San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Pope Francis condemns the death penalty

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Pope Francis declared executions are an attack on human dignity and the church would work with “determination” to abolish capital punishment worldwide. The Pope also made official changes to the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, according the New York Times.
The Catechism is the book of doctrine for 1.2 billion Catholics and is studied by adults and taught to children. Ending the death penalty is among the Pope’s main goals, along with protecting the environment and caring for refugees and immigrants.
Most countries, including those with significant Catholic populations, have already abolished the death penalty, according to Amnesty International.
However, in the United States, where capital punishment is still legal in 31 states, a majority of Catholics support the death penalty while also supporting the end of abortion. The Catholic Church’s new stance aims to change this view on capital punishment, which the Pope once called fostering “vengeance.”
“It becomes binding for bishops to defend life from the initial state through all phases to the very end,” said Mario Marazziti, coordinator of the global anti-death penalty campaign of the Community of Sant’Egidio in Rome. “Even for those who are guilty.”
The changes in doctrine could put Catholic politicians in difficult positions, especially Catholic governors like Greg Abbott of Texas and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, who have presided over executions.
John Gehring, director at Faith in Public Life, a liberal-leaning group in Washington, said, “If you’re a Catholic governor who thinks the state has the right to end human life, you need to be comfortable saying you’re disregarding orthodox church teaching. There is isn’t any loophole for you to wiggle through now.”

This ruling could also complicate the lives of American judges who are practicing Catholics, including U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Sonia Sotomayor and, if approved, the latest court nominee, Brett M. Kavanaugh.
Pope Francis’ new doctrine was described by Chester L. Gillis, professor of theology at Georgetown University, as “part of the regular teaching of the church” and “binding.” But this does not mean Catholics who think differently than the Pope will be denied sacraments.
“There are lots of other teachings in the Catholic Church that not everybody abides by,” Chester said. “Is practicing birth control a mortal sin? If true there would be a lot of couples in mortal sin.”
Vatican News reported the revisions would affect paragraph 2267 of the Catechism.
“The dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes,” Pope Francis said in 2017. “The Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. And she works for the determination of its abolition worldwide.’”

CDCR officials seek new execution drug

Tennessee schedules three executions


 

Father Barber Retires – 16 Years as S.Q. Catholic Chaplain

Prosecutors accepting guilty pleas: no executions

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It’s now been four years since a Georgia jury handed down a death sentence. In the majority of the capital punishment cases, prosecutors are allowing the alleged suspect to enter a guilty plea in exchange for a life-without-parole sentence, reported Bill Rankin in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

White House


Many of Georgia’s district attorneys still strongly support capital punishment. According to state records, last year prosecutors announced they were seeking the death penalty in 26 cases. But, this year they have filed notices to seek death in just two new cases.
Polls show that public support for the death penalty is falling nationally. Peter Skandalakis, Executive Director of the Prosecution Attorneys Council in Death Penalty, thinks the public is now more comfortable with a sentence of life without parole in capital cases.
“That’s made a huge difference,” Skandalakis told Rankin. “When you sit down with victims’ families and discuss the process of a death penalty case with all the pretrial hearings, then the years of appeals that follow, I have found families like the finality of life without parole. It lets them get on with their lives.”
Opposition to the death penalty has traditionally come from liberal activists, but recently more conservatives are turning against it.
Heather Beaudoin is the national coordinator of Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, which now has chapters in 13 states. Beaudoin and others are concerned about the number of exonerations disclosed in recent years and the possibility of executing an innocent person.
“Many of our supporters are millennials, who are pro-life like I am,” Beaudoin said. “We believe that life is created by God and has value no matter what the circumstances are.”
After four years without a death sentence, Georgia’s capital defender office, a part of the public defender system, has attracted national recognition for its intervention program.

In 1935 the Supreme Court declared that a prosecutors job is more than merely winning every case by racking up convictions; it also included seeing that justice is done.” “Pressing Pause on Marijuana Convictions”  NY TIMES Opinion July 30, 2018

“The average time to resolve a case in early intervention has been less than eight months,” said Jerry Word, lead capital defender. “The average time to get a case to trial is over three years. This results in saving in court time and dollar saving to the state and county.”
The office’s intervention program had success in seeking plea deals from prosecutors early on in the cases, Word said. The program has helped more than 20 defendants avoid a death-penalty trial.
Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter still thinks there are some cases in which there is no question that death is the proper punishment. But, he told Rankin that “As more and more juries give fewer death sentences, prosecutors begin to think it’s not worth the effort.”
Last year, the only two death cases that went to trial both involved the murder of a law enforcement officer—a crime that usually results in a death penalty. Surprisingly, each jury returned a verdict of life without parole.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, this decline in death sentences is not unique to Georgia. Last year, there were only 39 death sentences imposed nationwide. This represents a steep decline—10 years prior, 126 capital sentences were imposed.
The replacement for the death penalty has been, in most cases, life without the possibility of parole. Those opposed to the death penalty see this as a victory and the security that no innocent person will ever be put to death

