May 1
TEXAS---3 new execution dates, including female
3 new execution dates have been given:
Manuel Vasquez has been given an execution date for August 6 and Lisa Coleman
has been given an execution date for September 17; in addition, Garcia White
has been given an execution date for Janyuary 28, 2015. All these dates should
be considered serious.
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
***************************************************
Executions under Rick Perry, 2001-present-----276
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982-present----515
Perry #--------scheduled execution date-----name---------Tx. #
277------------May 13--------------------Robert Campbell------516
278------------Aug. 6--------------------Manuel Vasquez-------517
279------------Sept. 17------------------Lisa Coleman----------518
280------------Jan. 28-------------------Garcia White-----------519
(sources for both: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
****************************** ----impending execution
See: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/027/2014/en
(source: Amnesty International USA)
**********************
Bungled Oklahoma execution could impact Texas cases
A bungled Oklahoma execution could have impact on Texas cases.
Clayton Lockett was supposed to die last night, just not on his own.
His execution was halted after more than 20 minutes, with witness accounts
suggesting Lockett was conscious and apparently writhing in pain.
He died minutes later of an apparent massive heart attack.
"I would hope that the botched execution in Oklahoma would have an impact
nationally and here in Texas," said Dave Atwood of the Texas Coalition to
Abolish the Death Penalty.
"It is possible that the Supreme Court will just stop everything and say let's
review it. I hope that does happen," Atwood added.
On the other side of the debate is Andy Kahan, a Houston Crime Victim's
Advocate.
"From their perspective, certainly what happened in Oklahoma gives them a leg
to stand on," he said. "This is an issue that we have already gone up against
in Texas - whether the so-called new drugs constitute cruel and unusual
punishment."
KHOU 11 News Legal expert Gerald Treece said, "These morbid bizarre cases like
this give credence to that voice that is getting louder and louder against
using capital punishment at all."
The next scheduled execution here in Texas is Robert James Campbell who was
just 18 when he and another man kidnapped Alexandra Rendon from a gas station.
The 2 men took her to a wooded area, raped her and then told her to run.
Campbell shot her in the back and left her to die.
Campbell has been on death row longer than 18 years.
He is scheduled to die May 13th and all sides know the Oklahoma case will come
up in the days before that, but the United States Supreme Court has a high bar
that includes incidents much worse than last night in Oklahoma.
"Where the electric chair did not work and that was not enough. They said you
get to get executed again," Treece said.
For those on death row the clock is still ticking, at least for now.
(source: KHOU news)
***************
Botched Oklahoma Execution Casts Shadow on Texas Death Row
Criminal defense attorneys are already mapping strategy to halt Texas
executions after Tuesday's botched lethal injection in Oklahoma.
Inmate Clayton Lockett was sentenced to death for shooting a teenager and
watching as she was buried alive. His lethal injection began at 6:23pm but was
halted after about 20 minutes when he tried to talk and suffered seizures.
An Associated Press witness said the blinds were lowered in the execution
chamber at 6:39pm and Lockett died of a heart attack at 7:06pm.
It was the 1st use of a new combination of drugs for lethal injection in
Oklahoma. "It's shocking that the government would torture people like this,"
Dallas criminal defense attorney John Tatum said.
Tatum represents several Texas death row inmates, including Naim Muhammad,
convicted of the 2011 Dallas drowning his 2 children. Tatum said the Oklahoma
incident is reason to challenge all lethal injections.
"Every case that's pending in the state or any state that uses a different
cocktail of drugs to kill people," Tatum said.
Tatum was one of several defense attorneys attending a conference Wednesday on
capital punishment defense, where talk turned to the execution of Clayton
Lockett.
"The duration of it is what was cruel and unusual in my view," said attorney
Rick Wardroup.
The attorneys said Texas has refused to disclose the source of lethal
injections drugs it is using now. "We don't know whether it's coming from
China," said attorney Brad Lollar. "There's just no telling. And there's no
quality assurance there."
Former prosecutor Toby Shook handled 21 death penalty cases. He witnessed the
2012 execution of Texas 7 leader George Rivas for the murder of Irving Police
officer Aubrey Hawkins. "He went very calmly. It was very clinical," Shook
said.
Shook said The State of Texas will claim it's lethal injection procedures are
not flawed. "I'm sure what the state will argue is that we haven't had these
problems in Texas and the process has worked," Shook said.
