Closing Down

After much thought I've decided that I need to close this blog down. Things have gotten to hectic to keep it up and running in a worthwhile manner. I'll leave the site up as an archive and who knows, I might start blogging again in the future.

Evidence hearing begins in Thurber case

BY TIM POTTER
The Wichita Eagle

Testimony this morning in a hearing on whether to allow some evidence in the trial of Jason Thurber focused on searches of Thurber's room in his parents' house.

The defense has contended that search warrants are overly broad. Prosecutors said authorities seized a filet knife scabbard with what appeared to be a spot of dry blood.

Thurber, 24, of Arkansas City, is charged with kidnapping, raping and murdering Jodi Sanderholm, a 19-year-old Cowley College student and dance team member. If convicted, he would face the death penalty.

Prosecutors also said they found what they described as a pornographic picture of a woman on a boat with her legs up. Authorities believe that photo is relevant because Sanderholm's body at the crime scene appeared to have been possibly poised with her legs up. The judge is not expected to rule today.

http://www.kansas.com/news/updates/story/324553.html

State v. Scott Cheever

Updated 11/1 - After less than 2 hours of deliberations, the jury has sentenced Scott Cheever to death. I'd post more but emotion won't let me at this point.

Updated 10/31 - Scott Cheever was convicted yesterday of all counts, including capital murder. The Penalty phase has begun. The jury will decide whether Scott is sentenced to death or life without parole.

Updated 10/22 - No court today. Judge Ward is attending the judicial conference. Trial will resume tomorrow. On Friday the jury heard from 4 witnesses. Word is the state thinks they will be done as early as Thursday (10/25).

10/17 - 45 potential jurors are now qualified. The court is taking tomorrow (Thursday) off and will resume on Friday. Each side will exercise preemptory challenges at that time to narrow the panel down to 12 jurors and 3 alternates.

Once the jury is set, we'll try to keep you updated on how the trial is progressing.

As you know, we've adopted a policy of not commenting or posting links about pending cases so that the death vultures wouldn't be using this site to find news. That is why we've been quiet so far. But, once the trial is underway we'll try and keep you informed.

October Executions

Act now to voice your opposition to these upcoming executions. (This post will remain on top so long as there is an execution scheduled this month. New posts follow below.)

October 3rd - (TX) Heliberto Chi - Stay issued

Ovtober 15th - (NV) William Castillo - Stay issued

October 16th - (AR) Jack Jones Jr. - Stay issued

October 17th - (VA) Christopher Emmett - Stay issued

October 19th - (GA) Jack Alderman - Stay issued

October 23rd (GA) Curtis Osbourne - Stay issued

October 25th - (AL) Daniel Siebert - Stay issued

October 30th - (MS) Earl Wesley Berry - Stay Issued

Sister Helen Prejean To Speak In Wichita

DEAD MAN WALKING - THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

Sister Helen Prejean will be in Wichita on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 to present "Dead Man Walking - The Journey Continues" to the public. This presentation will take place at the Wilner Auditorium on the campus of Wichita State University at 7:00 p.m. (doors open at 6:00 p.m.)

Following the presentation, Sister Prejean will take part in a public Q & A as well as sign copies of her books Dead Man Walking and Death of Innocents.

The presentation is free.

September Executions

Sept. 5 - Tony Roach - Murdered by the State of Texas

Sept. 12 - Daryl Holton - Murdered by the State of Tennessee

Sept. 13 - (TX) Joseph Lave - Stay issued (at the request of the District Attorney)

Sept. 18 - (AR) Terrick Nooner - Stay Issued

Sept. 20 - Clifford Kimmel - Murdered by the State of Texas

Sept. 25 - Michael Richards - Murdered by the State of Texas

Sept. 26 - (TN) Edward Jerome Harbison - Stay issued

Sept. 27 - (TX) Carlton Turner - Stay issued

Sept. 27 - (AL) Tommy Arthur - Stay issued

Kansas should rethink death penalty

Quoted from the Wichita Eagle Sept. 13, 2007

It's hard to imagine that any of the 89 Kansas lawmakers who voted in 1994 to revive the death penalty for the "the worst of the worst" criminals anticipated it would still be unused come 2007. Each year sends more men to Kansas' death row, nine in all currently, but the legal challenges to their sentences continue at a glacial pace. Then there is the cost to taxpayers, averaging $1.2 million each by one tally. At some point, given the legal problems and the lack of executions, a death penalty stops making sense for Kansas.

In the early '90s, the average time between sentencing to execution nationally was eight years; now, it's 16 years. And Jeff Jackson, a law professor at Washburn University, recently predicted that Kansas' first execution since reinstatement of capital punishment could be another dozen years away. If that killer ends up being Gary Kleypas -- the first man so sentenced in Kansas since serial killers James Latham and George York were hanged on June 22, 1965 -- 23 years could have passed since his 1996 rape and murder of a Pittsburg State University student.

That would hardly seem to count as swift punishment, or fulfill legislative intent.

Supporters will point to Texas' eight-year average gap and 402 executions since 1974 and ask of Kansas: What's the holdup?

First Kleypas must be resentenced, as ordered by the Kansas Supreme Court. Another denizen of death row must be retried entirely -- Michael Marsh of Wichita, whose 1996 case was involved in the U.S. Supreme Court's 2006 decision upholding Kansas' death penalty. The appeal of Gavin Scott, sentenced to die for killing a rural Goddard couple in 1996, was heard last week by the state's Supreme Court, where the defense argued that the word "or" in the phrase "cruel or unusual" punishment allows the court to strike down the death penalty law again. Meanwhile, the appeals of some of the best-known killers -- including Jonathan and Reginald Carr, Douglas Belt and John E. Robinson Sr. --are still to come.

The proliferation of murders in Wichita this year -- 37 and counting, compared with 26 for all of 2006 -- casts increasing doubt on the death penalty's value as a deterrent. So do the state's pending capital cases against Edwin R. Hall, charged with killing Olathe teen Kelsey Smith; Justin Thurber, charged in the Cowley County death of 19-year-old Jodi Sanderholm; and Elgin Ray Robinson Jr., facing capital murder charges in the death of 14-year-old Wichitan Chelsea Brooks.

Plus, more complications lie ahead: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that killers sentenced to die by lethal injection, the preferred method in Kansas and 37 other states, can challenge the constitutionality of that method of execution.

There are many other good reasons for a rethinking, including the recent principled argument of Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., that capital punishment is only apt in a very few "cases where we cannot protect the society from the individual."

Care and caution are warranted to ensure that only the guilty are subjected to the ultimate punishment. But as difficult as the 1994 legislative debate was, it should lead to another any day now -- about whether the death penalty, given its complexities and cost, is still worth having in Kansas.

For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman