March 30 CALIFORNIA: Judge to tour death chamber A San Jose federal judge will conduct a fact-finding tour of San Quentin's execution chamber Thursday as he assembles evidence to decide a constitutional challenge to California's lethal injection procedures. Over the objections of state prison officials, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel on Wednesday agreed to allow media representatives to accompany him on the prison trip in response to First Amendment arguments raised by the Mercury News, Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee. The unusual hearing at San Quentin is part of a challenge to the state's lethal injection procedure by death row inmate Michael Morales, whose execution was postponed in February. Fogel has scheduled a two-day evidentiary hearing in May to consider Morales' argument that the state's lethal administration of three drugs masks an inmate's excruciating pain and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. There were limits to Fogel's order allowing media, primarily to deal with prison concerns about protecting the privacy of execution team members and space constraints for the entourage already expected to accompany Fogel. The judge is allowing two reporters on the trip, and those reporters will provide a pool report to other media on his tour of the execution chamber and the testimony of a prison official involved in the execution process. The Mercury News and Sacramento Bee will be attending the tour, but cannot reveal the identity of the prison official providing testimony on the execution process under the terms of Fogel's order. Lawyers with the attorney general's office and Morales' defense team also will join Fogel on the tour. Morales is one of a growing number of death row inmates around the country challenging lethal injection, the primary means of execution in the majority of states with capital punishment. The California case, however, is producing one of the most thorough reviews of the issue, and could eventually decide whether the method holds up in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has never struck down a method of execution. State officials, who've proposed changes to California's lethal injection process, argue that the method does not violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. (source: Mercury News) ************************ Judge to hold hearing at San Quentin to examine execution plan ---- Group will review plans to cut risk of painful procedure A federal judge considering a challenge to California's lethal injection procedures will hold an unusual hearing in San Quentin State Prison today to examine the state's plans to minimize the risk of a painful execution. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel will be accompanied by lawyers for Michael Morales of Stockton, whose execution was postponed at the last minute Feb. 21 in a dispute over the lethal injection protocol. Also present will be a two-member press pool. Fogel ordered Wednesday that they could attend over the state's objections. Morales, 46, was convicted of raping 17-year-old Terri Winchell and beating and stabbing her to death near Lodi in January 1981. The courts rejected his appeals of his death sentence, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency, but his lawsuit over lethal injection won him a reprieve. Like the other 36 states that execute prisoners by injection, California uses a 3-drug sequence: a sedative, sodium pentothal, to render the inmate unconscious, followed by paralyzing and heart-stopping drugs. Morales' suit contends that an inadequate or improperly administered dose of sodium pentothal could leave the inmate conscious and in agony during the execution, in violation of the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Fogel, saying records of recent executions indicated possible problems, told prison officials last month that they could proceed with Morales' execution only if a medical professional participated. When officials were unable to comply -- in part because doctors' organizations consider such participation unethical -- the judge put the execution on hold and scheduled a hearing in his San Jose courtroom May 2-3 to decide whether the state's lethal injection procedures are constitutional. To meet Fogel's concerns, the state has proposed to change the administration of the lethal chemicals so that the prisoner receives a continuous infusion of sodium pentothal to ensure he remains unconscious throughout the execution. Officials have not said how the constant flow would be maintained, but their plan does not include any role for a doctor. Fogel and the lawyers for both sides are scheduled to visit the prison today, examine the death chamber and the equipment to be used in future executions, and question a member of the execution team. The testimony and evidence will be part of the record for the hearing in May. The judge originally planned to exclude reporters, but The Chronicle and several other news organizations argued that today's hearing was part of a court proceeding that should be open to the media. Senior Assistant Attorney General Dane Gillette objected, saying reporters might reveal the identity of the execution team member, who has remained anonymous along with the rest of the team for security reasons. But Fogel said two reporters could attend if they agreed in writing not to reveal, or record in their notes, any identifying information. