May 12 INDIANA----impending execution Set to die, inmate asks to give liver to his sister ---- Man facing May 25 execution for murder wants to donate liver. Gregory Scott Johnson's sister suffers from liver disease and will die without a transplant. Johnson wants her to have his liver. "Chances are I'm not going to be needing it very long," he said. Johnson is scheduled to die by injection at 12:01 a.m. May 25 for the 1985 murder of 82-year-old Ruby Hutslar. Harvesting organs after execution is impossible, some experts say, because the drugs that stop Johnson's heart will poison his organs. But one local doctor said it is possible the liver still could be used. Defense attorneys have petitioned the governor for a short reprieve that would allow time for medical tests to determine whether the organ is compatible with Johnson's sister, Deborah Otis. This is the first time a death row inmate has made such a request in Indiana, a prison official said. Although he is slated to die in less than two weeks, Johnson's attorneys said the law requires that Johnson's liver be harvested in a way that would allow him to survive. Johnson's request has raised ethical questions about the propriety of harvesting organs from a condemned man facing execution. For now, the state has no opinion on whether the reprieve ought to be granted, Deputy Attorney General Steve Creason said. The attorney general's office will weigh in after Johnson's attorneys argue their case Monday before the Indiana Parole Board, he said. The Indiana Department of Correction will do whatever the courts order, said Javairya Ahmed, spokeswoman for the department. For Johnson, it's a chance to clean the slate, to give a life in exchange for the one he took. He said he hopes to leave something positive to the society in which he has wreaked so much havoc. "'I'm sorry' just doesn't cut it," he said, speaking this week in a meeting room at the Indiana State Prison. "All of the same stupid things I've done that I thought wasn't hurting anyone -- at that time in my life, I didn't care. "I care now, but it's too late." In 1986, Johnson, 40, was sentenced to die for stomping his elderly victim to death during a burglary and then setting her Anderson house ablaze. Johnson, originally from Anderson, admits he played a significant role in Hutslar's death but says another man who helped him actually killed her. "I'm responsible. All I had to do was say 'no,' and none of this would have happened," he said. "But you're talking about a criminal who gave a damn about no one but himself, and I didn't care too much about myself." Known relatives of Johnson's victim could not be reached for comment. Otis, 48, who lives in an Anderson nursing home, declined to be interviewed. Michelle F. Kraus, Johnson's attorney, said Otis is one of the few important people in Johnson's life. "He is sincere when he says he is doing this for her and not as a last-minute, desperate attempt to delay his execution," Kraus said. "She is a mother and a grandmother. She has much to live for." Kraus said doctors could take a piece of Johnson's liver in what is known as a "split liver" transplant. The remainder of the organ would regenerate and, in time, Johnson would be healthy enough to be put to death. That recuperation time could range from two weeks to 2 months, said Dr. Joseph Tector of the Indiana University School of Medicine. About three years have passed since the last time a "split liver" transplant was performed in Indiana, said Sam Davis, director of professional services at the Indiana Organ Procurement Organization. "Ordinarily, if it were you or I, there's a certain amount of risk for the donor," Davis said. "In this particular case, the outcome for this gentleman would be determined. There would have to be a way for the people's justice to be carried out, and he would have a chance to do something for someone he loves." Nationwide, Davis said, more than 17,000 patients are on the waiting list for a liver transplant; 56 live in Indiana. While Johnson is willing to give, the medical community may not be quite so willing to take. Tector said patients' chances of survival are much better if they receive a whole liver. And unlike some other experts, Tector said the lethal injection of potassium chloride used in Indiana would not necessarily render the liver unusable. But, he added, IU has one of the largest transplant programs in the country and sometimes uses organs others wouldn't consider. Patients in Indiana on the waiting list typically get a new liver in about 20 days, Tector said. Johnson and his lawyers say he is willing to give the whole liver even if it means the procedure would kill him. But killing him by any means other than chemical injection would be illegal. State law says executions must be carried out by injection. Changing it would require an act of the legislature. "You would still have to put him to death by lethal injection," said Scott Newman, who served eight years as Marion County prosecutor and handled several death penalty cases. "The question is, can you do this before you put him to death or does he have to be hale and hearty?" Perhaps, Newman said, Johnson's liver could be removed moments before the potassium chloride -- the final of three substances used in lethal injections -- is shot into his veins. "It seems to me you could harvest the organ in the humane interest of helping the sister, who after all is blameless in this matter, then do what you had to do under the law," Newman said. Eric Meslin, director of the Indiana University Center for Bioethics, said few if any doctors would assist someone in committing suicide by organ donation. For all organs except kidneys, the rules that govern organ donation prohibit a person from selecting who gets it, Meslin said. The organ goes to the person at the top of the waiting list, he said. Johnson's offer puts doctors, lawyers and society in a dilemma, Meslin said. "You can't donate a liver before you die, because that would kill you and that gets in the way of the state killing you," he said. "And you can't