Dec. 12
TEXAS:
Sam Houston State hails from Huntsville, which houses a multitude of Texas
prisons, including the state's well-used execution chamber
You can't escape it.
Prison, that is.
If you're going to talk about Huntsville, Texas - and, since the city is
sending its Sam Houston State University Bearkats to Missoula to play the
Montana Grizzlies on Saturday, with a berth in the Division I-AA national
football championship on the line, we sure enough are - you've got to
start with prisons.
Huntsville has a population of 35,078 people. 1 in every 4 - 8,300 of them
- live behind bars.
More than 6,000 more work there.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice maintains not 1, not 2, not 3,
not 4, but 5 prisons inside the city limits of Huntsville alone.
There are 4 more just minutes from the city. They're just a part of
approximately 100 state prisons spread across Texas, which has more people
under criminal justice control than the entire population of at least 3
states.
But Huntsville is still to Texas what Deer Lodge is to Montana.
That's because one of the prisons in Huntsville, located in the center of
town, is known as "The Walls."
Built half a century before Montana even became a state, it is the oldest
prison in Texas. The town looks like it sprung up around it.
And "The Walls" is home to the state's execution chamber.
"They fry a guy a day in Huntsville," a former Texan told me - rather
boastfully - last week. "Three-hundred-forty last year alone. I think they
took Easter and Christmas and a couple of weekends off, so it wasn't quite
one a day."
Well, now, that's not even close to the truth.
No one gets "fried," for one thing. Texas chucked "Old Sparky," the
electric chair, for lethal injection back in 1982.
"What are we, barbarians?" asks Jon Camfield, a former resident, who adds
that by switching to lethal injection, "We no longer have brown-outs
during executions."
While Texas does execute more people than any state in the union, it's
nowhere close to one a week, much less one a day. This year, 23 inmates
have been executed. Last year, it was 24. The most was 40, in 2000.
(Little known - to Montanans, at least - fact: While Huntsville is the
site of all executions in Texas, it is not the site of death row. The 444
people currently sentenced to death in Texas are incarcerated in the
Polunsky Unit, 45 miles to the east in Livingston, Texas. They are
transferred to Huntsville on the day they are scheduled to die.)
Huntsville resident Michelle Lyons has witnessed many of the executions.
For the last 3 years, as a prison information officer, she's seen every
one of them.
"I think most people who have worked in journalism have covered so many
gruesome things, whether it's fires or accidents or whatever," says Lyons,
who also had a seat at executions when she was a reporter at the
Huntsville Item. "This is not a gruesome act. It's very clinical. Not to
make light of it, but it's like watching someone go to sleep. It's a part
of the job."
Huntsville, she says, is "a pretty community. We're east Texas, which
means it's hilly, a lot of pine trees. There are several lakes in the
area. Other than the fact that we have the distinction of being home to
the Texas execution chamber, it's like any really nice community in the
U.S."
Any nice community with five prisons and several thousand inmates, anyway.
"A lot of people ask me, 'How can you live there? Aren't you afraid of
escapes?' " says Lyons, a Galveston native. "The truth is most of us who
live here figure the last place anyone who escaped from prison in
Huntsville would want to stay is Huntsville. There's not a large number of
escape attempts, and fewer escapes, anyway."
A few key words about Huntsville in an Internet search will quickly lead
you to www.griffjon.com, where Jon Camfield writes about bouncing around
the world, and the state of Texas.
Buried in there is his take on, and guide to, Huntsville, where he grew
up.
He calls it "Hunts-Hell."
"It's a really great place to go through at 60 mph, but not to live for
18-plus years," he writes.
Camfield directs visitors to his Web site, to (and often away from)
various Huntsville restaurants, stores, civic buildings ("Our library is
underfunded and incredibly hard to find, so don't worry") and tourist
sites ("Well, there's the Texas Prison Museum - you can have a seat in Ol'
Sparky!").
We could probably write an entire article just off Camfield's Web site,
which might be funny, but wouldn't be fair to Huntsville.
"It really is a great place," says Charlie Combs, financial operations
manager at the prison museum, who's lived in Huntsville since 1950. Combs
also reports that while you can look at Old Sparky in the museum, you
can't actually sit in him.
"We keep that cordoned off," he said.
At the museum, you can also learn about the old Prison Rodeo, aka "The
Wildest Show Behind Bars."
The then-head of the Texas prison system, Lee Simmons, started the rodeo
in 1931, and for more than half a century "convicts competed for prizes
and the mastery of wild animal stock."
Back then, the Goree Unit south of Huntsville housed female prisoners. The
"girls of Goree" made black and white-striped suits for the inmate
cowboys, who climbed on broncs and bulls in a huge rodeo that drew fans
from all over the state. At night, entertainers such as Dolly Parton and
Willie Nelson would perform.
In 1986, the rodeo arena had fallen into such disrepair that the event was
shut down.
"It was a money thing at first," Lyons says, "but as time went on, it was
less about money. We have a different type of inmate now.
"Back when the rodeo was in full gear, we had a number of inmates from
rural places. These days it's a younger, more metropolitan population.
They just don't know how to be cowboys. That, plus the money to repair the
arena, the liability, the security issues ... it won't be brought back."
These days, they have their Bearkat football team to root on instead.
In Huntsville, they're primed for their 1st trip to the national
championship game. In Missoula, they're primed for their 5th.
There's no escaping it: One or the other will make a break for Chattanooga
on Saturday.
(source: The Missoulian)
***********************
'Right' man's burden
Re: "Get over it," by Martin Baker, Letter to the Editor, Dec. 6.
After reading Mr. Baker's letter, I was once again overcome by the
tremendous burden that reactionaries carry on their broad, strong
shoulders.
What a curse it must be to be a reactionary as well as conservative and
always "...on the right side of every issue," and have to deal with people
who do not comprehend your divinity?
But then again, as a "liberal," I ask myself this question, "Does always
being on the 'right' side mean that the reactionary is always (or even
very often) "correct" in his facts, statements or opinions?
And over and over again I find that the answer to the question is a
resounding no!
Just to take one little example of the kind of useless propaganda tripe
that the reactionaries constantly dole out in their effort to show how
they see the light, while liberals are blind and unclean, I quote from Mr.
Baker's letter.
"It seems incredible that you liberals cannot figure this out. It is wrong
for the judges to make up laws as they go along. Conservative judges will
not do this."
What is incredible, Mr. Baker, is that you constantly ascribe to
conservatives attributes which they do not possess in your zealous effort
to claim your supposed divinity.
For example, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly warned the 5th Circuit
Court of Appeals about failing to comply with its rulings in Texas death
penalty cases. Last month, the high court delivered the same message
directly to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
The Supreme Court (in an unsigned 7-2 opinion) urged the state court to
pay attention and stop relying on "a test (made up by the 5th Circuit
Court of Appeals) we never countenanced and now have have unequivocally
rejected."
Another example of those "liberal" judges making up a law as they went
along, something that a conservative judge would never do?
Hardly. Turns out that 14 judges (70 % of the court) on the 5th Circuit
Court were appointed by either one of the Bush clan or by Reagan.
Once again class, what do we call those who profess beliefs, feelings, or
virtues that one does not hold or possess?
(source: Lufkin Daily News)
***********************
New findings cast doubt on Ardmore man's guilt
"I'm angry at Texas but I want the people in Oklahoma to know he (Todd
Willingham) wasn't the monster they said he was," Gene Willingham said
Friday as he talked about new information released Thursday that could
indicate his son was innocent.
According to the Chicago Tribune, an investigation conducted by the paper
indicates Ardmore native Todd Willingham may have been executed earlier
this year for a crime he didn't commit.
Wiping tears from his eyes, Willingham's father told The Daily Ardmoreite
the results of the Tribune's investigation points to the conclusion he has
always had -- his son was innocent.
"It can't help him now -- he's gone. But it may help others. It's already
helped one man. It may make the courts take a little more time in what
they're doing," Willingham said.
Todd Willingham was convicted in 1992 of capital murder and sentenced to
death. The case surrounded the 1991 fire that destroyed his Corsicana,
Texas, home just two days before Christmas and claimed the lives of his
three children. Willingham maintained his innocence from the time of his
arrest to his last words before he died from lethal injection on Feb. 17.
"They (prosecutors) offered him life (before the case went to trial) if he
would confess. He wouldn't do it. Then they (defense attorneys) tried to
get my wife and I to convince him to confess. I said I wasn't going to do
that. They said then you'll see your son dead in 10 years or so,"
Willingham said. "He told them he was innocent right up to the end. It was
a raw deal all the way around."
The Tribune's investigation challenged the accuracy of evidence presented
by arson investigators at Willingham's trial and the conclusions drawn
from that evidence. 4 fire experts who reviewed the case called the
evidence flawed and not scientific by today's standards. The experts even
say it's possible the fire that killed Willingham's children may have been
accidental.
Kendall Ryland, a former fire instructor for Louisiana State University
and chief of the Effie Fire Department, examined the facts and told the
Tribune the fact that Willingham had been convicted and executed based on
the flawed evidence "made me sick."
