[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VER., MICH., S.C., NEV., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 22



VERMONT:

Death penalty protest planned for Fell sentencing


Anti-death penalty activists are planning a rally next month to coincide
with Donald Fell's formal sentencing to capital punishment for the
November 2000 kidnap and murder of a supermarket worker from North
Clarendon.

The activists are planning a candlelight vigil in front of the federal
courthouse in Burlington the day before the June 19 sentencing of Fell.
Some of the activists also plan to be in the courtroom when the sentence
is imposed and they'll hold a news conference afterward, said Rachel
Lawlor.

"We don't accept the imposition of the death penalty by the federal
government in Vermont, which is an abolitionist state," said Lawlor, a
member of Vermonters Against the Death Penalty and the state's death
penalty coordinator for Amnesty International.

"We're not there to support the defendant, we're there to expose to the
public the trauma" of the death penalty, said Lawlor.

The death penalty is not an option under Vermont state law, but Fell was
convicted under federal law so the state's position is irrelevant.

"We remain concerned that the federal government is trying to encourage
death penalty cases in states like ours without a death penalty to try to
cut a path through what we think is pretty steadfast opposition to the
death penalty," said Allen Gilbert, the executive director of the Vermont
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Vermonters Against the Death Penalty was formed around the time of Fell's
conviction for the November 2000 killing of Terry King, 53, a mother and
grandmother. She was abducted from outside a Rutland supermarket and then
killed in New York state.

Last July Fell was convicted by a federal jury in Burlington of federal
carjacking and kidnapping charges, both with death resulting. Both crimes
carry the death penalty.

The same jury that convicted Fell for killing King later sentenced him to
death. Under federal law, U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions III
is required to impose the sentence handed down by the jury.

No Vermont prison inmate has been executed since 1954 and the state
effectively abandoned the death penalty in 1965, although the law stayed
on the books until the late 1980s.

(source: Associated Press)






MICHIGAN:

Sister Prejean Speaks Out Against Death Penalty


Nationally known death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean told UP
residents Monday not to stand by quietly while the death penalty is still
being used across the country.

38 states have the death penalty, but Michigan does not.

Sister Prejean told an NMU audience that she's walked with 6 men to their
death, the first one in 1982.

"I came out and I threw up," she said. "I had never watched anybody be
killed. When you're watching it, it doesn't matter that this is the state
and it's legal and all that. The fact is, it's a human being."

Sister Prejean has written two books about her experiences on death row,
one of which, "Dead Man Walking", was turned into a movie.

According to a 2004 Gallup Poll, 46% of Americans say they favor a life
sentence rather than the death penalty. That's up 2% from 2003.

(source: WLUC TV News)






SOUTH CAROLINA:

State Supreme Court grants death row inmate new trial


The state Supreme Court has granted a new trial to a man who has been on
death row for 20 years after being convicted of killing a woman in
Cherokee County.

In an opinion handed down Monday, justices said prosecutors never told
Ernest Riddle's lawyers about a second interview his brother, who also was
charged in the crime, gave to authorities.

Riddle, who was 19 when he was arrested, was convicted in 1986 on charges
of murder, burglary and armed robbery. The court wrote that conviction was
based largely on the testimony and confession of his then 17-year-old
brother Jason, who is mildly mentally retarded, 2 weeks after they were
taken into custody.

Jason Riddle told police he and his brother entered Abby Sue Mullinax's
home through a window in August 1985, stealing money from her purse before
Ernest Riddle cut her throat, the justices wrote.

Jason Riddle, who is serving a life sentence, later gave a second
interview to authorities, which was never passed on to his brother's
attorneys.

A lower court judge ruled nothing in that interview was material to the
case. But the Supreme Court disagreed, saying there was a reasonable
probability the result of trial would have been different.

Ernest Riddle's attorney said she believed the court had made the right
decision. "I think they sent a loud and clear message to prosecutors to do
the right thing. It's very validating," Columbia attorney Diana Holt said.

Holt also said later Monday in an e-mail she felt sympathy for Mullinax's
family. "They will have to go through this whole process from scratch, 20
years after the fact, because of the prosecutor's actions at the original
trial in 1986," she said. "I'm sure they would take no pleasure in the
wrong person being convicted, either."