donate organs after you die, because the method of execution would render the organs unusable." (source: Indianapolis Star) OKLAHOMA----impending execution Condemned Killer Seeks Reprieve A man scheduled to be put to death tonight for killing an Oklahoma City hotel clerk is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the execution. An attorney for George James Miller Jr. asked the court Thursday to stop the execution and give Miller more time to prove his innocence. Miller was convicted and sentenced to death for killing Kent Dodd during a robbery in September 1994. Dodd was stabbed and had acid poured on his face and down his throat. (source: Associated Press) ************************* Blood linked in trooper slaying DNA evidence was presented Thursday in the 1st-degree murder trial of Ricky Ray Malone placing the defendants blood on the clothing of slain trooper Nikky Joe Green. District Judge Mark Smith read the evidence into the record, based on an agreement by state and defense attorneys, stating Malones blood was found in the front left pants pocket of the murdered trooper. Green, 35, was found dead Dec. 26, 2003, from a massive head wound and lying face down in a roadside ditch in rural Cotton County. The prosecution rested its case Thursday, the 3rd day of testimony in the Comanche County Courthouse. Malone, 30, of Duncan faces the death penalty if convicted. A dashboard-mounted videotape retrieved from Greens Oklahoma Highway Patrol vehicle revealed the breathless voices of Green and an unidentified man in a desperate struggle. On the tape - played for jurors Tuesday - the voice of the unknown man demands to know where Green has his (handcuff) keys and a rustling of clothing can be heard. Based on tests conducted by Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation criminalist Sara Ferrero, the probability that the blood found on Greens clothing belongs to someone other than Malone is 1 in 6 billion white people, Smith read from the summary. DNA tests also concluded that Greens blood was found on the front seat of the 1989 Geo Spectrum found behind a Lawton day-care center three days after the murder. The vehicle belonged to Malones sister, Tammy Sturdevant, and was identified by Sturdavent and 4 other witnesses as being the same vehicle seen on the dashboard-mounted videotape. In addition, Greens blood was found on overalls, a coat and a jacket thought to be worn by Malone on the day of the killing. The clothing was found inside a white trash bag and authorities think it was discarded by Malone on Dec. 26 in the presence of friend J.C. Rosser, who later led OSBI agent Robert Williamson to the site. The summary said the probability that the blood belonged to someone other than Malone again was 1 in 6 billion white people. Defense attorney Don Gutteridge chose not to dispute the DNA test results. "The DNA evidence is what the DNA evidence is," Gutteridge said later outside the presence of the jury. "Certainly, that was something we looked at ... but what is the point? "Our defense is intent." Gutteridge will begin the defenses case at 9:30 a.m. Monday. He anticipates calling only one witness, Dr. David Smith of San Francisco. Gutteridge said Smith is an expert on the use and effect of drugs, namely methamphetamine. Prosecutors claim Malone was operating a mobile methamphetamine lab when Green approached his vehicle. "I anticipate this will be in the hands of the jury by noon on Monday," District Attorney Robert Schulte said. Earlier in the day, Schulte questioned OSBI deputy investigator Perry Unruh about his Dec. 29, 2003, interrogation of Malone in a Stephens County jail cell. The 3-hour interrogation was conducted on the concrete floor of the jail cell, Unruh said. Unruh confronted Malone about Greens murder, informing him that police already had his sisters car, a bag of clothes found in a wooded area of Stephens County and witnesses who heard him confess to the murder. "He (Malone) told me, 'If I say anything, Im gonna get the death penalty,'" Unruh testified. Later, Unruh questioned Malone about the statements of his friend, Tyson Anthony. "I said, 'Tyson told us you put a pistol in the back of the troopers head and fired, and waited, and put the pistol beside his head and again fired,'" Unruh testified. "I said, 'Is that true?' He said, 'Well, maybe it was an accident.'" (source: The Oklahoman) CONNECTICUT----impending execution//volunteer Federal Court Rejects Last-Minute Bid To Stop Execution In Hartford, a federal judge Thursday rejected a lawsuit that claimed New England's first execution in 45 years would cause a wave of suicide attempts among troubled Connecticut prisoners. Serial killer Michael Ross is scheduled to die by lethal injection just after 2 a.m. Friday at Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers. Ross, who has confessed to killing eight women in New York and Connecticut in the 1980s, has decided to forgo further appeals and accept his death sentence. U.S. District Judge Christopher Droney ruled Thursday that the lawsuit failed to show that Ross' death would have a negative effect on suicidal prisoners. The lawsuit was brought by attorney Antonio Ponvert III, who represented Ross' father, Dan Ross, in an earlier, unsuccessful attempt to block the execution. Ponvert said he had been authorized by Dan Ross to do whatever he could to save his son's life. Droney discussed the lawsuit in an afternoon conference call with Ponvert and the state attorney general's office. (source: Associated Press) *********************** Death watch----Lawsuit claims Ross execution could cause 'suicide contagion' If the state puts serial killer Michael Ross to death Friday, there would likely be a rash of suicides in the state's prisons, those who want to stop Ross' execution claimed in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday. The lawyer for Dan Ross, Michael Ross' father, filed the suit in U.S. District Court, claiming an execution has the potential to create an epidemic of suicide attempts. The state Department of Corrections has acknowledged "suicide