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Thread: Indiana Capital Punishment News

  1. #11
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Ind. passes decapitating bill

    The Indiana Senate passed a bill that would make decapitating someone a crime eligible for the death penalty.

    Senators voted 45-4 Thursday in favor of the proposal.

    Current state law only allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty for anyone convicted of torturing or mutilation before a killing or decapitating someone who is already dead.

    Death penalty opponents contend the measure isn't necessary.

    The proposal now goes to the Indiana House for consideration

    http://www.whas11.com/story/news/loc...-law/22233607/
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  2. #12
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    You have to like the near unanimity of the vote tally. Even most of the Democrats in the Indiana Senate couldn't disagree with the death penalty being an option for beheading someone.

  3. #13
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    State senator pushes to expand death penalty reach to schools, campuses

    An Indiana lawmaker wants to expand the reach prosecutors have to pursue the death penalty.

    There are currently 16 factors prosecutors in the state can consider when pursuing the death penalty. Killing a child or a police officer are 2 of those factors, but there isn't one for location. Senator Brandt Hershman (R-Buck Creek) wants to change that to include schools and college campuses.

    No one at the Indiana Statehouse could hear the bells that tolled on the Purdue University campus Wednesday.

    They tolled for Andrew Boldt. The bells marked the 1 year anniversary of his on-campus killing.

    "Safety has become something people think more about, therefore we need to provide them the tools and procedures to try to make them as safe as possible," Ronnie Wright, the director of Emergency Preparedness and Planning at Purdue University, told Eyewitness News Wednesday. "There are a number of factors to be considered in proposing the death penalty in Indiana. Committing murder on school grounds is not one of them," Hershman said.

    So Cousins was sentenced to 65 years in prison after pleading guilty to Boldt's murder. Cousins then took his own life in a state prison last October.

    "In this case, you are looking at a particularly vulnerable population. I think the public policy that we want our schools to be as safe as possible suggests that this makes sense," Hershman continued.

    He is hoping it might be a future deterrent. He couldn't hear the bells tolling at Purdue on Wednesday. He just wants to make sure no one else has to hear them again either.

    Senate Bill 385 has been assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee and could be up for a hearing as early as next week.

    (Source: WTHR News)
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  4. #14
    Moderator Dave from Florida's Avatar
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    Indiana cannot carry out the death sentences that are current and this legislator wants to add more?

  5. #15
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Bill allowing death penalty in school shootings likely to advance

    A bill that would allow the death penalty for murders committed on school grounds passed the Senate last month and stands a good chance of advancing in the House.

    Senate Bill 385 would allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole for defendants charged with committing murder on school or campus grounds or places of religious worship. Prosecutors also could seek capital punishment for murders committed when children are likely present.

    The bill passed the Senate 45-5 and has been assigned to the House Courts and Criminal Code Committee. The chair of that committee, Rep. Thomas Washburne, is a supporter of capital punishment and agrees that where a murder is committed should be considered an aggravating factor in seeking the death penalty.

    "If someone's willing to come on school property and murder someone, that could very well be one that could be added to the list of aggravators that would bring it to a death penalty situation," said Washburne, R-Inglefield. "If someone's willing to come in and kill somebody during a religious service, then that conduct, too, probably could be an aggravator."

    There are nearly 20 aggravating factors that allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty or life without parole in murder cases in Indiana. Other circumstances include murdering a law enforcement officer and killing more than one person.

    Washburne said he expects resistance from those who oppose the death penalty and might think the legislation is unwarranted.

    Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, said adding aggravating factors that allow the death penalty doesn't address the underlying problem of why people commit murder.

    "As a preventive thing, I think it's somewhat meaningless. People who do school shootings are really not deterred by the punishment," Dieter said. "I understand the sentiment that the worst crimes deserve the worst punishment, but being smart about crime would be looking into other solutions that might work."

    Often, Dieter said, those who kill someone on school property either kill themselves or assume they will be killed in the process. Such is the case with the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.

    In Indiana, Cody Cousins received a 65-year sentence for the brutal and gruesome shooting and stabbing death of a fellow Purdue University student. Cousins committed suicide about a month after he was sentenced.

    The bill's author, Sen. Brandt Hershman, said the Purdue shooting was his motivation for introducing SB 385. Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Pat Harrington told the Lafayette Journal & Courier that he was unable to seek the death penalty against Cousins because Indiana law does not include campus shootings as an aggravating factor.