It would be up to prosecutors where the case happened to decide whether to
put Ernest Riddle on trial again, said Mark Plowden, spokesman for
Attorney General Henry McMaster's office, said Monday afternoon.

Trey Gowdy, solicitor for the 7th Circuit, did not immediately return a
phone call Monday.

(source: Associated Press)






NEVADA:

Harrah's Casino-Goer's Alleged Murderer May Face Death Penalty


New details in the slaying of Philip Anthony McElreath, who was allegedly
murdered by gunman Curtis Billy Bonilla, have recently been released.
McElreath was found dead in Las Vegas' Harrah's casino-hotel on February
21st. Local authorities argued that Bonilla shot McElreath, who died later
in a hospital, and also shot at SWAT officers, who tried to apprehend him.

Also, a woman is being sought as an eyewitness in the slaying.
Investigators assigned to the case believe that the 39-year-old Patricia
Sharon LaChance saw McElreath and Bonilla together in the victim's
casino-hotel room, and could have witnessed the murder. At the time, John
Moran Jr., Bonilla's defending attorney said that the accused would plead
innocent.

The most recent report on McElreath's case said that the casino-visiting
victim suffered multiple stab wounds, gunshot wounds and a bite wound in
the chest. Authorities are still searching for a motive that could have
led Bonilla to murder McElreath. The Clark County District Attorney's
office said it plans to seek the death penalty against the alleged
attacker.

(source: Authorized Online Casinos News Staff)




USA:

At high court, no rush to resolve conflicts over lethal injection


The US Supreme Court has declined an invitation to examine one of the
hottest issues in litigation over capital punishment: the
constitutionality of lethal injection as a means to carry out death
sentences.

The court's refusal to weigh in now comes amid a growing number of
death-row lawsuits challenging the method of execution. It also comes amid
a growing patchwork of conflicting rulings on various aspects of the
lethal-injection process by state and federal judges.

Some legal analysts had thought the high court might use a lawsuit filed
by Tennessee death-row inmate Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman as a vehicle to clarify
the issue for the entire nation. Instead, the court on Monday, without
comment, let stand a Tennessee Supreme Court decision that the state's use
of lethal injection comports with contemporary standards of decency as
required under the US Constitution's Eighth Amendment.

Legal analysts said it appears the high court does not want to rush into
deciding the lethal-injection issue.

"It means they will take this issue piecemeal at their own pace," says
Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. The
justices may want to see how ongoing cases over the issue work their way
through the lower courts before weighing in, he says.

But uncertainty over the state of the law, Mr. Dieter adds, is leading to
different outcomes in similar cases. Since late January, courts have
granted 11 stays in death-penalty cases, while other judges permitted 15
executions to take place. "There is a lot of confusion and arbitrariness
out there with people getting stays and some getting executed," Dieter
says.

At issue in the appeal was whether the three-drug protocol used by
Tennessee and most other states with capital punishment creates an
unacceptable risk that a condemned inmate may be subject to intense pain
and suffering during the execution.

Lawyers for Mr. Abdur'Rahman said in their court brief that a botched
lethal injection could result in a form of torture.

Tennessee corrections officials have said their procedures are well
established and risk of a mistake is remote. The Tennessee Supreme Court
agreed, ruling that there was no evidence in the record that the
procedures used in Tennessee had resulted in the problems feared by
Abdur'Rahman.

A federal judge in California has scheduled an evidentiary hearing in
September to investigate that state's lethal-injection protocol. In the
meantime, executions in California have been halted pending the outcome of
the litigation.

Lethal injection is already on the high court's docket. By the end of
June, the justices are expected to decide a Florida case examining whether
an inmate's lawsuit challenging a method of execution (lethal injection)
should be barred by strict limits on multiple appeals under the habeas
statute or can instead be filed under the more permissive rules applying
to civil rights suits.

In contrast, Abdur'Rahman's case dealt with the more central issue of
whether lethal injection violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition of
cruel and unusual punishment.

"Simply exposing [Abdur'Rahman] to the fear of an execution by torture
inflicts ongoing suffering upon him well before the execution itself,"
wrote Washington lawyer Tom Goldstein in his brief urging the court to
hear the case.