contagion" in testimony to the state legislature and in its own suicide prevention manuals, according to the lawsuit. At least 11 suicides have occurred in Connecticut prisons in the past year, the worst rate in the department's history, according to the suit. The lawsuit quotes former Corrections Commissioner John Armstrong, who testified in 2000 that suicide is the third leading cause of death in prisons and jails. "We had a period of time, and one thing I caution the media on, with suicides, is really, the problem of what we call 'contagion' that would encourage other people to follow that course of conduct whether it's for attention or whether it's to cause some kind of problem," Armstrong said. The state Department of Corrections lacks the staffing, resources, training, physical plant and suicide prevention protocols to prevent and respond to suicide attempts that will happen in the wake of Ross' death, according to the lawsuit. Ross, who decided to stop filing appeals in his case, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 2 a.m. Friday. This suit was one of several legal maneuvers filed Wednesday aimed at stopping the lethal injection, including a hearing before the state Supreme Court brought by Ross' sister. The high court rejected her appeal. Ross, through an affidavit read by his attorney T.R. Paulding, said Wednesday he wants no outside interference. "I wish to make it clear that I do not authorize, endorse concur in or approve of any legal pleadings or petitions filed in any court anywhere in the time remaining between the execution of this affidavit and the moment of my execution unless they are filed by me or attorney T.R. Paulding Jr.," the affidavit read. Brian Garnett, spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Correction, said he has not seen the suicide lawsuit and could not immediately comment. 1 of 2 psychiatrists submitting an affidavit with the lawsuit is Jay Kenneth Berkowitz, who used to be a psychiatrist with the state Department of Corrections. He claims the state Department of Corrections is "incapable of preventing and responding adequately to suicide attempts by inmates." During the last year, there have been at least 11 inmate suicides in the state Department of Corrections, which surpasses the number of suicides in any comparable period of time in the department's history, he said. Usually, there are between zero and 3 per year, Berkowitz said. The reason there are so many, he said, is because the department's mental health staff is "chronically overworked and overwhelmed" and the depressed and suicidal patients are suffering. Several mental health and suicide experts weighed in on the issue after hearing about the lawsuit on Wednesday. Several psychiatrists interviewed did not know of any studies that would help support the claims, though they did acknowledge one suicide can set off a "chain reaction" of attempts. Dr. Herbert Hendin, medical director of the New York-based American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said while it's conceivable the execution of one prisoner could prompt the suicide of other death row inmates, there's been no study of such a phenomenon. "So we don't know," Hendin said. Hendin said studies in small communities - towns, college campuses - with close ties between community members, a suicide can touch off a chain reaction of other suicide attempts. But Hendin said an execution cannot be considered a suicide, even when prisoners stop their appeals and let the execution proceed - the path Ross has chosen. "There's no way of knowing whether he'd feel the same way if he were pardoned tomorrow," he said. Hendin said that if one were to measure the "mood temperature" of Connecticut's other death row inmates they might be saddened and depressed after Ross' execution. "But I don't know if that translates to suicide,'' he said. "To know that, you'd have to go to other prisons, and see what happened there after an execution." Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, doubted the psychiatrists' last-minute interventions would delay the execution. "At this 11th hour, I think it would be difficult for these kinds of arguments to succeed," said Dieter. "So far as the state is concerned, I think the desire for some finality is going to rise to the top." The center, founded in 1990, is a private non-profit agency that circulates and analyzes information on the death penalty. Dieter acknowledged the "intolerable conditions" of being on death row constituted "a recipe for mental illness'' but said it was an issue that should be considered separately. Dieter said while he did not deny the credibility of the psychiatrists' statements, whether Ross' execution would have an effect on other inmates was a difficult argument to make. Dr. Stephen Herman, a New York City forensic psychiatrist who has frequently testified in Superior Court in Danbury, said the claims from the two psychiatrists are inappropriate. Herman said he is infuriated when mental health experts make claims not based on direct knowledge or science. "I'm curious what research he did with this particular inmate...and the other inmates around this inmate to make the predictions that he did," Herman said, referring to the psychiatrists. Danbury psychiatrist Orestes Arcuni, chairman of the psychiatry department at Danbury Hospital, and a federal prison consultant for eight years, said "in any closed psychological system, whether it's a closed system, such as a prison or even a school, the occurrence of a death will trigger suicidal thoughts in a vulnerable subset of the population," Arcuni said. Arcuni said he is not aware of any "contagion of suicide" linked to a planned execution. "I am fairly conversant with the prison literature and I am unaware of any article that linked a planned execution to a rash of suicides. That having been said, there is a subset of people in any prison system ... that are vulnerable to sudden deaths, whether they are by suicide or execution and you would expect to see an increase in suicidal thinking." (source: News-Times)
