The Daily Beast
This is the recent mass shooting that could end in execution
Helen H. Richardson / Getty Both Robert Aaron Long and Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa were arrested last month for allegedly carrying out high-profile shootings that killed a large number of people. Both crimes have revived our national debates over guns, but only one of the men has a realistic chance of ending up on the death row. Colorado, where Alissa is on trial, is one of 23 states that have abolished the death penalty. Georgia, where Long was arrested, is one of 27 still serving the sentence on the books. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, it is also among a smaller portion of 15 states that someone has executed in the past decade. This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a non-profit news organization covering the US criminal justice system. Subscribe to The Marshall Project newsletter, or follow it on Facebook or Twitter. And then there’s California, where Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez was arrested last week on suspicion of killing four people, including a child. The death penalty there is more of a symbol than reality: California Gavin Newsom has imposed a moratorium on executions, which has not been carried out in the state since 2006. But local prosecutors regularly send people to death prison for a virtual life. sentence. District Attorney Todd Spitzer has already told reporters he will consider seeking the death penalty for Gonzalez. Suspect identified after deadly ‘Business Dispute’ shooting in California State laws are only part of the picture, as the Department of Justice depends on the investigations. may sneak in and seek death sentences for federal crimes. The fates of these men are dictated by decision-makers, ranging from local district attorneys to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, and serve as the latest examples of the strange geographical differences of U.S. death penalty. although Georgia still executes people, the entire state has sent only one person to the underworld since 2015. Across the country, it is now clear that whether you get the death penalty has less to do with what you did than where you did it. In 2013, the Death Penalty Information Center reported that all of the state’s inmates’ death sentences across the country came from just 20 percent of the provinces, and that most executions were produced by just 2 percent of the provinces. Some are populated, meaning there are more murders that could qualify for death sentences and larger tax base that can handle the high cost of capital trials. Last year, a group of scholars led by Frank Baumgartner at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill compiled a database of more than 8,500 death sentences handed out across the country since 1972. They found provinces where lynchings were carried out during the Jim Crow. in the early 20th century, people would still be sentenced to death more today. The findings are consistent with other studies showing racial differences on the death row, as well as the greater likelihood of a death sentence if the victim is white, but the most important factor, in each case, is also the simplest: who is Al Colorado has the death penalty not abolished last year, Alissa would surely have avoided that fate. Although he is accused of killing ten people in a Boulder grocery store on March 22, voters and elected officials in the liberal Colorado province where he was arrested have long opposed the death penalty. The current district attorney even encouraged President Joe Biden to end it at the federal level. Next is charged in two different Georgia provinces. He allegedly killed four people in Fulton County, which includes a large urban part of Atlanta and where all three candidates for district attorneys last year would never seek the death penalty. There has been a political shift from the death penalty in many large, urban provinces, including Philadelphia and Los Angeles. “What you see is a big consensus among prosecutors that the death penalty is immoral or that it is not worth the money, or that it offers a limited benefit to public safety,” said Amanda Marzullo, a Texas defense attorney and policy expert for capital punishment, said. “There are actually only about 25 provinces nationwide where the death penalty is regularly demanded.” Long also allegedly killed four people and wounded a fifth in Cherokee County, who had never sent anyone to the underworld. The province has a Republican district attorney, Shannon Wallace, who promised in a press release to prosecute the killings “to the full extent of the law.” It is not yet clear whether Long’s case is eligible for a death sentence. A Wallace spokesman would not rule out the possibility and stressed that the crimes are still being investigated. Much about the case – whether more charges will come, or whether the families of the victims will come down in public in one way or another – is still unknown. and local observers predict a “tug of war” between prosecutors over jurisdiction. “Prosecutors are only looking for death in a small fraction of the cases,” said Anna Arceneaux, executive director of the Georgia Resource Center, who defends people in the state’s death struggle. “This leads to geographical differences, not only in the states but also in the judicial circles in Georgia itself.” She said prosecutors should also consider Long’s mental health and background, as well as whether the cost of a death sentence could be used instead to prevent further violence against Asian Americans. Wallace’s office does not have a long record of death sentences. Scholars have found that the best predictor of whether a country will seek death is whether it has been done before. “Once a country imposes the death penalty, it gets better at it,” Baumgartner said. Prosecutors use past rulings as comparisons; If the province sent many people to the death struggle, the beam looks lower. Man of the victim from Atlanta, soon Chung Park, tried to carry out CPR at crime scene. This is probably the case in Orange County, California, which sent more than 80 people to their deaths. according to Baumgartner’s data since the 1970s. The county has been responsible for two of the 13 executions in the past half-century, and district attorney Todd Spitzer has led him against the moratorium on state executions. in his disagreement that the death penalty can violate the Constitution today because it is imposed “arbitrarily” from place to place. He cited research that suggests death sentences can be explained by whether lawyers are adequately funded and whether judges have political pressure. One scholar uses the term “local muscle memory” to describe how different factors inform each other, by creating feedback loops. Justice Antonin Scalia despised the works that Breyer called “abolition studies.” Former Texas prosecutor Lynn Hardaway has pointed out that geographical differences can also be a problem if they consider justice for victims, who do not ‘have the luxury of deciding’ where they will be killed. Some prosecutors are fine with the inequalities. “Prosecution is and should be a local matter,” said Johnny Holmes, the former district attorney for Harris County, Texas, noting that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution delegates power to the states. ‘That’s why I will not go over the issue on national television. Holmes’ own office was known for its culture of seeking death in the 1980s and 1990s, as Houston became the ‘capital of the death penalty’. Holmes handed out syringe-shaped pens, and his prosecutors, who won death sentences, joined an informal ‘Silver Needle Society’. “In similar cases, you will get divergent sentences between jurisdictions,” said Shannon Edmonds, an attorney with the Texas District and County Attorneys. Association. “But if each of the local communities thinks that these sentences are a fair outcome, then it is fairness at the micro level, even if there are inequalities at the macro level.” In theory, some geographic differences can be alleviated by the Department of Justice, which can prosecute a death penalty in any state for federal crimes. Instead of making the punishment more equitable, one study showed that there are also geographic and racial differences in who also receives federal death sentences. It is too early to say whether federal prosecutors will try to define any of the shootings as a federal crime, but there are many precedents: after the Boston Marathon bombing, they sought death for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, although Massachusetts did not carry the death penalty. do not have. Then they sought death for Dylann Roof, because he killed several churchgoers in South Carolina, even though he could have imposed the same punishment in a state court. The cases took place under President Barack Obama, even though he expressed doubts about the ultimate punishment. We do not yet know much about the Biden administration’s approach to the subject, although he has vowed on the campaign to end the practice. More mass shooting will definitely test the promise. Read more at The Daily Beast. Did you get a fee? Send it here to The Daily Beast Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily membership of the beast: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. 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