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Thread: Missouri Capital Punishment News

  1. #11
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Bill to abolish death penalty filed in Mo. House

    Legislation has been filed in the Missouri House that would abolish the death penalty.

    If the bill becomes law, any pending executions in Missouri would be halted, and all inmates sentenced to death would be re-sentenced to life without probation or parole. It’s sponsored by State Representative Penny Hubbard (D, St. Louis). She says she doesn’t believe that capital punishment is an effective deterrent.

    “I’m not saying that when a person commits a crime that they should not be punished," Hubbard said. "I just feel like life without probation or parole would suffice, and I don’t feel like at this day and time we ought to be doing an eye-for-an-eye.”

    Hubbard also said that there’s the possibility that some inmates under a death sentence in Missouri may actually be innocent. The bill’s chances of passing or even being debated are slim, with strong Republican majorities controlling both the Missouri House and Senate – and Democratic Governor Jay Nixon also supports the death penalty. Hubbard says she hopes the bill will at least get a hearing.

    http://www.news.stlpublicradio.org/p...filed-mo-house

  2. #12
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    Mo. lawmaker wants audit for using death penalty

    A Democratic lawmaker from St. Louis wants the Missouri auditor's office to investigate the cost of applying the death penalty.

    State Sen. Joe Keaveny (keh-VIHN'-ee) says the audit would be the first comprehensive study in Missouri to compare the cost of the death penalty with sentencing an offender to life in prison without parole. Keaveny filed a bill seeking the audit this week.

    Keaveny says the goal is to determine the cost of capital punishment, not to analyze whether the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime.



    Death penalty audit is SB786

    Online:

    Legislature: http://www.moga.mo.gov

    http://www.kait8.com/story/16938844/...-death-penalty

  3. #13
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    Bill seeks to repeal capital punishment in Missouri

    A new House bill being brought forth by Rep. Penny Hubbard, D-District 58, seeks to repeal the death penalty in Missouri as well as allow re-sentencing for all inmates currently on death row in the state.

    The bill aims to restructure the sentencing of offenders of capital offenses and instead offer a maximum term of life in prison without the possibility of parole, Hubbard's legislative assistant Blair Henry said.

    Hubbard has been an opponent of capital punishment and is now bringing this bill forward as a means to put action to a movement to repeal the death penalty in Missouri, Henry said.

    “I think it was something that Penny has always supported so she is carrying it forth at this point,” Henry said.

    Missouri has multiple death row inmates housed at the Potosi Correctional Center, which is about an hour southwest of St. Louis, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.

    Shortly before execution, they are transferred to a separate correctional facility in Bonne Terre where the execution is formally carried out, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.

    Opponents of the death penalty argue that it is not a deterrent to violent crime and the financial burdens far outweigh the benefits of implementing capital punishment, according to Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

    Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty is a grassroots, non-profit organization that advocates the abolition of the death penalty and has been involved in facilitating the legislation to repeal capital punishment, according to its website.

    The organization states that Missouri has spent more than $93 million extra on cases where the death penalty was sought, a cost they argue can be directed to more useful areas.

    “That money could be going to victims, it could be going to law enforcement to fight cold cases and it could go toward education,” said Kathleen Holmes, Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty state coordinator.

    Additionally, the possibility of executing innocent inmates is a concern. In the last several years, three inmates have been exonerated through the appeals process and released from death row, something which would not have been possible had they been executed, Holmes said.

    “We’re certainly not saying ‘Let them out,’ Holmes said. "We’re just saying that the money that death row costs should go to law enforcement, education and victims.”

    Gov. Jay Nixon is a supporter of the death penalty and fought numerous times to uphold it during his 16-year career as the Missouri attorney general, Nixon's spokesman Scott Holste said.

    Nixon believes capital punishment is a necessary punishment in certain circumstances, and it should be utilized when the courts deem it necessary, Holste said. He also said Nixon believes in upholding lower court decisions, regardless of the severity of the sentence, but the governor is not always in support of the death penalty.

    Last year, Nixon lessened the sentence of convicted murderer Richard Clay. In a news release, Nixon said he had no doubt of Clay’s involvement but decided to exercise his constitutional authority to re-sentence him to life in prison without parole, based on his individual case.

    “Governor Nixon believes that (capital punishment) is an appropriate punishment to have available under certain circumstances," Holste said. "It is asked for sparingly, handed down sparingly and administered sparingly."

    http://www.themaneater.com/stories/2...ment-missouri/

  4. #14
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    Commission finds death penalty unevenly applied in Missouri

    If the state of Missouri is going to continue to put prisoners to death for its most serious crimes, then it’s going to have to have more consistent rules when it comes to meting out the punishment.

    That’s among the findings of a panel of eight lawyers, judges and law school professors assembled by the Missouri Bar Association to assess fairness and accuracy in Missouri’s death penalty system.

    The goal of the assessment team was not to support or rally against the state’s current capital punishment law. Rather, panel member Douglas Copeland said the panel’s assignment was to conduct a review of the laws, procedures, and practices by which the death penalty is implemented in Missouri.

    “We kind of left our opinions on the death penalty at the door,” said panel spokesman Douglas Copeland, a private practice attorney from St. Louis.

    Overall, the committee found that inconsistencies in Missouri’s laws lead to broad interpretations that in turn lead to inconsistent sentencing. University of Missouri Law School professor Paul Litton said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty should be reserved only for the most extreme cases of murder. Litton said the assessment team found 17 aggravating circumstances in Missouri law that trigger the death sentence, with many creating broad categories under which a criminal can receive a death sentence.

