Western PA prosecutor responsible for 25% of the state's pending death penalty cases

 In February 2021, two men wearing masks entered a convenience store in Donora, Pennsylvania, and shot the clerk, Nicholas Tarpley, six times. Months later, police arrested Sidney McLean and Devell Christian, and charged them with murder. Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh announced that he would seek the death penalty against them should they be convicted, reported Bolt. 

Then that December, police arrested a third suspect, Jah Sutton. Video did not show her at the scene of the crime but investigators connected her to the killing by claiming she was dating McLean and saying they discovered her DNA on a bullet casing found at the store. Walsh announced that he would prosecute Sutton for capital murder and also seek the death penalty against her.

In a preliminary hearing, a state trooper admitted there was no additional evidence against Sutton, testifying that he had not found anything on her cell phone tying her to the killing of Tarpley. Sutton’s lawyer, Timothy Dawson, has insisted there was no connection, pointing out that Sutton was not in fact McLean’s girlfriend; she had previously admitted to an investigator that she knew him by a different name and that police had only seen her with him because she was a sex worker. “The location of DNA on a shell casing does not establish anything other than at some unknown point in time, this Defendant handled or touched that casing. Nothing more,” Dawson wrote in a court filing. 

In an interview, Dawson said that he thought Walsh had overstepped, telling Bolts, “There’s not sufficient evidence to even prosecute a murder charge against her, let alone a capital case.” 

Ryan James, a lawyer for Christian, Sutton’s co-defendant, filed a motion in May arguing that Walsh should be disqualified from prosecuting the case because “there is more than just suspicion that the death penalty is being sought by this [DA] for political gain.” In his motion, James alleged that Walsh chose to seek the death penalty against Sutton to pressure her into giving information about her co-defendants. “[M]onths before being charged, Ms. Sutton was detained, badgered, and threatened by law enforcement,” James wrote, claiming police told her that if she didn’t cooperate she would lose custody of her child and go to jail, where she’d be brutally killed by a drug gang.

Since taking office in 2021, Walsh has made a name for himself because of how frequently he decides to pursue the death penalty. In his first year, he sought the death penalty in five out of nine of the county’s murder cases. To date, his office is responsible for 12 capital cases that have yet to go to trial, making up approximately a quarter of the total pending death penalty cases in Pennsylvania. Washington County only makes up approximately two percent of Pennsylvania’s population. 

Walsh, a Republican who is seeking a full term on Nov. 7, has defended how often he seeks the death penalty, including in the case against Sutton. Last year he told KDKA News, “I’m very consistent and will seek the highest form of punishment for the most heinous crimes.” Walsh did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story, but this week his office filed a motion for a gag order to bar lawyers on the Christian case from speaking about it as well as another motion seeking to punish them with sanctions over their attempt to remove him from the case. His motions also cite the inquiries he received from Bolts.

At the same time, Pennsylvania has been moving away from the death penalty over concerns about the cost of capital cases, racial biases, and its overall ineffectiveness in reducing crime. There’s been a moratorium on executions in the state since 2015, meaning that anyone sent to death row won’t be executed until it’s lifted. Earlier this year, Governor Josh Shapiro called on the Pennsylvania legislature to abolish the death penalty. 

Marc Bookman, executive director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, an organization that works on death penalty issues, said that Walsh is “abusing his discretion by seeking the death penalty in every case he can,” and his use of the death penalty is straining Washington County’s resources. “Washington County doesn’t have qualified lawyers for these capital cases, and it’s terribly expensive to taxpayers,” he said.

The death penalty has emerged as a key issue in the local DA race this year as Walsh faces Christina DeMarco-Breeden, a prosecutor in nearby Somerset County who is from Washington County. DeMarco-Breeden says the death penalty should be used for the worst crimes and criticized Walsh for overusing the punishment for his own political gain while depleting taxpayer dollars to fund prosecutions. “It is my position that he’s politicizing the death penalty,” she told Bolts. 

Walsh took over as Washington County’s DA in 2021 after the death of his predecessor, Eugene Vittone. During Vittone’s nine years in office, he sought the death penalty just five times. Prior to Walsh’s role in the DA’s office, Walsh worked in private practice representing clients in criminal cases, DUIs, and white collar crime.

Walsh’s capital cases are primarily focused on infants who died under a variety of circumstances, with seven people facing the death penalty for such charges. In December 2022, he said he would pursue the death penalty against a couple after their baby died from fentanyl ingestion; one of their lawyers said that the poisoning was accidental, which would have disqualified them for the death penalty because the punishment requires the killing to be intentional. Another of Walsh’s death penalty cases involves a couple who were found to have hidden their baby in a wall after he died; they say he died naturally and hid him because they could not afford to bury him. Walsh is also prosecuting a man who said his baby died after he fell on top of him; child welfare investigators said that was likely not the case and that his injuries denoted physical abuse. 

