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Thread: Idaho Capital Punishment History

  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Idaho Capital Punishment History

    Current development

    Capital punishment was reinstated in Idaho on July 7, 1973,after the United States Supreme Court struck down all death penalty statutes across the country in 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision. The 1976 case Gregg v. Georgia lifted an almost ten-year moratorium of executions in the United States, but Idaho waited until 1994 to execute its first inmate.

    Capital crimes

    Three crimes in Idaho are punishable by death:

    First-degree murder with aggravating factors
    Aggravated kidnapping
    Perjury causing execution of an innocent person

    As in any other state, people who are under 18 at the time of commission of the capital crime or mentally retarded are constitutionally precluded from being executed.

    Sentencing and clemency

    Sentencing is determined by jury. Currently 12 inmates (including one woman) await execution on death row, located in Boise for men and in Pocatello for women.

    Idaho is one of the very few states where commutation of death sentences is determined solely by a Board on which the Governor of Idaho does not sit. Only two other states (Georgia and Connecticut) share the same system, while in Nebraska, Utah, and Nevada the Governor sits on the board.

    Only one person has received a commutation of a death sentence since 1973 (Donald Paradis in April 1994). His sentence was later overturned and he was freed due to innocence.

    Charles Fain was released in 2001 from death row after serving almost 18 years for a crime that he did not commit.

    Methods of execution


    Lethal injection is the sole method of execution used by the State of Idaho. Between the reinstatement of capital punishment in Idaho and the state's adoption of lethal injection, firing squad was the standard method, but was never actually used. After lethal injection was introduced, firing squad was offered as an option, but on April 1, 2009, governor C.L.S "Butch" Otter signed into law legislation ending the practice. This law went into effect July 1, 2009. The only way that any inmate would be able to be executed by firing squad would be if lethal injection was found to be "impractical".
    Individuals executed by the State of Idaho

    Three inmates have been executed in Idaho after 1977. Keith Wells waived his appeals and asked that the execution be carried out.

    Keith Wells, Paul Ezra Rhoades, and Richard Albert Leavitt

    Historical

    In pre-Furman period, Idaho executed 26 men between 1864 and 1957. Of these, 14 executions were prior to Statehood, 12 since. Idaho has never executed a woman, and all executions were carried out by hanging

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital...hment_in_Idaho
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    Re-enactment set for historic murder trial

    There’s nothing like a murder trial followed by a hanging to bring back life on the frontier that was Idaho as the state prepares for the Sesquicentennial of becoming a territory this year.

    Bingham County officials are doing their part with a re-enactment of an 1887 murder trial.

    Alexander Woods, a black Pocatello businessman, was charged with murdering his wife, Sarah, who was of mixed race, because he suspected her of having an affair. The trial was held in Blackfoot because Pocatello was part of Bingham County at the time and it was the county seat.

    The nuances of this murder trial will come back to live in the Bingham County Courthouse March 14, 15 and 16 as part of that county’s participation in Idaho’s 150th anniversary celebration.

    “I think it’s going to be a lot of fun,” said Bingham County Clerk Sara Staub. “Everyone is pretty excited. It’s going to be worth people seeing.”

    The county commissioners met Friday to authorize the expenses for creating a three-day event in March to celebrate Bingham County’s history. In addition to the re-enactment of the murder trial, displays will be set up inside the courthouse to reacquaint residents with life in Southeast Idaho nearly 150 years ago.

    Bingham County broke away from Oneida County in 1885 and it included all of what is now Bannock and Fremont counties.

    Staub said in preparation for the trial re-enactment, she was stunned by the constant references to train traffic in Pocatello and was surprised how many things in people’s lives remain very much the same today.

    For example, trial procedures are nearly identical. Staub should know. She has been Bingham County Clerk since 2003 and was the legal secretary for longtime county prosecutor Tom Moss for 21 years.

    “At one time, Tom Moss had convicted more people on death row than anyone in Idaho,” Staub said.

    But when courthouse employees and community members assemble in Courtroom Number 1 in the Bingham County March 14, it will be to breathe life into history. Alexander Woods stood accused of beating and then shooting his wife in the head.

    “We actually still have a piece of her skull and the bullet,” Staub said.

    Mr. Alexander was a barber at a hotel in Pocatello and his wife did laundry.

    The defendant became angry when he suspected she was having an affair with one of her laundry customers. According to an 1888 story on Alexander’s hanging in The Deseret News, the husband suspected his wife had been unfaithful many times.

    The 1888 story reads: “The evening of the murder, May 5, 1887, he claimed that he saw her in a compromising position with another man, and getting a revolver, shot her in the head. He then hid her body in the sagebrush near the Portneuf River and left the place.”

    The body was discovered three days later.

    After being convicted and sentenced to death, Alexander escaped from jail and was later captured in Bozeman, Mont. Staub said that a local paper ran the following headline at the time of the escape: “A bold dash for liberty.”

    An attempt to have Alexander’s sentenced commuted from death to life in prison was also rejected by then Idaho Territorial Gov. Edward Stevenson. Alexander was hung to death in Blackfoot in August of 1988.

    “In a brief speech made before the noose had been adjusted, he said he had no ill feelings towards anyone,” The Deseret News reported.

    http://www.idahostatejournal.com/new...a4bcf887a.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

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    Idaho’s male death row at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution

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