June 9 TEXAS: Top Texas court won't block execution this week The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday cleared the way for executions to resume in the nation's most active death penalty state when it turned aside an appeal that challenged the constitutionality of lethal injection procedures. In a ruling late Monday, the state's highest criminal court refused to stop the scheduled execution of Karl Eugene Chamberlain, set to die Wednesday for the rape-slaying of a woman in Dallas in 1991. The same issues successfully worked last week for another condemned Texas inmate, Derrick Sonnier, who avoided the death chamber about 90 minutes before he would have become the first prisoner in Texas executed in nearly 9 months. In his appeal, Chamberlain argued the chemicals used by Texas prison officials during lethal injections "would violate his Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment," according to the court ruling. "We have reviewed (Chamberlain's) subsequent application and find that it should be dismissed," the court said. 2 of the court's 9 judges dissented. Similarly, the court denied at least two other appeals and a motion for a stay of execution. David Schulman, an attorney for Chamberlain, said Monday evening he hoped the issue could be pursued in the federal courts but was uncertain whether he would file such an appeal. "We'll see what happens (Tuesday)," he said. Other lawyers for Chamberlain already had appeals raising other issues before the U.S. Supreme Court even before the Texas court ruled on the lethal injection claim. Monday's ruling also would appear to clear the way for a new execution date to be set for Sonnier, condemned for the slaying of a suburban Houston woman and her young son some 17 years ago. Chamberlain was arrested five years after Felicia Prechtl was raped and fatally shot at her East Dallas apartment after his thumbprint was lifted from a roll of duct tape used to bind the 30-year-old single mom. He lived in the same apartment complex at the time. Chamberlain's fingerprints got into a police database after he was arrested for a robbery in Houston and wound up on probation. Chamberlain, whose confession to police was part of the evidence against him, has not denied his involvement in the woman's death. "I'm not trying to excuse my crime or justify my actions," Chamberlain, who would turn 38 later this month, said recently from death row. "It was a horrible mistake. "My greatest regret is going down there and not killing myself." Prechtl's brother and his girlfriend had taken her 5-year-old son to a video store to get a movie while she got ready to go out on a date. Chamberlain knocked on her door to borrow some sugar. Then he returned with a rifle and attacked and shot her. When Prechtl's son and babysitters returned home, they found her body. Executions in Texas and elsewhere in the nation were on hold since late September after 2 Kentucky prisoners challenged the constitutionality of lethal injection procedures. Then when the Supreme Court in April upheld the method, the de facto moratorium was lifted and executions were allowed to resum, although Sonnier's set for last week in Texas was halted with a reprieve from the Court of Criminal Appeals. Sonnier's appeal cited a then-unresolved case before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in seeking his reprieve. Chamberlain's execution would be the 6th this year nationally. He's among at least 13 condemned Texas prisoners with execution dates in the coming few months. (source: Associated Press) USA: Ethical implications of modifying lethal injection protocols A team of medical, ethical, and legal scholars argues in this week's PLoS Medicine that in some US states the modification of lethal injection protocols is tantamount to experimentation upon prisoners without the prisoners' consent and without any ethical safeguards. Drs. Leonidas Koniaris and Teresa Zimmers (University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA) and colleagues lay out evidence obtained in litigation and from Freedom of Information act requests that suggests that at least 10 states are performing regimens that may be akin to human experimentation. "The collective practice of lethal injection," say the authors, "has employed invasive testing of different drug protocols and devices, data collection and monitoring, and systematic review with outcome data being used to revise practice." Certain lethal injection inquiries, they say, may therefore constitute human subjects research. While death row inmates have been stripped of the right to freedom and to life, say the authors, they maintain the right to bodily integrity and the right to refuse to be experimented upon. And yet in these 10 states, Koniaris and Zimmer's analysis finds that inmates were not asked for their consent to be included in lethal injection practices, which are essentially experimental in nature. Guidelines for the ethical conduct of research involving humans, such as the Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki, were developed at least partially as a way of ensuring that medical researchers would not exploit vulnerable prisoner populations. In the US, researchers who conduct studies on humans are required to follow the "Common Rule" (the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects)., which provides protection for research participants by requiring institutional assurance of compliance with federal regulations, institutional review board (IRB) review, approval, and oversight, and informed consent of the participants. In Koniaris and Zimmers' analysis, none of the ten states undertaking regimens with prisoners being executed followed the Common Rulefor example, prisoners had not given consent to be experimented upon and institutional review boards had not approved the use of what is essentially a n experiment protocol. Lethal injection for execution has largely replaced other execution methods in the US, in part due to the appearance of a peaceful death. But evidence suggests that some inmates suffer extreme