As deputy DA in Somerset County, DeMarco-Breeden is currently seeking the death penalty against one defendant, Paul Kendrick, who is accused of killing a prison guard. DeMarco-Breeden said that she thinks the case warrants the death penalty because there’s strong evidence of the brutal killing. “I believe it’s the first degree case, it’s actually on, it’s on surveillance video. I think the jury is going to have a really hard time watching it,” she said. 

If elected Washington County DA, DeMarco-Breeden said she would review each capital case to see if the evidence is sufficient for a death sentence. “Ethically, I have to,” she said. “I think you know, as prosecutors we are bound by the law, we are bound by only proceeding on charges that we believe we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Washington County is located on Pennsylvania’s western border and is home to roughly 209,000 people, about one fifth the size of Allegheny County, which is home to Pittsburgh. Yet Walsh has sought the death penalty much more aggressively than his counterpart there; Allegheny County has just five pending death penalty cases, despite having a higher murder rate.

Critics have said that Walsh’s decisions to seek the death penalty will be costly to Washington County taxpayers. It costs much more to prosecute death penalty cases than other murder cases that are non-capital. Researchers haven’t studied how much death penalty prosecutions in Pennsylvania are but in Kansas, for example, it costs an average of $395,800 to take a death penalty case to trial and appeal, as opposed to $99,000 for non-death penalty cases. Indiana death penalty trials cost an average of $789,000, while the average cost of a life without parole case is $185,000, according to researchers. 

Compounding the problem, Pennsylvania is the only state in the country that doesn’t provide state funding for indigent defense. Instead, each county is responsible for budgeting for public defenders, and because the majority of capital defendants are indigent, or too poor to afford their own attorney, they rely on public defenders to represent them. There are 12 pending capital cases but only 10 lawyers in Washington County who are qualified to work on death penalty cases, a database tracking qualifications shows. 

Historically, Pennsylvania death sentences haven’t held up in appeals. More than half of the 408 people sentenced to death since the beginning of the modern death penalty era in 1976 have had their sentences reduced on appeal and six people have been exonerated.

New death sentences have declined over the years. Since 2015, just nine people have been sentenced to death. Of the 100 people currently on Pennsylvania’s death row, just one is from  Washington County. 

Bookman with the Atlantic Center says Walsh’s use of the death penalty will spark long and costly litigation. “It’s likely these cases will end up being reversed and retried years from now, opening up old wounds for the victims and costing even more money to the taxpayers.”

To read more CLICK HERE

Mangino a guest on Court TV

 To watch the interview CLICK HERE and CLICK HERE

Shocking violence in Israel

Shocked by the violence in Israel today.  I flew out of Tel Aviv less that 24 before the attack.  My wife Juliann and I visited Haifa, Ashdod, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights during our stay in Israel.  We found the places we visited very calm and relaxed. Frankly, we were surprised by the lack of military presence in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv during the Sukkot holiday.

We pray for peace!

Eleven people shot by Indianapolis police in 2023, all but one black

The Concerned Clergy of Indianapolis said they lost faith in Police Chief Randal Taylor after a Black motorist stopped for a traffic violation was fatally shot running away from an officer August 3, reported the Indianapolis Sar.

Six more people were shot by city police in the eight weeks that followed — and a total of 11 in the first nine months of the year. All but one of them are Black.

The repeated use of deadly force has invoked apathy for some people, who accept it as unavoidable in this era of increased gun ownership and strained relations between residents and the people sworn to protect them.

Members of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, who have been shot twice this year on city streets, say they also have had enough.

“We are fed up with it. The community should be fed up with it,” Assistant Chief Chris Bailey said after the April shooting.

What’s driving the rash of police shootings this year isn’t clear. Police, politicians and community advocates have differing opinions. Experts say a reason can’t be known without scrutinizing each case.

“You would have to analyze the data to see what, if any, patterns emerge from these shootings,” said Jon Shane, professor of police policy and practice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

While debate continues about what may be driving the uptick, the fact remains Indianapolis police officers have killed people this year at a level not seen since 2016.

Chief Taylor told IndyStar in an interview he cannot recall a time in his 36-year career in law enforcement that so many police shootings have happened in such a short period.

"It's definitely concerning," he said.

Fewer police shootings in other cities

Of the 11 people Indianapolis police have shot in the first nine months of the year, six have died. In 2022, police shot four people, one fatally. Officers in six additional incidents fired their guns but did not strike anyone.

