15 executed on drug charges in Iran


Since Monday, April 23, 15 people have been executed at the Shahroud,
Rejaishahr and Evin prisons in Iran.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reports that on April 25, 5
people convicted of drug charges were executed at Shahroud Prison. 4 of the
convicts were Afghan nationals and they were charged with “storing large
amounts of drugs.”

Their applications for pardon were processed in 2 stages and denied by the
Pardons Commission.

On Tuesday, April 24, the website for the Human Rights and Democracy Activists
of Iran reported the mass execution of 8 prisoners at Rejaishahr Prison in
Karaj. One of the prisoners hanged in Karaj was also an Afghan national.

On April 24, another 2 prisoners, who had been transferred from Ghezel Hessar
Prison to solitary confinement at Evin, were hanged at Evin.

In an earlier report, human rights activists said 9 prisoners convicted of drug
charges were executed in Shiraz, Marvsadht, Semnan and Zanjan between April 15
and 20.

Ahmad Shaheed, the special UN rapporteur on human rights in Iran, has expressed
concern over the growing number of executions in Iran since 2003.

In his report, he indicated there had been more than 400 executions in Iran in
2011 and he mentioned the possibility of unannounced executions. About 81 % of
the death penalties are reportedly for drug charges.

According to Amnesty International, Iran has the 2nd-highest rate of executions
in the world, surpassed only by China.

(source: Radio Zamaneh)

Ghana urged to meet international prison standards----Ghana's prisons are
rundown, overcrowded and in need of urgent reform


Ghana's prisons are rundown, overcrowded and in need of urgent reform with
prisoners facing conditions which do not meet international standards, Amnesty
International said today in a new report "Prisoners are bottom of the pile":
Human rights of inmates in Ghana.

Based on research carried out by Amnesty International in 2011, the report
documents the problems of overcrowding, inadequate infrastructure and
sanitation, insufficient food and health problems in prisons in Ghana.

Prison overcrowding is acute in some prisons and requires urgent attention by
the government. Approximately 3,000 inmates are awaiting trial and have not
been convicted of a crime.

"It is unacceptable to lock up prisoners for 12 hours a day, 365 days a year in
cells intended to hold a 1/2, 1/3 or 1/4 of the numbers actually squeezed into
dark, poorly ventilated and unhygienic spaces," said James Welsh, Amnesty
International’s researcher on health and detention.

While some prisoners have beds, others are forced to sleep on the floor. In
some particularly crowded cells, prisoners showed Amnesty International how
they sleep on their sides, in lines, covering the entire floor space.

Hygiene is compromised by the crowding and poor sanitation.

One remand prisoner told Amnesty International: "Our cell – the place where we
sleep -- is where we urinate and go to the toilet. You don’t get any privacy.
You have to use the bucket.”

Prisoners complained of health problems such as skin diseases and the
difficulties of obtaining prompt treatment from the infirmaries which were
overloaded and under-equipped.

Both staff and prisoners complained about the inadequate budget for food for
prisoners.

"The recent government decision to increase spending on food for prisoners –
from 0.60 to 1.80 cedi per day per prisoner – is a welcome step, but more
measures to improve standards are needed," said James Welsh.

Prisoners under sentence of death are held in separate accommodation within a
small number of prisons. For male prisoners, accommodation is overcrowded and
activities are not permitted, while the 4 women held under sentence of death
complained of isolation as they are not allowed to mix with other inmates.

The current constitutional review process gives the government an opportunity
to end the death penalty and to rationalize the situation of the 138 prisoners
currently under sentence of death.

"To bring prisons into line with Ghana's treaty obligations will require
political commitment and action by the government – it is urgently needed,"
said James Welsh.

“Overcrowding could be reduced by wider use of non-custodial sentences such as
fines and community service though fines must be set at realistic levels. The
transfer of prisoners to the new Ankaful prison will reduce, but not end,
overcrowding."

One key goal of prison is rehabilitation – a process ensuring that prisoners
return to society as reformed citizens.

"There are training schemes within the prison system but these are undercut by
the poor conditions, the limited range of activities for prisoners and the
shortage of resources," said James Welsh.

A key to prison reform is regular monitoring and accountability. It is
important that prisoners are able to talk to independent agencies and
regulators -- lawyers, diplomats, human rights monitors -- and break out of the
isolation in which they are kept.