paintriggering legal challenges against lethal injection on the grounds that it violates the United States' constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. (see, for example, a previous PLoS Medicine paper, by Dr Zimmers and colleagues in 2007: Lethal Injection for Execution: Chemical Asphyxiation? PLoS Med 4(4): e156 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040156). Jurists are now demanding that lethal injection protocols be amended, say Dr Zimmers and colleagues, to comply with this constitutional prohibition. However, even as jurists demand lethal injection protocol changes, say the authors, "corrections officials, governors, and their medical collaborators are left in a legal and ethical quandaryin order to comply with the law and carry out their duties, they are employing the tools and methods of biomedical inquiry without its ethical safeguards." Given the current guidelines for human experimentation, they say, "it is difficult to conceive of circumstances in which lethal injection research activities could be carried out in a fashion consistent with these ethical norms, and yet those engaged in such research would seem to be required to do so." ### Citation: Koniaris LG, Goodman KW, Sugarman J, Ozomaro U, Sheldon J, et al. (2008) Ethical implications of modifying lethal injection protocols. PLoS Med 5(6): e126. (source: About PLoS Medicine ----Public Library of Science PLoS Medicine is an open access, freely available international medical journal. It publishes original research that enhances our understanding of human health and disease, together with commentary and analysis of important global health issues. For more information, visit http://www.plosmedicine.org About the Public Library of Science The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. For more information, visit http://www.plos.org ) ALABAMA: AG files motion to set execution date for Callahan Attorney General Troy King has asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for James Callahan, who has lived on death row 25 years for the 1982 murder of a Jacksonville woman. The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear an appeal from Callahan. He was scheduled to die Jan. 31 but had received a stay of execution pending the outcome of a separate lethal injection case in Kentucky. An April court ruling in that case cleared the way for resumption of lethal injections. The attorney general said there are no further appeals pending in Callahan's case. Callahan was accused of abducting Rebecca Suzanne Howell from a Jacksonville coin-operated laundry, then raping and killing her. (source: Associated Press) TENNESSEE: Tennessee's oldest death row inmate dies The Tennessee Department of Correction says the state's oldest and longest serving death row inmate has died of natural causes. Spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said 68-year-old Richard Austin was found dead in his cell at the DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville on Sunday. He spent 30 years on death row. Austin was sentenced to death in 1978 after a conviction in Shelby County of accessory before the fact to murder. Austin was found to have hired a fugitive from prison to kill undercover policeman Julian Watkins. Watkins was investigating illegal gambling operations at the Golden Cue, a Memphis establishment that Austin owned. Austin was the 1st person sentenced to die under Tennessee's current death penalty law, which was enacted in 1977. (source: Associated Press) VIRGINIA: Attorney general disagrees with Kaine's decision to stop execution Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell issued a statement this evening saying he disagrees with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's decision to commute the death sentence of Percy Levar Walton, who murdered 3 people in Danville in 1996. Kaines reason for halting the execution, scheduled for tomorrow night, was that Walton is mentally incompetent. McDonnell noted that multiple courts reached the conclusion that Walton is not incompetent or retarded. "The United States Supreme Court has made clear that new evidence of incompetency to be executed may be presented in court when that evidence arises," said McDonnell in the statement. "Nothing has prevented Walton from bringing such evidence to the federal courts for further review in light of the U.S. constitutional standard. Evidence of an inmate's competency is more effectively evaluated by a judicial officer. Thus I respectfully disagree with the Governor's decision that clemency is now warranted in this case." McDonnell said his thoughts and prayers are with the families of Walton's 3 murder victims, Jessie and Elizabeth Kendrick, and Archie Moore, Jr. (source: Richmond Times-Dispatch) OHIO: Prosecutor seeks death penalty Hamilton County prosecutors want to do to Roger Tucker what they say Tucker did to 83-year-old Herbert Abraham put him to death. A Hamilton County grand jury indicted Tucker, 37, of Columbus, for capital murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary following the May 30 discovery of Abraham's body in his East Price Hill home. Abraham was strangled to death. Tucker then is accused of stealing Abraham's car which was found in Covington the days later. The case was randomly rolled and assigned to Common Pleas Court Judge Jody Luebbers. In addition to it being her 1st death-penalty case, it's her 1st case. Luebbers was sworn in as a judge Friday. Tucker, 37, was arrested days after Abraham's body was found. Tucker was arrested in Covington where he is accused of trying to break in to other homes. Tucker will have to serve his Kentucky time before Ohio officials can try him. Since Deters returned as prosecutor in 2006, he's had one case where the defendant received the death penalty. Hamilton County has 36 inmates on the state's death row now. (source: Cincinnati Enquirer)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, USA, ALA., TENN., VA., OHIO
Rick Halperin Mon, 9 Jun 2008 23:09:45 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
