Jan. 3 NEBRASKA: Lawmakers Weigh In On Lethal Injection, Concealed Guns As the last state with the electric chair as its sole means of execution, many people feel it is just a matter of time before a court declares electrocution cruel and unusual punishment. And even though most state lawmakers favor changing Nebraska's method of execution to lethal injection, majority doesn't always rule in the Legislature. Last session, Speaker Curt Bromm pulled a lethal injection bill from the agenda because of time constraints as the session waned. It was a victory for Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers -- an ardent death-penalty opponent -- who had been clogging up debate on other bills in order the keep the lethal-injection bill from being debated. Chambers declined to discuss the subject for this story. "People know where I stand," he said. In a pre-session survey of lawmakers by The Associated Press, 29 of 47 senators said they supported changing Nebraska's method of execution to lethal injection. 7 said they were leaning that way. 6 said they were against the change, while 2 said they were leaning that way. 3 others did not answer the question and 2 did not participate in the survey. Nebraska has thus far dodged legal challenges to the chair. Last year, prison officials decided to use one, continuous jolt of electricity for 15 seconds instead of several jolts. The change was made after Scotts Bluff County District Judge Robert Hippe said the practice of using four separate jolts of electricity to execute inmates appeared to cause undue suffering. The electrocution procedure had called for application of 2,450 volts of electricity for 8 seconds, followed by application of 480 volts for 22 seconds, followed by a 20-second pause, followed by a 2nd application of 2,450 volts for 8 seconds and 480 volts for 22 seconds. The state adopted that procedure after problems marred several executions in Florida, including one in 1990 in which flames shot out of an inmate's head. State law calls for a current of electricity to be administered continuously until the prisoner dies. "There is nothing unconstitutional about the law itself," Hippe wrote. "Electrocutions according to the protocol established by law would not result in infliction of unnecessary pain, torture or a lingering death." But Hippe said he had problems when the electricity was administered in separate jots instead of one continuos current. Three people have been put to death in Nebraska since executions were resumed in 1994 and all three were given multiple jolts of electricity. They were Harold Otey, John Joubert and Robert Williams. In 2003, U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon of Omaha vacated the death sentence of Charles Jess Palmer for a 1979 murder in Grand Island. In doing so, Bataillon cited the 2002 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that said juries, not judges, must decide if a crime merits the death penalty. At the end of his order, Bataillon said he had been prepared to rule the use of the electric chair as cruel and unusual punishment. Palmer presented evidence and post-mortem photographs of Otey, Joubert and Williams. Coroner reports show that Joubert suffered a 4-inch blistering burn on the top of his head and blistering on both sides of his head above his ears. Williams had a "bubble blister" the size of a baseball on his left calf. Williams' post-mortem exam also showed pronounced "charring" on both sides of the knee and on the top of the head. An execution witness reported seeing smoke emanating from Williams' knee and head. Witnesses observed that Otey was still breathing after the 1st and 2nd applications of electricity. But Sen. Kermit Brashear of Omaha, head of the Judiciary Committee, said a lethal injection would not necessarily end the cruel-and-unusual debate. "There are issues with lethal injection as well," he said. In another crime-related question, 22 senators said they would favor allowing Nebraskans to carry concealed weapons, while 10 said they were leaning that way. 9 were opposed to the idea and 2 were leaning that way. 4 did not answer the question and two did not participate in the survey. Several efforts to get such a measure passed have failed in recent sessions. On The Net----Nebraska Legislature: http://www.unicam.state.ne.us/index.htm (source: Associated Press) TEXAS: Death penalty at center in smuggling case----Trucker accused in 19 deaths is sole defendant to face top sanction as trial opens this week For the 1st time in its 10-year history, a federal smuggling law is being used to seek the death penalty as prosecutors prepare for the trial of a truck driver blamed in the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants. Jury selection, expected to last 2 weeks, starts Wednesday in the trial of Tyrone Williams, 33, a Jamaican immigrant from Schenectady, N.Y. He is accused of ignoring the suffering of more than 74 people who were locked in a sealed trailer he was towing toward Houston. The immigrants were loaded into Williams' refrigerated trailer in a field near Harlingen on the night of May 13, 2003, by a smuggling organization that, authorities say, paid him $7,500 to haul the human cargo. Prosecutors say the temperature inside the trailer reached deadly levels because Williams never turned on its refrigeration unit. The immigrants clawed away the insulation and punched out the taillights in a frantic effort to get air. Victoria County sheriff's deputies discovered the abandoned trailer at a truck stop near Victoria early the next morning, with a pile of bodies inside and other victims convulsing. 