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise

Right to Police Transparency

Alabama considering asphyxia for execution

Death Penalty ‘Costly, Still Broken’


 

India adopts capital punishment for child rape under twelve

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In April, India passed a law permitting the death penalty for rape of a child under 12, reigniting an international debate over capital punishment.
In India, only four people have been executed in the past 13 years. Three of those executed were convicted of terrorism and one for rape of a minor, Chaitanya Mallapur reported for the Business Standard News.
Sentence
Of the 109 prisoners sentenced to death in 2017, 43 people (39 percent) were sentenced to death for murder involving sexual violence. Now, India is the 14th country to introduce capital punishment for child rape without an additional murder charge. Despite this law change, the use of capital punishment remains a contentious issue worldwide.
Execution
“Execution kills the criminal, not the crime,” said Ap Singh, a lawyer for two of the convicts set for execution in India. “How can judiciary decide as to who should live and who should die?”
India faces long delays in its trial process. Even after being sentenced, prisoners face years on death row before they are executed.
It takes so long to execute a prisoner because the conviction is sent to the High Court for confirmation. Then, after the High Court confirms the verdict, it can be appealed to the Supreme Court. A prisoner can also file mercy petitions with the governor and the president.
Appeal
According to the Law Commission of India 2015 report on the death penalty death row prisoners continue to face long delays in trials, appeals and thereafter in clemency. The report states that during this time, the prisoners on death row suffer from extreme agony, anxiety and fear arising out of imminent yet uncertain timing of their executions.
Human rights groups and the United Nations argue that the death sentence is inhumane and cruel, Mallapur reports. The primary argument in favor is that it deters people from committing crimes in the first place. Many, including India’s Law Commission, disagree, saying that the threat of capital punishment doesn’t stop criminals from committing crimes.

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise


https://sanquentinnews.com/french-films-san-quentin-death-row-inmate/

Tennessee schedules three executions

Republicans aim to end America’s death penalty

Letter to the Editor by John A. Riccardi

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Dear Mr. Richardson, Editor in Chief,

I entered Death Row in East Block (San Quentin State Prison) on September 29, 1996. I received a reversal on the death penalty on July 16, 2012. On July 14, 2016, I was moved from San Quentin to D.V.I. at Tracy, Calif. As of today, I have been here in the reception center for 165 days. I was told I would only be here no more than a few weeks, no more than two months.

I would then be moved to another facility where I would be on the mainline, able to once again use the phone, receive all my property, TV, typewriter, hot pot, etc. All this time, I cannot call my attorney, relatives or friends. I cannot even boil water for a cup of tea. I am 81 years old. I hope to be sent to San Luis Obispo – C.M.C.

My main reason for writing to the SQ News is an article on the front page about C.O. Cuevas, on how three inmates saved Mr. Cuevas’ life. Kudos to those three guys. I was elated that Mr. Cuevas is still with us. SQ News is not easy to come by in here.

I was on Death Row for 20 years, knew Mr. Cuevas for many years. I respected him as a C.O. and most of all as a friend.  Whenever he came into East Block, He would always say hello to me. My cell was 2-62, the first cell on the end tier so I had a bird’s eye view of the rotunda.

I would like to see in more detail and a picture with Mr. Cuevas together with the inmates who saved his life.

You should also bring it to the attention of channel 5 (KPIX 5, a CBS affiliate station) evening news. Cuevas’ favorite is Roberta Gonzales, who was the weather lady and now I think is an on-scene reporter.

How great would it be for Mr. Cuevas to be interviewed by Roberta and a picture with her and Mr. Cuevas? Mr. Cuevas would be thrilled just to meet Roberta! There should be more C.O.s like Mr. Cuevas who always has a smile for everyone.

Sincerely,

John A. Riccardi

http://sanquentinnews.com/the-100th-edition-san-quentin-news/

Death Row inmate freed after serving more than 25 years

Nitrogen gas could be new method for executions

VOICES FROM THE ROW

Death Row inmate freed after serving more than 25 years

Tennessee schedules three executions

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Electric chair

Tennessee has scheduled three executions this year, after nearly a decade without them, according to USA Today.

