April 19 TEXAS: Prosecutors to ask jurors to keep Garza on death row Prosecutors began reconstructing the 1998 killing of a retired preacher for a jury who will determine if the man convicted for his murder will remain on death row. A jury convicted and sentenced Joe Franco Garza of Lubbock six years ago on one count of capital murder for strangling and robbing 71-year-old Silbiano Rangel in 1998. Garza, now 34, wrapped a sock around the man's neck and choked him to death, before stealing Rangel's truck, wallet and ring reportedly for beer money, according to court records. Members of Rangel's family gathered in the courtroom as attorneys began to argue the case. "I never expected to be here again," Silbiano Rangel Jr. said as he took the stand to testify about his father. His father was devoted to his faith and family, he said. Rangel founded a baptist church in Littlefield and loved to work with his children and fish with his grandchildren. Rangel never returned home after giving Garza a ride to a liquor store in December 1998. His body was later discovered face down in the 7300 block of King Avenue. A sock was knotted around his neck. Witnesses testified that Garza began drinking early on the day of the killing; he then left with Rangel and returned home in the victim's truck. Garza and his girlfriend a 13-year-old who was pregnant with his child then fled to Dallas and returned after ditching the pickup, according to the testimony. Rosemary Dominguez, Garza's cousin, testified that she witnessed the strangulation but did not report it to police. "Joe said he was going to put it on me and my son," she said "I was scared and confused." Garza's attorney did question Dominguez's credibility and her involvement, citing two statements given to police which an investigator testified contained false information. Dominguez also said she helped Garza put Rangel's body into the backseat of the truck. The jury will not be asked to dispute Garza's guilt. They will only consider his sentence. A federal judge in August found that information omitted in Garza's first trial may have led a jury to sentence him to life. U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings ordered that a Lubbock County District Court retry the punishment phase of Garza's trial and include information about his criminal record as a juvenile. The only punishments in Texas for a capital offense are a life sentence or the death penalty. The trial is expected to last through the week. (source: Lubbock Avalanche-Journal) ******************* Johnson's execution date could soon be set Michael Dewayne Johnson is in line to become the 2nd murderer convicted in Waco to be executed this year. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans has denied a motion from Johnson asking that the court reconsider its ruling from last month that rejected the death row inmates latest appeal. That means that Johnson is eligible to have an execution date set, which 54th State District Judge George Allen likely will do next week. Prosecutor Crawford Long said the attorney generals office, which handles federal appeals filed by death row inmates, has suggested that Johnsons execution date be set for early fall. Johnson, formerly of Balch Springs, was sentenced to death after a 1996 trial in Waco in the September 1995 shooting death of Jeff Wetterman during a robbery at the Wetterman family convenience store in Lorena. Waco attorney Greg White, who is handling Johnsons appeals, said he now will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review Johnsons case. Allen also has set an Aug. 30 execution date for Billie Wayne Coble, whose motion for rehearing was rejected last month by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Coble has been on death row since his conviction in Waco in April 1990 in the shooting deaths of his estranged wifes parents, Robert and Zelda Vicha, and her brother, Waco police Sgt. Bobby Vicha. (source: Waco Tribune-Herald) MISSOURI: Defense seeks to depose doctor involved in executions Attorneys for a death row inmate want to depose a doctor and nurse so they can argue that a drug combination used to kill condemned prisoners is unconstitutionally cruel. But the state has blocked the move, in part out of concern that the medical personnel would be harassed. The defense said it had agreed to shield their identity. The defense team is not seeking a reprieve of the death penalty for convicted killer Michael Taylor of Kansas City. Attorney Donald Verrilli Jr. of Washington, D.C., told a federal appeals court panel in St. Louis that the 3-drug cocktail used in Missouri and around the country can result in a "horrible, excruciating death" if the anesthesia doesnt take effect or wears off. Similar arguments are being made in death penalty cases around the country. But the defense in this case offered an alternative: a single dose of barbiturate, said to be constitutionally permissible and to attain the same result. Verrilli asked the 3-judge panel to send the case back to U.S. District Court in Kansas City to be heard by the original judge assigned to the case. In January, a hearing to weigh the cruel-punishment argument was transferred from Judge Scott O. Wright to Judge Fernando Gaitan because Gaitans schedule could accommodate it more quickly. At the close of the hastily convened, 2-day hearing, Gaitan ruled that Missouris execution protocol was constitutionally permissible. Taylors defense team said it needed the testimony of the doctor and nurse involved in state executions