Nov. 4
IDAHO:
URGENT ACTION APPEAL - From Amnesty International USA
Issue Date: 4 November 2011-----Country: USA-Idaho
FIRST IDAHO EXECUTION IN 17 YEARS IMMINENT
The US state of Idaho is scheduled to carry out its first execution since 1994,
and only its second in more than half a century. Paul Rhoades is due to be put
to death by lethal injection on 18 November. He has been on death row since
March 1988. He is now 54.
Paul Rhoades, then 30, was arrested on 25 March 1987 and charged with three
separate murders committed over the previous month. The victims were school
teacher Susan Michelbacher and convenience store clerks Stacy Baldwin (f) and
Nolan Haddon (m). After separate trials for the murders of Stacy Baldwin and
Susan Michelbacher, Paul Rhoades was sentenced to death in each case. In the
third case, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Paul Rhoades is seeking commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole. His petition states: "Three people are dead
because of me… I cannot erase their loss and the pain they suffered because of
my crimes. Nor can I take away the pain endured by each of their family
members… Over the past 24 years, I learned that repentance is the only positive
way to express my guilt and remorse. For me, repentance means finding ways to
make amends for my actions, even if those efforts seem inconsequential in
comparison to the crimes I committed… I try to make amends by helping others
move from anger toward reconciliation… I hope to show others that a better
life, whether inside the prison walls or outside, focuses on service to
others."
Numerous former and current inmates, from death row and elsewhere, have
submitted letters to the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole describing the
difference they say Paul Rhoades has made to their lives by persuading them to
turn away from violence or helping them in other ways.
Paul Rhoades' childhood was marked by physical, psychological and emotional
abuse. His extended family history is replete with serious mental health and
developmental difficulties – including substance abuse, depression, and
suicides – and criminal conduct. In 2006, a psychologist wrote: "Paul Rhoades
grew up in a family context that deprived him of normal development. Paul was
exposed repeatedly to violence, drug and alcohol abuse… Paul Rhoades was a
damaged human being with little opportunity to be a healthy adult". Paul
Rhoades started using drugs at the age of 13 or 14. By the time of the crimes,
he had been using highly addictive methamphetamine and other drugs for the
previous decade. In the months leading up to the offences, Paul Rhoades'
methamphetamine use increased in amount and duration of continual use ("runs")
to a point difficult to sustain (see overleaf).
Please write immediately in your own language:
- Express concern that the State of Idaho is due to carry out its first
execution in 17 years;
- Explain that you are not seeking to downplay the seriousness of these crimes
or the suffering caused;
- Note Paul Rhoades' difficult background, and his positive efforts in prison
to try to make amends for his crimes;
- Note the growing concern in the USA about the death penalty, and the
isolation of the USA on this issue;
- Call for clemency to be granted to Paul Rhoades.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 18 NOVEMBER 2011 TO:
Commission of Pardons and Parole
3056 Elder Street
Boise, ID 83705
USA
Fax: 1 208 334 3501
Salutation: Dear Commissioners
Governor of Idaho
Governor C.L. 'Butch' Otter
Office of the Governor
State Capitol
PO Box 83720, Boise, ID 83720
USA
Fax: 1 208 334 3454
Salutation: Dear Governor
Please copy appeals to Paul Rhoades's lawyer at oliver_lo...@fd.org
Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if sending appeals after the
above date.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
A psychiatrist who has reviewed Paul Rhoades' case has signed a sworn statement
based on information unavailable at the time of sentencing, which has been
included with Paul Rhoades' clemency petition. She writes that "Paul Rhoades's
genetic and social history created a perfect storm of risk factors for drug
addiction" and that "Mr Rhoades was a chronic drug user whose use dramatically
increased both in quantity and in duration of the runs in the months leading up
to and including those during which the murders occurred". Noting that "chronic
methamphetamine use is toxic to the brain," she writes that Paul Rhoades's
extremely heavy use "strongly suggest[s] that he would have experienced
significant deficits in executive [brain] functioning", such as impairments in
memory, judgment, complex decision making and impulse control. Recent research,
she notes, shows that an inmate with a history of methamphetamine use, as
compared to one without, is nine times more likely to have committed homicide.
The judges who imposed the death sentences did not have the full picture about
Paul Rhoades's background and severe drug addiction. Nor could they have known
what subsequent research has shown about methamphetamine's highly addictive
nature, how it changes the brain and that it is highly correlated with
homicide.
There are 14 people under sentence of death in Idaho – 13 men and 1 woman. The
last execution in Idaho was in 1994, of Keith Wells, who had given up appeals
against his death sentence. That was the first execution in Idaho since 1957.
