Oct. 4
TEXAS:
Dead seriousness----Issue: "Rethinking the death penalty"
Editor's note: This article contains graphic descriptions of prison life.
Jack Vian Jr., sentenced in 1991 to life in prison, was eligible for parole
last year. Robert Dawson posted a plea for Texans to voice their opposition to
the request, since Vian had stabbed Dawson's 26-year-old sister, Barbara, 13
times. He had cut her throat and the throat of a young man who was dating her.
The parole board said no. This summer I interviewed Vian and 8 other men
convicted of murder and living out their lives in 4 Texas prisons. Some had
spent years on death row but escaped it because they were under 18 when they
killed, or had other mitigating factors. Kristin Houle, who heads the Texas
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, says everyone should escape.
Is she right? Is it good that the number of executions is declining in the
United States generally and Texas specifically? (Texas has been the capital
punishment capital of the United States, executing 503 of the 1,343 persons
executed nationwide since 1976.) What does the Bible say about the death
penalty and alternatives? Follow-up questions: What is a life spent in prison
like, and is that adequate punishment in the light of biblical teaching?
This article focuses on the Bible and the convicts. I refer here only briefly
to public policy debates involving deterrence, discrimination, and
arbitrariness, and am posting on www.wng.com pieces concerning such issues.
(Also, hundreds of books deal with such topics, and I recommend some in "Death
reads.") My task here is to bring out how the prisoners see their lives and how
the Bible sees them.
Chapter 9 of Genesis includes two verses that many proponents of capital
punishment cite: "From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life
of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God
made man in his own image." God further explains in chapter 21 of Exodus, "life
for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth," and repeats that several times in
later passages.
The Christian left has condemned such a standard: The United Church of Christ,
for example, called eye-for-eye an "outdated and barbaric practice." The Jewish
left has offered similar scorn, with David Sperling saying, "As a Reform Jew, I
think?...?when biblical texts do not say what we would like them to say, that
is when we part company with these texts."
Ironically, those who part company with the Bible with the goal of making
capital punishment rare are hurting their own cause, for the biblical standard
regarding the death penalty is set much higher than most American ones. To
start with, 5 times - Numbers 35:30, Deuteronomy 17:6, Deuteronomy 19:15,
Matthew 18:16, 2 Corinthians 13:1 - both the Old Testament and the New
stipulate that a capital punishment verdict could not be based on
circumstantial evidence: Testimony from 2 or 3 eyewitnesses is essential. Few
of the death penalty cases I've reviewed have that many witnesses.
Furthermore, chapter 19 of Deuteronomy stipulates that witnesses had to be so
sure of an accused murderer's guilt that they would risk dying themselves. If a
witness "has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had
meant to do to his brother.?...?And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall
never again commit any such evil among you." In addition, avengers might have
to chase through the wilderness a person heading to a city of refuge, 1 of 6
places in ancient Israel set aside as havens for those who unintentionally
killed a person.
Manuel Mendez is 35. 18 years ago, when he shoplifted a pair of running shoes,
the store manager followed him out of the store. Mendez shot and killed him: He
says it was unintentional, but "it was around Wheel of Fortune time. I was
using weed and cocaine, drinking a lot, and things happened."
Now he lives in a cellblock with three tiers and 26 cells in each tier, 156
people in a world of metal and concrete. Each cellblock has a day room, where
inmates spend much of their time sitting and watching 1 of 2 televisions (one
usually showing sports, the other movies). It's one of the many cellblocks that
make up Ferguson Unit, which houses some 2,263 inmates, about 10 % in for
murder but 3/4 for burglary or robbery.
Separated by a glass screen, we faced each other in a hot visiting room with
still air and flies circling around us. Mendez described his life: "Every day's
the same. Wake up, wake up again. Same metal bench, same cell.... Everyone's
out for himself....Guys fight over ramen noodles or a piece of cheese....You
got to show that no one's gonna take something from you....If you don't say
anything, it's not a piece of cheese next time. It's guys playing gay games."
A good day for Mendez is "when I can work in the fields. That's the only time I
get to taste, smell, see the outside - and when it's 90 degrees you get 3 water
breaks." A good day is also "when I can watch Law and Order. They all want to
watch Jerry Springer." Mendez got in trouble in July for cussing at a guard and
had, he says, a good week in solitary: "No mattress, 2 sheets, lying on the
floor, they bring meals to you. They gave me 2 pens, 20 sheets of paper, and 20
envelopes."
Other than those breaks from routine, Mendez feels he's "living inside a
nightmare and can't wake up. I'm gonna die here and that will be a good day."
