March 30
MISSOURI:
Missouri is among the states where hope is rising on death row
5 states have executed inmates this year: Texas (4), Florida (4), Missouri (3),
Oklahoma (2) and Ohio (1). Texas, Tennessee, Florida and Missouri have
executions scheduled in April.
But so far this year, Missouri nearly is matching the Lone Star State, lethal
injection by lethal injection.
The execution early Wednesday of Jeffrey Ferguson for the rape and murder of a
17-year-old girl in St. Louis was Missouri's erd so far in 2014 and its 5th
since November.
Only Texas and Florida, each with 4, have carried out more executions this year
than Missouri. Missouri's record for a year was 9 men put to death in 1999.
For opponents of capital punishment and for lawyers representing death row
inmates in Missouri, it has been a grim stretch.
"It's very emotionally draining," said Rita Linhardt, who chairs the board of
Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "It's hardest on the
attorneys handling the cases."
But court rulings last week in other states and indications that the U.S.
Supreme Court may be considering a hearing on death penalty issues has capital
punishment opponents cautiously optimistic.
The spate of Missouri executions came after a hiatus of about 2 1/2 years that
was prompted by legal challenges to the state's execution method and shortages
of execution drugs.
Although legal challenges have continued since late last year, when Missouri
adopted pentobarbital as its execution drug, state and federal courts have
allowed Missouri executions to continue.
Much of the opposition has centered on the secrecy surrounding the pharmacy
that prepares and supplies the drug. The Missouri Department of Corrections has
made the pharmacy a member of its execution team, and Missouri law protects the
identity of execution team members.
Attorneys have argued that condemned prisoners have a right to know how the
drugs are manufactured and prepared. Without that knowledge, the lawyers
contend, those awaiting execution can't know if their constitutional protection
against cruel and unusual punishment could be violated by improperly prepared
drugs.
Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University and a national expert on
death penalty issues, said the same type of challenges to drug secrecy rules
have been gaining traction in other states.
"There are differences in how courts in different states are handling those,"
she said.
On Wednesday, a judge in Oklahoma ruled that by keeping the source of its
execution drugs secret, the state was violating the inmates' constitutional
right of due process.
Denno said she expected that decision to have reverberations around the
country, and on Thursday, a judge in Texas proved her right.
The judge ordered Texas prison officials to disclose the supplier of its drugs
to lawyers representing death row inmates.
The secrecy issue also has been raised with the U.S. Supreme Court in 2
requests for a hearing, including 1 filed on behalf of Missouri inmates.
Joseph Luby, an attorney with the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic in Kansas
City, said the high court is expected to announce its decision on whether to
take the Missouri case on April 7.
But this Monday, Luby said, it is anticipated that the court will issue a
decision in a similar secrecy challenge from Louisiana.
One indication of how the court may be leaning came shortly before Ferguson's
execution. The Supreme Court denied his request for a stay, but 4 of the 9
justices said they would have granted it.
A month earlier, before Michael Taylor was executed in Missouri, only 3 of the
justices noted that they would have granted a stay.
"You really can't extrapolate anything from that," Luby said. "But the fact
that there are 4 indicates some level of interest."
He noted that while it takes 5 justices to grant a stay, only four votes are
needed for the court to accept a case for hearing.
The office of Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, which handles death
penalty litigation for the state, declined to comment for this story.
(source: Kansas City Star)
KANSAS:
2 Leftwich attorneys withdraw from defense team
2 Topeka lawyers have withdrawn as the attorneys representing convicted
murderer Dustin Leftwich, one of the lawyers told Shawnee County District Court
Judge Cheryl Kingfisher on Thursday.
Leftwich is seeking to withdraw his guilty plea in the May 2012 murder of
Brenna Morgart, contending his defense attorney "fear mongered" him into
pleading guilty to avoid a death sentence.
As soon as lawyers Kathleen Ambrosio and Joe Huerter withdrew from the case,
District Judge Cheryl Kingfisher appointed attorney Julia Spainhour to defend
Leftwich.
Leftwich, 22, acted as his own attorney Feb. 28 in filing a motion seeking
permission "to withdraw his guilty plea and proceed to trial in this matter."
Leftwich pleaded guilty in January 2013 to seven charges tied to the killing of
Morgart, an 18-year-old recent Seaman High School graduate, and the unrelated
case in which he used a car to strike an unidentified 14-year-old girl.
