Category: Death Penalty

Kentucky’s Misguided Approach on the Death Penalty

by · Mar 30, 2022 11:55 am

The Kentucky legislature has passed HB 269 and sent it to the Governor for approval.  The Bill precludes the death penalty for individuals who had “active symptoms” and a “documented history” of certain enumerated mental disorders at the time of the offense conduct.  The list includes schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder and delusional disorder.  The proposed legislation does not require proof that the “active symptoms” had impaired the defendant’s rationality in any manner during the commission of the crime.

This approach has many problems, but I will briefly discuss two.

First, the term “active symptoms” is not defined and is thus a legislative construction. However, many of these disorder are notable for their negative symptoms.  These include reduced motivation and a diminished experience of pleasure in life.  These are real symptoms and their effects can profoundly adversely affect a person’s quality of life, particularly since they tend to endure even when other symptoms of the disorder have abated.   However, given their nature, it is likely that anyone who has a documented history of one of the enumerated mental disorders will qualify as having “active symptoms” despite their level of lucidity.

Second, there is no logical or just reason why people only with a “documented history” should be treated differently.  Obviously, the legislation envisions fraud as a reason for this requirement.  But it is relatively common for people with these disorders to have no treatment history during the early course of their illness —not to mention that there is no moral reason to treat those who have not had the opportunity for treatment to be subject to a different punishment.

This is a bad Bill whatever your stance is on the death penalty.

Supreme Court Takes Up Arizona Murder Case

by · Mar 28, 2022 8:05 am

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court released this orders list from last Friday’s conference. The Court took up the case of Cruz v. Arizona, No. 21-846. The case involves the familiar scenario of a murderer who could have made a particular objection at trial or on direct appeal but did not. When he tries to raise the objection in a collateral attack on the judgment, the state court tells him it is too late. As usual, the issue in this case has nothing whatever to do with whether the defendant committed the crime. It only relates to whether he should receive the punishment his crime deserves or whether justice should be tempered with mercy to let him off with less than he deserves.

From the state’s brief in opposition:

On the day he was killed, Officer Patrick Hardesty was questioning [John] Cruz as part of a hit-and-run investigation. App. 2a. During the questioning, Cruz ran from Officer Hardesty and Officer Hardesty gave chase on foot. Id. at 202–03, ¶¶ 2–4. At some point during the chase, Cruz shot the officer five times, emptying the five-shot revolver he was carrying. Two shots struck Officer Hardesty’s protective vest, two others struck him in the abdomen below the vest, and one entered his left eye, killing him almost instantly. Id. at 203, ¶¶ 5–7. Four of the shots were fired from no more than a foot away. Id. at 203, ¶ 6.

Cruz claims that the jury should have been told he would not be eligible for parole if they gave him life in prison. The Supreme Court precedent on that point was decided nine years before the crime. Cruz’s trial attorney did not request such an instruction, even though the trial judge offered one while denying a related motion, and his appellate attorney did not make that objection on direct appeal.

This is familiar turf for CJLF. We played a role in developing the rules that generally prohibit this kind of “heads I win, tails we take it over” gamesmanship. Continue reading . . .

Clergy in the Chamber

by · Mar 24, 2022 8:11 am

In 2004, Pablo Castro, working the night shift at a convenience store in Corpus Christi, was brutally stabbed to death by a robber seeking drug money. John Ramirez stabbed Mr. Castro 29 times. He and his cohorts netted $1.25 from Mr. Castro’s pockets as he lay bleeding to death in the store parking lot.

The U.S. Supreme Court today decided that the murderer can further delay his well deserved and long overdue execution by litigating a dubious claim regarding the state’s refusal to allow his pastor to touch him and audibly pray over his while he is being executed.

There is a sign of hope in that the decision depends a lot on the specifics of the procedure in this case. States may have the capacity to avoid stays of execution in the future. Continue reading . . .

SCOTUS Reinstates Marathon Bomber’s Death Sentence

by · Mar 4, 2022 7:29 am

Opinion here. CJLF brief here. Prior post here. The prior post is an extended discussion of the evidence point in this case, while the brief is addressed primarily to the jury question. The issues are described in the prior post, so I will copy some of that material here.