Opponents of capital punishment note that God told Adam he would surely die if
he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Since that did not happen
physically, some interpret the death as spiritual, but others point to the
exile from Eden as an alternative death when compared to the life Adam could
have had. Repeatedly in the Bible, the formal punishment of death gives way to
the actual punishment of excommunication - and God declares in Ezekiel 33:11,
"I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from
his way and live."
God often in Scripture not only tells but shows - yet He provides zero examples
of killers receiving death penalties. Cain expected to die after murdering
Abel, but God instead gave him a life sentence of exile. Simeon and Levi killed
all the males of a city and lived on, but under their father's curse. Moses
murdered an Egyptian and spent 40 years in the wilderness. David conspired to
kill Uriah the Hittite and lived with the shame of that and many family
repercussions, including at least 3 dead sons.
Oddly, the one time we see the biblical demand for 2 or more witnesses
followed, the right process leads to an unjust result. As chapter 21 of 1 Kings
relates, King Ahab coveted Naboth's vineyard so Queen Jezebel commanded elders
to "proclaim a fast, and set Naboth at the head of the people. And set 2
worthless men opposite him, and let them bring a charge against him, saying,
'You have cursed God and the king.' Then take him out and stone him to death.
And the men of his city, the elders and the leaders who lived in his city, did
as Jezebel had sent word to them."
Christopher Quiroz, 36, also entered prison at age 17. He and his uncle, Jesus
Aguilar (executed in 2006), had murdered 2 people in a drug smuggling feud, but
Quiroz because of his age at the time of the crime is in for life. He lives
with his Wynne Unit cellmate in a 5-by-9 cell with a metal sink, a toilet, and
a thin mattress with a built-in pillow on a metal bunk. For our interview, he
got a chance to sit in a prison guard's office and reflect, "I've been here
since I was a kid. There's no point living in prison, it's dead time. I don't
want to get old in here. They can kill me and I'll donate an organ."
Jean Paul Sartre famously wrote that "hell is others," and Quiroz would second
that: "Can't trust nobody here....You either stay down or you're gonna ride
underneath somebody....A lot of sick people here. Dudes like to jack off in
front of a female officer....Last night 2 cellies got in a fight. Pepper spray
everywhere....I live off the land....Wash clothes for people. 2 soups for a
shirt, 2 for pants....I get privacy on the toilet by using popsicle sticks to
rig a little curtain. The guards let us get away with it as long as you move a
hand to show you're still there and still alive....Most of the time I'd just as
soon be dead."
Jesus was clearly citing Scripture when Matthew 5:38-39 quotes Him saying, "You
have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I
say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil." It may seem that Jesus was
opposing the Old Testament and asserting a new pacifist doctrine, but the
tip-off is Jesus' speech itself: He said, "You have heard" rather than "it is
written." Jesus customarily used the former when He referred to rabbinical
interpretations not necessarily justified by Scripture, but the latter when He
cited the Bible (as in the previous chapter of Matthew, while turning aside
Satan's temptations).
The "eye for an eye" phrase is a quotation from Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20,
and Deuteronomy 19:21, and Jesus did not refute anything from the Old Testament
- but He did refute those who distorted Old Testament teaching and took it out
of context. Pharisees believed God had given Israel 2 torahs, the written one
but also an oral one - and they believed the latter outlined death penalty
procedures.
The Talmud later recorded the rabbinical understandings against which Jesus
spoke. Opponents of capital punishment quote famed death penalty critic Rabbi
Akiva of the main Jewish court, the Sanhedrin, but Tractate Sanhedrin of the
Talmud suggests that the anti-capital-punishment position was a minority view.
Dozens of pages of that tractate lay out procedures for execution by burning,
decapitation, stoning, or strangling, and give specific detail such as Rabbi
Yehudah's explanation of "the procedure for those who are burned: They would
submerge him in manure up to his knees....One pries open his mouth with tongs
against his will, and the other lights a wick, throws it into his mouth, and it
descends into his stomach and burns his intestines."
Jesus apparently did not favor such practice, and He also taught His followers
not to resist with arms when they were persecuted for their faith. One of the
1st deacons, Stephen, soon put Christ's teaching into practice when Sanhedrin
members stoned him, a practice that was less throwing rocks than dropping
boulders on top of a person 12-18 feet below them. Stephen set high the bar for
not resisting: He and the many martyrs who followed Christ's advice had such an
impact that Tertullian in the 2nd century famously said, "The blood of the
martyrs is the seed of the church."
Jack Vian Jr., 42, is still trying to come to grips with the blood he shed when
he stabbed the young woman he desired and the young man who seemed in the way.