to argue the case. The defense also wants to present a witness who couldnt make Gaitans hearing. Taylor had been scheduled to be executed Feb. 1 in the 1989 kidnapping, rape and murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison of Kansas City. (source: Associated Press) USA: Whose Truth Is It, Anyway? Imagine a situation where prosecutors have spent years investigating their case -- they have their theory, and the trial is underway. A defense witness exists who is available to testify and would completely undercut the prosecution's theory. But he is too afraid to testify because the prosecutors might retaliate by bringing charges against him. No problem -- just get the witness to use immunity so he can tell the truth at trial, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, the same prosecutor who holds the sword of Damocles over the witness's head has the sole power to grant immunity for that witness. And, not surprisingly, that prosecutor often does not want to help the defendant. This scenario replays itself in courtrooms all over America -- and there is no reason for it. Judges who routinely make decisions on matters, both large and small, are certainly equipped to decide what witnesses should testify at trial to ensure due process and a fair trial. The law needs to be changed. Most criminal defense attorneys needing witnesses who are reluctant to testify begin case preparation pessimistically because decades of case law state that the power to grant immunity rests almost exclusively with prosecutors. [FOOTNOTE 1] The time for reconsideration and reform has come. If we cringe to think that a prosecutor could use a physically coerced confession and we agree that illegally seized evidence is not admissible, then why accept a system where exculpatory evidence of a defendant's innocence can be (and often is) kept out at trial at the sole discretion of an adversary party claiming to represent the government's interests in a fair trial? Trials, particularly criminal ones where a person's liberty is at stake, are supposed to be forums for seeking the truth. However, given the government's immunity power under the current statutes, prosecutors often "encourage" potential defense witnesses not to testify by declaring that their investigation is ongoing and that the witnesses may someday be charged. This has the potential for enormous abuse as, in many cases, that "future" prosecution never occurs, and all that has resulted was that a key defense witness has been kept off the stand. The issue of defense witness immunity has risen to the forefront in several recent high-profile white-collar cases. It is a principle issue on appeal in the case of Bernard Ebbers, the former WorldCom president and CEO convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy charges and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment. In another recent 4-month federal jury trial, a Mississippi plaintiffs attorney (whom Chadbourne & Parke represented) was accused of corruptly influencing judges who presided over his cases. He sought to call 2 attorneys in his law firm who tried the cases in question to show their merits. Right up until the moment the defense case began, the prosecutors kept waffling about the status of these attorneys (targets or not) and whether they would be given immunity, which never occurred. Under the circumstances, the attorneys refused to testify. The real shame was that the court's inherent and nondelegable power to ensure due process was usurped by the prosecutors' actions (which, luckily for this defendant, did not result in conviction). In another case, this one pending in Virginia, two pro-Israel foreign policy lobbyists stand accused of the illegal disclosure of classified defense information. The defendants (one of whom Chadbourne & Parke represents) has tried to secure the trial testimony of various government officials and private citizens in the foreign policy arena. Some of these potential witnesses have provided favorable statements in the media about the defendants' innocence. Yet, as trial approaches, all have raised the concern of prosecutorial retaliation and believe that, without a grant of immunity, they do not want to testify where prosecutors are threatening to make legitimate lobbying into a crime. Even individuals whose actions are more than 20 years old are wary because of prosecutors' statements to them about "ongoing conspiracies." In a system that is supposed to be fair and concerned about truth, why should it be the prosecutor rather than the court who gets to shape what truth is told? And despite this clearly inequitable system, there is little a federal judge can do about a prosecutor's prerogative to deny a defense witness immunity. Judges traditionally tend to give wide latitude to this area of prosecutorial discretion, except where the prosecutorial misconduct is readily apparent and outrageously egregious. Several circuits hold that federal district court judges have no power to challenge a prosecution's decision to deny a defense witness immunity. [FOOTNOTE 2] Other circuits, like the 2nd and D.C. Circuits, have held that federal courts can review a prosecutor's decision not to grant a defense witness immunity -- but only where there is clear prosecutorial misconduct (e.g., hiding exculpatory evidence from the court or engaging in blatant witness intimidation) and such testimony is material, exculpatory, noncumulative and available from no other source. Even under these circumstances, however, the