17 died in the trailer, and 2 others died at a hospital. Many immigrants fled the trailer and were arrested later. Williams was arrested later that day after checking himself into a Houston hospital, where he complained of a headache or stomach pains, according to testimony in an earlier trial. He is being tried separately from 13 others indicted in the incident because the U.S. Justice Department decided to seek the death penalty under a 1994 law. 2 others were convicted in December under the same law and face possible life sentences. The judge acquitted a third defendant in that trial after deciding the government had failed to prove an element of its case. 5 others have pleaded guilty, 4 are awaiting trial on smuggling charges in Mexico City and one is awaiting a trial date in Houston. Only death penalty case The government indicted all 14 under the law that reinstated the death penalty in cases involving illegal immigrants' deaths during smuggling attempts. Prosecutors had the option of seeking the death penalty in 12 of the 14 cases, but chose to apply it only to Williams' case. Neither they nor defense attorneys can comment because of a gag order imposed by U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore, who will hear the case. Gilmore ejected reporters from a hearing for another defendant, sealed the jury list and sneaked jurors out of the courthouse after the earlier trial because of her concern publicity could taint the jury-selection process in Williams' trial. First time option applied Kevin McNally, a death-penalty resource counsel in the federally funded Resource Counsel Project, says that of the 68 defendants who have been charged under the law and were eligible for the death penalty, Williams is the first to whom prosecutors have sought to apply it. One of his attorneys, Craig Washington, contends that prosecutors chose Williams because he is black. He has asked Gilmore to throw out the death-penalty option. Gilmore has not ruled on the request but last month threatened to hold a federal prosecutor in contempt of court if he did not obey her repeated orders to reveal to the defense the process U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft used to decide to seek the death penalty. Gilmore asked prosecutors to provide a letter from Ashcroft, stating that he was refusing to comply with her order. They refused, saying the decision-making process was restricted information and that her order could infringe on the executive branch's constitutional powers. In a document filed with the court, prosecutors said they could not go beyond their explanation that Williams refused to help the immigrants although he knew they were screaming, banging on the walls and punching out the taillights. Instead of using a contempt charge, prosecutors contended, the proper sanction from the court would be to disallow the death penalty. Last week, Gilmore ruled that if Williams is convicted, she will tell jurors during the penalty phase that prosecutors had refused to comply with her order. She also is allowing the defense to use the refusal in its arguments to the jury. Legal experts said the order was unusual and would make it difficult for prosecutors to obtain the death penalty. Gilmore denied prosecutors' request that she delay the trial so they could ask the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse her order. The U.S. Attorney's Office appealed to the 5th Circuit, which could issue a decision as early as today. McNally, who monitors federal death-penalty cases and assists defense attorneys, criticized the decision to seek the death penalty. "By their nature, in alien-smuggling cases, the people involved in it don't set out to kill somebody," he said. He added that the Justice Department has declined to seek the death penalty in other cases involving multiple immigrant deaths in smuggling attempts. "These situations are pretty similar," McNally said. "Something happens and people accidentally die." 'Flies to a light bulb' But a former federal prosecutor questioned that reasoning. William Lawler, now in private practice in Washington, D.C., said the fact that this is the 1st death-penalty prosecution under the 1994 law doesn't mean it's not warranted. "It's difficult to imagine a more egregious case," Lawler said. "The test of selective prosecution is not whether it's been done before, but whether it's not been done in virtually identical cases." McNally also said publicity tends to be a factor. "It's like flies to a light bulb," he said. "Why they pick one over another seems to be generated by the media focus on a case." Lawler countered that crimes can be deterred by focusing prosecutorial efforts on high-profile cases. "Deterrence is one of the primary goals of criminal prosecution and sentencing," he said. McNally predicted that prosecutors will have difficulty showing that Williams was intentionally involved in an act of violence, which must be proven for a capital conviction. A document filed by prosecutors, however, states that Williams' refusal to release the trailer's occupants even though he knew they were in danger "amounted to acts of violence that created a grave risk of death to the confined individuals." They also accuse him of showing "a reckless disregard for human life." Formal charges Formally, Williams is charged with 1 count of conspiracy to harbor undocumented immigrants during an attempt to conceal and transport them that threatened their life or resulted in serious bodily injury or death. He also is charged with 19 counts each of: aiding and abetting in the concealment and harboring of undocumented immigrants, aiding and abetting a transportation attempt that resulted in injury or put their lives in jeopardy, and aiding and abetting a transportation attempt that resulted in death. (source: Houston Chornicle) ****************** Who Is Tyrone Williams?