He's one of 2,874 inmates in the Mark Stiles Unit east of Houston. More than
1,000 of those inmates have been found guilty of sexual assault or abuse,
sometimes with a child - and 255 are in for homicide.
Most of his fellow inmates have troubled family pasts, but Vian is particularly
troubled about his lack of trouble before the double murder in 1991: "This was
my 1st and only offense. Never been arrested. I was more or less a suburban
kid. My mom and dad made sacrifices early on." He grew up going to a Baptist
and then an Assemblies of God church, and now "I'm here for killing 2
people.?...?They didn't deserve what happened to them.?...?It's kind of haunted
me since then."
Vian then was a University of Houston student. He says he was going to punch
his romantic competitor and "had the knife, like holding a roll of quarters to
give me some force.?...?When I started swinging, something else kicked in."
Vian's life in prison also started with showing the willingness to fight: "They
beat you up 2 or 3 times and you're still willing to fight, then they leave you
alone....You become a wood." "Wood" is short for "peckerwood," in this context
a prisoner who doesn't pay protection and doesn't "ride" (submit to homosexual
acts).
Vian says he's proved he's a "wood" rather than a "ho," and he wryly
acknowledges getting good at prison time-passers like dominos. He says if he
hadn't gone to prison he would have transferred to Rice University, earned a
degree in English and studied French with the idea of traveling to parts of
west Africa, and eventually gone into politics: "Even though I didn't get the
death penalty, the whole life I had died that night. Just like their lives
ended. Whatever life I had up to that point, it ended."
Does God forbid government's use of capital punishment? Nothing in the Bible
orders a ban. Romans 13 notes that government ???does not bear the sword in
vain" and "carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer." The harder question is
whether God demands the death penalty for murderers. God in chapter 9 of
Genesis does "require a reckoning for the life of man," but the reckoning
throughout the Bible is a severe punishment short of execution. "Put to death"
is a common refrain from Exodus through Deuteronomy when God is laying out
civil law for ancient Israel, but in universally applicable Genesis only "a
reckoning" is required - and life in prison is clearly a huge reckoning.
Scholars debate whether the subsequent verse in Genesis, "Whoever sheds the
blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own
image," is prescriptive or descriptive. The "shall" suggests a command, but
translators (English Standard Version, New International Version, New King
James Version) set off that phrase as a descriptive poetic quotation, similar
to the way they set off a quoted saying in chapter 17 of Acts. The biblical
context is important: Earlier in Genesis, Cain's descendant Lamech boasts to
his wives, "I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me."
Such boasting, and carrying through on it, became epidemic: When 1 person sheds
blood, others shed his.
Scholars debate another hard question: Are the later "eye for an eye"
prescriptions literal requirements or limiting devices? (No more than an eye
for an eye.) They note that Lamech was looking for vengeance out of proportion
to the offense - "If Cain's revenge is 7fold, then Lamech's is 70-7fold" - and
was laying out the future of fighting from the Hatfields and McCoys to the
start of World War I following the assassination of an archduke. Since man's
vengeance and counter-vengeance almost always lead to damage far greater than
what started the battle, God allows comparable but not greater retaliation.
Roy Kendrick, 47, shot to death a fellow drug user in 1995, and took from him
$40 and a food stamp card. While in prison Kendrick was also found guilty of
murdering a cab driver and his wife in 1985: It was a cold case, but Kendrick's
father testified against him. With a glint in his eye and a grin, Kendrick
matter-of-factly tells of how he's been in many fights during his 16 years in
prison, stabbing and being stabbed. Many of them were racial, white against
black. He has broken jaws and recently had a punctured lung. He never has
visitors. His brother is also serving a life sentence.
He grew up near the Big Thicket area of east Texas less than an hour's drive
north of where he now sits in the Stiles Unit thicket of metal and cement. He'd
love to "go back in the woods and live there. Get me a squirrel dog, farm, hunt
deer." That is highly unlikely to happen. He has escaped death row and is
suffering a living death.
It's like that as well for other prisoners I interviewed. Anderson Hughes, who
killed a policeman, has been in prison for 39 years, the first 7 of them on
death row: "Maybe it would have been better to die....Now, I wake up, do the
same thing as the day before....I can't remember when I had a good day, maybe
years ago." Arnold Johnson, now 37, remembers his time on death row: "At 19 you
don't think they're really going to kill you....Now I know I'll die here. Every
day I think about what I did. I replay everything in my head."
