April 1
TEXAS----impending execution(s)
Convicts: No lethal drug details, no executions
2 condemned Texas killers on Tuesday filed suit in Houston federal court
seeking to block their upcoming executions, arguing that state officials'
refusal to disclose details about the lethal drugs violates their
constitutional rights.
In the suit, Tommy Lynn Sells and Ramiro Hernandez Llanas argued that prison
officials last week stalled the disclosure of the drug information - including
the names of suppliers, lot numbers and information about testing for purity,
among other details - in refusing to comply with a Travis County state district
court's decision that the information should made available to the convict's
attorneys under a confidentiality order, but not made public.
Prison officials quickly asked the 3rd Court of Appeals to block that order
and, when they refused, the state appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.
In the new filing, Houston attorney Jonathan Ross and Philadelphia attorney
Maurie Levin said several courts and rulings by the Texas attorney general have
previously determined that details about the execution drugs the state uses
have to be made public. The state is now using so-called "compounding"
pharmacies to manufacture the lethal drugs, and those pharmacies are not
regulated as closely as other drug-manufacturing plants.
In other states, executions carried out with compounded drugs have had problems
and the Texas convicts have the right to know the purity and other details of
the drugs being used, the suit alleges.
Sells is scheduled to be executed Thursday, and Llanas is slated for execution
April 9.
Sells, 49, a drifter originally from Tennessee, faces execution for the
December 1999 stabbing death of 13-year-old Kaylene Harris in Del Rio. He was
suspected of killing at least 8 other people in New York, Illinois,
Massachusetts, Kentucky and Texas between 1980 and 1999.
Llanas, 44, a Mexican citizen, was sentenced to death for the October 1997
beating death of Kerrville rancher Glen Lich, who was killed with a crowbar.
Authorities said Llanas had worked for Lich. Prison records show Hernandez also
fatally stabbed a jailer while awaiting trial.
No hearing has been set yet in the Houston suit.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Judge defers ruling on death penalty issue in case of woman charged in
Craisglist killing
The attorney for a woman accused of murdering a man she met through Craigslist
is asking a judge to throw out the mitigating circumstances that would allow
prosecutors to seek the death penalty if she's convicted of the crime.
A Northumberland County judge has deferred ruling on a defense motion to quash
the aggravating circumstances required for the imposition of the death penalty
if Miranda K. Barbour was found guilty of 1st-degree murder.
Judge Charles H. Saylor deferred ruling on the defense motion during a pretrial
hearing Tuesday, to give both parties an opporunity to file briefs.
District Attorney Anthony J. Rosini has listed robbery and torture as the
aggravating circumstances that would permit him to seek the death penalty for
Barbour, 19 and her husband Elytte, 22.
The Barbours are accused of killing Troy LaFerrara, 42, of Port Trevorton, on
Nov. 11, stealing his wallet and leaving him in a Sunbury alley.
One of the reasons for the hearing was to hear argument on a motion by Chief
Public Defender Edward Greco for more evidence he claims he needs to prepare a
defense for Miranda Barbour.
Part of a Feb. 14 jailhouse interview Miranda Barbour gave to a reporter for
The (Sunbury) Daily Item reporter was played during the hearing. During that
interview, Miranda Barbour claimed to have killed at least 22 people in 4 other
states.
Prison guard Deborah Zaleskie, who was present at the interview, authenticated
the recording.
Saylor approved a motion to allow the defense to hire a forensics computer
expert.
Barbour is alleged to have arranged through Craigslist to meet LaFerrara in a
parking lot along Routes 11-15 north of Selinsgrove from where she drove him to
Sunbury.
She is accused of repeatedly stabbing LaFerrara while her husband, who had been
hiding on the backseat floor under a blanket, restrained him with a piece of
television cable around the neck.
She alleged in another interview with The Daily Item reporter she had arranged
to meet two other men but they failed to show up.
The Barbours, who are jailed without bail, got married in North Carolina and
moved to Selinsgrove in late October.