Some prisoners told Amnesty International that they had never spoken to anyone
without guards being present.

"Both prison staff and prisoners would benefit in the long run from greater
openness," said James Welsh.

"The Prisons Service was very helpful in facilitating Amnesty International's
research," said Lawrence Amesu, director of Amnesty International Ghana and one
of the report authors.

"We believe that this cooperative spirit will offer a basis for continuing
dialogue on human rights in prisons."

(source: Amnesty International)

Arizona executes 3rd inmate this year


Thomas Kemp was put to death in Florence Wednesday morning for murdering a
Tucson man in 1992 and dumping his naked body at a ghost-town mine near Marana.

Kemp was defiant to the end.

"I regret nothing," he said as his last words.

Then he trembled as the drugs coursed through his veins, took some deep breaths
and went still.

Kemp, 63, was sentenced to death for the July 1992 murder of Hector Juarez.

Kemp was an ex-convict working as a maintenance man at a trailer park in
Tucson, where he lived with his mother. When a former prisonmate named Jeffrey
Logan escaped from an honor farm in California, he and Kemp teamed up, bought a
gun and went cruising for a victim.

They found Juarez, 25, a college student who had left his apartment to get a
late-night snack at a fast-food restaurant. Kemp and Logan seized him in the
parking lot outside his apartment, made him withdraw money from an ATM,
stripped him naked and shot him twice in the head. Then they dumped his body
near the Silverbell Mine in Marana, northwest of Tucson.

Kemp and Logan drove to Flagstaff and sold Kemp's truck, then carjacked a
couple and forced them to drive to Durango, Colo. where Kemp sexually assaulted
the man. The couple escaped and contacted police in Kansas. Logan was arrested
in Denver and led Tucson police to Juarez's body in the desert. Kemp was
arrested in a homeless shelter in Tucson.

While in jail in Pima County, Kemp effectively confessed to killing Juarez when
he told two corrections officers that he was afraid of being housed with
Mexican prisoners because he had killed a Mexican.

Kemp was convicted of first-degree murder, armed robbery and kidnapping in June
1993. At his sentencing a month later, Kemp told the court that Juarez was
"beneath my contempt" because he was not an American citizen, and, "If more of
them wound up dead, the rest of them would soon learn to stay in Mexico, where
they belong."

Logan received a sentence of life in prison, which he is serving in Arizona
under a different name.

(source: Arizona Republic)

Arizona executes 3rd inmate this year


Arizona on Wednesday executed a death-row inmate convicted of killing a Tucson
college student after robbing him of $200 -- the third execution in the state
this year.

Thomas Arnold Kemp, 63, was given a lethal injection at the state prison in
Florence as he lay strapped to a table in the death chamber. His time of death
was 10:08 a.m.

The death puts Arizona on pace to match its busiest year for executions and
makes it one of the busiest death-penalty states in the nation.

Kemp was sentenced to death for kidnapping Hector Soto Juarez from outside
Juarez's Tucson home on July 11, 1992, and robbing him before taking him into
the desert near Marana, forcing him to undress and shooting him twice in the
head.

Juarez, 25, had just left his apartment and fiancDee to get food when Kemp and
Jeffery Logan spotted him. They held him at gunpoint and used his debit card to
withdraw $200 before driving him to the Silverbell Mine area, where Kemp killed
Juarez.

The 2 men then went to Flagstaff, where they kidnapped a married couple
traveling from California to Kansas and made them drive to Durango, Colo.,
where Kemp raped the man in a hotel room. Later, Kemp and Logan forced the
couple to drive to Denver, where the couple escaped. Logan soon after separated
from Kemp and called police about Juarez's murder.

Logan led police to Juarez's body, and Kemp was arrested. Logan was later
sentenced to life in prison.

Kemp has argued that his conviction was unfair because then-prosecutor Kenneth
Peasley repeatedly told jurors that Kemp's homosexuality was behind Juarez's
kidnapping and murder, and that the jury hadn't been properly vetted for their
feelings about gay men.

Outside of wishing he had killed Logan when he had the chance, Kemp said at his
sentencing that he had no regrets.

``I don't show any mercy, and I am certainly not here to plead for mercy,'' he
said at the sentencing, a time when most defendants convicted of 1st-degree
murder argue that they should be spared the death penalty.