The oldest prisoner I interviewed, Jesus Suttles, 66, lived all his life in San
Antonio until in a drunken rage he murdered his 9th wife (4 by law, 5 by common
law) in 2002. He's been a forced teetotaler since then and says prison saved
his life: If he were out he'd still be drinking and dying from cirrhosis of the
liver or something else. He hasn't received a visit from any of his ex-wives or
his 3 living children. He's miserable, but alive.
Understanding the death penalty as a maximum rather than an obligation helps to
explain what otherwise are biblical puzzles. Why does the Bible prescribe
capital punishment in many situations but stipulate evidentiary standards that
make it almost impossible to put into practice, unless corrupt people distort
the law as Jezebel and her conspirators did? Why does God give us no examples
of the process working? Why does God spare those who deserved death, starting
with Cain? At a time when most human beings lived on plains, God sent people
off to the wilderness: Now, when people live everywhere, even in wildernesses,
is excommunication sending a person to prison for life?
2 chapters after the "eye for eye" directive comes a solemn warning that is
often repeated in later chapters: "You shall not pervert the justice due to
your poor in his lawsuit" (Exodus 23:6). Lawyers I've spoken with cannot
remember rich persons receiving the death penalty: Like O.J. Simpson and many
others, wealth buys expensive lawyers who find ways for their clients to avoid
maximum penalties and sometimes any penalties at all. The absence of good or
even competent counsel in many cases perverts the justice received by a poor
person accused of murder. Racial and ethnic discrepancies in sentencing used to
be rampant but no longer are: Money rather than skin color now talks.
I'll discuss other issues online, and explain my positive view of
life-without-parole sentencing: Worldmag.com will have new posts on capital
punishment every weekday from Oct. 7 to Oct. 18. Please join me and add
comments of your own. To close, here's the story of 1 prisoner sentenced to
life without parole who showed a different attitude than the others. James
Zarychta, 41, imprisoned since 1993, gets up at 2 a.m. and goes to work at 3 in
the Ellis Unit's law library. Beginning at 4:15 he helps 15-20 inmates through
a 2 1/2 hour law library session, then clerks for a 2nd session that begins at
8:45, and a 3rd starting at 1:45. He's obtained an electric typewriter on which
he's writing a prison self-help guide, a 2nd book on filing petitions, and a
third book of fiction.
On the death penalty vs. life imprisonment debate, he says, "I understand
people thinking we should suffer as the people we killed suffered," but
"execution is the easy way out....With the daily grind of being incarcerated,
it consistently runs through my head: 'What was I thinking? Why did I do it?'
What keeps me from going crazy is the thing I've learned: Jesus is the one way
to heaven."
(source: Marvin Olasky; Marvin is editor in chief of WORLD Magazine and the
author of more than 20 books, including The Tragedy of American
Compassion----worldmag.com)
****************************
Lethal Injection Change in Store, TX Inmates Say
A death-row inmate set to face a new lethal injection protocol in Texas next
week says the state is "experimenting with new drugs and obscuring the
information from the public."
Michael Yowell and two other Texas death row inmates sued Texas Department of
Criminal Justice directors Brad Livingston and Williams Stephens; James Jones,
senior warden at the TDCJ's Huntsville prison, where executions take place; and
unknown executioners in Federal Court.
Yowell shot his father dead and strangled his mother in their Lubbock, Texas,
home in May 1998.
He then opened a gas valve in the house, leading to an explosion and fire that
killed his grandmother.
A jury sentenced him to death in October 1999, unconvinced by his insanity
defense.
That execution is scheduled for Oct. 9.
In his new lawsuit with fellow inmates, Yowell says a federal judge should
enter a stay until state officials "can demonstrate the integrity and legality
of any and all controlled substances they intend to use for plaintiffs'
execution."
Yowell insists that the lawsuit is no Hail Mary, but rather the first possible
opportunity to sue over "an entirely new drug."
"It was only last week, with the execution of Arturo Diaz on September 26,
2013, that the TDCJ consumed what plaintiffs knew to be the last of their
existing supply of Nembutal," the complaint states, using the brand name for
pentobarbital.
"Until that event occurred, and TDCJ nonetheless continued to insist that
Texas' execution protocol would not be changed, yet refused to timely disclose
the source and nature of the drugs that they intend to use to execute Mr.
Yowell, plaintiffs contend that this lawsuit was not ripe. However, upon
information and belief, the next execution Texas carries out will be with an
entirely new drug."
Yowell attributes the short supply of pentobarbital to "pharmaceutical
companies' increasing discomfort with their products being used in
executions." "Because Nembutal is no longer available for use in executions,
TDCJ has been exploring possible new drugs," the complaint states. "Plaintiffs'
counsel have gathered information that TDCJ is in possession of propofol,
midazolam, and hydromorphone - drugs that have never been used in an execution,
by any state. Expert evidence available to date indicates that use of any of
these drugs runs a substantial risk of grave pain."