court's ability to remedy this conduct is limited and the bar for the defense to prove such misconduct is set very high. [FOOTNOTE 3] The best remedy is to amend the federal statutory law of immunity to accommodate the search for truth and justice. The provisions of 18 U.S.C. 6000 et seq. can easily be changed to allow a defendant to make a pre-trial application to a court (or during trial for good cause shown) requesting immunity for a witness. The request, just like requests for severance in order to secure the testimony of a co-defendant, [FOOTNOTE 4] would have to be specific, state what the testimony would be and state why their interests of justice outweigh allowing the testimony to be stifled. This balancing is no more difficult than literally hundreds of considerations trial judges weigh every day. Judicial grants of defense witness immunity serve to facilitate the truth-seeking process that is the bedrock for our rule of law. It should be the courts -- not the prosecutors -- who should have the ultimate authority in deciding what constitutes fair play and whether a defense witness should be given immunity. Otherwise, whose truth is it, anyway? Abbe Lowell heads and Obiamaka Okwumabua is a senior associate in Chadbourne & Parke's special litigation and investigation practice group. Law.com's ongoing IN FOCUS article series highlights opinion and analysis from our site's contributors and writers across the ALM network of publications. ::::FOOTNOTES:::: FN1 The decision to grant a witness immunity lies solely within the executive branch, i.e., it rests with the prosecutor. See 18 U.S.C. 6002 -2003 (2005); see also United States v. Castro, 129 F.3d 226, 232 (1st Cir. 1997). FN2 See Castro, 129 F.3d at 232 (finding courts lack inherent authority to grant immunity); United States v. Lahue, 261 F.3d 993, 1014 (10th Cir. 2001) (same); In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 995 F.2d 1013, 1017 (11th Cir. 1993) (same); United States v. Quintanilla, 2 F.3d 1469, 1483 (7th Cir. 1993) (same). FN3 See, e.g., Carter v. United States, 684 A.2d 331 (D.C. 1996) (en banc) (requiring prosecution to choose between immunizing critical defense witnesses or to face dismissal of the indictment in case where court finds prosecutorial distortion of fact-finding process); United States v. Chitty, 760 F.2d 425 (2d Cir. 1985) (holding due process requires granting of defense witness immunity to safeguard defendant's right to essential exculpatory testimony); Government of the Virgin Islands v. Smith, 615 F.2d 964 (3d Cir. 1980) (holding judicial immunity for defense witness only where the witness is available, testimony is clearly exculpatory and essential, and the government does not have a strong countervailing interest against granting immunity); United States v. De Palma, 476 F. Supp. 775, 781 (S.D.N.Y. 1979) (vacating conviction finding prosecution's reliance on immunized testimony in its case-in-chief while denying immunity to defense witnesses denied defendant fair trial). FN4 See Zafiro v. United States, 506 U.S. 534 (1993) (holding that Rule 14 severance rests solely with the district court judge); United States v. Rucker, 915 F.2d 1511, 1513 (11th Cir. 1990) (granting severance upon finding that co-defendant was the government's "best witness against the other co-defendants"); United States v. Green, 324 F. Supp. 2d 311 (D. Mass. 2004) (holding severance necessary in case where co-defendant's counsel acting as second prosecutor against defendant). (source: Law.com) ******************** Study Fuels a Growing Debate Over Police Lineups The police lineup is a time-honored staple of crime solving, not to mention of countless cop movies and television shows like "Law and Order." Each year, experts estimate, 77,000 people nationwide are put on trial because witnesses picked them out of one. In recent years many states and cities have moved to overhaul lineups, as DNA evidence has exposed nearly 200 wrongful convictions, 3/4 of them resulting primarily from bad eyewitness identification. In the new method, the police show witnesses one person at a time, instead of several at once, and the lineup is overseen by someone not connected to the case, to avoid anything that could steer the witness to the suspect the police believe is guilty. But now, the long-awaited results of an experiment in Illinois have raised serious questions about the changes. The study, the first to do a real-life comparison of the old and new methods, found that the new lineups made witnesses less likely to choose anyone. When they did pick a suspect, they were more likely to choose an innocent person. Witnesses in traditional lineups, by contrast, were more likely to identify a suspect and less likely to choose a face put in the lineup as filler. Advocates of the new method said the Illinois study, conducted by the Chicago Police Department, was flawed, because officers supervised the traditional lineups and could have swayed witnesses. But the results have empowered many critics who had worried that states and cities were caving in to advocacy groups in adopting the new lineups without solid evidence that they improved on the old ones. "There are people who'd say it's better to let 10 guilty persons free to protect against one innocent person being wrongfully convicted," said Roy S. Malpass, a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso and an analyst for the Illinois study, who served on a research group on eyewitness identification for the National Institute of Justice in 