Feb. 5 NEW JERSEY: Foes pack death penalty revision hearing Death penalty opponents, most wearing buttons saying "No executions," yesterday told state officials that New Jersey's regulations for using lethal injections for executions should allow the public to watch the entire process. "People have a moral and ethical obligation to make sure that life is taken humanely when it is done in the name of the people," Bill Bolan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference said at a crowded public hearing by the Department of Corrections on proposed new regulations that drew about 200 people. While most of the people who spoke during the 2 1/2-hour hearing urged the abolition of the death penalty, which has not been used in New Jersey since 1963, the hearing was focused on 2 flaws identified by an appellate court last year - the amount of secrecy surrounding executions and how the state would handle last-minute stays that might be issued after lethal drugs were administered. The department has proposed putting an emergency medical cart with supplies that could be used to resuscitate a condemned inmate and wants to reduce a ban on contact with the news media from 72 hours before an execution to 3 hours. Ronald Bollheimer, the Correction Department's supervisor of legal and legislative affairs, who conducted the hearing, said department officials would review all comments made at the hearing and decide whether to finalize the current proposal or rewrite the regulations. He gave no timetable but said if a decision is not made by September the entire process will have to be repeated. Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey, who favors a moratorium on the death penalty plans to review the final recommendations before they are implemented, said spokesman Sean Darcy. Death penalty opponents argued that unlike what is currently proposed, people should be able to see a condemned inmate taken into the death chamber, strapped onto a gurney and have intravenous tubes inserted in his or her arms. "A state, which is carrying out the will of the people, should have nothing to hide," said Robert Johnson, a law professor at American University. "The entire process should be transparent." Rosemary Bates, of Merchantville, a member of New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, which is challenging the regulations, recounted a series of incidents during which prison officials had extreme difficulty finding veins suitable for injecting lethal drugs, including some cases in which condemned inmates who were drug addicts helped out. "If this happened in New Jersey would the people be able to see it" Bates asked Bollheimer. The hearing was highlighted by testimony from Kirk Bloodsworth, the first death row inmate to be cleared because of DNA evidence. "This is a terrible practice and people need to know all of the details," said Bloodsworth, who was convicted of murdering a 9-year-old girl and spent almost 9 years in a Maryland prison, 2 of them on death row, before being cleared in 1993. Numerous clergy members argued the death penalty needs to be abolished but said that if state officials insist on pushing forward, they need to make the process open so people can see all that is entailed and make their own judgments on whether lethal injection is appropriate. Other people argued that executing inmates does nothing to help the families of victims. "The death penalty creates an ethical uniting with the murderer and I don't want to be (united)," said Bill Pine of Pennington, whose mother was raped and murdered. One person, Stephen Spiro, introduced a note of levity into the proceedings. "Executions should be held in the legislative chambers and the drugs should be administered by the governor," he said. Dr. Mark Heath, a New York anesthesiologist, asked pointed questions about what drugs would be used for executions. Bollheimer responded that since there is no execution scheduled that decision has not been made. "How can you talk about possibly resuscitating someone in the death chamber if you don't know what drugs you're using to execute them and whether those drugs are reversible?" he asked. Yesterday's hearing was the result of an Appellate Division decision last February that imposed a moratorium on executions in New Jersey because of flaws in he state's regulations. "I hope and am confident they will realize there are lots of problems here and they will pull back these regulations and start over," said Celeste Fitzgerald, director of New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. (source: Associated Press) ************************ Families rail against death penalty----Kin of slain and executed disrupt state rules hearing When Eddie Hicks' oldest daughter was murdered, he had seen enough killing. Hicks did not want to see any more, even a legal execution of his daughters' killer. "Murder in the name of the state is still murder," said Hicks, one of several family members of murder victims to testify Friday at a state Department