June 1
KENTUCKY:
Ky. to change execution method from 3 drugs
Kentucky officials signaled Thursday they will change how prisoners are
executed, opening the door to using a single drug instead of the current 3-drug
method that has been challenged by inmates who call it cruel and unusual
punishment.
The Kentucky Justice Cabinet filed notice in Franklin Circuit Court that it
would propose new regulations by July 24. The single-page motion does not say
what changes will be made. The new method could be in place by late summer,
allowing Kentucky to begin executions later this year.
Justice Cabinet spokeswoman Jennifer Brislin declined comment.
Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd in April gave Kentucky 90 days to make
changes or face a trial to defend the three-drug method. Shepherd said if
Kentucky adopts a new regulation allowing for a 1-drug execution — similar to
what is done in Ohio, Arizona and other states — any claims of cruel and
unusual punishment by the inmates "will be rendered moot."
The battle over Kentucky's lethal injection method has been going on for more
than a year and a half. The judge's ruling and Kentucky's decision comes just
months after the American Bar Association issued a report calling for a
moratorium on executions in Kentucky, in part because of the number of cases
overturned since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
At least 7 states use a single drug to carry out executions. 3 states — Idaho,
Washington and South Dakota — give an option to use more than 1 drug. In the
last week, Missouri became the 1st state to switch to propofol, the same
anesthetic that caused the overdose death of pop star Michael Jackson.
Kentucky's current method calls for a single drug or combination of drugs. The
state last used sodium thiopental, pancurionium bromide and potassium chloride,
a combination similar to the one used by Georgia and some other states.
When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's 3-drug method in 2007, Shepherd
wrote, a 1-drug method was still untested. That's no longer the case. Since
then, states have successfully used a single drug for executions, creating what
Shepherd called a safer alternative for lethal injections.
To change the regulations, Kentucky officials must submit to the state a new
execution method, which is made public. If a legislative subcommittee does not
meet or does not find the regulation deficient within 30 days of publication,
the regulation takes effect.
The only U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental stopped making it in 2009 and
dropped plans to resume production last year. Kentucky bought some doses from a
foreign supplier, but the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration began seizing
supplies over questions of whether the states broke the law to get it. Kentucky
surrendered its supply in 2011.
In the meantime, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Ohio purchased another powerful
sedative, pentobarbital, to carry out executions. Ohio and Arizona have carried
out 1-drug executions. Other states allow it but haven't used the single drug
for a lethal injection.
Shepherd's initial ruling halting all executions came as the state prepared to
execute Gregory L. Wilson, 55, for the 1987 rape, kidnapping and murder of
36-year-old Debbie Pooley in Kenton County. Wilson has since won a hearing in
state court on whether he is mentally disabled and ineligible for execution.
The appeals of at least 5 Kentucky death row inmates have run their course.
They include 56-year-old Ralph Baze, awaiting execution for killing a sheriff
and deputy; 6-time convicted killer Robert Foley; and Wilson, all of whom
remain on death row at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville.
Kentucky last executed an inmate in 2008 and has executed 3 people since the
reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976.
*****************
Lingering death penalty case takes toll on family
A Kentucky death penalty case that has gone on for 14 years has 2 families
grieving - one over the lack of progress toward an execution and the other
upset that they can't apologize for the actions of a convicted killer.
Gayle Williamson Cummings and Michelle Hubert have spent the week in Kenton
Circuit Court sitting just feet apart as attorneys argue over whether
44-year-old Fred Furnish should get a new sentencing hearing.
Cummings said Furnish should have been executed by now for the death of her
mother, Ramona Jean Williamson. Furnish's sister, Hubert, said the family wants
to apologize to Cummings, but can't find the way to do it.
Furnish is on death row after being convicted of strangling Williamson in her
northern Kentucky home in June 1998.
(source for both: Associated Press)
USA (VERMONT):
Federal appeals court hears arguments in Michael Jacques death-penalty case
A 3-member panel of federal appellate judges in New York City heard arguments
Thursday in the death-penalty case of Michael Jacques, the East Randolph man
charged with kidnapping, raping and killing his 12-year-old niece, Brooke
Bennett, in 2008.
Federal prosecutors want the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel to
overturn portions of a 2011 pretrial ruling by District Judge William Sessions
III in Burlington that forbid the government from using information about
other, long-ago allegations of sexual misconduct with minors by Jacques during
the penalty phase of his trial. That phase, which would occur only if Jacques
is convicted, involves the jury’s deliberating whether Jacques should be
executed or should serve life in prison.
Prosecutors also hope the appellate court will reverse Sessions’ decision
preventing the government from telling jurors how Jacques, following his
arrest, acted in a way the government says obstructed justice by plotting to
plant evidence to make it appear he was innocent and that a fictitious ring of
child sex predators was to blame for Bennett’s rape and slaying.