Ryland said, "They executed this guy and they've just got no idea -- at
least scientifically -- if he set the fire, or if the fire was even
intentionally set."
One of the other experts who reviewed evidence, trial testimony and
videotape of the fire scene last month was Gerald Hurst. It was the second
time Hurst had examined the case and the second time he found the state's
evidence lacking. Hurst had attempted to help Willingham gain a stay of
execution earlier this year, presenting a report of his findings to Gov.
Rick Perry, who rejected the noted fire scientist's conclusions that he
found no evidence of arson.
Even one of the Texas deputy fire marshal's who originally assisted in the
investigation of the fire admits the current conclusions about the case
have validity.
"At the time of the Corsicana fire, we were still testifying to things
that aren't accurate today," Edward Cheever told the Tribune. "They were
true then, but they aren't now."
Willingham's father says the Tribune's investigation won't bring his son
back, but he feels it does vindicate him.
He recalled the final hours of his son's life, saying Willingham was
accepting of his fate.
"He knew it was too late," the father said. "He was more worried about me,
I have cancer, than he was about himself. I told him I would be all right
and he said, 'I'm going.'"
The father mourned the fact that even minutes before his son's execution
he was not allowed to touch him.
(source: The Daily Ardmoreite)
LOUISIANA:
Wilbert Rideau: Cry freedom----Over the 40 years he has spent in a
Louisiana jail, Wilbert Rideau has turned from convicted killer to model
prisoner. Now, in an unprecedented move, he is to be tried all over again,
with one aim: to ensure he never leaves jail alive, says David Usborne
All Wilbert Rideau needed to do for four decades as an inmate in one of
America's harshest prisons - the Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana -
was keep his head down. But that isn't his style. Instead Rideau,
incarcerated in 1961 for murder, took precisely the wrong path. He turned
himself into a model prisoner.
His "mistakes" have ranged from editing the prison magazine, the Angolite,
to writing books, lecturing and co-producing an Oscar-nominated film about
life behind bars. In the process, he has earned some of the highest
accolades in US journalism, including a George Polk award. ABC News once
named him "Person of the Week". In Life magazine he was "The Most
Rehabilitated Prisoner in America".
Amazing feats these may be for a man who was 19 years old and barely
educated when he first went inside. But, today, Rideau, who is now 63, has
the poise and glint-in-the-eye of a man with intact self-respect and
admits that while his feats have earned him the admiration of people
around the country, they may also have cost him the one prize every
prisoner craves: freedom.
That is because there are others in the country - and especially here in
south-west Louisiana - who do not care for Rideau one bit. Rather than
being impressed by his deeds, they become increasingly infuriated by them.
Just as his supporters say it is time to let him go, these other folk,
many of them powerful, wish to see him rot and die inside his cell.
It is a battle that may soon be resolved. What is set to happen next in
the long saga of Rideau's confinement is unprecedented in US judicial
history. He is about to be put on trial again for the same murder, 43
years after it happened. Moreover, this will not be his second trial: it
will be his fourth. It will be interesting to see if the state of
Louisiana can get it right this time.
This is not a story about a black man wrongfully convicted and locked up
for a crime he never committed (America has plenty of those already).
True, at the new trial in January, Rideau will plead innocent; but that is
how the system works. I have spoken twice with Rideau - the 1st time in
person behind the razor wire of Angola 5 years ago - and I have never
heard him offer a denial of having killed. Nor will his supporters, in
private, try to suggest his hands are clean of blood.
Yet, the treatment of Rideau by the judicial system in Louisiana has been
deplorable. All three of his previous convictions for murder were
successively overturned because of blatant racial manipulation by white
prosecutors (each verdict was delivered by juries that were exclusively
white and male). And on the three occasions when the state parole board
recommended that he be released, between 1984 and 1990, the sitting
governor flatly refused; no explanation given.
Rideau did have one piece of luck. His first 11 years in Angola - a
sprawling 18,000 acre prison farm that earned its name because it was
first worked by slaves from that African country - were spent on death
row. When the US Supreme Court ruled in 1972 that the death penalty as it
was being exercised at the time was unconstitutional, his sentence was
commuted to life.
But there the luck ended. Most galling of all: back in the early 1960s
when he was first convicted, the law in Louisiana said that lifers, even
murderers, who showed good behaviour should be released after between 10
and 15 years. And many of his co-inmates in Angola benefited from it.
Murderers walked out. Some committed murder a 2nd time, returned to Angola
and were released once more.