1999. "I'm fine with that when we're dealing with juvenile shoplifters," Dr. Malpass said. "I'm not fine with that for terrorists. We haven't figured out the risk there." The new lineups lack some of the drama of the old. In some places, witnesses view lineups on laptop computers to make them completely "blind" to influence from someone administering the process. Psychologists who favor these so-called sequential double-blind lineups say that showing witnesses people one at a time makes lineups more difficult for the witness, and therefore better. Witnesses have to compare the person in front of them against their memory of the crime, rather than simply against the other faces in the lineup. "It turns a lineup into a much more objective, science-based procedure," said Gary L. Wells, a professor of psychology at Iowa State University and a prominent proponent of blind sequential lineups. "The double-blind is a staple of science; it makes as much sense to do it in a lineup as it does in an experiment or drug trial." In classroom studies by Dr. Wells and others, the sequential method was found to reduce the number of times witnesses chose an innocent person, without reducing the number of times they chose the right one. The movement to change lineups took off in the 1990's after a growing number of DNA exonerations. New Jersey was the first state to adopt the sequential method, in 2001. The Wisconsin Legislature recently recommended the same approach, as did commissions in North Carolina, Virginia and, last week, California. Boston and Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, use sequential lineups, and Washington, D.C., is studying them in one district. Still, lineup methods remain an open debate: law enforcement officials in California and New York have resisted changes, arguing that the evidence in favor of the sequential approach is not firm. A guide for prosecutors produced in 1999 by the National Institute of Justice study group said "there is not a consensus" and declined to recommend sequential lineups as a "preferred" method. But before the Illinois study, released last month, no one had compared the 2 methods in the field. The experiment was part of an overhaul package recommended in 2002 by the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment, set up by former Gov. George Ryan of Illinois after DNA evidence exonerated several death row inmates. It tested the 2 methods for a year in 3 dissimilar cities; half the lineups were conducted sequentially and half were done simultaneously. "Surprisingly," the study said, the sequential lineups proved less reliable than the simultaneous ones. Out of 700 lineups, witnesses in those using the simultaneous method chose the correct suspect 60 percent of the time, compared with 45 percent of the time for the sequential lineups. Witnesses in the sequential lineups were more likely to pick the wrong person - someone brought in as filler - choosing incorrectly 9 % of the time, versus just 3 % in the simultaneous lineups. And witnesses declined to make a pick in 47 % of the sequential lineups, compared with 38 % of the simultaneous ones. (Percentages were rounded.) "If you are going to take officers outside their comfort zone, you have to be able to sell them on the reasons you are doing it," said Sheri Mecklenburg, general counsel to the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department and director of the experiment. "Based on this study, I think we'd have a difficult time having them believe this is a way to get more reliable eyewitness identifications." Prosecutors elsewhere say the results make them less inclined to move to sequential lineups. "This is very powerful because it's real," said Patricia Bailey, an assistant district attorney in Manhattan who has considered lineup changes for New York City. "This isn't a classroom study where people are watching a 30-second video of a crime that happened to someone else." Paul A. Logli, president of the National District Attorneys Association, said that his group would discuss lineups at its convention this fall, but that many prosecutors were doubters. "I think many prosecutors think doing it sequentially runs contrary to human nature," Mr. Logli said. "Human nature tells me that having the ability to compare is more helpful than destructive. Doing it sequentially is almost like this is a trick question." Dr. Wells of Iowa State said the Illinois study had not validly compared the two lineup methods because simultaneous lineups had not been done "blind." But Dr. Malpass of the University of Texas and Ms. Mecklenberg said the point was to study the new method against the status quo. The new study will be the focus of a conference Friday at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Thomas P. Sullivan, a former United States attorney in Chicago and the co-chairman of the governor's commission that recommended the study, said that already, the results had "changed the debate." "It has put a cloud over the sequential system," Mr. Sullivan said. "I think it will retard the system throughout the country until this gets sorted out." But others say changes to lineups should focus on other elements that studies have shown produce more reliable picks: reducing pressure on witnesses by advising them that they do not have to pick someone; making sure that "fillers" strongly resemble the suspect; and recording what the witness says upon choosing a suspect, so juries can hear how certain they were about a pick. "I don't understand why the rest of