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) USA: Emotion drives the death penalty debate Few aspects of American life inspire more controversy and debate than capital punishment. Accordingly, the debate has spread throughout the campus as the university's chapter of Amnesty International concluded its campaign against the death penalty last week. As a member, I experienced the public discourse first hand. The controversy surrounding the death penalty often marks the line between liberal and conservative. Like abortion, capital punishment inspires debate along ideological lines, and it seems there is no middle ground. Consequently, debaters become emotionally invested in their argument. Obviously, one can make an effective argument while utilizing emotion. Emotion can strengthen the resolve of the arguer as well as his or her argument. Indeed, my strongest arguments always stem from my emotional resolve on the subject. I argue best on subjects about which I feel strongest. However, I try to suppress the emotional facet of any argument. One should never rely on emotion in constructing any argument. By doing so, one displaces rationality. Conservatives tend to invest too much emotion in the death penalty debate. Consequently, emotion consumes the entire conservative viewpoint. An argument with a true conservative on the subject of capital punishment quickly deteriorates into the reliance upon extreme hypothetical scenarios. This signifies the endpoint of a constructive debate. In my many debates on capital punishment, my conservative opponents have always backed into the emotional corner. The facts concerning the death penalty are inescapable. Capital punishment has no deterrent value. States utilizing the death penalty often experience a higher rate of homicide than states without the death penalty. Capital punishment has continually proven to be prejudicial. Minority homicide victims are disproportionately underrepresented in cases seeking the death penalty. Consequently, a murderer is far more likely to receive the death sentence if his or her victim is white. From an ideological standpoint, capital punishment requires a higher standard of justice. Unfortunately, the U.S. criminal justice system has proven inadequate. State governments severely shortchange public defense attorneys. Therefore, poor defendants are at a severe disadvantage. Finally, capital punishment is extremely expensive. Mississippi will spend more money on a death row inmate than on a lifelong prisoner. Confronted with these facts, the conservative opponent turns to emotionalism. Often, my opponent attributes my convictions to pacifism in an effort to personalize the argument by saying things like, "So, you would not kill a known killer?" When I reply in the negative, I'm a convicted pacifist. This constitutes the most egregious assault on the public discourse. Please, try to keep an argument rational. (source: The Student Printz - This is a column of opinion by Andy Johnson. Responses to this column can be made through the Printz Editorial Board at the University Of Southern Mississippi) ************************** Supreme Court Hears Arguments Over Foreigners' Rights in U.S. The question before the Supreme Court on Wednesday was whether an international treaty that protects people embroiled in another country's criminal justice system gives foreign citizens any specific rights they can assert in American courts. There was no dispute that authorities in Oregon and Virginia violated the treaty, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, in the 2 cases that were before the court in a single extended argument. Article 36 of the treaty, which the United States ratified in 1969, gives people who are arrested and detained in a foreign country a right known as consular notification, which dictates that they be informed that at their request their country's diplomats will be notified and made available to advise them. Neither Moises Sanchez-Llamas, a Mexican who was convicted of attempted murder in Oregon for shooting a police officer, nor Mario A. Bustillo, a Honduran convicted of a gang-related murder in Springfield, Va., a Washington suburb, received the required notice at the time of their arrests. The question was what remedy, if any, existed for the violation. Five lawyers debated the issue: one for each defendant, the solicitors general of Oregon and Virginia, and a deputy United States solicitor general. The 3 government officials argued that the treaty governs relationships between nations, and that the remedy for a violation of consular notification was limited to a diplomatic protest or formal apology. The United States in fact issued a formal apology to Honduras in the case of Mr. Bustillo, who is serving a 30-year sentence for the 1997 killing. The lawyers for the defendants argued that so limited a view ran counter to the undisputed principle that a treaty, once ratified, becomes part of a country's domestic law. Consequently, they argued, foreign defendants should have access to the same remedies that the legal system offers for government violations of rights protected by American law. Accordingly, Mr. Sanchez-Llamas is arguing that incriminating statements he made to the police be suppressed because he had not received his consular notification at the time he made them. His lawyer's argument that such an exclusion should apply - similar to the rule that bars the introduction of illegally seized evidence - was rejected by the Oregon Supreme Court and did not make much headway with the justices on Wednesday. After the lawyer, Peter Gartlan, acknowledged that the Vienna Convention says nothing about suppressing evidence, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked, "So if the treaty doesn't say 'suppress,' what authority does a federal court have to tell a state court to suppress?" The other defendant, Mr. Bustillo, is arguing that he is entitled to reversal of his conviction on the ground that Honduran officials, had they been notified of his arrest, would have helped identify another Honduran man who returned to Honduras after the murder and who, Mr. Bustillo asserts, was the real killer. His lawyer, Mark T. Stancil, argued that because Virginia was not forced to reopen the case to permit the new evidence, the state was able to benefit from its violation of the Vienna Convention. Here, too, the justices were skeptical. Several suggested that the fact that Mr. Bustillo had been provided with a lawyer was enough to insulate any Vienna Convention violation. The state, they said, had a right to expect that lawyers would