It is for this reason that Rideau goes to trial this time with some of the
country's most eminent lawyers defending him - for no fee. They include
Johnnie Cochran, who defended OJ Simpson against murder charges 10 years
ago. Alongside him will be George Kendall, an advocate for equal justice
for African-Americans, and Julian Murray, arguably the best-known defence
lawyer in Louisiana. Their message is clear. Says Mr Murray simply:
"Enough is enough."
"All he is saying is don't treat me better than anyone else," explains Mr
Kendall, whose practice is in New York. "But make me pass the same test
everyone else must pass to get out."
It sounds like common sense. But common sense takes second place in this
case to raw emotion and racial politics. To understand that, visit Lake
Charles in south-west Louisiana near the Texas line, where, on some days,
the fumes from the nearby refineries burn the nostrils. This is where the
murder was committed at a time when the struggle over desegregation in the
South was at its fiercest. Lake Charles, in Calcasieu Parish, was KKK
territory. So outraged were city officials when federal authorities
ordered an end to racial segregation of the city's public schools, they
vowed to close them and sell off the buildings.
The retrying of Rideau is set to take the town back to those times. With a
population that is 1/3 black and 2/3 white, the Rideau story has remained
a polarising force for all these years. Now the anger and mutual distrust
will be forced back to the surface. "The city is waiting to explode. It's
a time bomb waiting to blow," warns the Rev JL Franklin, a local pastor
and African-American leader. Last year, he led the biggest-ever march of
African-Americans in the parish to the old courthouse to demand a fair
trial for Rideau. Outside the court there stands a monument to the
soldiers who fought for the old Confederacy and defended slavery, with two
words inscribed on it, "Our Heroes".
But the racial static was never so charged as on 16 February 1961 when the
Sheriff's office in Lake Charles got word of a robbery at a bank on Ryan
Street. About $14,000 was gone and the perpetrator, quickly identified as
a black man, had raced away in a car with three bank employees, all of
them white women. It did not take long to track them to a swampy patch of
ground off an interstate highway east of the city.
The man they found there, with the three victims, was Rideau. According to
prosecutors at the time - and still today - he had shot 2 of his hostages,
wounding each. A third, a female bank teller named Julia Ferguson, was
found dead, however. Rideau, the survivors said, had first shot her and
then, as she attempted to crawl away, slit her throat with a knife.
On that February afternoon, Sheriff Ham Reid drove the 11 miles east of
Lake Charles to take charge of Rideau from the arresting officers. As he
drove back to town, a white mob had already gathered outside the police
station to bay at the black teenager as he was brought in. Without delay,
Rideau was interviewed by Reid and mumbled a confession in response to
leading questions. All the town saw and heard it because the Sheriff had
invited the local television station into the interrogation room to record
it.
4 months after the robbery, Rideau was convicted and sentenced to death.
The repeated television broadcasting of the "confession" tape was only one
of the trial's problems. So egregious were its flaws that, 2 years later,
the US Supreme Court reversed that first 1961 conviction, stating that the
trial had been a "hollow proceeding" held in a "kangaroo court". Not only
had the jury been all-white and all-male but it had also included a
relative of the victim, a friend of the victim and 2 local deputy
sheriffs.
Trial number 2 in 1964 was at least held outside Lake Charles, 100 miles
away in Baton Rouge. Again, Rideau was convicted and sentenced to death,
again by an all-white jury (it reached its verdict in 8 minutes). And once
again the conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court on the grounds
that jury selection rules had been violated. And so, in 1970, to a 3rd
trial, also in Baton Rouge. This time the guilty verdict of the jury (all
white, all male) seemed to stick, at least until 1972, the year that the
Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty as it was being exercised in
the US was unconstitutional and should be suspended. Rideau's death
sentence was automatically commuted to life.
Off death row, Rideau was able to show his self-transformation. He was
helped by successive wardens, who, showing a surprising degree
ofaccommodation, increasingly gave their most ambitious prisoner rein to
express himself, including editing his own magazine. The Angolite was not
subject to censorship. It chronicled the violence of Angola, the rapes and
sexual slavery of inmates. Meanwhile, hundreds of school children were
bussed in to listen to Rideau warn against a life * of crime. He was
allowed out to lecture on prison reform at universities in the state and,
occasionally, appeared on national television to address the same issues.
Perhaps most surprising was how he was allowed to co-produce the film,
called The Farm: Angola USA. Aside from the Oscar nomination, it won the
Grand Jury Prize at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.