these reforms shouldn't be adopted immediately," said Barry C. Scheck, a co-director of the Innocence Project, a legal clinic that uses DNA evidence to try to overturn wrongful convictions. "The controversy over sequential blind has obscured the fact that all the other reforms are not in dispute." Ms. Mecklenburg, in Chicago, said, "There are no sides in this debate." "We all want the same thing," she said. "Whether you are a prosecutor or police or defense counsel, we all want reliable eyewitness identifications." (source: The New York Times) ***************** Cruel punishment I don't know about others, but I think killing any human being is wrong. People who support the death penalty believe it is the right thing to do. However, most people who support the death penalty only give one reason as to why it is worthwhile: They believe if a criminal kills someone, then that criminal should also be killed. Those who are against the death penalty believe it is the ultimate cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment. They also think it violates the right to life. Yes, even though criminals take the life away from innocent victims, the state should not kill them. 2 wrongs do not make a right. The death penalty is the wrong way to go. CHRISTINA FOGGIE, Age 14, Harrington Middle School, Mount Laurel (source: Letter to the Editor, Courier Post ( New Jersey) ************************ High Court Debates Defendants' Right to Counsel of Choice It is not often that the movie "My Cousin Vinny" -- or any movie, for that matter -- is invoked during a Supreme Court argument. But on Tuesday, the 1992 movie about a personal injury lawyer from Brooklyn who represents a relative in a murder trial in Alabama seemed right on point. The question before the Court: How important is the right of paying defendants to be represented by the lawyer of their choice? Quite important, bordering on fundamental, seemed to be the answer of most justices, ranging from Antonin Scalia to David Souter. In a lively, hourlong argument in the case United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, justices took a rare excursion into examining the merits and foibles of the legal profession. A majority appeared to agree that even if a defendant picks a lawyer who is an inexperienced relative -- as in the movie -- or a lawyer determined to make an outlandish argument, that is the defendant's constitutionally protected right. In the movie, by the way, Vinny warms to the task and ultimately gets his cousin and his cousin's friend off the hook. In the case before the Court, a Missouri federal trial judge barred the first-choice California lawyer of drug-conspiracy defendant Cuauhtomec Gonzalez-Lopez, leaving him with a St. Louis lawyer who had never argued a criminal case, and lost. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out Gonzalez-Lopez's conviction, ruling that the judge's improper exclusion of the first lawyer amounted to a structural defect that warranted automatic reversal of the conviction. Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben argued that reversal should not be so automatic, urging that some kind of inquiry be required to determine if the rejection of a 1st-choice lawyer prejudices the outcome of a case, especially when the replacement lawyer is competent. That kind of inquiry misses the point, Scalia bellowed. "I don't want a competent lawyer; I want a lawyer who will get me off," he said. "I want the lawyer who will invent the Twinkie defense." "Twinkie defense" is the derisive shorthand phrase referring to the defense argument developed in the 1970s that a diet high in sugar can lead to diminished capacity and less culpability for crime. Scalia hastened to add that he thought the Twinkie defense was crazy but that a client ought to have the right to pick a lawyer who will try crazy strategies that might just work. Souter saw an even bigger issue at stake in the case: the "autonomy interest" of the client. Tied up in the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, Souter suggested, was the ability of the defendant to direct his or her defense. Justice John Paul Stevens also said the "autonomy interest is powerful," describing the defendant's experience of going on trial as "very traumatic." Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. appeared to dismiss that argument, however, suggesting that whatever right exists to counsel of choice, it is not a defendant's right to the "expression of autonomy." Roberts also warned that if a right to counsel of choice is given too much weight, there will be nothing to stop it from being applied in cases of appointed counsel for indigents, as well. Jeffrey Fisher, the lawyer for defendant Gonzalez-Lopez, generally received easier questions than Dreeben, and he scored points when he said that automatic reversal is the proper remedy when "the government affirmatively interferes" with a defendant's choice of counsel. It happens rarely, Fisher said, but when it has, all the appeals courts that have ruled on the issue have adopted an automatic-reversal rule. Justice Samuel Alito Jr. offered the hypothetical of a defendant who wants a relative, a real estate lawyer, to defend him, but when that lawyer is barred by the judge, the replacement lawyer is someone with a national reputation in criminal work who still loses nonetheless. Would that defendant be able to win reversal? Fisher said yes, at which point Scalia gleefully said, "A real case of 'My Uncle Vinny'!" slightly mislabeling the movie. But Fisher picked up the point, asserting the "autonomy interest" a defendant should enjoy. Fisher ran into some trouble when Roberts asked whether the rule he was asserting would also apply to a defendant's appeal. If the Supreme Court itself, for example, refused to admit a lawyer of choice pro hac vice, would that be a Sixth Amendment violation? Fisher, a lawyer with Davis Wright Tremaine, was caught off-guard but said, "Yes, this is a right that would go forward on appeal." