Death Penalty Resources

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Yesterday, the jury came back in a San Francisco federal courtroom, and found Dennis Cyrus guilty of a number of gang-related acts, including the murders of three men – including Ray Jimmerson, who had informed the cops about the gang’s assorted criminal activities.

The Distinction Between State and Federal Prosecutors

It was the first time since 1991 that San Francisco has seen a trial where capital punishment was even on the table – two of its district attorneys had followed an internal determination not to seek the death penalty, even if the law allowed for capital punishment. But they are state officials, and this is a federal proceeding.

Over in the Northern District of California’s federal district court, the U.S. Attorney makes the call on whether or not to ask for the death penalty, and this U.S. Attorney has decided to do so in Cyrus’ case. It’s the first time since 1946 that the federal prosecutors have sought the death penalty in the Northern District. The last time that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in this federal district asked for capital punishment in a crime was in the 1946 trial of two men who had escaped from Alcatraz and in the process, had killed two guards and three prisoners.

So why now, 62 years later, is capital punishment being sought? Why now? Why Dennis Cyrus?
Continue Reading San Francisco Federal Jury Convicts Defendant Dennis Cyrus and Returns Next Week to Decide Death Penalty – Will They Sentence Cyrus to Die and Break a 63 Year Run?

So far, we have three posts (03/27/09; 04/16/09; 04/20/09) that deal with the role of a judge – at both the trial and appellate levels – in a death penalty case. There’s a lot more to consider about the impact that judges have in death penalty considerations, but before we delve further into their role, it seems wise to bring the attorneys into the mix.

First, the criminal defense attorneys. (Next, the prosecutors.)

Before a lawyer can represent a client who is facing capital punishment in a Florida case, he must meet many, many requirements. Why? The Florida legislature as well as the Florida courts have recognized that when a defendant’s life is at stake, his legal counsel plays a vital role in making sure that due process of law is achieved.

Once again, it’s about your right to due process of law

Every aspect of due process must be vigilantly protected when the State is seeking to kill a defendant as punishment for actions that defendant has allegedly done. The ability of the government to take a citizen’s life must be scrupulously monitored and restrained – this is one of the key purposes of our due process standards.

Remember, as Justice Rehnquist alluded to in the Brady Opinion (04/20/09 post), the focus is on the state, not the individual defendant. Anything but the strictest of due process standards in death penalty cases risks the horrors of a fatal error.

Today, even with our due process standards in place, there are many innocent people who have been sent to Death Row, as the Innocence Project can readily confirm. Some innocent people have been executed in this country. Due process is not perfect – after all, it’s a manmade construct — but it’s the standard that we have set in our judicial system. It’s the best we can do, and our jurisprudence is always attempting to hone and better our due process standards.

Death Penalty Criminal Defense Attorneys in Florida

Perhaps the most important role from a due process perspective in a death penalty case is that of defense counsel. The trial judge, of course, vigilantly monitors each step of the legal process, but it is the defendant’s own attorneys that must make the objections to possible violations, and fill the record for appeal with the proper procedural foundations when errors are made.

A trial judge cannot rule on an objection that is not made. An appellate judge cannot rule a point of error left unaddressed.

Different states have different requirements for their death penalty defense attorneys, as does federal law for federal capital punishment cases. In Florida, a specific checklist provides the legal requirements that a criminal defense attorney must have before he sets as lead trial counsel, trial co-counsel, or appellate counsel for a defendant facing the penalty of death.
Continue Reading The Checklist for Death Penalty Qualified Criminal Defense Attorneys in Florida

Maryland, like many other states, is reviewing its death penalty laws for purely cost-cutting reasons. However, there’s something to be considered in the current media coverage of the Maryland debates – which are going on right now.

Why are the Maryland arguments so interesting to consider?

This is a particularly interesting jurisdiction to ponder since Maryland has the second-highest murder rate in the nation – due in large part to the homicide rates for the metropolitan area making up Baltimore, Maryland.

In other words, the argument can be made that these homicide rates suggest that there would be more opportunities for imposing the death penalty in Maryland than in other locations where violent crime rate are much lower (say, Montana).

What’s happening this week?

The Maryland lawmakers are hearing testimony and tinkering with language as they consider enacting new Maryland law on capital punishment.

With this background, consider these high profile arguments being made:
Continue Reading Looking at the Current Fight over the Death Penalty in the State of Maryland

You may not remember Duane West from the Truman Capote nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, or the movies that were made based upon that book (there have been several) … but Duane West was the district attorney who won his case to have Richard Hickock and Perry Smith put to death for their killing of the Clutter family in the middle of the night in their Holcomb, Kansas, home.

“In Cold Blood” D.A. Responds to Kansas Legislature’s Possible Death Penalty Budget Cut

Today, the Kansas Legislature is facing a possible $650,000,000 deficit for their 2010 budget, and they are seriously considering ending capital punishment as solely a budgetary measure. In response, Duane West has taken to the media to voice his vehement objection to this ever happening – and what he is saying for Kansas is what lots of prosecutors and death penalty advocates say a lot of the time (quoting West in the Kansas City Star):

1. Instead of doing away with the death penalty, more crimes should be made eligible for capital punishment.

2. It is the prosecutor’s duty to protect and serve – just like every other member of law enforcement. Part of that duty may be to ask for the death penalty in certain cases, for the protection of the public and in service to the law.

3. There are cases where individuals, from the perspective of the prosecution, should be put to death because otherwise they will kill again.

4. Having a death penalty may be the only deterrent in some situations, with West giving the example of a pending Kansas capital punishment case where the state is seeking the death penalty against three former Hutchinson Correctional Facility inmates who are accused of murdering a fellow prison inmate. West’s argument is that for prison inmates already serving significant time, capital punishment may be the only deterrent to killing behind bars.

5. Finally, Duane West doesn’t buy the argument that capital punishment costs so much more than life imprisonment, because almost every case with a murder conviction does go up on appeal.
Continue Reading “In Cold Blood” Prosecutor’s Arguments to Keep and Expand Kansas Death Penalty – The Argument for the State’s Authority to Kill, in a Nutshell

Last week, the Associated Press reported that Nevada lawmakers were proposing a moratorium on capital punishment in that state (to last until 2011) so they could have time to figure out how costly it was on the state to kill people for crimes they had done.

In Kansas, state senators are pushing a bill through…