The next execution scheduled in Texas is inmate Robert Campbell for the 1991
robbery, rape and murder of a Houston woman.
(source: nbcdfw.com)
*************
Death Penalty Given in Waco Capital Murder
A Southeast Texas man who met his wife as a pen pal while he was in prison has
been sentenced to death for killing her a few months after his release.
A jury in Waco on Tuesday decided Carnell Petetan Jr. of Port Arthur should be
executed for the September 2012 shooting death of his estranged wife, Kimberly.
Jurors on April 21 convicted Petetan of capital murder in the slaying during an
argument at the woman's Waco apartment. Investigators say Petetan then abducted
his wife's daughter. The then-9-year-old girl was rescued in Bryan.
Prosecutors say Petetan was serving nearly 20 years in prison for attempted
murder when he met his wife in 2009 as a pen pal. They wed the following year.
Petetan was released in early 2012.
(source: Associated Press)
NORTH CAROLINA:
NC executions put on hold by 2007 lawsuit
In North Carolina, no one has been executed since 2006, when a series of
lawsuits filed by death row inmates created a de facto moratorium.
Among the challenges was a contention by inmates sentenced to death that North
Carolina's execution method was "cruel and unusual punishment" and therefore
unconstitutional.
In March, a 3-judge N.C. Court of Appeals panel sent the case back to the trial
court where it started.
Much has changed since the prisoners filed the suit in 2007. The inmates argued
then that the 3-drug cocktail used to execute North Carolina prisoners - a
combination that was supposed to render the inmate unconscious first, then
paralyze all muscles before inducing cardiac arrest - inflicted cruel and
unusual punishment, especially if the 1st drug failed or the injection was
administered improperly.
As the prisoners' case worked its way up to the 3-judge N.C. appeals court
panel, the N.C. General Assembly made changes to the law governing the
execution protocol process, and the state secretary of public safety adopted a
new protocol.
In October 2013, Frank Perry, the secretary of public safety, adopted a new
lethal injection protocol that calls for a single-drug injection.
As that case awaits scheduling in Wake County Superior Court to return to the
core questions, death penalty critics say the Oklahoma case should give pause
in North Carolina.
"This horrendous situation is all the more regrettable because it was easily
avoidable," James Coleman, a Duke University law professor, said about the
botched Oklahoma execution. "The state used a drug combination - for the 1st
time and untested - because it was in a rush to execute the 2 men scheduled for
a double execution."
"More than anything, the debacle exposes the Oklahoma Supreme Court for acting
expediently, when its stay of the execution to demand transparency about the
drugs was challenged politically," Coleman added. "The court vacated its stay
when challenged by the governor and a political group that threatened to oppose
a member of the Supreme Court who was facing voter approval for reappointment.
This, unfortunately, is what's happening to our 'independent' judiciary -
groups and politicians feel free to challenge unpopular legal decisions on the
basis of political considerations when they don't like the legal outcome."
(source: News & Observer)
OHIO:
Judge again sentences Donna Roberts to death
Donna Roberts, 69, has been re-sentenced to the death penalty for her role in
the 2001 murder of her ex-husband, Robert Fingerhut. Roberts and her boyfriend,
Nathaniel Jackson, were convicted of killing Fingerhut in the Howland home
Roberts and Fingerhut shared.
Judge Ronald Rice conducted a sentencing hearing Wednesday in Trumbull County
Common Pleas Court as ordered last October by the Ohio Supreme Court, which
said the last judge to sentence her, John M. Stuard, failed to consider certain
evidence when he re-sentenced Roberts in 2007.
Judge Stuard, who retired at the end of 2012 and died in early February 2013,
heard remarks from Roberts during the 2007 resentencing in which she talked
about injuries she had suffered and her mental health, but the judge never
mentioned those remarks in his sentencing entry, the Supreme Court said.
The supreme court ruling said the judge "failed to consider relevant mitigating
evidence" contained in the remarks Roberts made.
She and Jackson were both re-sentenced after Ohio???s 11th District Court of
Appeals said Judge Stuard erred in 2002 when he sentenced Roberts and Jackson
because he allowed the Trumbull County Prosecutor's Office to prepare the
sentencing entry without the knowledge of Roberts' defense team.