Dozens of Death Row prisoners lost challenges to the use of the death penalty and lethal injection. The Tennessee Supreme Court has consistently ruled in favor of the process.

“The intended result of an execution is to render the inmate dead,” wrote Chief Justice Jeffrey Bivins in his official opinion, upholding the state’s practice of executing the condemned by lethal injection.

The execution dates of James Hawkins, Billy Ray Irick and Sedrick Clayton have been confirmed by the Tennessee Department of Correction, according to the article. They will be executed on May 9, Aug. 9 and Nov. 28, respectively. The last execution was in 2009. 

“Both Mr. Hawkins and Mr. Clayton had their convictions confirmed by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 2017,” said Barbara Peck, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Supreme Court. “They have one year to file a petition for post-conviction relief. They may also have federal appeal options.”

Irick could be the first execution, scheduled for Aug. 9. His attorneys asked the Supreme Court not to set a new execution date, the article stated. Hawkins is scheduled for May 9 but has the one-year option to appeal.

More than a third of millennial say that if a man compliments a woman’s looks it is harassment, according to a recent survey by The Economist/YouGov reports The New York Times 1-17-18.

Irick, who has exhausted all his state and federal appeals, was set to die in 2014. He has been on death row since 1986 at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

Today, there are 60 inmates on Tennessee’s death row waiting to be executed. The electric chair is still legal in Tennessee. It was last used in 2007 but could resume in 2018, according to the article.

“The governor will defer to the Tennessee Supreme Court as the court sets execution dates,” Jennifer Donnals, a spokeswoman for Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, said in an email to USA Today. “The governor will follow the law and the court’s orders on this matter.”

Death Row inmate freed after serving more than 25 years

First U.S. Woman Executed in 5 Years

2017’s low executions only 23

French journalist films San Quentin Death Row inmate

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Keith Zon Doolin is on death row despite evidence of his innocence, according to Agnes Buthion, a French journalist who has directed a documentary called “20 Years on Death Row.” Interviewed by The Fresno Bee, Buthion said that she hoped to highlight Doolin’s innocence. 

In 1996, Doolin was convicted of a crime spree shooting six sex workers in Central California. The result of his conviction was a sentence of death. Doolin is housed in East Block at San Quentin death row.

During her filming Buthion interviewed Doolin and visited the crime scenes. She also interviewed other people involved with the trial.

“I can’t say and don’t know if Keith Zon Doolin is guilty or innocent,” Buthion told Bee reporter Pablo Lopez. “But, I am certain that his trial lawyer failed him.” Her conclusion was that he did not get a fair trial.   

Doolin’s trial attorney, Rudy Petilla of Fresno, resigned from the State Bar of California in 2004, possibly due to allegations of misconduct from another case. In December 2013, Petilla died at age 73.

Doolin had no previous criminal record and was working as a truck driver at the time of the crimes.

During an on-camera interview, David Mugridge, a Fresno attorney, provided a sworn declaration that he possessed evidence that could exonerate Doolin. The evidence was from his former client, Josefina Sonia Saldana.

This Saldana evidence is crucial in the eyes of Doolin’s attorneys. She had testified under the name Josefina Sonya Hernandez during Doolin’s trial, swearing that she heard gunshots, dogs barking and a loud voice that said, “Oh my God, oh my God.” But, she never called the police, according to the article.

“It’s not a coincidence that Louisiana also has the highest incarceration level in the country and the second-highest wrongful conviction rate, according to the National Registry of Exonerations,” concluded Reason. According to Reason, 85 percent of criminal defendants in Louisiana qualified for a public defender in 2016. Due to a lack of resources, 33 of the state’s 42 public defender offices began turning away cases. “The Disappearing Sixth Amendment” by C.J. Ciaramella in Reason magazine June 2017

Saldana’s testimony pertained to the death of Peggy Tucker, who was killed Sept. 19, 1995, behind Saldana’s home. Doolin was convicted of killing Tucker and Inez Espinosa, and seriously wounding three other women.

“I can’t say and don’t know if Keith Zon Doolin is guilty or innocent, but, I am certain that his trial lawyer failed him”

Saldana was later convicted of killing Margarita Flores, and she committed suicide in 2001.

Due to attorney-client privilege, Mugridge cannot release any exonerating information from Saldana unless compelled by a court.

The California Supreme Court upheld Doolin’s death sentence in 2009, citing the eye-witness testimony of the surviving victims and ballistic evidence from Doolin’s personal handgun.