“They asked a number of questions about the prior sexual abuse and about the
obstruction-of-justice evidence,” Assistant U.S. Attorney William Darrow said
of the appellate judge panel following the half-hour hearing Thursday morning.
“They were obviously well-informed about the case and had read all the briefs
carefully.”
Darrow, in an interview later Thursday, declined to say if he thought the
government had won over any member of the appellate judges.
David Ruhnke, a New Jersey lawyer and death-penalty expert who is on Jacques’
defense team, also was noncommittal on how the hearing went.
“It was impossible to tell by what the judges were asking which way any of them
were leaning,” Ruhnke said in a telephone interview. “Both sides were asked
questions.”
The appellate panel is not expected to issue a ruling for several months.
The 2 rulings by Sessions, issued on May 4, 2011, were part of a 79-page
decision that otherwise supported government stances on various pretrial venue
and evidence issues, as well as its position that Jacques face a potential
death penalty if convicted of the charge of kidnapping with death resulting.
Court documents state that Jacques, as a teenager, had sexual contact with 3
underage girls and engaged in sexual acts with 1 of the alleged victims — a
female relative — more than 100 times.
As for the obstruction allegations, Sessions said it could not be used at trial
because it was gathered by the government while Jacques was in jail and thus
had a constitutional right to have a lawyer present when he was disclosing his
plans to a friend. The friend secretly was cooperating with the government.
Jacques has been in federal custody since shortly after Bennett went missing
June 25, 2008. A massive search ensued, and her body was found a week later
covered with dirt in the woods about a mile from Jacques’ home. Police claim
Jacques used an underage girl to help him trick Bennett into coming to his
home, where he allegedly drugged and attacked her.
(source: Burlington Free Press)
*********************************
FDA goes to court to secure drugs for lethal injections
The US Food and Drug Administration is going to court to secure supplies of a
drug used in lethal injections.
Sodium thiopental is used in many states to anaesthetise prisoners before the
administration of other chemicals that extinguish life.
However supplies have dwindled in the US after a judge banned its importation
in March.
Campaigners against the death penalty say the restrictions have forced a
slowdown in the rate of executions.
The last US manufacturer of sodium thiopental ceased production in 2009. Since
then the drug has been imported mainly from companies within the European
Union. Several states purchased supplies from a UK based firm called Dream
Pharma, run from a driving school in west London.
But these companies have in turn stopped delivering to the US as the European
Union cracked down on the export of medicines that can be used in executions.
Legal confusion
In March of this year a US district judge upheld a case brought by 21 prisoners
on death row who argued that the FDA didn't have the right to allow prisons to
import the drug without ensuring that it would work effectively.
However under pressure from many of the 33 states that use the lethal injection
method, the FDA is appealing that ruling. Experts say it is likely to take a
couple of months to resolve. And either side could then appeal to the Supreme
Court which may take a year to come to a decision.
According to Maya Foa from Reprieve, a group that campaigns against the death
penalty, the legal confusion and the shortage of supplies have led to a
slowdown in executions.
"There have certainly been shortages which have caused many states to slow the
rate of executions. It's also raised the cost - There have been moratoria over
the past year and a half while states scramble to find more drugs," she told
BBC News.
Richard Dieter, executive director of the US based Death Penalty Information
Center, agrees that the legal confusion over the status of sodium thiopental is
having some effect on executions
"It's slowed things down somewhat but the big states have enough supplies to
keep going."
One dose left
The state of Oklahoma has the highest rate of executions per capita in the US.
It uses a different drug called pentobarbital. This has been used in the
treatment of medical disorders including anxiety. But restrictions placed on
supplying it for lethal injections by the manufacturers mean that, following
the execution of Michael B Selsor at the beginning of May, the state is running
low.
Jerry Massie, a spokesman for the Oklahoma department of corrections
acknowledged the state has only one dose of pentobarbital left.
"The problem is that companies don't want to sell it to prisons. We're still
looking at options but we haven't made a decision on an alternative yet."
One state that has made a decision on an alternative is Missouri. They have
decided to use Propofol as an anaesthetic agent in future executions. An
overdose of the drug caused the death of pop star Michael Jackson. In a written
statement the Missouri department of corrections acknowledged that shortages of
other drugs had forced their hand.
"The 1-drug protocol replaces the state's previous 3-drug protocol. This change
became necessary due to the unavailability of sodium thiopental, 1 of the 3
drugs used under the previous protocol."
There's a sort of medical veil pulled over executions which prisons and states
which are pro capital punishment like, they need that to hide the reality of
what is actually a barbaric practice.”