At least 4 justices must agree to hear a case at the Supreme Court. But
because those votes take place in a private conference, it is not known
how many justices, if any, voted to hear this one.

In urging the high court to take up the case, Mr. Goldstein told the
justices that one of the chemicals used in lethal injections is banned for
use when euthanizing pets and other domestic animals. Thirty states,
including Tennessee, have barred use of the chemical Pavulon because of
the risk that it might lead to an animal's painful death.

Under the 3-drug process in lethal injections, the condemned inmate first
receives a dose of sodium pentothal, which is meant to produce an
anesthetic effect. Next Pavulon is injected. Pavulon is described as a
neuromuscular blocking agent that paralyzes the inmate. Finally, 2 doses
of potassium chloride are injected to stop the inmate's heart.

The central concern of those challenging the lethal-injection process is
that if the 1st chemical is not properly introduced so that the inmate is
not thoroughly anesthetized, the injection of the 2nd 2 chemicals will be
extraordinarily painful. But because the Pavulon has paralyzed the inmate,
he or she will be unable to show any signs of distress or pain.

The issue for the court is whether the risk of a botched execution is
substantial enough that it violates the constitutional guarantee against
cruel and unusual punishment.

Critics of the protocol say that the process should be simplified by using
better chemicals and that executions should be supervised by medical
professionals.

(source: The Christian Science Monitor)

***************

Supreme Court won't hear lethal injection challenge

The Supreme Court's refusal today to consider a 2nd lethal injection case
suggests the justices are not ready to decide whether the drugs amount to
cruel and unusual punishment, legal experts said.

The denial was issued without comment, leaving court watchers to speculate
over justices' reasons for rejecting an appeal by a Tennessee death-row
inmate who claims lethal injection is unconstitutional.

"The Supreme Court is plainly not ready to step into the lethal injection
controversy yet," said Eric M. Freedman, a Hofstra University law
professor.

"It's kind of a puzzle," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the
Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a victims' rights group in Sacramento.

Used by the federal government and all states but Nebraska, lethal
injection has become a major issue in death penalty cases because of a
2005 study in the Lancet medical journal. The study indicated that a
painkiller administered at the start of an execution can wear off before
other drugs kick in and the prisoner dies.

In California earlier this year, an execution was postponed when no doctor
or nurse would agree to administer a fatal dose of a barbiturate. A judge
there is reviewing the issue.

And in Ohio earlier this month, medical technicians struggled for a
half-hour before finding a viable vein in Joseph Clark's arm for an IV to
deliver the lethal injection drugs.

The Supreme Court already is considering one lethal injection case brought
by Clarence Hill, a Florida inmate on death row for killing a police
officer in Pensacola 24 years ago.

In Hill's case, justices are considering only whether prisoners can file
last-minute civil rights challenges claiming their deaths by lethal
injection would be cruel, not the broader constitutional issues raised by
Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman. He is on Tennessee's death row for the 1986 killing
of a Nashville drug dealer.

A group of Tennessee doctors had told justices that the three-drug
combination used in that state and most others "makes it inevitable that,
over time, some inmates will suffer excruciating and unnecessary torturous
pain." They also said the state lacks properly trained medical officials
to monitor prisoners during executions.

Death penalty supporters argue the Constitution does not guarantee
convicted killers a pain-free execution.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information
Center, said justices may have denied Abdur'Rahman's appeal because they
want to wait until judges in several states have conducted lengthy
hearings on the drug combinations that are used.

Freedman said the justices' rejection of the case "suggests the Supreme
Court is proceeding in its normal and appropriately cautious manner."

Others weren't surprised. "I really didn't think this particular case was
going to bring down the entire death penalty jurisprudence of the last 25
years," said Bryan Liang, a professor of health law studies at California
Western School of Law in San Diego.

Scheidegger said he's not sure what to think, given the performance of
several justices at last month's arguments in Hill's case.

During the lively argument, justices clashed with each other, asked
numerous questions about how states carry out capital punishment and
discussed whether the burden should be on inmates to suggest alternatives
to lethal injection.

Then again, Scheidegger said, it wouldn't be the first time a Supreme
Court argument was misleading and justices reached a completely different
result than what they suggested with their questions and comments.

The case is Abdur'Rahman v. Bredesen, 05-1036.

(source: Associated Press)