Death Penalty Focus, Keith Henness, special two-hour episode of 48 Hours about Kevin Cooper, Chinonye Chukwu’s Film “Clemency”, Domenique Ray, California’s death penalty and Proposition 66
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CBS News aired a special two-hour episode of 48 Hours on Kevin
Cooper’s innocence case a few weeks ago on January 26th. In May of last year, Nicholas Kristof published an explosive
column in the New York Times, reviewing the evidence and concluding that
it points to people other than Kevin. You
can still read it here if you missed it. The 48 Hours episode
will include interviews with Kristof, Kevin’s attorney Norman Hile, and DPF
Board Director Thomas R. Parker, a retired FBI agent who reinvestigated the
case. You can watch a preview of the episode here:
If you miss the episode, 48 Hours will post it
on this
page shortly after it airs. Before he left office, former Gov. Jerry
Brown ordered new, albeit limited, DNA testing for evidence gathered in Kevin’s
case. It was a step in the right direction, but it stopped short of a true
innocence investigation that we were all hoping for. You can read more about
this important distinction in our most recent issue of The Focus by clicking
here.
In a matter of days, Ohio will execute Keith Henness. Many, including Ohioans
to Stop Executions, believe his lawyers and the system failed him. Out of
options for Keith, they are turning to you. You've saved lives in this situation
before and he needs you to help save his now. Will you add your support to urge
new Ohio governor Mike DeWine to grant Keith clemency? Time is running out. Your
support can push Governor DeWine to prevent a senseless death. Sign now.
Keith
Henness is scheduled to be executed at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility
in Lucasville on February 13, 2019 at 10 am. Keith’s case in yet another
reminder of the systemic flaws with Ohio’s death penalty
system. Keith Henness’ trial lawyers did virtually no work defending
him
Lead
counsel logged fewer than 12 hours investigating the case during the sixteen
months before trial.
Counsel
did not investigate or hire mitigation specialists to defend Keith.
Lingering
doubts exist today, evidence was destroyed
Both
co-defendants had histories of violence, substance abuse and motive for killing
Richard Myers. Keith had no history of violence and no motive for the crime.
Finger
prints and blood samples taken from the crime scene did not match Keith.
The
lead detective on the case instructed the crime lab to destroy the forensic
evidence after the trial during Keith’s appeal.
The
only evidence used to convict Keith came from the two co-defendants.
Keith’s
death sentence is an outlier that never should have occurred
Franklin
County data show from 1990-1995, 98% of indicted aggravated murder cases did not
receive the death penalty.
Of
the 109 indictments eligible for the death penalty, only 2 actual death
sentences were given. Keith Henness was one.
Because
Keith did not trust his trial lawyers, he did not agree to a plea deal offered
by prosecutors for 20 years-life.
Keith
Henness is the first person scheduled for execution under newly-elected Governor
Mike DeWine. Call the governor and urge him not to execute Keith Henness.
Call Gov. DeWine at (614) 466-3555 and tell him he should grant clemency to
Keith based on ineffective trial lawyers, lingering doubts about co-defendants
and data clearly demonstrating his death sentence is
unfair. Visit petition page
“Do We as a Society Have a Right to Kill?”: Chinonye Chukwu’s Film “Clemency” Examines Death Penalty
As the state of Texas this week carried out the nation’s first execution of the year, we look at “Clemency,” a new film starring Alfre Woodard that examines the death penalty from the perspective of those who have to carry out executions as well as the condemned. Woodard portrays prison warden Bernadine Williams as she prepares to oversee what would be her 12th execution as warden in the aftermath of one that was horribly botched. As her life seems to unravel, Williams, for the first time, grapples with what it means to be part of a system of state-sanctioned murder, as the execution date for Anthony Woods, played by Aldis Hodge, gets closer. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. We speak with Nigerian-American writer-director Chinonye Chukwu, who says she was inspired to take on the subject after the execution of Troy Anthony Davis, who was put to death by the state of Georgia on September 21, 2011. Davis’s execution was carried out despite major doubts about evidence used to convict him of killing police officer Mark MacPhail, and his death helped fuel the national movement to abolish the death penalty.
We continue to look at the problems Proposition 66 is creating in
California’s courts in the second of our two-part report.
Alabama executed Domenique Ray last night and compounded the barbarity by
denying him spiritual support in the death chamber.
Ohio postponed an execution scheduled for this month because of concerns
about its lethal injection drugs, the latest example of how states are
scrambling to find alternatives to drugs that are hard to obtain or of
questionable efficacy.
He’s been on California’s death row for almost 34 years, but Kevin Cooper’s
fight for justice continues, bolstered by a two-hour segment on CBS and op-eds
in the LA Times and San Francisco Chronicle.
The State of California stole 23 years of his life and his health after
wrongfully convicting him of murder, and William Richards won’t rest until
restitution is made.
You’ll find all that, plus a quick rundown of
developments around the country, and a few reading suggestions
below.
In the second of a
two-part report, death penalty lawyer Nancy Haydt explores the possible
consequences of Proposition 66 on county courts, court administration, courts of
appeal, and attorneys.
When Domineque Ray
was executed by the state of Alabama last night his spiritual advisor was not in
the death chamber with him. The reason? Ray was a Muslim.
Warren Keith Henness was scheduled to be executed on
Wednesday, but Ohio’s governor postponed it, and ordered the corrections
department to look for “alternative drugs,” after a federal judge issued a
scathing indictment of the state’s lethal injection protocol.
A piece on how true
conservatives can’t justify support for capital punishment, and a column on why
fewer Catholics may be chosen for death penalty trials are just two of several
reading suggestions we have this month.
The state of California took 23
years of Bill Richards’ life, his health, and the time he needed to grieve the
death of his wife, whose severely battered body he discovered. And while he’s
finally free, he still has to fight the system that stole so much from him.