``The so-called victim was not an American citizen and, therefore, was beneath
my contempt,'' Kemp said and then referred to Juarez using a racial slur. ``If
more of them ended up dead, the rest of them would soon learn to stay in Mexico
where they belong.''

Kemp did not respond to a recent letter from The Associated Press asking
whether he feels the same way after nearly 20 years on death row.

In a rare move, Kemp also declined to seek mercy from Arizona's clemency board,
often an inmate's last chance to argue why they don't deserve to be killed.

In a letter written March 29, Kemp said such a hearing ``provides public
humiliation of the prisoner without any chance that the board might actually
recommend a commutation.''

The letter was provided to the AP through Kemp's Tucson attorney, Tim
Gabrielsen.

``In light of the board's history of consistently denying requests for
commutations, my impression is that a hearing in my case would be nothing short
of a dog and pony show,'' Kemp wrote.

Kemp's execution was the 3rd in the state this year. Arizona executed Robert
Henry Moormann on Feb. 29 and Robert Charles Towery on March 8. Another inmate,
Samuel Villegas Lopez, is scheduled to be executed on May 16 for the brutal
rape and murder of a Phoenix woman.

3 other inmates who are near the end of their appeals also could be put to
death this year, putting the state on pace to execute 7 men in 2012.

Arizona established its death penalty in 1910. Since then, the most inmates
Arizona has executed in a given year was 7 in 1999.

Texas leads the nation in executions just about every year, and last year put
13 inmates to death. So far this year, Texas has executed 4 men -- the most of
the 7 states that have executed inmates in 2012.

Executions nationwide have decreased steadily since they hit an all-time high
of 98 executions in 1999 and have averaged 44 a year since 2007, according to
the Death Penalty Information Center.

In the last 5 years, 4 states have repealed the death penalty -- New Mexico,
Illinois, New Jersey and New York. Governors in those states cited cases of
innocent people being executed, and said the system was expensive and
ineffective at deterring murder.

On Monday, a measure to abolish capital punishment in California qualified for
the November ballot, allowing voters there to decide whether to replace the
death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Kemp becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Arizona
and the 31st overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1992.

Kemp becomes the 16th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA
and the 1293rd overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)

Poll: Conn. voters oppose death penalty repeal


A new poll shows a majority of Connecticut voters disapprove of how the General Assembly has handled the death penalty, voting to abolish capital punishment for future crimes.

The survey, released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University, shows 51 % of
registered voters disapprove of the legislature's handling of the issue,
compared to 29 % who approve.

The same poll shows 62 % of voters favor the death penalty for those convicted
of murder. However, they are evenly split when asked whether they prefer
punishing murderers with the death penalty or life in prison with no chance of
parole.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is expected to soon sign the repeal legislation into law.

The survey of 1,745 voters has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.4
% points.

(source: The Register-Mail)

California Death Penalty Ban: Residents To Vote On Controversial Ban In
November


A measure to abolish California's death penalty qualified for the November
ballot on Monday.

If it passes, the 725 California inmates now on Death Row will have their
sentences converted to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It
would also make life without parole the harshest penalty prosecutors can seek.

Backers of the measure say abolishing the death penalty will save the state
millions of dollars through layoffs of prosecutors and defense attorneys who
handle death penalty cases, as well as savings from not having to maintain the
nation's largest death row at San Quentin prison.

Those savings, supporters argue, can be used to help unsolved crimes. If the
measure passes, $100 million in purported savings from abolishing the death
penalty would be used over three years to investigate unsolved murders and
rapes.

The measure is dubbed the "Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for
California Act," also known as the SAFE California Act. It's the 5th measure to
qualify for the November ballot, the California secretary of state announced
Monday. Supporters collected more than the 504,760 valid signatures needed to
place the measure on the ballot.

"Our system is broken, expensive and it always will carry the grave risk of a
mistake," said Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin who is now an
anti-death penalty advocate and an official supporter of the measure.

The measure will also require most inmates sentenced to life without parole to
find jobs within prisons. Most death row inmates do not hold prison jobs for
security reasons.

Though California is one of 35 states that authorize the death penalty, the
state hasn't put anyone to death since 2006. A federal judge that year halted
executions until prison officials built a new death chamber at San Quentin
Prison, developed new lethal injection protocols and made other improvements to
delivering the lethal three-drug combination.

