Death-Penalty News and Developments for the Week of July 1521, 2019: Nebraska Supreme Court Upholds Death Penalty for Nikko Jenkins

NEWS: July 19The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the con­vic­tions and death sen­tences in the case of Nikko Jenkins, who was con­vict­ed of four mur­ders com­mit­ted in Omaha in August 2013. The court reject­ed the chal­lenge that Jenkins — who has attempt­ed sui­cide on mul­ti­ple occa­sions — should not be sub­ject to the death penal­ty because of mental illness.


NEWS: July 18In a high­ly pub­li­cized fed­er­al cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion, Brendt Christesen was sen­tenced to life with­out parole after a Peoria, Illinois jury did not reach unan­i­mous agree­ment on the appro­pri­ate sen­tence for the rape and mur­der of an inter­na­tion­al grad­u­ate stu­dent. The case attract­ed atten­tion fueled by the sen­sa­tion­al­is­tic nature of the killing, the fact that the vic­tim’s body was nev­er recov­ered, and because fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors sought the death penal­ty in a state that had abol­ished capital punishment.


NEWS: July 18A Richmond County judge resen­tenced for­mer Georgia death-row pris­on­er Ernest U. Morrison to life with­out parole, 32 years after he was first sen­tenced to death. News reports stat­ed that Morrison’s death sen­tence was over­turned in 2008 based on evi­dence that his defense lawyer had fab­ri­cat­ed evi­dence and pre­sent­ed argu­ment in favor of the death penal­ty in his case.


NEWS: July 17By a vote of 15 – 1, the International Court of Justice has found that Pakistan had vio­lat­ed inter­na­tion­al law by try­ing and sen­tenc­ing Indian nation­al Kulbhushan Jadhav to death in a mil­i­tary court with­out allow­ing him to con­tact or obtain the assis­tance of Indian diplo­mat­ic per­son­nel. The court ruled that Pakistan had breached its treaty oblig­a­tions under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and ordered Pakistan to stay Jadhav’s exe­cu­tion until he could receive mean­ing­ful review” of his case. Pakistani pros­e­cu­tors had assert­ed that Jadhav was not enti­tled to the help of his home coun­try because he was a spy — a charge that both he and the gov­ern­ment of India deny. 


NEWS: July 16By a vote of 4 – 3, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled against Craig Wood in his appeal of a death sen­tence imposed by the tri­al judge after the jury did not reach a unan­i­mous ver­dict. Three jus­tices would have over­turned Wood’s death sen­tence on the grounds that the tri­al judge’s impo­si­tion of a death sen­tence after the jury was declared hung vio­lat­ed his Sixth Amendment right to a jury tri­al. Two of the jus­tices also would have over­turned the death sen­tence because the tri­al pros­e­cu­tor suc­cess­ful­ly exclud­ed defense tes­ti­mo­ny from the vic­tim’s moth­er that she want­ed Wood to be sen­tenced to life and then, in clos­ing argu­ment, told the jury it could speak for the vic­tim and her fam­i­ly by sen­tenc­ing him to death. Those two jus­tices also would have over­turned the death sen­tence because the pros­e­cu­tion was per­mit­ted to present evi­dence to the jury that police found more than 20 guns in a search of Wood’s house, even though none of those guns were relat­ed to the murder.


Pictured, from left to right: Witness to Innocence board mem­ber and for­mer DPIC Executive Director, Richard Dieter; Catholic Mobilizing Network Executive Director, Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy; European Union Special Representative for Human Rights, Eamon Gilmore; DPIC Executive Director, Robert Dunham; American Bar Association Death Penalty Representation Project Director & Chief Counsel, Emily Olsen-Gault; and Reprieve Staff Attorney Mark Maher

On July 15, DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham was among five death-penal­ty experts to meet with EU Special Representative for Human Rights, Eamon Gilmore in a round­table dis­cus­sion of the death penal­ty in the United States. Also par­tic­i­pat­ing in the meet­ing at the Washington, D.C. offices of the European Union del­e­ga­tion to the United States were Richard Dieter, rep­re­sent­ing Witness to Innocence; Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, the Catholic Mobilizing Network; Emily Olsen-Gault, the ABA Death Penalty Representation Project; and Mark Maher, Reprieve.