Following his pleas, Kingfisher sentenced Leftwich to life in prison without
the possibility of parole. Before making the pleas, Leftwich potentially faced
the death penalty if convicted of capital murder.
Leftwich's motion to withdraw his plea says he pleaded guilty only because of
prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective assistance of counsel. He claims
Ambrosio didn't follow his will.
Leftwich's case next will appear in court April 17 during a criminal assignment
docket to schedule hearings.
During Leftwich's plea in 2013, Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor
said Morgart was jogging the morning of May 25, 2012, in the 6900 block of N.W.
Jennings Road when Leftwich struck her with a red 2001 Pontiac Grand Prix. He
then forced her into the trunk.
Taylor said Leftwich drove Morgart to a creek four miles away in the 6600 block
of N.W. Huxman, where he struck her with a tire iron and attempted to rape her.
Leftwich then dragged Morgart down a 25-foot embankment, Taylor said. He said
Morgart was alive when she was thrown into the creek.
Leftwich pleaded guilty in January 2013 to 1st-degree murder, aggravated
kidnapping, aggravated battery, aggravated assault and attempted rape of
Morgart, as well as to the aggravated battery committed previously of a
14-year-old girl.
Taylor said that girl was walking in the 6200 block of N.W. 70th on June 29,
2011, when Leftwich approached her driving a car at 20 mph.
As the girl jumped off the road, she was struck on the shin by the car. The
girl ran home through a field.
(source: Topeka Capital Journal Online)
USA:
Pharmacists urged not to assist US executions
Several human rights and anti-death penalty groups have asked the American
Pharmacists Association to prohibit members from participating in executions, a
request that comes as states increasingly turn to pharmacists for lethal
injection drugs.
The groups, which include Amnesty International, the NAACP and the American
Civil Liberties Union, are targeting so-called compounded drugs. Such drugs,
which are not federally regulated, are individually mixed versions of
medications that prison systems are finding increasingly difficult to obtain.
Death penalty opponents say such drugs put inmates at risk of pain and
suffering. 2 years ago, an outbreak of meningitis that killed 64 and sickened
hundreds was traced to a compounding facility in Massachusetts.
Pharmacists who provide compounded drugs are violating key provisions of the
pharmacists' association code of ethics, including helping patients achieve
"optimum benefit" from their medications, according to a letter the death
penalty opponents presented to the association on Monday.
"Participation in executions undermines the position of trust that pharmacists
enjoy in this nation," said the letter sent ahead of the association's annual
meeting beginning Friday in Orlando, Fla. The letter is part of a lobbying
effort spearheaded by the nonprofit group SumOfUs, which says it represents
consumers and workers and seeks to "counterbalance the growing power of large
corporations."
Numerous drug makers have put their products off limits for executions, drying
up the supply available to prison systems. Missouri has used a compounded
version of pentobarbital to execute four inmates with plans for a 5th at
midnight Wednesday. Texas has used compounded pentobarbital to execute six
inmates, with a seventh execution planned for Thursday.
Lawyers for death row inmates in Oklahoma have alleged the state used
compounded pentobarbital to put an inmate to death in January. Michael Wilson's
final words were, "I feel my whole body burning," and then he didn't move.
A plan by Georgia to use a similar specialty batch of pentobarbital has been
put on hold by a lawsuit challenging the state prison agency's refusal to
identify the compounding pharmacy that provided the drug. The lawsuit also
questions the drug's safety and effectiveness.
In Ohio, the state's policy calls for the prison system to obtain compounded
pentobarbital as a first choice, and then to use a backup method of a sedative
and painkiller if the compounded drug can't be found. The state has chosen the
backup method in the past two scheduled executions, although only one was
carried out.
The American Medical Association prohibits members from taking action that
could cause the death of a condemned inmate, although the association - like
the pharmacists' group - is not a regulatory board with authority over
licensing. The American Board of Anesthesiology, however, says
anesthesiologists cannot participate in executions if they want board
certification.
The pharmacists' association is unlikely to adopt any statement at this year's
meeting because it has a long process for developing policies, spokeswoman
Michelle Spinnler said in an email to The Associated Press Tuesday. She said
the earliest the group's delegates could consider any proposal would be next
year.
