Jan. 24 TEXAS----new execution date Marvin Wilson has received an execution date for April 26, 2006; it should be seen as serious. (sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice & Rick Halperin) US MILITARY: US may use Guantanamo for military executions New US military rules mean that executions of condemned "war on terror" detainees could be carried out at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the US Army said. The new rules authorize the army to set the location for executions "imposed by military courts-martial or military tribunals and authorized by the president of the United States." "Enemy combatants could be affected by this regulation," said Sheldon Smith, a spokesman for the US Army. Only 10 war-on-terror detainees have so far been charged and referred to special military commissions for trial, and the United States is not seeking the death penalty in any of those cases. But the United States has not ruled out the death penalty for war-on-terror detainees, and the issue has long been a sore point for some US allies with nationals detained at Guantanamo. The army said the changes in the regulations allow executions to be conducted at locations other than Fort Leavenworth, previously the only authorized site for military executions. Currently, 7 military inmates are on death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. No dates have been set for their execution. The last time the military executed a prisoner was April 19, 1961, when it put to death John A. Bennet for rape and attempted murder. The order signed January 17 by General Peter Schoomaker, the army chief of staff, said the changes were a "major revision" of the regulations, which apply to all the services, not just the army. The regulations were last revised in 1999. Death penalty opponents said the measure appeared to be a "technical adjustment." "I don't think there is anything imminent but eventually there might be," said Richard Deiter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. "I suspect it is aimed at the military tribunals in Guantanamo. They don't want to bring people from Guantanamo and put them on US soil," he said. Under the regulations, only the president has the power to approve and order an execution. The secretary of the army then approves the location for the execution. The secretary must set a date for it within 60 days of the president's order. If there is a stay of execution, it would be conducted 14 to 30 days after the stay is lifted. The regulations stipulate that executions must be carried out by lethal injection administered by medical personnel or other persons who are qualified to administer intravenous injections. Media interviews with the condemned prisoner are forbidden. But at least two media representatives would be chosen from a pool to witness the execution, along with military officials, a chaplain, family members of the condemned and relatives of the victim. "The condemned prisoner will be placed on the execution table and restrained by means of appropriate fasteners to ensure safety and security of the prisoner and EWT (execution watch team) personnel," the regulations state. "Once the prisoner is secured to the bale, the execution team will insert a large-bore intravenous channel into an appropriate vein, assure the flow of a normal saline solution, and connect the condemned prisoner to the electrocardiograph machine," it says. The senior military officer in charge would then read aloud the charges, the finding of the court, the sentence and the execution orders before giving the order to commence the execution. (source: Agence France Presse) FLORIDA----stay of impending execution Supreme Court steps in to block Florida execution The Supreme Court issued a last-minute stay late today to a Florida death row inmate who claimed he was mentally retarded and should not be executed for killing a police officer. Florida prison officials had put off the execution of Clarence Hill, who also wants to challenge the drugs that would be used, before word came from the court. It was not clear if the court's intervention would only briefly delay Hill's execution, which had been scheduled for 6 p.m. EST. Justices were reviewing a pair of Hill appeals, and Justice Anthony Kennedy filed paperwork that said the execution should be delayed. Earlier, Hill had lost appeals at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. He was scheduled to die at Florida State Prison for the Oct. 19, 1982, slaying of a Pensacola police officer and the wounding of his partner. The court could still lift the stay and allow Florida to move ahead with the execution. Hill was to be the 61st inmate executed in Florida since 1976, when executions resumed after a 12-year moratorium, and the 257th since 1924, when the state took that duty from individual counties. He first asked the court for a stay last week. Hill did not request a final meal, and refused the late-morning meal served to other inmates at Florida State Prison, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Debbie Buchanan said Tuesday. ******************** Lawyers grill attorney of death-row inmate In Taveres, appellate lawyers grilled death-row inmate Fred Anderson's trial attorney for nearly 4 hours today, hoping to win him a sentence of life in prison. Anderson, 37, was sentenced to death for killing Heather Young, 39, and paralyzing Marishia Scott, 32, during a robbery of the Mount Dora branch of United Southern Bank on March 20, 1999. Both women were tellers. Anderson's lawyers, Eric Pinkard and David Gemmer of Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, challenged the strategy and decisions of his trial lawyer, William Stone, chief assistant public defender in the 5th Judicial Circuit. (source for both: Associated Press)
