[Ariel] Castro was arrested Monday night, along with his brothers Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Castro, 50. [See update note on the continuation page.] The brothers are in custody and must be charged within 36 hours, law enforcement authorities said. They declined to specify what charges the men are likely to face or to detail how they were placed under arrest. Pedro and Onil Castro have addresses elsewhere in Cleveland, police said.
Continue reading Anyone have a problem with imprisoning kidnappers?.
Michael Dresser reports for the Baltimore Sun:
Best wishes to the forces of justice. If the California experience is any indication, you will be massively outspent. Yet Maryland is a small enough state that the media disadvantage may not be as important. Local leaders making personal appearances and refuting the deception were an important part of the effort in California, and they may be even more effective in Maryland.
One day after Gov. Martin O'Malley signed legislation to abolish capital punishment in Maryland, death penalty supporters said Friday they will launch a petition drive to give voters the opportunity to overturn the new law.
At a news conference, Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger said he plans to lead the effort to "repeal the repeal" of the state's death penalty.
"We need to retain the death penalty for those prosecutors who wish to seek it because it is simply the right thing to do for public safety," said Shellenberger, a Democrat. "We want the people of Maryland to decide whether Maryland should have the death penalty."
Del. Neil Parrott, a Western Maryland Republican, said he would mobilize his signature-gathering operation, MDPetitions.com, to try to put a death penalty question on the ballot in November 2014.
Best wishes to the forces of justice. If the California experience is any indication, you will be massively outspent. Yet Maryland is a small enough state that the media disadvantage may not be as important. Local leaders making personal appearances and refuting the deception were an important part of the effort in California, and they may be even more effective in Maryland.
From Dunlap v. Clements, 476 Fed. Appx. 162, 163-164 (CA10 2012):
In February 1996, Mr. Dunlap was convicted of four counts of capital murder and various other crimes in connection with the murder of three teenagers and a 50-year-old mother of two at a Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant in Aurora, Colorado. In May 1996, in accordance with jury verdicts, he was sentenced to death on the four murder counts and consecutive terms totaling 113 years on the other counts.Wednesday, a judge set the week of August 18 for the execution, with the Department of Corrections to pick the exact date, Karen Augé and Adrian Garcia report for the Denver Post.
In July 1993, Mr. Dunlap had been fired from his position as a cook at the restaurant and wanted to "get even." On the night of December 14, 1993, he hid in the bathroom until closing, then emerged and shot employees Sylvia Crowell, Colleen O'Connor, Bobby Stephens, Marge Kolhberg, and Ben Grant. Mr. Stephens was hit in the face at close range but survived.
Continue reading Quadruple Murderer Nears Execution in Colorado.
I thank all of you who tuned in and have given me the benefit of your comments, almost all of which were very generous.
A tape of the relevant segment of the show, which lasts a little less than seven and a half minutes, is here. Alan is the one who looks like a law professor. I'm the one who looks like Tom Cruise (Tom Cruise after a nuclear war, anyway).
A poll has once again confirmed that the generic poll questions understate support for the death penalty and overstate opposition. When asked about a specific, especially heinous crime, more people support the death penalty than answer yes to an abstract question. Jon Cohen reports on a WaPo/ABC poll.
Overall, 70 percent of those surveyed say they support the death penalty for 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. While most Democrats and Republicans alike say they would support the death penalty for Tsarnaev, there are deep racial divisions on the matter, reflecting a common gap in public views of the death penalty itself.The overall result is 70-27.
Continue reading Poll on DP for the Marathon Bomber.
Tonight at 9:00 pm Eastern on CNN's Piers Morgan show, our resident masterblogger and former Chief Deputy U.S. Attorney William Otis will debate Harvard Law Professor Alan
Dershowitz on whether the death penalty should be available for the
Boston Marathon bomber. Check your local listings. It should be interesting.
Understanding that their client faces the realistic possibility of execution, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers, now including death penalty expert Judy Clarke, are reported by NBC News to have hustled into discussions with the government to take capital punishment off the table in exchange for Tsarnaev's cooperation.
I was a federal prosecutor for a long time. I was also, at one point, a member of White House Counsel's Office concerned, as everyone in the Office is, with national security. I would not even consider this "deal."
First, it's not at all clear that Mr. Nicey has anything worthwhile to tell us. The defense story thus far is that he's nothing but the last-minute, teenage tag-along to his older brother, who did such planning as there was. Whether that's true or not, and I have no idea, there is not a single reason in the public domain to believe that Tsarnaev ever had actionable information, and still less information that hasn't become stale.
Second, so far as is known, we have not come close to exhausting other sources of information -- his friends, classmates, his brother's wife, his uncles, his computer, his correspondence, credit card statements, school records, Facebook entries, and a great deal more. Why give up something of value for information (if there is any) you can very likely get from alternative sources?
Third, with any known or even rumored exigency having passed some time ago, rushing into a deal is hardly essential (and it will get less essential as time goes by). Thus, if a deal were ever to be considered, the time to do it would be when the government is in a stronger position -- i.e., at the minimum, when the government has finished what is certain to be a powerful case at trial and little Dzhokar has to sit there waiting to see if he gets a death verdict. That will focus his attention much more directly than the off-in-the-distance threat he sees now.
Defense lawyers ceaselessly complain that plea bargaining is rigged in favor of the government. Now is the time to give them their answer: In this high stakes showdown, give no deals to this devil and let a jury do what the Framers designed it to do.
Should Dzhokhar Tsarnaev get the death penalty? Some believe his crimes so grotesque that only capital punishment will suffice. Others oppose the death penalty in all circumstances. Still others would consider it, but have doubts, and think there might be mitigating circumstances that have not yet appeared, perhaps related to Dzhokhar's youth, or to the influence that may have been exerted by this older brother.
This is why we have juries. The correct answer in this case is for the Justice Department aggressively to seek the death penalty, and allow the defense fully to give its answer. Then let the jury decide.
This case has enormous significance to a county in a war with Jihadist terrorism. It has numbing moral stakes that were thrust before our unwilling eyes in the gruesome pictures we saw two weeks ago. Such a case should not be resolved by a backroom plea bargain. Seldom in our history has there been better reason to use what the Founders gave us -- a public trial before a jury.
Spell it all out, every awful thing Dzhokhar did, and everything that might counsel mercy. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is an American citizen and deserves an open, public judgment. More importantly, so do we.
I make the case in my op-ed published this morning in Forbes.