(source: The Patriot-News)
FLORIDA:
Prosecutors Won't Seek Death Penalty for Woman Accused of Killing Her Children
Prosecutors are withdrawing plans to seek the death penalty against a New Tampa
woman accused of fatally shooting her two children in 2011, the Hillsborough
State Attorney's Office said Tuesday.
Julie Schenecker, 53, is charged with 1st degree murder in the shooting of her
teenage children, Calyx and Beau. She is scheduled to go to trial at the end of
this month. Her attorneys plan to pursue an insanity defense and, until today,
prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty.
But in a letter sent to Schenecker's defense, Mark Ober wrote that he is
reversing course.
"The State of Florida shall not seek the imposition of the death penalty should
the Defendant be convicted of 1st Degree Murder" the letter said.
Prosecutors say Schenecker shot her kids on Jan. 27, 2011. She shot 13-year-old
Beau after driving him home from soccer practice, police said. Then she walked
upstairs and shot Calyx, 16, as she did homework. Schenecker, who has a history
of mental illness, told police she was tired of them talking back.
(source: The Ledger)
OHIO:
Annual report details Ohio executions
Ohio continues to add more people to death row - 4 last year - even though the
lethal injection process is mired in legal controversy.
The 2013 Capital Crimes Report, issued today by Attorney General Mike DeWine,
says 12 executions are scheduled in the next 2 years, with 4 more pending the
setting of death dates.
Among those with death dates are 3 from Franklin County: Warren Henness (Jan.
7, 2015), Alva Campbell (July 7, 2015), and Kareem Jackson (Jan. 21, 2016).
Ohio has carried out 54 executions since 1999, including 3 last year, the same
as in 2012.
The annual status report on capital punishment in Ohio, which covers calendar
year 2013, does not mention the problems during the Jan. 16, 2014, execution of
Dennis McGuire when he gasped, choked and struggled for more than 10 minutes
before succumbing to a 2-drug combination never before used in a U.S.
execution. A lawsuit has been filed by McGuire's 2 children, and the drug issue
prompted Gov. John Kasich to postpone the scheduled March 19 execution of
Gregory Lott until November.
The next scheduled execution is Arthur Tyler of Cuyahoga County on May 28.
DeWine's report notes that 316 people have been sentenced to death in Ohio
since 1981 when capital punishment was restored after being overturned as being
unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. The report cites 18 gubernatorial
commutations of death sentences: 4 by Kasich, 5 by Gov. Ted Strickland, 1 by
Gov. Bob Taft, and 8 by Gov. Richard F. Celeste.
For the 1st time this year, a group opposed to the death penalty issued its own
report in response to the official state document. Ohioans to Stop Executions
concludes, "While Ohio's overall use of the death penalty is slowing, it has
become clearer than ever before that the race of the victim and location of the
crime are the most accurate predictors of death sentences in the Buckeye
State."
The group said 40% of death sentence originate in Cuyahoga County. Ohio
prosecutors filed 21 capital murder indictments last year, a 28 percent drop
from 2012, as life without the possibility of parole sentences became more
prevalent.
(source: Columbus Dispatch)
*********************
Ohio death penalty | Attorney general report
An annual report on capital punishment in Ohio says 4 people were condemned to
die last year, bringing the total number under Ohio's 1981 law to 320 death
sentences.
The report by Attorney General Mike DeWine says 52 inmates have been executed,
18 have had their sentences reduced to prison time, and 26 have died before
execution from suicide or natural causes.
The report released Tuesday says Ohio has 145 active death penalty cases,
including James Conway of Columbus, who received two death sentences for
different slayings.
The report reflects the increasing rarity of death sentences in the state as
prosecutors file fewer death penalty cases and juries choose the option of life
without parole.
No one has been sentenced to death this year.
(source: WKYC news)
OKLAHOMA:
Oklahoma acquires lethal injection drugs from compounding pharmacy
The state has acquired the drugs necessary to execute 2 death row inmates this
month, attorneys involved in the case said.