(source: Youngstown Vindicator)
***************
Gov. John Kasich grants reprieve to death row inmate Arthur Tyler, commuting
sentence to life without parole
Gov. John R. Kasich announced Wednesday that he has commuted the death sentence
of Arthur Tyler to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The decision comes just one day after the Ohio Parole Board recommended that
Tyler, the next death-row inmate scheduled for execution in Ohio, should be
granted mercy because of questions surrounding his murder conviction in the
1980s.
Tyler was convicted in Cuyahoga County in 1986 for the murder of 74-year-old
Sander Leach, a produce vendor. His execution had been scheduled for May 28.
"After carefully reviewing the case record with my legal counsel and studying
the recommendations of the Parole Board, I've decided to commute Arthur Tyler's
sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole," Kasich said in
announcing his decision.
"The questions that continue around this case are fundamental and the
irregularities in the court proceedings are troubling," Kasich said. "Arthur
Tyler's crime against Sander Leach and his family was heinous and this
commutation in no way diminishes that and I pray that Mr. Leach's family can
find peace and healing."
Tyler's case was controversial because he was 1 of 2 people convicted in the
killing of Leach, but the only one sentenced to die.
And there are questions as to who actually pulled the trigger.
Tyler's co-defendant, Leroy Head, confessed almost immediately. Head admitted
to police, family and friends that he shot Leach in a struggle for the gun
during the March 1983 robbery attempt, according to court records.
He signed a confession, but later changed his story, telling prosecutors that
Tyler fired the gun.
Tyler was convicted of aggravated murder and aggravated robbery and sentenced
to die. Head pleaded guilty to the same charges and was sentenced to prison. He
was released in 2008.
The Parole Board's recommendation to Kasich came after both prosecutors and
defense attorneys urged mercy for Tyler.
At a clemency hearing last week, attorneys for Tyler told board members that he
had no involvement with the shooting and was convicted on the coerced testimony
of a co-defendant who later repeatedly confessed to being the triggerman.
County prosecutors told the board that the evidence proves that Tyler shot the
vendor. However, they recommended that Tyler receive life in prison without
parole, as they're not confident that they could secure a death conviction if
the same case came up today.
6 of the Parole Board's 11 members recommended commuting Tyler's sentence to
life in prison with immediate parole eligibility. The other 5 board members
favored commuting his sentence to 33 years to life, which would make Tyler
parole eligible in 2 years.
(source: Cleveland.com)
***********************
ACLU Asks Kasich To Halt Executions In Ohio Through 2015
In wake of a botched execution in Oklahoma Tuesday, opponents of the death
penalty in Ohio have wasted no time in asking Governor John Kasich to stop
executions at least through next year.
"They keep changing the protocol and they keep botching executions," said Gary
Daniels, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Ohio.
"This is not working. They really need to take a break at this point."
Daniels says Kasich and the Department of Corrections should halt executions
until the methods can be thoroughly studied.
"They are constantly changing the ways they execute people and they're
constantly getting it wrong," said Daniels. "We now have at least 4 botched
executions here in Ohio over several years.???
In response to the ACLU's letter, Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols told 10TV, "The
governor supports the death penalty and takes his responsibility of
implementing it very seriously."
Late Wednesday Kasich announced he had commuted the death sentence of Arthur
Tyler to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Ohio has struggled implementing capital punishment over the years, including
this past January when Ohio death row inmate Dennis McGuire reportedly made
snorting noises during his 25-minute execution.
Department of Corrections officials declined 10TVs request Wednesday to go
on-camera to discuss details of the execution.
Through a statement, spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said, "the Department remains
confident that it conducted the execution in a humane, constitutional way and
that the inmate was completely unconscious and felt no pain."
Still, Ohio announced this week it will increase the dosages of 2
lethal-injection drugs for future executions.
McGuire's execution is not an isolated case in Ohio.
In September 2009, the execution of Romell Broom had to be halted when
executioners could not find a suitable vein to use for more than 2 hours. Broom
grimaced in pain while the execution was attempted.
In May 2007, prison staff also had trouble finding a usable vein on Christopher
Newton's arms. They stuck Newton more than 10 times with needles and the
execution took nearly 2 hours.