    "The question ultimately on the bill is not whether the death penalty should be legal or not," said Hershman, R-Buck Creek. "The underlying question is what circumstances do we consider appropriate for the imposition of the death penalty."

    The bill received bipartisan support in the Senate.

    Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, does not support the death penalty, but he voted for the bill.

    "There's some logic to it," Taylor said of SB 385 during a brief discussion before the vote last month. "If you commit a murder in front of children, then I think you must have some kind of problem and, actually, we should consider that more heinous."

    Hershman said he expects the bill to receive a similar level of support in the House.

    http://www.indystar.com/story/news/p...ings/24729293/
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  6. #16
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    House Committee Considers Expansion Of Death Penalty

    A House committee has approved 1 expansion of the death penalty, but put another on hold.

    The Senate responded to last year's murder of a Purdue student in a classroom on campus with a bill allowing the death penalty for school shootings or shootings during worship services.

    But Public Defender Council executive director Larry Landis says the bill would break new and questionable legal ground by allowing the death penalty based where the murder took place.

    "Nearly all of the 16 aggravators currently in the statute deal with one of three situations," says Landis. "It's either the manner or method of killing, the characteristics of the murderer, or the characteristics of the victim. They're now starting to put a death penalty aggravator based on the geography."

    And Landis says an attempt to limit the bill's impact to hours when classes or church services are actually in session instead could make the bill too vague.

    Committee Chairman Thomas Washburne (R-Inglefield) says he'll decide next week whether to vote on the measure.

    The committee did unanimously endorse a bill allowing the death penalty for beheadings.

    Approval by the full House would send the bill to Governor Pence.

    (Source: WBAA News)
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  7. #17
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Here we go again. More junk from the can of worms Hurst v Florida opened.

    Attorneys argue Indiana death penalty unconstitutional

    CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) — Attorneys for a man who faces charges in the deaths of seven women have argued in court filings that the state of Indiana’s death penalty law is unconstitutional.

    Darren Vann remains in isolation at the Lake County jail, the Post-Tribune reported. His attorneys argued in an Aug. 5 filing that an Indiana Code statute is unconstitutional in two main areas.

    They question how a jury is supposed to weigh factors that could influence a death sentence. They also say it’s unconstitutional to allow a judge to determine a defendant’s death sentence when the jury can’t.

    Government prosecutors have until Sept. 7 to file a response to the claim.

    Lake County prosecutors requested the death penalty for Vann last year. He faces charges in connection with the deaths of Anith Jones 35, of Merrillville; Afrikka Hardy, 19, of Chicago; Teaira Batey, 28, of Gary; Tracy Martin, 41, of Gary; Kristine Williams, 36, of Gary; Sonya Billingsley, 52, of Gary; and Tanya Gatlin, 27, of Highland.

    If convicted, he could join 13 other people on death row in Indiana.

    Kevin Charles Isom, the other man facing the death penalty in Lake County, also questioned the factors a jury is supposed to weigh before sentencing someone to death. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled against him in 2015.

    The constitutionality of capital punishment is an issue the country has grappled with for decades as states have altered their death penalty laws.

    “Pieces of things in the statute have been pulled off and changed (in Indiana),” said Andrea Lyon, dean of Valparaiso University Law School. “But Indiana Supreme Court and, thus far, any other federal court has not said that Indiana, generally, has been unconstitutional.”

    Delaware’s highest court ruled its state’s death penalty law was unconstitutional less than two weeks ago. It said it gave judges too large of a role over juries in imposing death sentences.

    Vann’s attorneys say in the motion that the situations in Delaware and Indiana are similar.

    http://wishtv.com/2016/08/20/attorne...onstitutional/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  8. #18
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    Court: Indiana death penalty protocol ‘void’

    Indiana’s means of carrying out the death penalty through lethal injection “is void and without effect,” the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Thursday, reversing a death row inmate’s challenge to the Department of Correction’s execution protocol.

    Judge John Baker wrote for the court the Department of Correction was bound to enact new lethal-injection protocols under the state’s Administrative Rules and Procedure Act, subject to public comment, which it did not do. Failing to do so voids a protocol DOC adopted in May 2014, the court ruled, tossing out the state’s means of execution via a fatal three-drug cocktail that has never been used in any state or federal execution.