Some critics of the death penalty are concerned that propofol has never been
used for executions before. Richard Dieter from the Death Penalty Information
Center says that isn't really the issue.
"There's lots of anaesthetics out there, if you give enough of it you can kill
someone," he said.
The legal and commercial restrictions on drugs used in executions are not just
affecting US states. In July of last year Vietnam decided to switch to lethal
injection but despite having more than 400 prisoners on death row, no one has
been executed since. Officials in the Ministry of Public Security were quoted
as saying that getting supplies of the drugs needed for lethal injections has
proved difficult.
Many states have chosen to use the lethal injection because they believe it to
be a more humane method than alternatives such as hanging or the electric
chair. And according to Maya Foa from Reprieve they will be very reluctant to
go back to these methods
"There's a sort of medical veil pulled over executions which prisons and states
which are pro capital punishment like, they need that to hide the reality of
what is actually a barbaric practice," she told BBC News.
I think they would be unlikely to go back to hanging or electrocution because
that forces the public to witness the reality of putting a man to death and
that's something that actually repels a lot of people and would increase the
anti-capital punishment sentiment out there and that's a risk I think that
prisons and states are unwilling to take."
(source: Associated Press)
******************
The Limbo of Death Row
The death penalty is a fact of life in the United States. Despite the actions
of many well-intentioned people, these premeditated murders continue to take
place at a shameful pace. The fact that the death penalty does exist has
brought many young people to question the morality of a system that supports
and even champions execution. Unlike the other form of murder carried out by
the state–war–the death penalty is harder to rationalize for many people. The
act of intentionally putting an innocent human to death; the fact that life
imprisonment is a worse punishment to many; the applied racism of the death
penalty’s assignments; and the sheer pointlessness of execution by the state
has caused many a thoughtful person to come out in opposition.
Those who are condemned to die in the United States wait out their time in
parts of certain prisons. Those places are commonly known as death row.
Occasionally, these unremembered places are the subject of books and movies.
Sometimes, they are also the focus of the infrequent sociological survey. While
the latter surveys do fairly well at creating statistics and prognostications,
it is the fictional renderings that do better in evoking the life in these
prison tiers of gates and concrete. The despair and dashed hopes; the regret
and the lack thereof; even the infrequent joy and laughter.
An exception to the factual/fictional disparity can be found in the recently
published book from Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian. Back in 1979 Jackson
took his camera into Ellis Prison in Texas and photographed men living on death
row there. These photos were an adjunct to a documentary film he and Christian
would release in the early 1980s. The film features interviews, commentary and
reflections of the inmates and the filmmakers. The book, titled In This
Timeless Time: Living & Dying on Death Row in America, although just published,
is also part of that documentary effort. It is a fitting coda.
Designed something akin to a coffee table book, In This Timeless Time is made
up of three parts. The first part includes a selection of the aforementioned
photographs. The photos are accompanied by text. Some of that text is narrative
describing the physical setup of the part of the prison where death row is
located. Other bits describe the interior of certain prisoner’s cells and the
prisoners. Still other text describes the prisoners’ limited lives while still
other text includes the words of the prisoners themselves. The life and
surroundings described can be summed up in the words of prisoner Excell White
when he talks about his introduction to the row: “The gloom, “he tells the
writers,” wasn’t anything but emptiness
The 2nd part of the text is titled “Words.” That is what it is. Words from the
prisoners talking about the other prisoners. Words from the writers about the
prisoners and their particular cases. Words describing the legal limbo of a
death row when nobody is being killed (the book was begun during the period
following the Supreme Court’s suspension of the death penalty in their decision
on Furman vs. Georgia), and when executions are taking place. Last but not
least are the words the authors use when writing their impressions of
individual prisoners or about the Row itself.
The authors’ description of their work on the Row concludes the book. Gaining
the trust of the prisoners and fending off the uneasiness of the guards are two
of the dilemmas described by the authors. Overcoming their own fears of being
alone with potentially psychotic murderers is another. Less wrenching but
interesting nonetheless is the authors’ description of how they made the movie:
funding, legalities and the like. The grand finale is the showing of the film
to the inmates. Jackson and Christian admit their fears of the prisoners’
reactions. Indeed, this was present in their minds during much of the process.
There is no way that a subject like death row can be presented with beauty. It
is one of the ugliest of humanity’s activities. The inmates are not the most
beautiful humans and their crimes are ugly. Yet, they too are human. The
authors tell of a man on the Row named Arturo Aranda. Aranda is well-inked. In
other words, he has lots of tattoos. The last tattoo he was getting before he
went to prison was of the Lady of Guadalupe. Because he was arrested for
murder, the tattoo is without a face. This image serves as a perfect metaphor
for the denizens of death row; for the most part they remain faceless. Jackson
and Christian’s book gives some of those men a face. Therein lies its beauty.