A separate state lawsuit is challenging the way the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation developed the new protocols. A judge in Marin
County earlier this year ordered the CDCR to redraft its lethal injection
protocols, further delaying executions.

Since California reinstated the death penalty in 1978, the state has executed
13 inmates. A 2009 study conducted by a senior federal judge and law school
professor concluded that the state was spending about $184 million a year to
maintain death row and the death penalty system.

Supporters of the proposition, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, are
portraying it as a cost-savings measure in a time of political austerity. They
count several prominent conservatives and prosecutors – including the author of
the 1978 measure adopting the death penalty – as supporters and argue that too
few executions have been carried out at too great a cost.

"My conclusion is that he law is totally ineffective," said Gil Garcetti, a
former Los Angeles county district attorney. "Most inmates are going to die of
natural causes, not executions."

Garcetti, who served as district attorney from 1992 to 2000, said he changed
his mind after publication of the 2009 study, which was published by Judge
Arthur Alarcon of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and law professor Paula
Mitchell.

Opponents of the measure, such as former Sacramento U.S Attorney McGregor
Scott, argue that lawyers filing "frivolous appeals" are the problem, not the
death penalty law.

"On behalf of crime victims and their loved ones who have suffered at the hands
of California's most violent criminals, we are disappointed that the ACLU and
their allies would seek to score political points in their continued efforts to
override the will of the people and repeal the death penalty," said Scott, who
is chairman of the Californians for Justice and Public Safety, a coalition of
law enforcement officials, crime victims and others formed to oppose the
measure.

The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, meanwhile, remains one the biggest
backers of the death penalty in the state and opposes the latest attempt to
abolish it in California. The foundation and its supports argue that federal
judges are gumming up the process with endless delays and reversals of state
Supreme Court rulings upholding individual death sentences.

The foundation on Thursday filed a lawsuit seeking the immediate resumption of
executions in California. The foundation's lawsuit, filed directly with the
state Court of Appeal, argues that since the three-drug method has been the
subject of so much litigation – and the source of the execution delays – a
one-drug method of lethal injection like Ohio uses can be substituted
immediately.

(source: Paul Elias, Huffingtno Post)

Crime victims assail death penalty repeal initiative


The newly minted ballot measure to repeal the death penalty came under attack
at the Capitol on Tuesday, as law enforcement and crime victims groups assailed
the initiative as an assault on the public.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who opposes capital punishment but has enforced it while in
office, said he is happy that the repeal will be on the ballot in November.

"Just like I think it's a good thing that people get a chance to vote on
taxes," Brown said earlier Tuesday in San Jose. "Death and taxes are things we
can't avoid, so it's good that people get to weigh in occasionally."

A few hours later, speakers at a Crime Victims United rally on the Capitol's
west steps took turns blasting the initiative.

"Don't let people tell you life without parole is just as good as the death
penalty," said Nina Salarno Ashford, who sits on the board of the nonprofit
victims advocacy group.

Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, declared, "This initiative spits in the eye
of justice. We must defeat it."

It was red meat for the rally, which assembles every year to remember murdered
friends and family and press for victims' rights.

The group had invited Brown to speak, even though he vetoed a bill to restore
California's death penalty during his inaugural term in 1977. The Legislature
overrode the veto.

As attorney general, Brown backed capital punishment cases. During his 2010
campaign, he promised to uphold the law. That won't change, he promised the
victims rights group.

"I will carry out the law," he said, "without fear or failure and with fidelity
to the will of the people."

Crime Victims United, backed by the California Correctional Peace Officers
Association, also opposes a program Brown launched in October that is shrinking
the state's prison population by sentencing more convicts to local jails. The
group contends the policy merely shifts overcrowding and costs from the state
to local governments, which are more likely to release prisoners early – and
put the public at risk.

Brown wants to put a tax measure on the November ballot that would guarantee
money for local jails.

The governor didn't take on the critics directly. Instead, he called for the
hundreds assembled at the event to take a wider view. Administrations come and
go, Brown said, leaving thousands of laws intended to curb crime on the books.
Still, violent crime remains.

"It is not our lot to totally overcome evil," the governor said in one of
several biblically flavored references in his 5-minute speech, "but to not be
overcome by it."

(source: Sacramento Bee)

Death penalty foes oppose plea bargains for killers


The SAFE folks, who are pushing a ballot measure to end California’s death
penalty, had a conference call yesterday in which former L.A. D.A.s Gil
Garcetti and John Van de Kamp participated.