of Corrections hearing. "Murder . . . is not going to bring the person back." What the department scheduled as a hearing on two rules intended to help reinstate New Jersey's death penalty turned into an emotional protest against executions before a standing-room-only crowd of more than 80 people. Audience members, many with tears in their eyes, listened intently as relatives of murder victims, family members of people who were executed and clergy delivered heart-wrenching tales and called for an end to the death penalty in New Jersey. Family members of those who were executed said the death sentences create more victims. Lorry Post, a Cape May resident whose daughter was murdered, read a statement on behalf of a Somers Point woman whose son was executed in Virginia. "Saying good-bye to your child is the most painful thing that any mother could ever do," read the letter from Jane Barnabei. "It left me with a knot in my heart that has never left. I will never recover." Bill Babbitt, who turned in his brother for a California murder, spoke about the emotional impact of his brother's execution. "Holidays come and go. It's not the same," Babbitt said at an earlier news conference. "I carry a terrible burden of guilt." Kirk Bloodsworth told how he spent 2 years on death row in Baltimore, only to be exonerated by DNA evidence. "If we do not do something about this situation . . . you will execute an innocent person," Bloodsworth said at the news conference, held at the State House. Ronald L. Bollheimer, a Department of Corrections supervisor, said the hearing was not meant to determine whether New Jersey should use the death penalty but to hash out the proposed rules. The new regulations were proposed in response to a 2004 court order imposing a moratorium on New Jersey executions until the state reviewed its lethal injection procedures. One new rule would require emergency medical equipment at executions in case of a stay after the injections begin. Another rule would grant greater media access to people awaiting execution. New Jersey's last execution was in 1963. The state re-enacted the death penalty in 1982, and there are 11 people on death row. Family members of other victims, however, have supported the death penalty. None testified at the Department of Corrections hearing, held at the Office of Administrative Law. Assemblyman Guy R. Gregg, R-Washington Township, Morris County, said it is a difficult issue but that the death penalty serves a purpose. "For some of these horrible, tortuous murders . . . the death penalty is appropriate," Gregg said. Gregg said New Jersey only uses the death sentence in limited circumstances and allows enough appeals to ensure that innocent people are not put to death. Part of the support for the death penalty, he said, is out of concern that serious criminals will be paroled. (source: Cherry Hill Courier Post) FLORIDA: Death-row inmate tries again to get new trial based on new evidence State prosecutors are accusing death-row inmate Rodney Lowe of manipulating the legal system with his most recent attempt to get a new trial. Lowe, 34, was convicted of 1st-degree murder in 1991 for the shooting death of Nu Pack Market clerk Donna Burnell. He was sentenced to death, and the Florida Supreme Court upheld the trial court's verdict in 1994. Lowe is requesting a new trial based on evidence he says was unavailable when he stood trial. Circuit Judge Robert Hawley held hearings in 2003 and 2004 where three witnesses implicated another man in Burnell's murder. In January, just days before Hawley was to decide whether to grant or deny Lowe's request for a new trial, attorneys submitted affidavits from two more people implicating Dwayne Blackmon. Blackmon died in August 2003. The lawyers from Capital Collateral Regional Counsel argued the new evidence would produce an acquittal at trial, or a sentence that did not involve the death penalty. Assistant Attorney General Leslie Campbell, who authored the state response this week, called the new evidence so incredible that it would have no impact on findings at trial. She also argued Lowe's attorneys have not given a valid reason why they weren't able to turn up the two witnesses before earlier hearings. "Lowe has had years to investigate this matter and this court should not permit piecemeal litigation. Lowe should be prohibited from 'finding' a 'new witness' each time the state shows the prior one is not credible," she said. Blackmon was the state's star witness during Lowe's trial. The state argues that trial evidence showed Blackmon was not with Lowe during the attempted robbery and murder at the store on County Road 512 in Sebastian. Testimony from Blackmon and his ex-wife in the 2003 evidentiary hearing reaffirmed the trial evidence, Campbell said. Hawley now has before him testimony of 5 witnesses claiming Blackmon admitted killing the store clerk while attempting to commit robbery. The state is asking Hawley to deny Lowe's postconviction motions. (source: Vero Beach Press-Journal)