(source: Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch.org)
FLORIDA:
Innovative Palm Beach County public defender Richard Jorandby dies
Richard Jorandby, who won national renown as a crusading Palm Beach County
Public Defender, and who was especially well known for the work his attorneys
performed in death penalty cases, died May 21 of cancer. He was 73.
Jorandby held office for 28 years before he was defeated in 2000 by current
public defender Carrie Haughwout.
That defeat ended a career marked by innovation and a commitment to defend the
poor, his former assistants say. Jorandby created a unit that handled death
penalty appeals in various Florida counties. His assistant public defenders
argued a total of 5 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and were nationally
recognized for their expertise in death penalty appeals. His partner in that
effort was his chief assistant, Craig Barnard, who died in 1989 at age 39.
Jorandby also started a counseling program for defendants, an alternative
sentencing program and an ex-offender employment program. In 1985, a National
Institute of Justice study pointed to Jorandby's office as an example of how to
defend poor people in a cost-effective way.
Jorandby, a Republican, was elected the same day that President Richard Nixon
was re-elected in 1972. He was not known as a criminal defense attorney, but
his former employees described him as a top notch administrator who helped them
win cases anyway he could.
"Any kind of expert you needed on case, he would find the money," remembers
West Palm Beach criminal defense attorney Richard Lubin, who worked under
Jorandby as an assistant public defender from 1974 to 1976. "He always stood
behind his assistants. I loved him for that."
Margaret Good-Earnest, head of the appeals division under Jorandby, said her
former boss believed that the biggest threat to the country was a legal system
that could lock a person up and take their rights away without proper cause.
"He was a Republican who really believed in standing up for the rights of the
poor," she said.
He is survived by his wife, Cheryl, and 2 daughters Abigail and Lantie.
Jorandby's election defeat in 2000 brought him legal problems of his own. He
was convicted of election misconduct for soliciting campaign contributions over
$500 and coercing attorneys who worked for him to contribute. Jorandby pleaded
guilty to nine misdemeanors, was sentenced to one year's house arrest and paid
fines.
His former assistants, many of whom are now prominent attorneys and jurists in
South Florida, saw that is an unfortunate coda to an inspiring career.
In his 2002 book "Death Work," another former assistant public defender,
Michael Mello, said Jorandby "combined an iron will with a field commander's
breadth of vision and a chess player's guile" in organizing his capital appeals
unit. He called Jorandby "the most honorable and decent" man he had known.
(source: Palm Beach Post)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Death penalty sought in ‘08 uptown killings
Mecklenburg prosecutors said Thursday they will pursue the death penalty
against a 22-year-old accused in the killings of 2 men in Charlotte’s uptown 3½
years ago.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police arrested Brandon Marell Williams in April,
charging him with murder after investigators said they’d recently established
his participation in the fatal 2008 shootings of Kevin Javier Cano and Jamie
Aubrey-Marquis Gill, both 20-year-olds from Kannapolis.
In the early morning of Nov. 7, 2008, Cano and Gill were inside a stopped car
at the stoplight at Cedar and Trade streets when their car was sprayed with
gunfire, killing both men, police said.
The shooting, which happened a few yards from the Johnson & Wales University
campus, damaged 2 city buses and cars parked along the street.
Cano and Gill graduated from A.L. Brown High School. Their friends remembered
Gill for his humor and Cano as a standout football player.
The day of the killings, police charged Richard Henry Jordan, now 32, with 2
counts of murder. He’s been in Mecklenburg jail since then. He has pleaded not
guilty and also faces the death penalty. A trial date has not been set.
Authorities haven’t revealed a motive in the shootings or said how police
connected Williams to the case years later.
During a brief hearing in court Thursday, Mecklenburg prosecutors said they
found aggravating factors in the case to support seeking the death penalty
against Williams, but they did not elaborate.
(source: Charlotte Observer)
******************
DA will seek death penalty
Prosecutors are expected to announce Monday they will seek the death penalty
against three men for an April 1 triple murder, and court documents revealed
several new details about the case.
The death penalty announcement is expected during a Rule 24 hearing for Antwan
Andre Anthony, 29, of Bethel; Willie Odell Whitehead Jr., 24, of Pinetops; and
Xavier Shamble, 19, of Farmville. The Pitt County District Attorneys Office
filed notice of its intent May 16.
Attorneys for Whitehead and Shamble on the same date filed motions for
discovery. Anthony’s attorney, Terry Alford, previously had filed a motion for
discovery.
(source: The Daily Reflector)
_______________________________________________
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/deathpenalty@lists.washlaw.edu/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A free service of WashLaw
http://washlaw.edu
(785)670.1088
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