But through all that time, his legal manoeuvres to find his freedom came
to nought. Most frustrating were the three occasions the parole board
recommended his release and the then governor, Edwin Edwards, demurred. An
ABC TV news report alleged some years later that Edwards had personally
promised one of the survivors of the bank robbery, Dora McCain, that he
would never let Rideau go free.
4 years ago, the landscape shifted again. In response to fresh motions
from Rideau, a federal appeals court ruled that he should either be
released or tried all over again because of the racially biased make-up of
the grand jury that delivered the original murder indictment against him
back in 1961. Rideau and his lawyers tried to negotiate for the former
option. The man who stood in their way was the District Attorney in Lake
Charles, Rick Bryant. He was having none of it. He blocked successive
attempts by the Rideau team to have the new trial held either before one
of its two black judges or, more preferably, for it to be moved from a
jurisdiction far from Calcasieu Parish.
The jurors, at least, are to be picked this time from the city of Monroe,
a good 3 hours' drive away in the north of the state. But to the dismay of
the defence, and of Rideau himself, the trial itself will be in Lake
Charles. Worse, the star witness for the prosecution will be Dora McCain,
the only surviving victim of the 1961 crime. It hardly helps him that she
was an assistant in the office of the Clerk of the Court for 15 years and
knows almost everyone in law enforcement in town.
In a telephone interview from the Lake Charles jail, where he was
transferred after a new trial was ordered, Rideau openly voiced his
scepticism about his chances of a fair trial this time. "You are talking
about an area that harbours a good deal of prejudice, where all the
players in the judicial system, the judges and everyone else, they all
know the prosecution witness and what not and are all friends. They are
trying to send me back to prison; they are not trying to help me."
The atmosphere at the trial will not be pretty. To say that there is open
enmity between the two camps is an understatement. Murray, speaking in his
home in New Orleans, decries the unwillingness of DA Bryant even to
consider the efforts made by him and his co-defence lawyer to negotiate a
settlement - probably in the form of a manslaughter plea by Rideau - that
would have meant him being freed on the 43 years already served. Bryant,
he surmises, just has it in for Rideau and therefore there is no moving
him. "Bryant? There is a lot of hate in that man. There is just a genuine
hate in there. You find that mentality in some prosecutors."
As for Bryant, he laughs out loud at the idea. In fact, talk to him about
almost anything that the defence has to say and he will chuckle like they
are idiots. "I get a little irritated with all these people coming on with
their 'poor, pitiful Wilbert Rideau' deal. What do you want me to say?
That he is a great guy?"
In fact, whether he is a great guy or not doesn't concern Bryant. Murray
is infuriated that the DA, even though he has been involved in this case
for nearly 20 years, has never even exchanged words with Rideau. "He has
never met him. Never so much as said 'good day' and had a cup of coffee
with him. Some of the things he has said about Wilbert are outlandish,
like if they freed him he would commit murder again."
Bryant retorts: "Why should I spend time with him? I don't visit with
prisoners. I prosecute them."
This will be the main fault line in the courthouse next month. The defence
will talk a great deal about rehabilitation and redemption. Rideau, they
will say, has shown more willingness to overcome his alleged sins than any
prisoner you could name. "Right or wrong," Murray explains, "Christians
are meant to understand the principle of forgiveness. But not in Bryant's
case." Indeed not.
Bryant seems ignorant of many of the things Rideau has done while in
Angola. "I don't know anything about that," he says, reclining in his
swivel chair in his Lake Charles office. "Whether he is rehabilitated or
not rehabilitated is irrelevant to me. Whether he has talked to school
kids or whoever is a non-issue. It means absolutely nothing to me. What
means something to me is that he butchered a woman to death." He adds,
"There is no redemption for a murderer."
This is the attitude Rideau and his lawyers are facing. Both sides are
downplaying their chances of prevailing. Bryant rightly points out the
difficulties of prosecuting a murder case that is more than 40 years old
with almost all the evidence gone and nearly every witness dead. Messrs
Cochran, Murray and Kendall point to the ferocity of Bryant and to the
history of judicial bias in Lake Charles. Their best hope is to persuade
the jury to opt for manslaughter and to free Rideau on time first.
Perhaps most absurd of all is the truth that Rideau would be in a far
better position now if he had not shone so brightly while in Angola. "If
he had laid low and not had any achievements, he would have been released
20 years ago," insists Kendall.
Rideau sees the irony also. "Am I a victim of my own success? I don't
know," he muses. "It did put me in the spotlight. While a lot of people
celebrated my efforts to do good - blacks and whites - apparently some
people didn't like it. And this country is meant to celebrate success.
What can I say?"
(source: The (UK) Independent)
CONNECTICUT:
Will Execution Eliminate Suffering?