----N.Y. truck driver usually hauled milk When reporters descended on this careworn industrial city (Schenectady, N.Y.) of about 62,000 people days after the Victoria tragedy, people in Tyrone Williams' working class neighborhood said they couldn't believe the Jamaican immigrant they knew as a hardworking trucker was involved in a smuggling incident in Texas that left 19 immigrants dead. "We just see him come and go. This has surprised everybody. I think there's something more to the story," Dave Schissler, who lived 2 houses away. He said his kids sometimes played with Williams' two children. Williams' yellow, two-story house sat on a quiet residential street. The houses in the neighborhood on the edge of the city 10 miles west of Albany were well-kept, tucked close to the road and to each other and separated by small patches of lawn. Schissler remembered Williams helping him snowblow his driveway during winter. He said Williams and his wife moved in about 6 years earlier. "I hope everything works out for them," he said. After the tragedy, Williams' wife, Karen, told the Houston Chronicle that he called her in New York to say that his truck had been hijacked in South Texas. The trucker told his wife he unhitched the trailer "for his own safety, and ran," she said. Karen Willliams said he usually hauled milk from Oneida, N.Y., to San Antonio, then went to Edinburg and picked up watermelons for a trip to Boston. Paul Brunelli, branch manager for Allen Lund Co. in Rochester, N.Y., a shipping broker that has worked with Williams, confirmed the driver arrived in San Antonio with his milk cargo before the fatal truck run. But he did not, to Brunelli's knowledge, have any assignment for Lund coming back. "I think he was in the process of looking for something," he said. Brunelli said Williams had hauled for him for a couple of years. "He's always done a good job," he said. "This is distressing news, to say the least." New York Department of Motor Vehicle records show Williams got his commercial license in 1996. He calls his independent trucking business Tyrone II Transport. Williams was convicted in 2000 in upstate New York of failing to comply with a police officer or flag person, a violation. He was fined $125 and received 2 points on his license, according to DMV spokesman Joe Picchi. Neighbor Bob Mossop said he'd seen little of the truck driver. "He's up early in the morning and home late at night," Mossop told the Times Union of Albany. "He's a hard-working man. I can't believe that he'd do anything illegal." "Some people say he was hijacked. I would believe that before I would believe anything else," Schissler said in the Times Union. (source: Associated Press) KENTUCKY: Physician governor shouldn't be criticized for execution role Governors in some states have the grim responsibility of signing death warrants for convicted criminals who have been sentenced to execution. What if, however, the governor is also a physician? Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher has found himself in this position. Opponents of the death penalty in that state are criticizing the governor for signing a death warrant for convicted killer Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. Some say that Fletcher is violating the Hippocratic Oath, which is meant to prevent doctors from inflicting harm. The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram opposes the death penalty. Set aside for a moment, however, the argument over whether the death penalty is appropriate - or whether physicians who administer lethal injections are violating the Hippocratic Oath. The death penalty is legal in the state of Kentucky, and the Kentucky governor is charged with the responsibility of signing the death warrant. It's appropriate, then, for Fletcher in his capacity as governor to sign a death warrant to execute a criminal. He's not acting in his capacity as a physician when he does so. There are also other situations in which doctors could find themselves responsible for the intentional death of another human being. What if a physician is sent to war, for instance, or what if an intruder breaks into a physician's home? The execution of Bowling is on hold pending 2 lawsuits, The Associated Press reported. One that claims Bowling, who was convicted of killing a Lexington, Ky., couple in 1991, is mentally retarded and should not be executed. Those fighting the death penalty would be better served by sticking to solid arguments against it - Bowling's mental capacity, for instance, or that too many innocent people end up on death row, or that the system is racially biased, or that civilized societies shouldn't kill people. Using Fletcher's status as a physician drags politics into an argument better served by practicality. (source: Editorial, Portland (Maine) Press Herald)