Los Angeles Police Department doled out almost $81 million dollars in the last fiscal year to settle high-profile lawsuits, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In 2016, Doolin’s death-penalty lawyers, Robert R. Bryan and Pamela Sayasane of San Francisco, petitioned the California Supreme Court for release of Saldana’s testimony. The court has yet to rule on the petition.

Buthion spent two months in Fresno last year shooting her documentary. The Fresno Police department and prosecutor were invited to participate in the documentary but declined to participate.

Buthion told The Fresno Bee that her investigation raised doubts about his conviction, and she thinks Doolin may not have committed all the crimes.

According to Buthion, the French are fascinated with real-life American crime stories. Her documentary on the Doolin case is set to air in four 50-minute segments on French TV.

2017’s low executions only 23

Death Row inmate freed after serving more than 25 years

Pope calls teaching capital punishment inadmissible

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When the Vicar of Christ speaks about the death penalty, shouldn’t the world listen?

Pope Francis visited the United States two years ago and told Congress and the United Nations that he opposes the death penalty. He even went a step further, calling for a revision of official church teachings that would make capital punishment “inadmissible,” Christopher Lamb wrote in the Religion News Service. 

During a speech at the Vatican in October 2017, the Pontiff said the death penalty is “contrary to the Gospel, because it entails the willful suppression of a human life that never ceases to be sacred in the eyes of its Creator.” 

With these words, the pope is also reshaping what it means to be “pro-life.” He’s moving the Roman Catholic Church “away from primarily opposing abortion and stressing that it means protecting life at every stage, from womb to natural death,” the story said.

The U.S. is the nation where the pope’s words should have the most effect. The death penalty is still authorized in more than 30 states and is supported by fewer than half of all Catholics, according to surveys. A 2016 Pew Research poll shows 43 percent of American Catholics support capital punishment, while 46 percent are opposed.   

According to the Catholic catechism, the death penalty is allowed if it is “the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.” Yet, the doctrine goes on to say that on occasion the death penalty is not necessary and in practice, carrying out an execution is very rare.

“…protecting life at every stage, from womb to natural death”

This is the case in California. In the Golden State death penalty enthusiasts and opponents have engaged in a push-pull over when and how to resume executions, if at all. The state has nearly 750 inmates on Death Row in San Quentin. About 20 condemned females are held in the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. Only 13 California prisoners have been executed since 1978. The last execution was performed in 2006.

“African American families comprise 42 percent of welfare recipients…but are 59 percent of poor people shown on television are African American.” “Sustaining Stereotypes” by Lanien Frush Holt in QUILL Summer 2018 www.spj.org/quill

In October, the state’s regulators for a second time rejected a proposed new method of carrying out the death penalty by lethal injection, Don Thompson of The Associated Press reported.

“The Office of Administrative Law did not elaborate in its three-paragraph decision rejecting the rules. But officials previously said the proposal wasn’t clear on how the execution team would be selected and trained, how the drugs would be obtained and administered and how a condemned inmate should be treated in the days and hours before the execution,” Thompson added.

“Alarmingly high numbers of Americans continue to pay more than half of their income toward rent.” HUD Secretary Ben Carson NYT July 28, 2018

The state’s latest decision pits a voter-backed initiative aimed at speeding up executions against “a clear, uncompromising stance of moral opposition to the death penalty by the highest authority of the church,” said Sister Helen Prejean, a prominent opponent of the death penalty whose story was dramatized in the Oscar-nominated film Dead Man Walking.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, sued the state to force the new procedures, and said it is unnecessary for regulators to consider the latest proposal.

Death Row Chaplain Recalls S.Q. Executions


https://sanquentinnews.com/californias-next-governor-may-face-pending-executions/
https://sanquentinnews.com/republicans-aim-end-americas-death-penalty/

Alabama considering asphyxia for execution

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Alabama is considering use of nitrogen asphyxia as a third option to execute prisoners.

“If SB12 is passed, Alabama would become the second state (Oklahoma is the other) to offer nitrogen asphyxiation, also known as nitrogen hypoxia, as a death penalty option,” the Montgomery Advertiser reported.

gas chamber

gas chamber

Nitrogen is painless and easier to administer, said Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, the bill’s author. Nitrogen makes up 78 percent of the atmosphere and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen, the newspaper reported April 5.

Alabama had also considered execution by firing squad, but the nitrogen option was substituted. Current options are lethal injection and electric chair.

“No country has actually used it (nitrogen) for death penalty purposes”

Oklahoma passed a similar bill in 2015, although the method has not been used.

“No country has actually used it (nitrogen) for death penalty purposes, although deaths due to nitrogen asphyxiation have been documented and studied,” the newspaper reported.