What awaits confessed serial killer Michael Ross on Jan. 26 is as
clinically comfortable a death as an execution can deliver. Psychological
torment and political fallout are less tidily managed.
"The crucial thing is the Pentothal," said an anesthesiologist in Norwich
who asked not to have his name used. "You don't want to wake up during the
process."
The methodology, or better, the lethality, was set out rather graphically
by Jacob Weisberg in an article called "This Is Your Death," published by
The New Republic in July 1991 and recycled in a number of accounts
available on the Internet.
Basically, in the 37 of 38 states in which the death penalty is supreme
justice, the condemned is strapped to a gurney and 2 needles inserted into
veins, likely in the arms. Then a drip with a saline solution is started
in one.
"At the warden's signal, a curtain is raised exposing the inmate to
witnesses in an adjoining room," reads the account of lethal injection
gleaned from Weisberg's piece and posted on the Web site
deathpenaltyinfo.org. "Then the inmate is injected with sodium thiopental
(Pentothal) - an anesthetic which puts the inmate to sleep. Next flows
Pavulon or Pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the entire muscle system
and stops the inmate's breathing.
"Finally, the flow of potassium chloride stops the heart. Death results
from anesthetic overdose and respiratory and cardiac arrest while the
condemned person is unconscious."
And if something goes amiss?
"Medical ethics preclude doctors from participating in executions," says
the account. "However, a doctor will certify the inmate is dead. This lack
of medical participation can be problematic because often injections are
performed by inexperienced technicians or orderlies. If a member of the
execution team injects the drugs into a muscle instead of a vein, of if
the needle becomes clogged, extreme pain can result."
Not, perhaps, equal to eyeballs popping out or flesh catching fire in
botched electrocutions, or slow asphyxiation, defecation and prolonged
spasmodic movements resulting from hangings, but sufficient to unsettle
even practiced physicians.
The anesthesiologist in Norwich said he once put down his dog, something
he will never do again. "It was a very sad experience," he said. "When I
picked up the syringe from the vet, the dosage was so huge it was
unbelievable. What vets use to put away animals is enough to knock out an
elephant."
This is not to equate euthanizing a pet with executing a man convicted of
killing 4 teenage girls, but the point being made by this
anesthesiologist, and another one, Dr. Andrew Berlin, a cousin of mine
visiting from Maryland last week, was that it's all about the dosages, at
least pragmatically.
Berlin said each phase of the injection protocol likely administers, by
itself, abundant toxicity to kill most people. "Any one of those medicines
in the doses they give is enough to take care of 99.9 % of the
population," he said.
The Norwich physician concurred about the lethal efficiency. "It should
not be a painful experience," he said. "You drift off to sleep. No one
should suffer being executed."
Doubtless there are those who would righteously protest that last remark,
perhaps survivors or families of victims and fundamentalist believers in
biblical justice.
That remark was uttered by an anesthesiologist so pained by putting down
his dog that he vowed never to do it again. That's the inexorable baggage
of all this judicious killing business, be it politically sanctioned or
truly humane: Does the suffering end?
(source: The Day)
*****************************
Ross execution would be 1st in New England since 1960
More than 940 people have been executed since the United States reinstated
capital punishment in 1976. Not one was in New England.
That is scheduled to change Jan. 26, the date set by Connecticut Superior
Court Judge Patrick Clifford for the execution of serial killer Michael
Ross.
Ross admits killing 8 women in eastern Connecticut and New York in the
early 1980s, and raping most of his victims. He has been in prison for 20
years - 17 on Connecticut's death row - for 4 of those murders.
After 2 sentencing hearings and numerous appeals, including 2 decided by
the state Supreme Court, Ross has decided not to pursue any others. He
said he wants to avoid inflicting more pain on his victims' families.
Of the 6 New England states, only Connecticut and New Hampshire have the
death penalty. New Hampshire has nobody on death row and has not executed
anyone since 1939.
Rhode Island has not put anyone to death since 1845; in Maine it's been
since 1885; in Massachusetts, 1947; and Vermont, 1954.
There are 7 inmates waiting to die in Connecticut, which conducted the
region's last execution when it electrocuted Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky in
1960 for a series of murders and robberies.
Death penalty opponents worry the Ross execution will start a domino
effect in the region.
"You break precedent and it becomes fashionable," said John Fitzgerald,
63, of Longmeadow, Mass., a member of the Massachusetts Citizens Against
the Death Penalty, who was in Hartford Friday for a rally against the
death penalty. "In this climate of talking about terrorism and people
talking tough, you worry about people sanctioning violence as a way to
stop social problems."