The association previously adopted policies opposing the use of the word "drug"
for chemicals used in lethal injections, and opposing laws or regulations that
require or prohibit pharmacists from participating in lethal injections.
Amnesty International believes the call to the pharmacists is another chance to
express opposition to capital punishment, said Thenjiwe McHarris.
"Their profession is meant to preserve life, it's meant to do no harm, and the
death penalty doesn't just challenge that, it's completely opposite to that
mission," she said.
Any pharmacists' association policy would not affect members' ability to
practice. But death penalty opponents hope that a policy change would filter
down to state regulatory boards, which could require such a ban as part of
licensing.
(source: Associated Press)
*****************
Lower support for death penalty tracks with falling crime rates, more
exonerations
The U.S. has long stood out for its support of capital punishment. For most of
the past 8 decades - basically the entire history of scientific polling -
surveys have nearly always found solid majorities in favor of the death
penalty. But that support has ebbed and flowed, and now has been trending lower
for almost 2 decades. A new Pew Research Center analysis finds 55% of U.S.
adults favoring the death penalty for people convicted of murder, the lowest
support level since the early 1970s.
Researchers have suggested several reasons for the decline in death-penalty
support since the mid-1990s. Among them: a steep drop in the incidence of
violent crime, and greater attention to wrongful convictions, which has led to
more than 1,300 convicts being exonerated through DNA evidence, revelations of
faulty forensic work, or other means. (Recent reports of prolonged executions
and the difficulties many states have had in procuring drugs for lethal
injections also may be factors in shifting public opinion.)
In general, public support for the death penalty has tracked rates of violent
crime, as calculated by the FBI. (The FBI has long compiled and reported
uniform crime statistics, although not all local law enforcement agencies
participate and some people have challenged the way they classify and report
crimes.) The agency defines violent crimes as murder, non-negligent
manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Violent crime rates and death-penalty support both peaked in the early-to-mid
1990s. According to the FBI data, 1991 was the worst year for violent crime in
America, with 758.2 reported crimes per 100,000 people. In December 1993, 25%
of Americans called crime the most important single issue facing the country,
in a Times Mirror Center survey. By the following September, a record 80% of
Americans supported capital punishment, according to Gallup.
That contrasts with the early to mid 1960s, when violent crime rates were at
historic lows and support for the death penalty was falling. In a May 1966
Gallup poll, in fact, more Americans opposed (47%) than supported (42%) it, the
only time that's happened in the many decades Gallup has asked the question.
But that trend reversed as crime began to surge: The violent-crime rate nearly
tripled from 1964 (190.6 crimes per 100,000 people) to 1984 (539.9 per
100,000). By 1986, support for the death penalty topped 70%.
As of 2012, the most recent year available, the overall violent-crime rate had
fallen to 386.9 reported crimes per 100,000, the lowest rate in more than 4
decades. Murder, the crime that most commonly carries the death penalty (and
which all people currently on death row were convicted of), was down to 4.7 per
100,000, about where it was in the early 1960s.
Meanwhile, advances in DNA analysis and other forensic techniques have aided a
surge in exonerated prisoners. The National Registry of Exonerations, jointly
maintained by the University of Michigan and Northwestern University law
schools, lists 1,339 people who've been exonerated since 1989, including 106
who had been sentenced to death.
DNA, though far more commonly used now than 2 decades ago, was a factor in
fewer than 1/3 of those exonerations. According to the database, more than 1/2
of all exoneration cases involved perjured testimony, false accusations or some
form of official misconduct. (Cases often have more than 1 contributing
factor.)
Actual executions - which, given the many years that typically elapse between
sentencing and execution, are something of a lagging indicator - peaked in
1999, when 98 people were put to death. But they too have fallen, to an average
of about 43 over the past decade. (So far this year, 14 people have been
executed around the country, according to the Death Penalty Information
Center.)
Since the Supreme Court reinstated state death-penalty laws in 1976, a total of
1,373 people have been executed - all but 3 in state prisons. More than 1/3
(512) of all executions have taken place in Texas; that state, along with
Virginia and Oklahoma (110 each), Florida, Missouri and Alabama together
account for 2/3 of all executions in the United States in the past 37 years.
(source: Pew Research Center)
_______________________________________________
DeathPenalty mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A free service of WashLaw
http://washlaw.edu
(785)670.1088
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