inform their clients of their Vienna Convention rights. "The lawyer should be taxed with knowing it because it's the law of the land," Justice David H. Souter said, referring to the treaty. The International Court of Justice, often referred to as the World Court, takes the view that the convention confers individual rights. It ruled in 2004, in a case brought by Mexico, that the United States could not permit the execution of 51 Mexicans, on death row in various states, who had not received their consular notification. After that ruling, and while a Supreme Court appeal brought by one of the Mexicans, Jos Ernesto Medelln, was pending, the Bush administration withdrew the United States from the provision of the treaty that gives the World Court jurisdiction over disputes of this kind. At the same time, the administration told state courts to abide by the decision. The Supreme Court dismissed the Medelln case last May without ruling on the enforceability of the Vienna Convention. Deputy Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre was asked about the World Court's position by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who referred to that court by its initials, I. C J. Mr. Garre replied, "To be blunt, the I. C. J. decision is wrong." He said that while the World Court was entitled to "respectful consideration," its decision was "certainly not" binding on the United States. Mr. Garre said that the State Department was making "extensive efforts" to make sure state and local governments were aware of the need to inform foreign defendants of the right to consular notification. The department has distributed 600,000 cards to police departments, he said, adding, "These efforts are working." But it appeared that Vienna Convention issues would probably not disappear. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked Mary H. Williams, the Oregon solicitor general, why the police, who already give Miranda warnings, could not simply be told to ascertain the citizenship of people they take into custody so that the required notice could be given. That was "not so easy," said Ms. Williams. "I don't see why it's so complicated," Justice Kennedy said. He was joined by Justice Souter, who asked Ms. Williams, "You ask his name, why not his citizenship?" Ms. Williams replied, "We're moving toward that goal." Justice Souter was less than satisfied. "Why does it have to be a distant goal?" he asked. The cases are Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, No. 04-10566, and Bustillo v. Johnson, No. 05-51. (source: The New York Times) ***************** Foreigners want new trials because they were never told they could contact consulates Lawyers for 2 foreign nationals found guilty of violent crimes tried to convince the Supreme Court on Wednesday that those convictions should be thrown out, because the men were not told they could contact their consulates before talking to police. But the justices appeared skeptical that the oversight would justify suppressing the evidence that led to the guilty verdicts. The 2 cases, which are being considered together by the high court, were brought by Mario Bustillo, a Honduran convicted of killing a Virginia teenager with a baseball bat in 1999, and Moises Sanchez-Llamas, a Mexican found guilty of attempted murder in the shooting of an Oregon police officer in 1997. Lawyers for both men said the Vienna Convention, a treaty signed by the United States in 1969, required American officials to contact the embassies of foreign nationals "without delay." It is not enough for arrested foreigners to be told they can remain silent, hire a lawyer or have a lawyer appointed, the Miranda rights extended to Sanchez-Llamas, said his attorney, Peter Gartlan. "Foreign nationals have a fourth option" - to immediately contact their consulate, Gartlan said. Failure to observe that right, he said, should compel prosecutors to throw out all evidence obtained by police from interrogations. Vienna Convention The high court justices on Wednesday did not appear to buy the argument of the convicted men's attorneys. Justice Antonin Scalia said the Vienna Convention set up a mechanism for one country to protest the actions of another country toward its citizens, not establish a set of individual rights for foreign nationals. He also noted that no other country has interpreted the treaty as requiring evidence obtained before consular notification to be suppressed. "It is implausible that we signed a treaty that requires us to suppress (evidence from interrogations), but it lets other countries do what they like," Scalia said. Justice Stephen Breyer said he was inclined to accept that the men's rights under the treaty had been violated. But he said he doubted that suppressing evidence obtained by police was the proper remedy. Ruling expected by July The court is expected to rule on the cases before July. The decision could have an impact on thousands of foreigners in U.S. jails and prisons. In Texas, 10,205 inmates claimed to be citizens of a foreign country at the end of 2005, according to the state's Department of Corrections. Medellin is 1 of 17 Mexicans on Texas' death row. The Vienna Convention, signed by 168 countries, established the ground rules under which countries must treat the citizens of other nations that signed it. But Gregory Garre, U.S. deputy solicitor general who argued Wednesday in support of the states of Virginia and Oregon, said the treaty set up ways for governments to address violations through diplomatic channels. It did not give Americans overseas or foreigners in the United States individual rights not granted the citizens of those countries, he said. Several justices suggested that police need to make a better effort to let foreigners know they have the right to contact their country's officials. "It's not like rocket science. Give the advice. End of case," said Justice Anthony Kennedy. (source: Houston Chronicle) ******************** The Cost Of Errant Justice A March 6 Post editorial lamented the District's