“It's a very rare occurrence," Stephanie Whitehead, a criminal justice professor at Indiana University East, said about the frequency of shootings since August.

Not included in the total are three people who were shot by state troopers in the city. Within a week in May, Indiana State Police troopers shot two people in separate incidents. In February, a state trooper shot a man being tracked in a gun and drug investigation.

More people have been shot by Indianapolis police this year than by other agencies in cities with roughly similar population sizes.

San Francisco police, for example, have shot six people since 2022.

Indianapolis surpassed Columbus, Ohio, a slightly larger city, where police have shot 10 people so far this year. Six were shot last year, according to the police department.

Indianapolis also stands out compared to several smaller Midwestern cities.

To read more CLICK HERE

Florida executes man for two murders in 1996

 The 19th Execution of 2023

A man who killed two women after meeting them a day apart in north Florida bars in 1996 was put to death on October 3, 2023, according to The Associated Press.

Michael Zack III, 54, was pronounced dead minutes after 6:14 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Starke.

The execution started promptly at 6 p.m. Zack was asked if he had any last words, and he answered, “Yes sir.” He then lifted his head to look at the witnesses and said, “I love you all.”

He was executed for the murder of Ravonne Smith, a bar employee he befriended and later beat and stabbed with an oyster knife in June 1996. He also was convicted and separately sentenced to life in prison for murdering Laura Rosillo, who he met at another Florida Panhandle bar.

Zack’s nine-day crime run that year began in Tallahassee, the state capital, where he was a regular at a bar. When Zack’s girlfriend called and said he was being evicted, the bartender offered to loan him her pickup truck. Zack left with it and never returned, according to court records.

Zack drove to a bar in Niceville in the Florida Panhandle, where he befriended a construction company owner. The man learned Zack was living in the pickup truck and offered to let him stay at his home. Zack later stole two guns and $42. He pawned the guns, according to court records.

At yet another bar, he met Rosillo and invited her to the beach to do drugs. He then beat her, dragged her partially clothed into the dunes, strangled her and kicked sand over her face, according to court records. The next day he went to a Pensacola bar, where he met Smith. The two went to the beach to smoke marijuana and later she took him to the home she shared with her boyfriend.

At the home, Zack smashed her over the head with a bottle, slammed her head into the floor, raped her and stabbed her four times in the center of the chest with the oyster knife, court records show. He then stole the woman’s television, VCR and purse and tried to pawn the electronics. The pawn shop suspected the items were stolen and Zack fled and hid in an empty house for two days before he was arrested, according to court records.

Zack, now 54, admitted to killing Smith. He said he became enraged and beat her when she made a comment about his mother’s murder, which his sister committed. He also said he thought Smith was going to another room to get a gun when he stabbed her in self defense.

Zack’s lawyers had sought to stop the execution, arguing that he was a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder. On Monday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Zack’s appeal for a stay of execution without comment.

Zack’s execution was the eighth under Gov. Ron DeSantis since 2019 and the sixth this year after no executions were carried out from 2020 to 2022. DeSantis has made tougher, more far-reaching death penalty laws an issue in his presidential campaign.

To read more CLICK HERE

 

Kagan pushes for ethics standards for SCOTUS

 Professor Steven Lubet writes in The Hill:

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan carefully chose her words when she told an audience at the Notre Dame Law School that she wanted her court to adopt a written code of ethics. That would “go far in persuading other people that we were adhering to the highest standards of conduct” she said. “I hope we can make progress.”

Kagan hesitated, however, when law school Dean Marcus Cole followed up by asking which justice was opposed to adopting a code. “What goes on in the conference room goes on in the conference room,” she demurred. “I don’t want to suggest that there’s one holdout,” Kagan said, explaining, “There are totally good faith disagreements or concerns.”

It is a safe bet, given recent events, that there are actually two holdouts – Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – and that their “good faith” concerns are likely quite personal. Neither one has been scrupulous about compliance with federal ethics law, with no meaningful consequences. But a Supreme Court code of conduct would be far harder to disregard. They have the motive, means and opportunity to keep the court from adopting an ethics code.

Ironically, Kagan’s talk at Notre Dame was delivered the same day as the most recent revelation about Thomas from ProPublica, this time detailing his multiple appearances at a donors’ summit sponsored by the conservative network Stand Together and funded by the conservative billionaire Charles Koch. That was only one of Thomas’s many gifts, vacations and other benefits from wealthy Republican activists, extending over decades, none of which were disclosed on his annual financial reports.