The TDCJ recently tried to order compounded pentobarbital, but the compounding
pharmacy canceled the order when it found out the agency intended to use the
drug for executions, Yowell says.
"While TDCJ has (after state court litigation) recently provided information in
response to Public Information Act requests for the identity and source of
lethal injection drugs, their responses are deceptive, limited, and only come
after they consume the full amount of time they are allotted under the Public
Information Act," according to the complaint (parentheses in original). "The
last time the TDCJ changed the execution protocol (from a three drug formula to
a single drug execution), it gave the first inmate scheduled for execution
using the new single drug protocol a mere two days' notice."
Yowell says the TDCJ's "secretive and obstructionist approach makes it
impossible" for him to find out what drugs they will use on him, their source
and their effectiveness in executing him without "cruel and unusual pain."
The other plaintiffs are Thomas Whitaker and Perry Williams.
Whitaker was sentenced to death in March 2007 after his conviction for
arranging the murder of his mother and brother so he could collect a $1 million
inheritance. His father survived the shooting.
Williams received a death sentence in June 2002 for shooting a man in the head
during a robbery in Houston.
The inmates are represented by Bradley Chambers with Baker Donelson Bearman
Caldwell & Berkowitz.
TDJC did not respond to a request for comment.
(source: Courthouse News)
*****************************
Death row inmates sue Texas for sourcing execution drug from compounding
pharmacy
Death row inmates are suing the state of Texas for obtaining a killing drug
from a compounding pharmacy after its previous supply of pentobarbital expired
last month. The lawsuit says the drug carries "a high risk of excruciating
pain."
The state turned to a compounding pharmacy in suburban Houston to purchase
eight vials of pentobarbital last month, a Freedom of Information request
obtained by AP revealed.
The information came to light after Texas prison officials refused to explain
how they procured more of the death row drug amid a national shortage.
States that carry out the death penalty began experiencing a shortage of lethal
drugs after some overseas companies refused to sell the drugs for the purpose
of executions in 2011.
Texas, along with some other states, then turned to domestic compounding
pharmacies like the one in Houston to refill their supply.
With the new supply, executions can go on as planned into the next year, AP
cited Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark as saying.
One of the main problems with the switch is that compounding pharmacies are not
subject to federal inspection and drugs from those facilities are reportedly at
risk of being contaminated.
On Wednesday, 3 Texas-based death row prisoners filed a lawsuit challenging the
state???s use of drugs originating from compounding pharmacies, arguing that
they violate the US Constitution's protection against cruel and unusual
punishment.
This type of pharmacy is "not subject to stringent FDA regulations" and is "one
of the leading sources for counterfeit drugs entering the US," the lawsuit
reads, as quoted by AFP.
"There is a significant chance that [the pentobarbital] could be contaminated,
creating a grave likelihood that the lethal injection process could be
extremely painful, or harm or handicap plaintiffs without actually killing
them," it adds.
Compounding pharmacies are only regulated by local state authorities and have
been in the crossfires before for possible contamination risks. In November
2012, one such pharmacy was identified as being responsible for a deadly
meningitis outbreak caused by poor hygiene.
Moreover, the plaintiffs argue that the drug can cause "a high risk of
excruciating pain."
"Use of compounded pentobarbital would constitute a significant change in the
lethal injection protocol, a change that adds an unacceptable risk of pain,
suffering and harm to the plaintiffs if and when they are executed," the
lawsuit says.
"This uncertainty and the unnecessary suffering and mental anguish it creates
for plaintiffs is an Eighth Amendment violation," it argues.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott responded on Wednesday saying that it still
intends to execute plaintiff Michael Yowell by administering a dose of
compounded pentobarbital. The state of Texas carries out more executions than
any other state in the US.
Previous legal challenges against drugs from compounding pharmacies have
failed.
(source: Rt News)
***************************
Executions under Rick Perry, 2001-present-----267
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982-present----505
Perry #--------scheduled execution date-----name---------Tx. #
267-------------Oct. 9---------------------Michael Yowell-----506
268------------Oct. 29--------------------Arthur Brown------507
269------------Nov. 12---------------------Jamie McCoskey-----508
270------------Jan. 16--------------------Edgardo Cubas-----509
271------------Jan. 22--------------------Edgar Tamayo-------510
272-----------Feb. 5-----------------------Suzanne Basso-------511
(sources for both: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
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