    “Finding the General Assembly has not exempted the DOC from ARPA and that the statutory definition of ‘rule’ clearly includes the DOC’s execution protocols, we reverse,” Baker wrote for the Court in Roy Lee Ward v. Robert E. Carter, Jr., Commissioner of the Indiana Department of Correction, and Ron Neal, Superintendent of the Indiana State Prison, in their official capacities, 46A03-1607-PL-1685.

    The ruling remands the case brought by Ward to LaPorte Circuit Court, where Judge Thomas J. Alevizos previously dismissed the suit.

    Ward was sentenced to death in 2007 for the 2001 rape and murder of 15-year-old Stacy Payne in Spencer County. He is one of 12 people on Indiana’s death row at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.

    http://www.theindianalawyer.com/cour.../article/43874
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  9. #19
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Editorial:

    EDITORIAL: State is in a death penalty corner


    News Sentinel

    Indiana officials probably don't want to have a big debate about the death penalty, but they more or less have to. The issue has been hijacked by capital punishment opponents, who have pushed the state into a corner by challenging the lethal cocktail used to carry out state-sanctioned executions. If the state can't talk its way out of the corner, it might have to go back to “less humane” methods of execution.

    Most death penalty states have a similar dilemma. Influenced by anti-capital punishment activists, major drug companies have stopped making their lethal products available to states using them for capital punishment, so states have been scrambling to find alternatives.

    In 2014, the Indiana Department of Corrections came up with a three-drug cocktail of methohexital, potassium chloride and pancuronium bromide, which no state or federal prisoner in the country has been executed by. Other states coming up with their own concoctions have had horrible instances of prisoners dying gruesome, drawn-out deaths, which has put the “cruel and unusual punishment” argument back on the table.

    Roy Lee Ward, one of Indiana's 11 prisoners on death row, sued the state in 2015, arguing that the DOC skirted procedures when it chose the new drugs. A LaPorte Circuit judge dismissed the claim. But now a three-judge Indiana Court of Appeals panel has reversed the lower court. The judges found that when the DOC chose the new drugs, it violated Ward's rights under the state and federal constitutions. The DOC did not follow guidelines set by the General Assembly that regulate how state agencies change its rules, including holding a public hearing, the court said.

    The state's options are limited. Even if it backs up and follows all the procedures the court says are necessary, it may be a moot point. Indiana's stock of lethal injection drugs is expired — and, given the attitude of the drug companies, the state is not likely to replenish them any time soon.

    So what is the state to do? Put executions on hold indefinitely, which would have the effect of eliminating capital punishment? Bring back the gas chamber, hanging, the firing squad, the electric chair?

    It is more than a little ironic that lethal injections were settled on as a more humane way of dispatching capital offenders. In trying to deal with claims of its cruelty, the state might have to revert to killing in ways considered even more barbaric.

    Maybe it's time for one of those public hearings.

    http://www.news-sentinel.com/opinion...605&profile=-1
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  10. #20
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Experts say Court of Appeals ruling leaves death penalty in limbo

    The death penalty in Indiana cannot be carried out as of June 1. That's the day a Court of Appeals panel declared the lethal injection cocktail adopted by the Department of Correction "void and without effect" because the agency enacted its execution protocol without hearings or public input.

    Legal experts from Indiana's law schools said the decision casts uncertainty on the death penalty going forward, though they said by no means is the court's ruling a moratorium on future executions.

    "We're at least 18 months to 2 years before anything happens" in terms of the state adopting a new execution protocol, predicted Valparaiso University Law School Dean Andrea D. Lyon, who's written several books and scholarly articles on the death penalty. She explained that for the DOC to continue to carry out executions, it's left with 2 options - seek to appeal the decision to the Indiana Supreme Court or begin the administrative rulemaking process. Neither of those processes would quickly resolve how Indiana executes death row inmates.

    "I would be surprised if the Indiana Supreme Court took the case," Lyon said. "It's a pretty clear administrative ruling that follows a lot of precedent and a lot of common sense ... even though it's on a volatile subject."

    "We are disappointed with the Court of Appeals' decision," said Corey Elliot, spokesman for Attorney General Curtis Hill, after the panel ruled in Roy Lee Ward v. Robert E. Carter, Jr., Commissioner of the Indiana Department of Correction, and Ron Neal,

    Superintendent of the Indiana State Prison, in their official capacities, 46A03-1607-PL-1685. "At this point, we are closely reviewing the case, consulting with our client agency and considering all possible options, one of which is to ask the Indiana Supreme Court to review the case."