Others say 2 decades is long enough to wait for a sentence to be carried
out. They reject the notion that executing Ross would amount to a shift
away from New England values.
Dianne Clements, president of Justice For All, a victim advocacy group
based in Houston, said she believes most Americans support capital
punishment, especially for people like Ross.
"Perhaps this execution will pinpoint that innocent people die, and that
juries support capital punishment for those who kill them, and that the
lack of capital punishment in these other states is as disappointing as
those who oppose capital punishment in this case," she said.
There have been no recent efforts to reinstate death penalties in Maine,
Rhode Island, or Vermont. In Massachusetts, Gov. Mitt Romney formed a
committee to explore a limited death penalty, but the idea has gone
nowhere in the legislature.
Connecticut and New Hampshire have two of the more restrictive death
penalties in the nation. They allow a capital charge only under specific
circumstances, such as multiple murder, a murder committed during a sexual
assault or the killing of a law enforcement officer.
Getting the death penalty in Connecticut, "is like winning a gold medal
with a broken foot. It is almost impossible," said state Rep. Jim Amann,
D-Milford, a death penalty supporter who is expected to be the next House
speaker in Connecticut. "We are not going to become Texas. There will be
no execution of the week."
New Hampshire's legislature voted to repeal the death penalty in 2000, but
then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen vetoed the bill. An attempted House veto override
failed by 34 votes.
Claire Ebel, executive director of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties
Union, said she hopes lawmakers will look at what is happening in
Connecticut and try again.
"I would hope that there would be enough revulsion against murder in the
name of the citizenry that passing a repeal might be energized," she said.
In Connecticut, public defenders are attempting to intervene in the Ross
case (against Ross' wishes) and file more appeals. Judge Clifford has
ordered a psychiatric evaluation to make sure Ross is mentally competent
to choose death, and at least one repeal bill is expected to be introduced
in the General Assembly when it convenes Jan. 5.
But Gov. M. Jodi Rell says she'll veto any bill to repeal the death
penalty. She refused to issue a reprieve that would have delayed Ross'
execution until after the upcoming legislative session.
"It really isn't something you take likely," she said. "I took an oath of
office to uphold the constitution and the laws of Connecticut and it is
the law of Connecticut. And while I have certain limited responsibilities,
it then falls back to the legislature. I'm upholding the law."
State Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, a leading legislative opponent of
capital punishment, said it will be difficult to convince his colleagues
to abolish the death penalty and save the life of a serial killer.
"Ironically, if Michael Ross is actually killed, my sense is people will
walk away and think Connecticut slipped a couple notches on the
civilization scale," he said. "It won't be our proudest moment. There's a
reason we do it at two o'clock in the morning and they don't allow
cameras."
(source: Associated Press)
OKLAHOMA:
Remembering Ron
Over the years, I have repeatedly told the story of Ron Williamson as an
illustration of the inhumanity of the death penalty. The first time I
told it, Ron was still on death row. He was caged alone in a cell on
H-Unit, the underground "supermaximum" facility reserved for Oklahoma's
death row inmates and most troublesome prisoners.
Initially, I told Ron's story as an example of the plight of the mentally
ill on our state's death row. I recounted how one of Ron's former
attorneys had told me how she had had to fight the Department of
Corrections for two years in order to get him access to psychotropic
medications. She told me about how startling his deterioration was while
on H-Unit. He had a pre-existing condition of bipolar disorder--in fact,
he was actively hallucinating from this untreated illness during his
original trial in which he was sentenced to die for a crime, it would
later be proven, he did not commit.
His former attorney told me of Ron's existence on H-Unit as an absolute
nightmare. At times he would stand in his cell and scream, day and night,
until he lost his voice.
Can you imagine being held in a small, windowless room under sentence of
death, day in and day out for years and years, feeling forgotten, knowing
you are innocent but presumed guilty? Knowing that the state you had
grown up in has declared you unworthy of life? Plagued by uncontrollable
swings of emotion and psychosis while the authority of the state, slowly
but surely, advocates for your extermination?
Ron's lawyer told me how he had been taunted by prison guards who would
entertain themselves by piping their voices into his cell over an
intercom system, pretending to be the ghost of the woman for whose murder
Ron was being punished.
Ron was eventually found innocent of that crime. Not just a finding of
reasonable doubt, not a procedural flaw. Ron was flat-out innocent. He
had spent 12 years in hell for a horrible mistake that the state had
stubbornly denied for over a decade. DNA testing gave him his liberty,
saved his life, and revealed our criminal justice system as a seriously
flawed machine capable of the worst.