During the question period, I asked the former prosecutors what they thought
the effect would be of eliminating the death penalty as leverage to attain plea
bargains with murderers.

Garcetti railed that using the death penalty to win a plea bargain would be “an
unethical thing to do,” and L.A. would never do it. Van de Kamp agreed: “That
is extortion,” he intoned, and “totally unethical.” (Yes, this is the same Van
de Kamp who did not want to try Hillside Strangler Angelo Bueno, citing
insufficient evidence to try.) The implication, a reporter who heard their
answer later told me, was that iI watched too much TV.

Death penalty foes also against plea bargains

Today I chatted with the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation’s Michael Rushford
who rattled off some information plea bargains which prosecutors made with
murderers.

John Gardner, a 31-year-old sex offender convicted of killing two teenage girls
in San Diego County, was given three consecutive life sentences without parole
after his victims’ families confronted him in court for his crimes. ABC
reports: Gardner reached a plea deal last month that spared him a possible
death penalty. He admitted to the rape and murders of Amber Dubois, 14, and
17-year-old Chelsea King.

According to an anti-death penalty web site, the Department of Justice, 210 of
411 federal defendants facing capital murder charges “avoided trial by
negotiated plea when the government dropped its request for the death penalty
without a plea agreement, dismissed charges entirely or the judge barred the
death penalty.”

Facing 48 counts of aggravated murder, Green River Killer Gary Leon Ridgway cut
a plea bargain that spared him the death penalty in 2003. To Garcetti and Van
de Kamp, this deal may be tainted and unethical, but it put away Ridgway for
life while saving taxpayers money and doing away with any risk of acquittal.

Here’s a CJLF paper that reports, ”The average county with the death penalty
disposes of 18.9 percent of of murder cases with a plea and a long sentence,
compared to 5.0 percent in counties without the death penalty.”

“When you plead out,” Rushford added, there are ”no trial, no appeals, no
habeas corpus. There’s no 5 years waiting for an appeals attorney.” Think about
that the next time you hear the eliminating the death penalty will save money.

(source: San Francisco Chronicle)

Death penalty takes on life of its own


It's a powerful commentary on his own career that the man who wrote
California's death penalty law is now working hard to abolish it.

"In retrospect, it was the worst thing I've ever done in my career," said
Donald Heller, a noted criminal defense lawyer, former federal prosecutor and
the author of a 1978 death penalty initiative that put California back in the
execution business.

With a death penalty repeal headed for the November ballot, Heller – a
Sacramento lawyer – will be a notable player in the death penalty debate. We
need jobs in California, but we'll get six months of emotion over capital
punishment instead.

It will be all-death-all-the-time in the public discourse, especially as
November draws near and passions become inflamed in a campaign whose key
players, like Heller, are mostly from Sacramento. A lot of good people will be
devoting serious energy to discussing the fate of bad people. Some regions do
industry. Sacramento does laws and controversy. We dwell in discord every
election season, but this one is going to be different.

Who knows if California will repeal its death penalty law, but this prediction
seems safe:

Nothing good will come of this campaign.

Prosecutors such as Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully have
justifiable reasons for wanting to keep the death penalty in some cases.

Some killers are more heinous than others.

I covered such a case in 1996, when an adorable 8-year-old boy from Yuba City
named Michael Lyons was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by Robert Boyd
Rhoades.

Some details of this case are simply unspeakable.

Rhoades is on death row for killing Michael Lyons. His mother spoke at
Tuesday's rally for crime victims at the Capitol. Heller says he is not
standing up for Rhoades or many of the other 700 or so inmates on death row in
California.

Instead, those who seek to stop executions are arguing for cost savings. They
say California wastes $137 million a year on appeals in death penalty cases.

Heller said he was also horrified to see too many death penalty cases where the
defendants had substandard lawyers arguing their cases.

Poverty was a factor in the lives of too many death row killers, as was the
overrepresentation of African American and Latino defendants.

"It certainly causes people of intelligence to wonder about the possibility of
executing an innocent person," Heller said.

These arguments make sense and are especially poignant coming from the contrite
man who feels remorse that his legal acumen made the penalty possible again in
California.

But this is also why we may dread the next six months. If you agree with
Heller, you disagree with the mother of Michael Lyons.

What a choice.