    “As a result, the aggravating circumstances provide little guidance to prosecutors with respect to sentencing decisions,” said Litton.

    Professor Rodney Uphoff of the University of Missouri School of Law said Missouri courts hand out the death sentence in a seemingly arbitrary manner.

    “And the problem with that is, in a run of the mill armed robbery that sadly ends in a murder, that young man gets the death sentence, when across the state, somebody who commits a double homicide only gets life, or life without the possibility for parole,” Uphoff said. “We’re not criticizing prosecutors, what we’re saying is when you look at crimes across the state, you shouldn’t have a vastly different sentence for somebody who commits a crime on end of the state and not on the other end of the state.”

    The report concludes that the state legislature is going to have to work out a solution to the statutory problems to bring more consistency to the death penalty process in Missouri.

    The report also concludes that state statute does not protect seriously mentally ill criminals from the death penalty. It also finds that jurors in some death penalty cases do not understand the trial judges instructions. The report also says that police procedures of interrogation and evidence gathering and retention must be improved and that more attorneys need to receive training in procedures for death penalty cases and trials.

    The assessment is one of several across the country sponsored by the American Bar Association. So far, death penalty assessment teams have looked at capital punishment in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Kentucky.

    The Missouri report was paid for by the European Union. Bar Association staff attorney Sarah Turberville said she did not attach any significance to the funding source. She told reporters that the organization offered a funding resource, and had no other input on the study.

    Anti-death penalty activists said the report helps to bolster several of the arguments they have been making for years.

    “There are several individuals over the years in Missouri that have been executed that had histories of severe mental illness and even blackouts,” said Jeff Stack, a member of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “I think (this report) gives all Missourians a good template to look at and consider if we’re willing to make this kind of investment…to continue to have the death penalty.”

    http://missouri-news.org/featured/co...missouri/14551

  5. #15
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    Lack of sodium thiopental makes lethal injection challenge moot

    A challenge to Missouri’s practice of lethal injection is moot because the state has run out of the drug used as an anesthetic and can’t obtain any more, a federal appeals court said Monday.

    The suit had been brought by a group of death row inmates who alleged that they suffered a risk of severe pain during executions because the state uses nonmedical personnel to administer the lethal drugs in a manner not approved by the Food and Drug Administration or the drugs’ manufacturers.

    Missouri uses a “cocktail” of drugs to administer the death penalty: sodium thiopental, which renders the prisoner unconscious; pancuronium bromide, which relaxes his muscles; and potassium chloride, which stops his heart.

    The state’s stock of sodium thiopental, however, expired more than a year ago, and the drug’s domestic manufacturer, Hospira, doesn’t make it anymore. And in March, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia blocked importation of foreign-made sodium thiopental into the United States.

    “The [Missouri Department of Corrections] is unable to carry out the challenged protocol as written, and it appears unlikely it ever will,” Chief Judge William Jay Riley wrote. Judges Lavenski R. Smith and Bobby E. Shepherd concurred.

    According to the 8th Circuit’s opinion, the Department of Corrections has not yet found a substitute anesthetic. Despite the plaintiffs’ urging, the court declined to weigh in on the constitutionality of Missouri’s lethal injection methods, saying the claims were tied to the specific drugs used.

    “While any replacement drug the DOC might obtain may be similar — it also may not,” Riley wrote. “We cannot know until the drug is acquired.”

    A Department of Corrections spokesman, Chris Cline, didn’t immediately respond to a request for an update on the state’s lethal injection protocol.

    The appeals court vacated U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey’s underlying district court decision, issued last August. Laughrey had granted summary judgment in favor of the state, ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing because there wasn’t evidence that any previously executed prisoners had actually suffered the injuries the lawsuit claims could happen.

    Joseph Luby, an attorney with the Public Interest Litigation Clinic in Kansas City, said he was studying the 8th Circuit’s opinion and declined to immediately comment. Nanci Gonder, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, declined to comment.

    The last Missouri inmate to be executed was Martin Link on Feb. 9, 2011. No other inmates are currently scheduled to be put to death.

    http://molawyersmedia.com/blog/2012/...hallenge-moot/
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  6. #16
    Banned TheKindExecutioner's Avatar
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    Get going with the DP will you?

  7. #17
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    Not all that long,TheKindExecutioner...its last execution was only last year when Martin Link,47,was executed in February 2011 for the murder of Elissa Self, and Missouri handed out no new death sentences in 2011. (see the post marked 'Listing of 2011 US Death Sentences). Also, that execution was only the second since Marlin Gray,38,was executed in October 2005. We both know that Missouri's post-Furman capital punishment heyday has passed,really.

  8. #18
    Banned TheKindExecutioner's Avatar
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    Not all that long for what?

  9. #19
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    You claimed in the post I originally replied to, TheKindExecutioner, that 'it had been so long' (since Missouri carried out an execution) that 'you could not recall'....I just pointed out that Missouri's last execution was relatively recent.

  10. #20
    MidwestExecutionHawk
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    But compared to other states, Missouri has sure waited a long time to execute prisoners. Texas, Ohio and a few other states are chugging right along. Hoping that August 3rd, that changes. However, the naysayers say a stay is likely in that one. I guess we will see.

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