In the past 4 years, 3 states – New Jersey, New Mexico and Illinois – have
legislated to abolish the death penalty. Signing these bills into law, the
respective state governors pointed to the death penalty's flaws, such as the
risk of irrevocable error and unfairness, its discriminatory application, its
costs and diversion of resources from crime prevention and victim-assistance,
the lack of any proven special deterrent effect, and its potentially
brutalizing effect on society. In 2008, the then most senior member of the US
Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens, revealed that his 33 years on the
Court had persuaded him that the "imposition of the death penalty represents
the pointless and needless extinction of life".
While it is true that international human rights law, including article 6 of
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), recognizes
that some countries retain the death penalty, this acknowledgment of present
reality should not be invoked "to delay or to prevent the abolition of capital
punishment", in the words of article 6.6 of the ICCPR. The USA ratified the
ICCPR nearly 20 years ago. The UN Human Rights Committee, the expert body
established under the ICCPR to monitor the treaty's implementation, has said
that article 6 "refers generally to abolition in terms which strongly suggest
that abolition is desirable. The Committee concludes that all measures of
abolition should be considered as progress in the enjoyment of the right to
life". In the 17 years since Idaho last carried out an execution, some 40
countries have abolished the death penalty, and today 139 countries are
abolitionist in law or practice.
Paul Rhoades' lawyers are challenging Idaho's lethal injection procedures in
federal court. State lethal injection protocols, and the acquisition of drugs
by states for executions, have been the subject of concerns and challenges
around the USA in recent months and years (see 'An embarrassment of hitches',
July 2011, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/058/2011/en). Amnesty
International opposes the death penalty in all cases, regardless of the crime,
the offender or the method of execution. There have been 1273 executions in the
USA since judicial killing resumed there in 1977, including 39 so far this
year.
More information regarding Paul Rhoades can be found at
http://www.fdsidaho.org/clemency/rhoades/home.html
Name: Paul Rhoades (m)
Issue(s): Death penalty, Imminent execution
---------------------------------
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Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that promotes and
defends human rights.
This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact
information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank you for your help with
this appeal.
Urgent Action Network
Amnesty International USA
600 Pennsylvania Ave SE 5th fl
Washington DC 20003
Email: u...@aiusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/uan
Phone: 202.509.8193
Fax: 202.675.8566
----------------------------------
END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL
----------------------------------
OHIO----impending execution
Judge OKs new Ohio death penalty rules, denies appeal
A federal judge backed new death penalty practices on Friday enacted in Ohio in
response to concerns over inconsistent practices earlier this year, clearing
the way for the execution of a man convicted of killing his sons.
Reginald Brooks, 66, had sought to stop his execution set for November 15,
challenging Ohio death penalty practices after U.S. District Judge Gregory
Frost indefinitely stayed another inmate's execution in July, ruling that
Ohio's execution rules were enforced inconsistently.
The judge had complained the state was paying only "lip service" to its own
standards, and expressed concerns on following formal procedures for preparing
the drugs used in lethal injections, documenting the process and following
checks and balances to reduce human errors.
Ohio has not executed anyone since Frost stayed the execution of Kenneth Smith
in July, instead issuing revised practices in September that it said addressed
the concerns.
Since the judge's ruling, Ohio Governor John Kasich has granted stays of
execution in August and September citing the ruling. He also commuted the
sentence of another death row inmate to life in prison without the possibility
of parole.
"With some caution, the court today reaches the conclusion that the state of
Ohio has apparently learned the lessons of its prior embarrassments and
corrected its course," Frost wrote in a 24-page opinion.
Brooks, who was denied clemency by the Ohio Parole Board last month, was
convicted of killing his three sons, aged 11 to 17, in 1982. His wife had
served him with divorce papers two days before the killings.
Brooks had pleaded that Ohio had made only cosmetic changes and that its death
penalty practices were little changed over the last few months and may have
worsened.
Ohio said, in effect, that it was now following its own rules and the U.S.
Constitution, Frost said.
"It does not matter to this court whether Ohio has acted motivated by admirable
intent or whether it has been begrudgingly dragged toward respectability,"
Frost wrote, adding that the court remained wary because of the state's past
struggles with consistent application of the rules.
A joint state Supreme Court and bar association task force was planned to
review Ohio's administration of the death penalty, but will not address whether
the state should or should not have capital punishment.
Ohio has executed four men in 2011, according to the Death Penalty Information
Center.
(source: Reuters)
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