In July of 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston reversed the death sentence and some of the convictions (though not on the capital offenses) of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the survivor of the pair of brothers who committed the horrible bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013.

The Court of Appeals’ primary reason for reversal was its finding that during jury selection the trial court violated its half-century old rule in Patriarca v. United States, a precedent never mentioned by either party in the trial court or in the Court of Appeals’ pre-trial reviews of jury selection.
The court also said it would “address other issues (even if just briefly) because we know they are likely to resurface on remand.” One of those was a claim that the judge erred in not allowing hearsay evidence of an earlier, unrelated murder that the older brother was alleged to have been involved in. The six-Justice majority today disposed of both holdings without much difficulty. Continue reading . . .

Breyer to Retire, Part ll

by · Jan 26, 2022 11:27 am

Mike has noted the news being reported this morning that Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at the end of the Court’s current Term.  It’s true, as Mike observes, that this will give our aging President the chance to solidify the liberal wing on the Court with someone 30 or 40 years younger than Breyer.  But there are two other features about today’s news worth noting.

Continue reading . . .

SCOTUS Takes Up Three Crime-Related Cases

by · Jan 17, 2022 1:45 pm

At its conference last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court took up three cases related to crime and law enforcement. One raises the question of whether a police officer’s failure to give Miranda warnings creates a civil liability, in addition to making the confession inadmissible in a criminal case. A second involves a challenge to a state’s method of execution, offering an alternative not authorized by state law. A third involves proceedings in federal district court to develop evidence for a habeas corpus petition without regard to whether the evidence could even be considered in deciding the case. Continue reading . . .

Death Penalty Whumps Joe Biden

by · Nov 18, 2021 1:14 pm

Gallup has two contrasting polls out today.  One shows President Biden’s approval rating at 42%.  On crime, it’s lower than that (39% approval to 57% disapproval); perhaps citizens are not real thrilled with his Attorney General’s denominating parents as “domestic terrorists” if they voice dissent at school board meetings.

Gallup’s other news release is about its annual  death penalty poll, showing approval at 54%, which, Gallup notes, “is essentially unchanged from readings over the past four years…”

Continue reading . . .

Oklahoma Set to Execute Another Murderer

by · Nov 18, 2021 10:35 am

Oklahoma is set to execute its second murderer in four weeks as convicted murderer Julius Jones faces lethal injection later today.  The Associated Press reports that celebrities and high school students gathered at the state capital to demand that Governor Kevin Stitt grant clemency.  Jones has maintained his innocence for two decades and his case was profiled by a three-part CBS documentary produced by actress Viola Davis which suggested that an accomplice actually shot and killed businessman Paul Howell in front of his sister and two daughters on July 28, 1999.  Following his conviction and sentence Jones claimed on habeas corpus, that a 2017 study  finding that black murderers who killed white victims were more likely to be sentenced to death, suggesting that Jones, who is black, is facing execution because of his race and the race of his victim, who was white.

UPDATE:  Governor Stitt has just commuted Jones’ sentence to life without parole as reported here.

Continue reading . . .

Mississippi Murderer to be Executed

by · Nov 16, 2021 11:10 am

A Mississippi man who murdered his estranged wife in 2009, after several years of sexually abusing her daughter, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday (11/17).  Emily Wagster Pettus of the Associated Press reports that David Neal Cox was jailed in 2009 after his stepdaughter reported that he had been sexually assaulting her for years.  Even though Cox had been convicted of rape, sexual battery, child abuse and a drug charge, he was released from jail in April of 2010.  A month later Cox stormed into the house where his estranged wife, Kim Cox, was living and shot her in the arm and abdomen.  While she lay on the floor bleeding to death, Cox sexually assaulted her daughter in front of her.  After an eight-hour standoff, Cox surrendered to police.  He pled guilty to the murder in 2012.  UPDATE:  Cox was executed Wednesday afternoon as reported here.