I remember the first time I met Ron. It was in a park on a beautiful
Spring day just a few days after his release. I was thrilled, and Ron was
clearly pleased, a bit in dismay to find himself free and, after years of
public neglect, the center of attention. I told him how I had used his
story to try and educate Oklahomans about some of the things that can,
and do, go wrong in the pursuit of justice with short-cuts. He listened
and smiled, and as he talked gaps from several missing teeth were
revealed--another aspect of Oklahoma prison reality, dental neglect. I
told him I'd be talking soon to his former attorney, the one who had
fought for his access to medical attention, and asked him if he had a
message to pass on to her. "Just tell her I love her," he said simply,
smiling, chewing gum. It was hard to keep my hands off him. I wanted to
shake his hand again and again, hug him again and again. There are so few
occasions to celebrate in working against the death penalty.
I would see Ron again several more times, not often, but now and again.
Once I picked him up at the halfway house where he lived for awhile in
Oklahoma City and drove him to an event in Norman. As he got into my car,
he was finishing off a burger. He told me how he'd been struggling a bit,
but all in all was doing okay. He played his guitar a lot, which he said
was a life saver. The euphoria of being released from prison had faded
and been replaced by the mundane reality of trying to define and create
an ordinary life. I'd gone to see him at a local eatery earlier that
week, where I'd heard he played guitar and sang at lunchtime, but he
wasn't there. He told me the tips were lousy and the restaurant didn't
pay him at all, so he'd stopped going there. He was a little bitter.
Later that night, I watched as Ron became deleriously drunk with his
friend Greg Wilhoit--another innocent man who had been released from
death row.
Ron represented so much that belied his appearance. When I was with him,
I wished everyone we passed were psychic and could know, at a glance,
this man 's story--so it could be real to them. This is flesh and blood,
this is real. Ron Williamson, taking one day at a time, having his good
days and not so good days, a powerful reminder of humanity---in his case,
humanity that was for so long systematically denied.
Some months ago I got a phone call from Susan, who did a much better job
than I at being Ron's friend, keeping in touch with him, visiting him,
talking to him frequently on the phone. Out of the blue, he told Susan
he'd like to hear from me. He had recently moved into another halfway
house in eastern Oklahoma, and she gave me his number. I wrote it on a
sticky note and put it on the inside cover of my address book.
For some reason, I never did call. When I heard about Ron's death last
week, I opened that address book to look up Susan's number. I felt awful
when I saw the post-it with Ron's number on it. It was an invitation from
Ron, and I had let it slide. One of those sins of omission that give
birth to painful regret. I called Susan, but there wasn't much to say. He
had died a few hours earlier, Susan explained, of liver disease. His last
weeks were painful ones.
Ron lived only 5 years after his release from prison. These past five
years were full of ups and downs for Ron. He had been something of a
media star at one point, appearing in documentaries about innocence and
the death penalty, in accounts of his story on Dateline and other
productions. He drank a lot. A complex man, after his release he lived a
quiet life with his sister and in and out of various halfway houses. I
think it's safe to say he never fully recovered from being treated as
entirely disposable for a dozen years. How could he--how could anyone?
Ron's story has been told, at different times, for different reasons. Now
that he has died, his story illustrates yet another dimension to this
travesty. Punishment--even when it is acknowledged finally as wrongfully
applied, even when it is, on some practical level, "rectified,"--persists
far beyond the prison walls. Ron Williamson was sentenced to death for
something he did not do. He was maltreated for years. His liberty was
restored, and he was faced with carrying out the rest of his life with
the burden of irreparable damage from a dizzying injustice that had been
imposed on him.
He was blessed with a loving sister and some important friends--people
like Susan, Mark, Greg, and Nancy--who became his extended family
throughout these years after prison.
Ron Williamson died on December 4, 2004, a few weeks after being
diagnosed with terminal cirrhosis. Thanks to a miserably failed system of
criminal justice, he died bearing far too many scars.
"I hope I go to neither heaven nor hell. I wish that at the time of my
death that I could go to sleep and never wake up and never have a bad
dream. Eternal rest, like you've seen on some tombstones, that's what I
hope for. Because I don't want to go through the Judgment. I don't want
anybody judging me again. ... I asked myself what was the reason for my
birth when I was on death row, if I was going to have to go through all
that. What was even the reason for my birth? I almost cursed my mother
and dad -- it was so bad -- for putting me on this earth. If I had it all
to do over again, I wouldn't be born." -Ron Williamson, in "Burden of
Innocence," broadcast on PBS Frontline in 2003
Kevin Acers
12-11-04