Alito was the subject of his own ProPublica exposé, detailing an undisclosed luxury Alaska fishing trip, with private jet transportation provided by a conservative mega-donor. He has also been criticized for inappropriately giving a two-part Wall Street Journal interview to a lawyer with a pending case in the Supreme Court.

Both Thomas and Alito have flouted the disclosure provisions of the federal Ethics in Government Act, either engaging in intellectual contortions to avoid its straightforward requirements, or simply ignoring them.

Alito has gone even further, declaring in the Wall Street Journal interview — conducted in part by David Rivkin, the lead attorney in a pending Supreme Court case — that “No provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”

Faced with Senate Democrats’ recusal request in Rivkin’s case, Alito issued a four-page denial without a single reference to the relevant federal statute, which requires disqualification in any case where a justice’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Rather than apply existing law, Alito substituted his “personal decision,” a new standard of his own devising, never before used by any justice, thus silently repudiating congressional authority.

Thomas is now facing a similar request, presented by 50 Democratic members of Congress, seeking his recusal in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, a major case that could hamstring federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). It has been a decades-long goal of Charles Koch and his late brother, David, to severely limit the power of federal agencies. The Kochs were Thomas’s hosts at the funders’ summits, and the Koch-funded network has provided the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the Loper Bright case. It remains to be seen whether Thomas will adopt Alito’s approach to recusal, making a “personal decision” rather than applying statutory law and precedent.

Just yesterday, Thomas recused himself from a case in which John Eastman sought to appeal a lower court’s order finding that his communications with then Vice President Mike Pence “more likely than not” constituted part of a criminal plan to keep former President Donald Trump in office despite the result of the 2020 election. Thomas provided no reason for his recusal and, like Alito, did not cite the federal statute.

It is one thing for Alito and Thomas to reject or disdain federal law, with the excuse that it encroaches on judicial independence. It would be an entirely different matter for any justice to dismiss a code of conduct adopted by the Supreme Court itself.

The Code of Conduct for Judges, applicable to the lower federal courts since 1973 and adopted in some version by every other U.S. jurisdiction, is the obvious model. Kagan observed that the Supreme Court could just “adapt the code of conduct,” with a few changes for “slight or certain differences” from the lower courts’ needs.

That could spell trouble for Alito and Thomas, because the Code of Conduct for United States Judges would inescapably bind them to rules they have obstinately defied.

Canon 3C requires recusal in language virtually identical to the federal statute — whenever the judge’s “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” This would leave no leeway for Alito’s novel “personal decision” standard. Even more directly, Canon 4H(3) provides that judges must “make required financial disclosures, including disclosures of gifts and other things of value, in compliance with applicable statutes.”

It would not be surprising if Alito or Thomas have objected to the code’s provisions that track federal law.

In other words, a robust Supreme Court Code of Conduct would spell the end of Alito’s and Thomas’s constant skirting of rules that apply to all other judges. That gives them a uniquely compelling reason to block approval of a code for the Supreme Court, or to hold out for the elimination of key requirements.

Ever the optimist, Kagan told the students at Notre Dame that “There are some things to be worked out. I hope that we can work them out.” I suppose she has the right to hope.

To read more CLICK HERE

House vacancies and control of the U.S. House of Representatives

 As the control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives potentially swings with every vacancy it is worth while to think of the U.S. House in the years immediately before the election of FDR.

The 72nd Congress (1931–1933) convened as Clerk William Tyler Page called the House to order at noon on opening day. The proceedings were historic. Elections in the fall of 1930 had provided Republicans with a slim majority in the chamber—218 Republicans, 216 Democrats, and one Farmer–Laborer. But between Election Day 1930 and the opening of the new Congress 13 months later, 14 Representatives-elect died, according to The History of the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the subsequent special elections to fill those vacancies, Democrats gained a majority advantage as voters registered their displeasure with the deepening Great Depression and the response to it by the Herbert Hoover administration.

The new, and unexpected, Democrat majority in the house laid the ground work for the very early stage of what would become known as Franklin Roosevelt's 'New Deal.'

On opening day, Democrats organized the chamber with a 219 to 213 advantage, with one Member from a third party. Among the late-Members mourned was popular Republican Speaker Nicholas Longworth, who had passed away on April 9, 1931. House Chaplain James Shera Montgomery eulogized Longworth in the opening prayer, motioning toward a portrait of the late Speaker at the foot of the rostrum. “Before us is an image of our most notable one.

A sad and mournful yesterday dictates our sorrow. Through the years he camped with us in the embrace of a sweet and beautiful fraternity.” Moments later, Longworth’s longtime friend, Democrat John Nance Garner of Texas, was elected Speaker of the House and sworn in by the dean of the House, Edward Pou of North Carolina.

To read more CLICK HERE