Lawyers for death row inmates Clayton Derrell Lockett, 38, and Charles
Frederick Warner, 46, said an email sent to them by the attorney general's
office said the state Corrections Department has acquired lethal doses of
midazolam and pancuronium bromide from a compounding pharmacy. The state
already had a supply of the 3rd drug in the execution process, potassium
chloride.
Together, those 3 drugs are part of a new lethal cocktail that, thanks to a
March 21 change in execution protocol, the state of Oklahoma is now able to
try.
That mixture has never been used in the U.S., and midazolam has only been used
in a 3-drug cocktail in 1 other state, Florida, said Jen Moreno, staff attorney
at the Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic. She noted Oklahoma's protocol calls
for a smaller dose of midazolam than Florida's, which raises concerns.
"With the smaller dose of midazolam, there is a significant question of whether
it would adequately anesthetize prisoners such that they are insensate for the
administration of the paralytic and potassium chloride," Moreno said. "In other
words, it presents greater risks of conscious paralysis and suffering upon
administration of the potassium than the Florida option presents."
Ongoing search
The change to protocol comes amid an ongoing search by the state Corrections
Department to find 2 of the 3 drugs in the state's 3-drug execution mixture -
pentobarbital, a barbiturate used to render the condemned person unconscious,
and vecuronium bromide, a drug that relaxes the muscles and acts as an
anesthetic.
2 commonly used sedatives in lethal injections in the United States, sodium
thiopental and pentobarbital, became hard to get for corrections departments in
recent years when manufacturers took steps to ensure their products would not
be used in capital punishment. Since then, states have turned to compounding
pharmacies to create pentobarbital.
Lockett is scheduled for execution April 22, and Warner is scheduled for
execution April 29. Both executions were postponed for a month by the state
Court of Criminal Appeals after a brief filed by the state revealed an
agreement between a pharmacy and the state Corrections Department for the
lethal drugs fell through.
Questions remain
Both inmates recently won a case in Oklahoma County District Court, where a
judge found an Oklahoma law allowing the state to keep its source of lethal
injection drugs secret unconstitutional. They contended not knowing the source
or quality of the drugs creates the risk they could be poor and cause the men
pain during their executions.
"The midazolam is really troubling because it's not, as I understand it, not
necessarily an adequate anesthetic, and it causes air hunger and suffocation,"
said Madeline Cohen, Warner's federal public defender. "I think particularly in
combination with pancuronium bromide, that also causes suffocation, that raises
some pretty serious risks of a painful and slow death."
The fact the drugs are coming from a compounding pharmacy also increases the
likelihood of a new civil rights case challenging the constitutionality of the
state's execution process, said Seth Day, one of the lawyers who represented
Lockett and Warner.
The state is still well within its 30-day time frame to file an appeal to the
judge's ruling and has yet to disclose its lethal drug source.
Day said representatives for Lockett and Warner will file a request for an
emergency stay of execution with the state appeals court this week.
(source: Oklahoman)
SOUTH DAKOTA:
Jury chosen for James McVay death penalty trial
Arguments will commence Wednesday in the jury trial that will determine if a
South Dakota man will gets a sentence of life in prison or death by lethal
injection for a 2011 murder.
A jury of 15 was selected Tuesday morning after nearly 2 weeks of group and
individual questioning.
Jurors will be asked to decide the fate of 43-year-old James Vernon McVay, who
pleaded guilty but mentally ill to 1st-degree murder in the stabbing death of
75-year-old Maybelle Schein.
Prosecutors will attempt to prove to jurors that the crime was wanton, vicious
or vile and that it was committed as part of a theft - 2 aggravating factors
that could justify a death sentence in South Dakota. If the jury decides that
McVay is eligible for a death sentence, defense lawyers will attempt to
dissuade them from issuing a death verdict through the presentation of
mitigation evidence, which could include information on McVay's upbringing or
mental illness.
If any juror votes against a death sentence, McVay will receive a sentence of
life without the possibility of parole.
The trial is expected to last 2 weeks.
(source: Argus Leader)
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