A study released in 2003 by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board found that 80 people died from incidentally inhaling pure nitrogen between 1992 and 2002.

Although there is concern in some quarters about the safety of nitrogen, Pittman maintains that nitrogen hypoxia is more humane and easier to implement that other methods. “It is very effective. It’s also very plentiful in terms of supply,” he said.

https://sanquentinnews.com/republicans-aim-end-americas-death-penalty/

Tennessee schedules three executions


https://sanquentinnews.com/the-100th-edition-san-quentin-news/

Voter Initiatives Monetize the Petition Process

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Sacramento, California
State’s Capitol


This presidential year has inspired many potential voter initiatives and further monetizes the petition process.
In theory, a petition to place an initiative on the ballot is a form of direct democracy, allowing voters to circumvent the legislature to pass a new law. On an average election cycle, five to seven initiatives make the ballot.
SIGNATURES
For the 2016 election, seven have already qualified, and there are petitions for at least a dozen more seeking to meet the statutory minimum requirement of 365,880 signatures by registered California voters.
Political committees have spent almost $10 million in petition payments through 2015, and significantly more will be spent if any additional petitions meet the requirement by the 2016 election deadline, according to The Sacramento Bee.
To supplement volunteers, initiative campaigns hire petition circulation firms to reach a minimum safe threshold of 500,000 signatures to have a good chance of qualifying for the ballot. These firms charge from $1 to $5 per signature, according to Carl Towe, head of one such firm. These costs are in addition to those necessary to defend the initiative from opponents and to educate voters if it makes the ballot.
DEATH PENALTY
Gov. Jerry Brown’s parole initiative and the death penalty repeal supported by M*A*S*H star Mike Farrell are paying $5 per signature.
“I have never, never seen this much money paid on this many petitions. Ever,” said Fred Kimball, head of another such signature firm and quoted in The Sacramento Bee.
With stores like Wal-Mart, Target and Safeway instituting policies to ban solicitors and so many initiatives seeking to make the ballot, the price is only likely to go up. As Towe ended a recent message to his signature gatherers: “Make the hay while the sun shines.”

States struggle to carry out executions

Criminal justice advocates seeking bail system reform


Boatwright

NBC Report Sparks Death Row Debates

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The tiers of San Quentin’s Death Row have not been open to the public for more than five years. All of that changed in February. Alecia Reid from NBC’s San Francisco’s affiliate was one of the first reporters to recently see the current living conditions inside one of the world’s most notorious prisons.
As she prepared for this unique encounter with the men living in the original Condemned Row, Reid thought: “These inmates would be disrespectful and shout inappropriate things.” It was just the opposite.
For a condemned inmate, life on Death Row is 23 hours a day locked in a four-by-10-foot cell. Keeping their sanity is the biggest challenge, Reid said. Some of men still claim their innocence.
Charles Edward Crawford II told her, “I don’t know that there’s an amount of time that you can give a person for the crime I’m convicted of that would satisfy everyone; (it’s like) tossing people away.” Doug Clark insists he’s innocent of being the Sunset Killer.
Since 1893, 422 convicts have been executed on San Quentin’s Death Row, either by hanging, the gas chamber or lethal injection. Clarence Ray Allen was the last person executed in 10 years after spending 23 years on these tiers.
Stanley “Tookie” Williams, a founding member of the Crips, was also put to death in 2005 after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected clemency for him, she reported.
In the past decade, the public support for capital punishment has dropped. The majority of inmates facing this sentence want executions abolished. “If you kill someone for a crime … that they may have committed, what makes you different from a person that’s a murderer on the street?” Charles Smith asked.
Most inmates spend an average of 15 years on Death Row.
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977, 102 condemned men have died of natural causes. There are 746 inmates housed there today. Four men have been on Death Row for crimes committed in 1977. Today, the youngest inmate is 23. The oldest is 85-year old David Carpenter.
In 2014, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney struck down the death penalty in California, not because he necessarily opposed capital punishment, but rather because he found the delays so long that it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his decision, the Sacramento Bee reported.
As the death penalty remains in limbo in California, signature-gatherers are circulating petitions for two November ballot initiatives, one to abolish the death penalty and one to speed up the execution process.
The abolition initiative will definitely qualify for the November election, consultant Bill Zimmerman said. Chuck Orrock, proponent for the death penalty, said, “I’m feeling confident.”
If both measures should pass, the state Constitution says the one initiative with the most votes will take precedence. According to the Bee, this legal concept has never been applied to competing death penalty measures.
 

Back in the Day – Selected Stories From Back Issues Of The San Quentin News

Death Row inmate freed after serving more than 25 years

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