March 31
TEXAS:
Mexican national on Texas death row loses appeal at Supreme Court; Ramiro
Hernandez condemned for 1997 of Glen Lich at Kerrville-area ranch
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review the case of a 44-year-old Mexican
national set to die next week for the beating death of a man who employed him
at his Kerrville-area ranch.
Attorneys for Ramiro Hernandez contended he was mentally impaired and
ineligible for execution for the 1997 slaying of 48-year-old Glen Lich.
Hernandez, from Tamaulipas, Mexico, also argued he had deficient legal help at
his trial, contending evidence of a previous murder conviction and prison term
in Mexico was improperly allowed.
He's set for lethal injection April 9. In a related case, his attorneys are
arguing in state courts the Texas prison system should be forced to identify a
new source of pentobarbital used to execute him. Texas prison officials want
the provider's name kept secret.
(source: Associated Press)
***********************
Texas Won't Have to Identify Its Execution-Drug Supplier After All
The last time the Texas Department of Criminal Justice secured a cache of
pentobarbital, the drug it uses to execute prisoners, the Houston-area
compounding pharmacy that supplied it had second thoughts.
"[I]t was my belief that this information would be kept on the 'down low,' and
that it was unlikely that it would be discovered that my pharmacy provided
these drugs," Dr. Joseph Lavoi of The Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy wrote once
the involvement of his business was disclosed. "I find myself in the middle of
a firestorm I was not advised of and did not bargain for."
Here's the thing: ethical debates about the death penalty aside, the identity
of government vendors is public under state open records laws. It's one of the
more bread-and-butter tenets of open government; otherwise, how to tell if
taxpayer money is being well spent?
With the Lavoi-supplied pentobarbital set to expire on April 1 (TDCJ refused
his demand that it return the drug), and a pair of executions looming, Texas
again finds itself in the awkward position of fighting to hide the source of
its new supply of execution drug.
Awkward because Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's office, which is
representing the state, is the arbiter of the state's Public Information Act,
which contains no exemptions for pentobarbital manufacturers. At the same time,
past experience has shown that releasing their identity will hinder the state's
ability to get the drug and, by extension, legally execute prisoners.
That's not what the state's actually saying, of course. Arguing last week that
condemned inmates Tommy Lynn Sells (set to die April 3) and Ramiro
Hernandez-Llanas (April 9) should not be told the source of the drugs that will
soon be coursing through their veins, assistant AG Nicole Bunker-Henderson said
the need for secrecy trumps the need for open government because "there has
been a significant, real concrete threat against similarly situated
pharmacists."
Maybe so, and if the threats were physical, they should be dealt with by law
enforcement. But the main threat is clearly to a pharmacy's reputation which,
if you're supplying execution drugs to the government, seems like fair game.
State District Judge Suzanne Covington split the baby on Thursday, ruling that
the drug maker's identity should be released, but only to Sells,
Hernandez-Llanas, and their lawyers. An appeals court agreed on Friday morning
but, later on Friday, the Texas Supreme Court issued a stay.
A full hearing will take place in mid- to late-April, meaning that, unless
Sells and Hernandez-Llanas' executions are delayed by a criminal appeals court
(the Supreme Court handles only civil matters), neither man will be around to
learn the final outcome.
(source: Dallas Observer)
CONNECTICUT:
Conn. lawyer for death row inmate: 'State will have to kill me before they kill
my client'
A Connecticut public defender vowed the state will have to kill her before she
allows it to execute her client in a triple murder case she said never should
have gone to trial because the defendant is mentally ill.
Assistant Public Defender Corrie-Ann Mainville made the comments in an email to
the Connecticut Post, the newspaper reported Monday. She told The Associated
Press that the proclamation was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but she's serious about
the appeal in the case of Richard Roszkowski.
The 49-year-old Roszkowski was convicted of killing 2 adults and a 9-year-old
girl in Bridgeport in 2006. A jury recommended the death penalty 2 weeks ago
after hearing testimony that Roszkowski was mentally ill, and a judge is
expected to sentence him to lethal injection May 22.
Mainville says Roszkowski has a severe mental illness - paranoid delusion
disorder - and was high on heroin, crack cocaine and other drugs at the time of
the killings. She said he never should have been found competent to stand
trial, a claim the prosecutor in the case denies.
"I will not live another peaceful day in my life until this verdict is
reversed," Mainville said in the email to the newspaper. "The state will have
to kill me before they kill my client. ... The state's vengeance has overcome
the standards of decency and humility of civilization."
Roszkowski, a former Trumbull resident, was convicted in 2009 of capital felony
and murder for gunning down his 39-year-old ex-girlfriend, Holly Flannery, her
9-year-old daughter, Kylie, and 38-year-old Thomas Gaudet on a Bridgeport
street in broad daylight amid horrified onlookers. Police said Roszkowski
stalked Flannery after she broke up with him and falsely believed she and
Gaudet were romantically involved.
The 2009 jury decided Roszkowski should be put to death, but a judge overturned
the sentence because of an error made during jury instructions and ordered a
new penalty phase.
Mainville told the AP that it was "unconscionable" that the jury disregarded
testimony by a psychiatrist and psychologist about Roszkowski's mental illness.