(source: Marcos Breton, Sacramento Bee)

District attorneys protest measure that would end death penalty


San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos was among fellow top
prosecutors at the steps of the state Capitol on Tuesday voicing their
opposition to a measure that aims to abolish California's death penalty.

The California District Attorneys Association, of which Ramos is past
president, is opposed to the SAFE California Act, a November ballot measure
that would replace the death penalty with the punishment of life in prison
without parole.

The measure to abolish the death penalty official qualified for the November
ballot on Monday.

If voters approve, 725 death row inmates would have their sentences converted
to the new punishment, which would be the harshest that prosecutors could seek.

In Sacramento, Ramos marched with fellow district attorneys and victims' family
members in support of Crime Victims Week, which began on Monday. Opponents say
the measure removes justice for victims of death row prisoners.

"It's a horrible idea and I think (supporters of the measure) are manipulating
the facts," Ramos said.

"Nobody sitting on California's death row has ever been proven innocent. These
people brutally and horrifically murdered citizens of our county. We are
careful about who we select for the death penalty and we don't make these
decisions lightly ... I can tell you that the people sitting on death row are
not only guilty, but they deserve the ultimate punishment."

Supporters of the ballot measure say abolishing the death penalty will save the
state millions of dollars through layoffs of prosecutors and defense attorneys
who handle death penalty cases.

"Our system is broken, expensive and it always will carry the grave risk of a
mistake," said Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin who is now an
anti-death penalty advocate and an official supporter of the measure.

If the death penalty were to end, it would affect Inland Empire cases.

In 1986, Redlands was rocked when Corrina Novis, then 20, was murdered after
she was abducted near the Redlands Mall on Nov. 7.

Her body was found in a shallow grave in Fontana. Her killers, James Marlow and
Cynthia Coffman are now on Death Row - Marlow at San Quentin State Prison and
Coffman at Central California Women's Facility.

Novis, a then-insurance clerk at State Farm, had stopped at Cho's Liquors at
the corner of Colton Avenue and Orange Street before she was supposed to meet
with friends at Gay 90s Pizza Parlor.

Police said Marlow abducted Novis outside of the front entrance of the mall and
forced her at gunpoint to withdraw money from her checking account.

Marlow and Coffman then took Novis to a Fontana home where the 2 used coercion
then sodomy to obtain her bank card number.

The pair then took Novis to a vineyard in Fontana when they strangled her
before burying her alive.

Days later, the pair robbed and murdered Lynel Murrary, 19, in Huntington Beach
on Nov. 12, 1986.

The 2 were tried in 1987 together with separate attorneys present.

2 years later, Coffman and Marlow were convicted of 1st-degree murder,
kidnapping for robbery, burglary and sodomy and sentenced to death.

Chino Hills resident Mary Ann Hughes, the mother of a young murder victim,
hopes the measure fails.

"Some people commit such evil crimes, such as the person who killed my son,
that the only way people can be free of people like that is through the death
penalty," Hughes said.

"That was the sentence they gave him, and for it to be changed now doesn't do
justice to my son or to any of the other victims out there."

Death row inmate Kevin Cooper was convicted in 1985 for the June 4, 1983,
murders of Hughes, Douglas and Peggy Ryen and their 10-year-old daughter,
Jessica. They were brutally slain with a hatchet and knife in the Ryens' home
in Chino Hills. An execution date has yet to be set for Cooper or any other
current California death row inmates because of concerns that the state's
lethal injection method is inhumane, said John Kochis, current lead prosecutor
on the Kevin Cooper case and chief deputy district attorney for San Bernardino
County.

"The reason that the death penalty is appropriate in Cooper's case is he did
terrible things to an innocent family that didn't deserve to die, let alone die
the way they died," Kochis said. "His conduct was so terrible that the
appropriate punishment for his conduct is the death penalty."

Since California reinstated the death penalty in 1978, the state has executed
13 inmates. A 2009 study conducted by a senior federal judge and law school
professor concluded that the state was spending about $184 million a year to
maintain its death row and the death penalty system.

The "Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act" is the
5th measure to qualify for the November ballot, the secretary of state
announced Monday. Supporters collected more than the 504,760 valid signatures
needed to place the measure on the ballot.

If the measure passes, $100 million in purported savings from abolishing the
death penalty would be used over three years to investigate unsolved murders
and rapes.

(source: San Bernardino Sun)