appallingly low homicide closure rate. Last year just 43 % of all known homicides reported to the D.C. police department resulted in a prosecution. While this number is low, it turns out that the problem -- most serious offenders evading punishment -- is not unique to the District. Consider the roughly 15 million felony victimizations that occur annually in the United States. Just half of these are reported to the police, and only a million or so defendants in those cases are convicted, leaving well over 10 million failures each year to convict serious, culpable offenders. Errors on the other side -- wrongful convictions -- are equally noteworthy, even if less frequent. Estimates of erroneous convictions range from 0.5 % to about 1.3 percent, suggesting something like 10,000 wrongful convictions annually. Civil libertarians have compiled a list of people convicted of capital murder and later exonerated. In 2001 then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor cited 90 such releases since 1973. At last count the number had risen to 175. But the problem of such errors is more than a matter of counting misses on both plates of the scale of justice. Even if there are many more failures to convict than wrongful convictions -- and even if no one has been wrongfully executed in the 30 years since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty (no one really knows) -- wrongful imprisonments impose huge costs on innocent people: loss of freedom, lost companionship of loved ones, lost livelihoods and difficulty getting decent jobs after years in prison. And they impose parallel losses on families and friends of the wrongfully convicted and services lost to the community. These are extremely costly errors. And they are gross injustices. Perhaps the greatest cost of wrongful convictions is their corrosive effect on the legitimacy of the criminal justice system. Typically a product of erroneous witness identification and bad luck, wrongful convictions seriously undermine the public's confidence in police, prosecutors and the courts. They are double errors, reflecting also failures to bring to justice those who actually committed the acts, sometimes enabling the commission of further crimes. In his last days in office as Virginia's governor, Mark Warner took unprecedented action to deal with the problem. He ordered thousands of decades-old cases involving DNA evidence to be reopened following the discovery of files containing meticulously preserved samples of blood, semen and saliva, ready for retesting using technology that had not been available when the evidence was originally collected. DNA analysis of evidence in a small sample of these cases induced Warner to pardon 2 inmates wrongfully convicted of rape. This work to expose and correct errors of justice -- and to validate the accuracy of other old cases -- may prove to be Warner's greatest legacy, not only to Virginia but to the nation's criminal justice system. Some errors of justice are inevitable, but we could manage them much more effectively than we do. Sophisticated systems are in place to manage mistakes in other fields: scientific research and production processes, for example, or to balance the risk of loss against the yield in financial portfolios. And yet no such systems exist with regard to the vitally important business of determining guilt or innocence in criminal cases. This can be fixed. The use of modern management methods and more widespread availability of effective forensic technology could go a long way to solve more of these crimes and reduce both types of error. DNA evidence gives us a unique window into errors for those crimes for which the evidence is available and relevant. We can use this window to estimate rates of errors for those crimes. We can do more to assess the social costs of both wrongful convictions and nonconvictions for each major crime category: The costs to the community of failures to convict serial rapists and one-time shoplifters are clearly in different leagues. We can learn more about the relationships between police and prosecution policies and errors of justice. And in old, settled cases with valid DNA evidence, as in Virginia, we may be able to find further errors of justice and correct them. Better late than never. (source: The Washington Post; The writer, Brian Forst, is professor of justice, law and society at American University's School of Public Affairs and the author of "Errors of Justice: Nature, Sources and Remedies.") ********************** Painful deaths OK for death row In 1989, Michael Taylor raped and murdered 15-year-old Ann Harrison. In 1991 Taylor was sentenced to death and in January 2006 Taylor's execution was delayed when he decided to challenge the use of lethal injection. I completely agree that lethal injection should not be used as a means of execution. However, Taylor's views run a completely different path. According to missourideathrow.com, Taylor claims "lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment; a violation of the Constitution." You know what I think is cruel and unusual punishment? Waiting for a bus, going home and being raped and stabbed to death for no reason. Lethal injection is not cruel and unusual; Taylor has obviously been in jail too long and hasn't had the time to do any research. Lethal injection is known as a completely humane way to end a prisoner's life. However, humane is not a word that should be associated with the death penalty unless the word 'not' is in front of it. Making their death painless just doesn't seem right. They deserve to experience the same pain they put upon their victims. Has your family ever had to put down a pet? When you were younger you probably referred to it as "putting your pet to sleep." Your parents or the veterinarian told you it was going to be quick and they wouldn't feel a thing. They were right. In the rare cases when somebody actually does get executed (because more people die while just sitting on death row), that's exactly how they are killed too. For