She also worries that Roszkowski won't live through the yearslong appeal
process. She said he has had cancer in the past and continues to have rectal
bleeding, but refuses medical treatment including a colonoscopy because he
believes it would destroy evidence that prison officials are poisoning him.
She also said he refuses to eat anything other than food in sealed packages
from the prison commissary, and he doesn't have much money left in his account
to keep doing that.
The prosecutor, C. Robert Satti Jr., defended the state's actions.
"The state did challenge the evidence from their (mental health) experts and
the jury didn't find that they met their burden of proof," he said.
Mainville also said the state shouldn't have pursued the death penalty, because
Connecticut abolished capital punishment in 2012. The repeal of the death
penalty only was for future murders, and the state Supreme Court is deciding
whether the prospective repeal violates the constitutional rights of death row
inmates still facing execution. Roszkowski became the 11th man on Connecticut's
death row.
The Polish government unsuccessfully sought to block the penalty phase and
urged a judge to impose a life prison sentence, because it considers Roszkowski
a dual citizen and there is no death penalty in Poland. Roszkowski's parents
were Polish.
(source: Associated Press)
FLORIDA:
Prosecutors to seek death penalty against Luis Toledo; Toledo charged in death
of wife, her children
State prosecutors announced on Monday they will seek the death penalty against
the Deltona man accused of killing his wife and her 2 children.
In a newly released 911 call, Luis Toledo allegedly confronts his wife at work
about an affair hours before she goes missing on Oct. 22.
Toledo, a former Latin King gang member, is accused of killing his wife,
Yessenia Suarez, and her 2 children in October. Their bodies have not been
found.
Prosecutors said Toledo admitted killing his wife with a blow to her throat
after learning she was allegedly involved with someone else and wanted a
divorce.
Toledo claims the neighbor killed the children, but authorities said they do
not believe that story.
His trial has been delayed until June.
(source: WESH news)
TENNESSEE:
Tennessee death row inmates dying of natural causes
Many inmates awaiting execution on Tennessee's death row never make it to the
execution chamber.
The Tennessean reports that since 2000, 9 death row inmates have died of
natural causes and 1 committed suicide. 6 have been executed.
In November, inmate Paul Dennis Reid died of heart disease in a hospital while
awaiting execution for a 1997 killing spree that led to 7 deaths. The newspaper
reports that the state spent nearly $600,000 on Reid's prison housing and
medical costs.
Death penalty supporters say such costs prove that the criminal justice system
takes too long and allows too appeals. Opponents say the costs prove that the
death penalty is a waste of money and that life sentences would save taxpayers
millions.
(source: Associated Press)
IDAHO:
The price of vengeance: evaluating the death penalty in Idaho
In my column in the print edition of the Inlander this week, I wrote about the
Idaho Legislature's unanimous decision to begin a $33 million, 5-year
investment to reduce recidivism and save the state an estimated $288 million in
prison costs. It's a decision that's good for Idahoans' pocketbooks and our
collective conscience. (The savings are found in part by ensuring penalties
more closely match the crime committed.)
The investment was spurred by a fantastic study by the Pew Charitable Trusts
and the Council of State Governments. A new report suggests another step
towards justice and away from expensive vengeance would be to eliminate Idaho's
death penalty.
Earlier this month, Idaho's nonpartisan Office of Performance Evaluations
released their findings that sentencing a defendant to life in prison without
parole is less expensive than imposing the death penalty.
They were unable to find out exactly how much is saved because of a failure to
track all the associated costs of carrying out capital punishment in Idaho.
However, they report, the longer appeals process for death sentence cases makes
it clear that Idaho would realize significant savings by ending the practice.
It's a curious study and a part of me isn't sure that it's a good idea to be
calculating the cost to society of legally killing people in dollars and cents.
Still, it does raise a question: How much is vengeance worth? Specifically, how
much more should we be willing to spend to try to execute someone rather than
send him to prison forever?
I write "try to execute someone" because, for the most part, Idaho has been
unable to carry out the vengeance it seeks.
More than $4.6 million has been spent in Idaho on capital defense costs since
1998. Presumably a similarly large sum has been spent on their prosecution.
During that time, the death penalty was sought 42 times and imposed in only 7
cases - and of course some of those cases are still up for appeal.
Since 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, 40 people
have been sentenced to death in Idaho. According to the Associated Press, of
those "21 have had their sentences overturned on appeal or are no longer
sentenced to death for other reasons, 12 are still appealing their cases and 4
died in prison. Just 3 were executed during that time span."
Even if vengeance is desirable, that seems like a pretty bad return on
investment. In most cases, we are likely spending hundreds of thousands of
dollars to achieve exactly the same result as we would have by asking for a
life sentence originally.
Is it worth it? If you still say yes, at what price wouldn't it be? How much
should we be willing to raise taxes so that instead of locking up 40 people for
life, we lock up 37 and kill 3? How many teachers should we be willing to lay
off? How many roads should go unplowed? How much is vengeance worth?
(source: Commentary; John T. Reuter, a former Sandpoint City Councilman, is the
executive director of Conservation Voters for Idaho. He has been active in
protecting Idaho's environment, expanding LGBT rights and the Idaho Republican
Party----Inlander)
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