    The COA reversed LaPorte Circuit Judge Thomas J. Alevizos' dismissal of a death row inmate's civil case. Judge John Baker wrote for the court that the Legislature did not explicitly exempt the DOC from the Administrative Rules and Procedure Act, so it must conduct public hearings and accept public comments in formulating an agency rule on how the state will carry out executions.

    Administrative review could present the DOC with more political than practical problems, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law professor David Orentlicher and other experts said. An administrative rules procedure would compel DOC to propose its execution protocol, which would then be subject to public hearings, public comment, and heightened scrutiny.

    "Part of the reason it's become difficult to execute is public sentiment has shifted so much," Orentlicher said. He and others noted Americans are no longer solidly in favor of capital punishment, and some surveys have shown an even divide or a majority who disfavor the death penalty. Botched executions and wrongful convictions in the news in recent months are part of the reason support for lethal injection has declined, he said.

    Meanwhile, Orentlicher said companies don't want to be known as manufacturers of drugs used as part of the lethal-injection cocktail, and fewer physicians are willing to assist in administering a fatal dose.

    Racial bias and other factors also play a role in declining support for the death penalty, he said, and studies show executions are not always reserved for those cases deemed "the worst of the worst."

    Among other things, "It depends on the prosecutor, the jury, and how good your defense lawyer is," he said. "What we're finding is, it turns on inappropriate factors, who gets the death penalty."

    Notre Dame Law School professor Rick Garnett also noted the ruling came against the backdrop of ongoing debate about the death penalty generally, and lethal injection in particular. Nevertheless, he said the DOC could adopt the same lethal injection protocol that the COA voided, which includes a drug never used in a U.S. execution, as long as it does so in accordance with ARPA.

    "Even if the ruling stands, it does not directly limit Indiana's ability to impose capital punishment but instead only requires the development of rules," Garnett said.

    Still, he said, "Several high-profile cases have reminded the public that the mere fact lethal injections appear clinical and 'modern' does not mean they are humane. Many have argued that far greater care is needed by state officials and prison administrators to make sure that, assuming capital punishment continues, condemned criminals do not suffer painfully and unconstitutionally."

    Indiana University Maurer School of Law professor Joseph Hoffmann doubts the ruling will have long-term implications for the death penalty in Indiana. "The Indiana Court of Appeals basically said if the Department of Correction wants to make a new protocol for a lethal injection drug, it needs to be treated as an agency rule" rather than as a policy, as the state had argued. "It doesn't say anything at all about the merits. ... The agency is free in the end to make whatever decision it thinks is the right decision."

    Even so, he noted, "Right now, obviously, nationwide, these drug protocols are getting all kinds of scrutiny."

    Indiana's voided formulation - a never-before-tried drug called methohexital (known by the brand name Brevital), along with pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride - was adopted internally by DOC and disclosed some time later.

    Before Steve Creason, the Office of the Indiana Attorney General's chief counsel of appeals, could begin his defense of the DOC's protocol during oral arguments last month, he faced a hypothetical about the state's means of execution from presiding Judge Baker.

    "So, you have a press conference tomorrow and you say, 'You know what we're going to use? We're going to use water.' Is that OK?"

    "Yes," Creason said, before clarifying, "That probably wouldn't meet legal requirements related to cruel and unusual punishment."

    Roy Lee Ward, the plaintiff in this case, was sentenced to death in 2007 for the 2001 rape and murder of 15-year-old Stacy Payne in Spencer County. According to the DOC's website, there are 12 men on Indiana's death row at the Indiana State Prison in

    Michigan City. One of the men, Wayne Kubsch, had his conviction and sentence tossed out last year by the full 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and is awaiting retrial. A woman on Indiana death row is housed in Ohio.

    Representing Ward, Fort Wayne attorney David Frank said the state sought to characterize Ward's suit as an attempt to bar the death penalty, which he said wasn't the case. No executions are currently scheduled.

    The DOC "was trying to issue a new lethal injection protocol by themselves that has never been used," Frank said. "Before we execute a human being in manner that's never been done before in the history of country, maybe we should have some public discussion on it."

    Lyon noted more states have abandoned the death penalty, and there isn't the political danger there once was for politicians to oppose capital punishment. "Indiana," she noted, "is alone in the 7th Circuit with the death penalty."

    (Source: The Indiana Lawyer)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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