Aug. 15 KENTCUKY: Attorney General request execution date for Baze An execution date has been requested for a Kentucky death row inmate convicted of killing a sheriff and deputy in 1992. Attorney General Greg Stumbo asked Gov. Ernie Fletcher to schedule an execution for Ralph Stevens Baze on Sept. 18. Baze was condemned to death for the shooting deaths of Powell County Sheriff Steve Bennett and Deputy Arthur Briscoe. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Baze's final appeal in July, clearing the way for Stumbo to make the request. David Fleenor, general counsel to Fletcher, said the Department of Public Advocacy, which represents Baze, will be asked to comment on the proposed execution. After that, Fletcher will make his decision about whether to sign the death warrant, Fleenor said. "Typically, we would move fairly quickly," Fleenor said. Baze's attorney, David Barron, declined comment Tuesday. Baze was being sought on five warrants from Ohio when he shot Bennett and Briscoe as they searched for him in eastern Kentucky. Stumbo recounted some details of the killings, including that Bennett was shot 2 times in the back and Bennett was shot twice in the back before Baze shot him in the head at close range. The request made Tuesday is the second time Stumbo has sought an execution date for Baze. Baze, who challenged lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment in a 2004 lawsuit, has received several stays of execution because of the court challenges. Baze is involved in two separate lawsuits challenging Kentucky's methods of execution. He is one of three inmates suing the state, claiming that lethal injection violates federal laws because a doctor doesn't obtain or administer the drugs. He is also suing in federal court along with several other inmates, claiming that lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Baze has also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider his challenge to Kentucky's lethal injection methods. Stumbo's response to the request is due Monday. The high court has not ruled on that request. Kentucky has 40 death-row inmates, including 11 who have been there for more than 2 decades. The state has executed 2 men since reinstating the death penalty in 1976 and only one by injection: Eddie Lee Harper, in 1999. Injection is the only method of execution used on inmates who have been condemned since 1998; those sentenced to death earlier can choose electrocution. Kentucky has not declared a moratorium on executions but has not scheduled any since the 2004 lawsuit. (source: Associated Press) ALABAMA: Alabama inmates fight upcoming executions 2 death row inmates with upcoming execution dates are using the same legal strategy that proved unsuccessful for another Alabama prisoner who was executed last month. Luther Jerome Williams and Thomas Douglas Arthur have filed suits contending that the way Alabama carries out lethal injections constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Both lost in federal courts in Alabama. Their next step is a federal appeals court in Atlanta. "It's a strategy to delay the executions, which so far hasn't worked," Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said Monday. The Alabama Supreme Court has scheduled Williams to die Aug. 23 for a 1988 killing. Arthur is slated to die Sept. 27 for a 1982 killing. The last inmate executed in Alabama was Darrell Grayson on July 26. Shortly before he was scheduled to die, he filed a lawsuit challenging Alabama's lethal injection procedures, but federal judges rejected it as being filed too late. Federal judges cited Grayson's suit in blocking suits by Williams and Arthur. On Friday, U.S. District Judge William Steele in Mobile said Arthur didn't file his suit until May five years after Alabama had switched from the electric chair to lethal injection. He said the real goal was to delay the execution, rather than alter how it is carried out. On July 30, U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller said Williams didn't file his suit until April, when the attorney general had already asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date. Citing a ruling in the Grayson case, Fuller wrote that "this Court is compelled to find that Williams is not entitled to injunctive relief because he delayed in filing this method-of-execution suit until his execution was imminent." One of Williams' attorneys, Joel Sogol of Tuscaloosa, said he has filed an appeal with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. A ruling is expected early next week. Sogol said Williams' case is different from Grayson because Grayson had been in court on several occasions on other issues in recent years, when he could have challenged the execution procedures. "We've never had those opportunities," Sogol said. Williams, 47, was convicted of robbing and shooting John Robert Kirk execution style after he had stopped his pickup truck on the side of Interstate 59 near the West Blockton exit in Tuscaloosa County. Kirk was headed from his job in Helena to his home in Gordo when the killing occurred. Arthur, 65, was sentenced to death for shooting Troy Wicker of Muscle Shoals through the right eye as he slept. The victim's wife, Judy Wicker, was romantically involved with Arthur and testified she paid him $10,000 to kill her husband in 1981. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: Stay of N.C. Executions to Stay Awhile Almost a year has passed since North Carolina carried out its last execution, and observers say no resolution to legal disputes over the death penalty is in sight. Six executions scheduled for earlier this year have been put on hold indefinitely because of uncertainty over a physician's role in the process and the protocol the state follows to carry out a lethal-injection death sentence. "It will be a while before we get it resolved," said Senior Administrative Law Judge Fred Morrison Jr. Meanwhile, 162 men and 4 women sit on death row at Central Prison in Raleigh. Morrison issued a ruling last week calling for state officials to review the execution protocol, including hearing from death-row inmates, to ensure prisoners don't die in pain, which would violate their constitutional rights. "(I looked at) whether they could feel undue suffering before the drugs are put in their system to be sure they're unconscious, and I wasn't assured of that," he said. Gov. Mike Easley responded to Morrison's ruling by saying the execution issue doesn't belong in front of the Council of State, although state law requires the group, which includes Easley, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and other statewide elected officials, to set the protocol to be followed in executions. "It sounds like Council of State is going to ignore it, so actually I think their actions push us further from a resolution on the issue one way or another," said attorney Hardy Lewis, who represents death-row inmates. "It would be nice if there were the political will (to settle the issue)," Lewis said. Morrison said the Council of State legally must review the protocol even if the members don't change it because of his ruling. State Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry, another Council of State member, said Tuesday that she wants the protocol issue resolved so the state can resume executions. Morrison's 15-page ruling also criticized the North Carolina Medical Board for its policy threatening to discipline any doctors that participate in executions. The policy says taking part in an execution would violate a physician's code of ethics. State law requires that a physician be present at every execution, and the medical board policy prompted a judge to stay the executions of several inmates because the law and the policy conflicted with each other. "I don't think its unethical for a doctor to be present and to assure that an inmate is unconscious," Morrison said. North Carolina is one of 11 states where executions are on hold. Concerns in other states range from general worries about the death penalty and possible inmate innocence to issues with lethal injection. (source: WRAL News) TENNESSEE: Tennessee Supreme Court to Hear Death Penalty Case The Tennessee Supreme Court will hear an appeal for the death penalty in the case of Ricky Thompson. Back in April, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Thompson's conviction, but changed his sentence from death, to life in prison. The court ruled the punishment did not fit the crime, based on similar cases. Back in 1989 in Athens, Tennessee, Thompson shot and killed his wife Nina in the back, as she held their 9-month-old son. Thompson was convicted and sentenced to death 2years later, but ever since, his case has been slowed by appeals and court proceedings. Now, the state wants to re-instate the death penalty and the Supreme Court has agreed to hear both sides. (source: WTVC News) *************************** Marion Man Could Face Death Penalty After State High Court Ruling The Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled that evidence does not show that a Marion County man suffered from mental retardation and was, therefore, ineligible for the death penalty. Danny Strode is charged with premeditated murder, felony murder, and especially aggravated robbery in the Dec. 17, 2001, death of Bledsoe County store owner Harvey J. Brown. Strode was 20 years old at the time of the slaying. After the state filed a Notice of Intent to Seek Death Penalty, defense attorney Cynthia LeCroy-Schemel of Chattanooga filed a motion to strike the notice on the basis that the defendant suffered from mental retardation under state law and was thus ineligible for the death penalty. The state high court ruling by Justice Cornelia Clark says, "We hold that Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-203(a) requires that a defendants mental retardation must have been manifested by eighteen years of age. Because the proof in this case preponderates against the trial courts finding that the defendants mental retardation manifested by his eighteenth birthday, we hold that the trial court erred in finding the defendant to be mentally retarded and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. "Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals. This matter is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion." Margie Strode Crawford testified that she took the defendant into her home as a foster child in the spring of 1993 when he was 11. She later adopted him. She said the defendant stayed in her home for approximately 2 years before leaving at the age of 13 or 14. (source: The Chattanoogan)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----KY., ALA., N.C., TENN.
Rick Halperin Wed, 15 Aug 2007 09:45:15 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