those of you unfamiliar with the process, let's go over it briefly: The inmate is strapped to a gurney and hooked up to an IV where a harmless saline solution is started immediately. They are then injected with sodium thiopental, which is an anesthetic that puts them to sleep. I might as well just stop there because it really doesn't matter what happens next because those of you who have had surgery know you can't feel anything once the anesthesia kicks in. But for the sake of those who are intrigued, I'll continue. Once the inmate is unconscious, either pavulon or pancuronium bromide is injected to paralyze the entire muscle system and stop the breathing. This is followed by potassium chloride, which then stops the heart, death then results from anesthetic overdose and respiratory and cardiac arrest; all happening when the inmate (or pet) is unconscious. If I were to choose the way I die, this would definitely be it. Instead of "putting inmates to sleep," I have come up with alternate solutions that would not only reduce the number of inmates on death row but also make it fun for others in the process. The most logical solution that I have found is to bring back the firing squad method. Just line up everyone on death row and either give the military target practice or let the families of the victims do it. It's cheap, fast and for a brief second they will get a glimpse into how their victim felt. Comedian George Carlin had a good idea when he said we should wall off the four "square" states (Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Kansas) and put one type of hardened criminal in each state, supplying each group with everything they wanted. Gates connecting the states would be opened briefly each month. Not only would it be survival of the fittest, but it also could be turned into a reality show. The only problem I have with that method is we'd have to evacuate those states of normal citizens and I personally have always wanted to go to Coors Field. My favorite idea is to retract all the troops from Iraq and send them back home to their families. Give everyone on death row a gun (because many of them are familiar with how to use them) and send them overseas to do our dirty work. It's a win-win-win situation. Either we win the war, they die or they escape but are now lost in the desert halfway around the world with no money. It'd be like when the British sent all their prisoners over to Australia. Let's screw up another country for a change. Point being, the men and women on death row obviously committed a crime that more than likely resulted in the death of at least one productive member of society. We are essentially rewarding their unforgiving behavior by making their own death painless. They should be lucky they are getting off with such an easy death because the murders they committed to end up on death row were probably far from painless. (source: K.C. Vetter, Western Courier - Western Illinois University) IOWA: Judge To Decide If Vela "Fit" For Death Penalty -- It is now up to a judge to decide whether convicted U.S. Bank killer, Erik vela, should be tried for the state's death penalty. In final arguments, in Madison County, Nebraska, court, Wednesday, Vela's defense team said they have shown their burden and have proven that Vela is mentally retarded. They say an IQ test administered by a doctor proves it with a score of 66, which is below the state guidelines. The prosecution says the doctor, who administered that test, misused it and there are 3 other tests that show his scores above the line. While the defense declined to comment, the prosecution says they are pleased with the progress. "I'm satisfied with the way it went," said Joe Smith, Madison County Attorney. "I'm satisfied that we were able to finish it up today. I thought the evidence went well and I thought it was fair for everybody." But the members of the front bench weren't the only ones taking a deep breath. The parents of Erik Vela's victim, bank employee Lisa Bryant, have also been there from the beginning. They say at first they thought life in prison was a fitting sentence, but after hearing the testimonies of life in prison, their opinion has changed. "The one thing that they dread is the death sentence," said Larry Bryant. "So, I guess that's kind of what they deserve." The judge will take some time to review some last minute evidence and testimony before he delivers his judgment. It could be weeks before we hear his ruling. (source: KTIV News) SOUTH CAROLINA: State Okays Death Penalty for Repeat Child Rapists In another effort by state legislators to beef up "Jessica Law" penalties for repeat child molesters, the South Carolina Senate has voted for a bill that would allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for sex offenders who are convicted twice of raping a child under 11 years old. The death penalty provision, part of a bill that increases minimum sentences and provides for lifetime monitoring for some sex offenders, may end up being a test case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that a Georgia law providing for the death penalty for a rape involving an adult victim was unconstitutional, but the court has not ruled on cases involving the rape of a child. The court declined to review a Louisiana Supreme Court ruling that upheld that state's death penalty for rapists of children under 12 years old. South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster told lawmakers he would gladly argue the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, but he believes other states will also pass similar laws before any challenge to the law could be argued. Several states have adopted tougher laws against child molesters since the kidnapping and murder of Jessica Lunsford by a repeat sex offender brought loopholes in the sexual offender laws to light. (source: Crime.About.com)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA, IOWA, S.C.
Rick Halperin Thu, 30 Mar 2006 10:54:52 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