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked incredulously whether that means the Supreme Court would have to repeat oral arguments in cases where a party's preferred lawyer was not accepted. Scalia tossed Fisher a lifeline, noting that the right of counsel has different dimensions in the appeals context. Fisher told the justices, "I haven't thought through" the appeals issue, and his momentary misstep seemed to have been fixed. (source: Legal Times) ********************* More executions are halted----Cruel punishment of lethal injection A STRING of recent court rulings could stop the use of lethal injection by the U.S. death penalty machine. The rulings come in the wake of evidence suggesting that prisoners executed by lethal injection--a supposedly "painless" method--may, in fact, have endured agonizing deaths In North Carolina last week, U.S. District Judge Malcolm Howard told prison officials that they would need a medical professional during the execution of Willie Brown--slated for April 21--to make sure that Brown is sedated enough before paralytic and heart-stopping drugs are injected into his body. But the American Medical Association's code of ethics prohibits doctors taking an active role in executions, so it may be hard for North Carolina to find a willing accomplice. In February, a California judge ruled that a licensed anesthesiologist would have to oversee the execution of Michael Morales, or that the state would have to change the drugs used to kill prisoners. When doctors refused to participate, Morales' execution--and all executions in the state--were halted indefinitely. Several years ago, an appeals court halted executions in New Jersey pending an explanation from corrections officials about the state's lethal injection procedures. The New Jersey legislature adopted a 1-year moratorium on executions this January. The U.S. Supreme Court recently stopped an execution in Florida to hear arguments that lethal injection, as currently practiced, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Three drugs are used in the lethal injection procedure. The 1st chemical, sodium thiopental, is a barbiturate used to sedate an inmate. The 2nd drug, pancuronium, paralyzes the body. The 3rd, potassium chloride, stops the heart. Lethal injection is the preferred method of execution in 35 states, and pro-death penalty forces have always maintained that the procedure is humane--similar to being "put to sleep." Leaving aside the torment that prisoners go through while waiting to be killed, and the fear and pain they undergo as intravenous lines are inserted, death penalty opponents point out that if sodium thiopental is improperly administered, it leaves the prisoner conscious throughout the execution, suffocating and in excruciating pain caused by the drugs, but unable to cry out because of drug-induced paralysis. A Florida study has shown low levels of anesthetic in the bloodstreams of executed inmates--suggesting that they were, in effect, tortured to death. Likewise, in North Carolina, Judge Howard based his decision on the fact that post-mortem levels of sodium thiopental in the bodies of four North Carolina inmates executed over the past 6 months suggest they might have been conscious as they were killed. Witnesses at lethal injections have frequently reported seeing prisoners in pain. In the North Carolina case, Judge Howard also noted that three lawyers who had witnessed executions in the state had seen condemned men writhing and gagging during their executions. "Instead of the quiet death I expected," one of the lawyers, Cynthia Adcock, said in a sworn statement about her client Willie Fisher, who was executed in 2001, "Willie began convulsing. The convulsing was so extreme that Willie's cousin jumped up screaming." The evidence is clear: There's no such thing as a "humane" execution. (source: Socialist Worker) TENNESSEE----impending execution Corrections Taking Media Applications For Witnessing Execution The Tennessee Department of Correction is accepting applications from recognized news organizations to serve as witnesses for the scheduled execution of death row inmate Sedley Alley. 7 media witnesses and two alternates will be selected by the Department of Correction during an open drawing to be held at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution located at 7475 Cockrill Bend Boulevard, Nashville. The drawing will take place next Tuesday at 10 a.m. CDT. The drawing will be conducted in accordance with the Rules of the Tennessee Department of Correction Adult Services Division, Chapter 0420-3-4, under the authority of TCA 40-23-116. Only one application will be permitted from each news organization. Sedley Alley was convicted of the 1985 murder of Suzanne Collins in Shelby County. The execution is currently scheduled for May 17. (source: The Chattanoogan)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, MO., USA, TENN.
Rick Halperin Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:21:20 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