And in May 2006, Joseph Clark screamed out that there was a problem with his
execution. The curtains were closed but witnessed reported hearing Clark
moaning and crying out in pain. It was determined that his vein collapsed
during the execution process.
On Tuesday, convicted murdered Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack nearly an
hour after Oklahoma authorities started a new 3-drug lethal injection.
Prison officials had to stop the execution when Lockett began violently moving
and mumbling after the drugs were administered.
"There was some concern at that the drugs were not having the effect, so the
doctor observed the line and determined the line had blown," said Robert
Patton, Oklahoma Dept of Corrections Director.
Oklahoma's governor has requested a full review.
(source: 10tv news)
OKLAHOMA:
Oklahoma senator pushes to stop death penalty; State lawmakers push to stop
executions
Oklahoma lawmakers are pushing a resolution to stop executions.
A couple of lawmakers are working with the American Civil Liberties Union and
the Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty to push a resolution that would stop
all executions until an independent, outside investigation can be done into
what went wrong Tuesday night.
Gov. Mary Fallin announced a member of her cabinet will lead an investigation
into what went wrong with the execution of Clayton Lockett, but state Sen.
Connie Johnson said it should be an outsider who does the investigation.
Johnson said the court allowed the execution only because of extreme pressure
from the governor and the legislature, not because it was legally right.
"Until such time as an independent, thorough investigation can be conducted by
an outside source, not by a state agency, because we feel that same state
agency may be subject to the same pressures," said Johnson.
Supporting Johnson's resolution was Brady Henderson with the ACLU.
"One of the first places to look could be the U.S. Justice Department coming in
here. That would be a step in the right direction," said Henderson.
Whoever takes over the investigation, they will be working at the same time
various defense attorneys consider bringing a class action lawsuit against the
state of Oklahoma.
"We are looking at whether or not the execution last night violated the Eighth
Amendment to the United States Constitution," said David Slane, a death penalty
defense attorney.
While Johnson acknowledged her resolution to stop executions likely won't gain
traction in the legislature, she said it's still time to have a serious
discussion about capital punishment in our state, saying she can't imagine a
bigger debacle for Oklahoma.
"We're on the stage right now, and the world is looking to us, the eyes of the
world are on us as to how we are going to resolve the issues that are before us
today," said Johnson.
A big part of the investigation will focus on whether Lockett suffered any pain
and whether his Eighth Amendment rights protecting him from cruel and unusual
punishment were violated.
(source: Fox News)
***********************
End Barbaric Lethal Injections----Inmate Regains Consciousness, Cries Out
During Execution
Oklahoma should end its failed experiment with the death penalty. On the
evening of April 29, 2014, during an attempt to execute Clayton Lockett by
lethal injection, he appeared to regain consciousness. Witnesses reported that
Lockett began to mumble, calling out "man" and "something's wrong," tried to
lift his head, and began to go into a seizure. Lockett died of a heart attack
40 minutes after the execution had begun.
"People convicted of crimes should not be test subjects for a state's grisly
experiments," said Antonio Ginatta, US advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.
"Last night's botched execution was nothing less than state-sanctioned
torture."
Lockett, 38, had been convicted of killing Stephanie Neiman in 1999.
Oklahoma was using a 3-drug protocol: the 1st drug administered was midazolam,
to cause unconsciousness. The 2nd drug, vecuronium bromide, was supposed to
stop respiration, and the 3rd, potassium chloride, was to stop the heart. The
1st drug was supposed to act as a sedative and negate the pain caused by the
latter 2. But it apparently was not administered correctly.
According to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, the 3-drug cocktail had
never before been tried in Oklahoma, and the average time for an inmate to be
pronounced dead through lethal injections in the past had been 6 to 12 minutes.
As drugs used in lethal injections have become harder to procure, their sources
have become shrouded in secrecy. Oklahoma law prohibits the disclosure of the
source of these drugs. An Oklahoma court found that this law violated the
constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment, but the state
supreme court ultimately disagreed and allowed the Lockett execution to be
carried out.
Lockett's execution was to be followed by another the same night, but after
Lockett's death Governor Mary Fallin issued a 14-day stay on that 2nd execution
so that the state could review its execution procedures.
18 states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty in the
United States. Lockett is the 20th person executed in the United States in
2014. These executions have occurred in 5 states: Texas, Florida, Missouri,
Oklahoma, and Ohio. 39 inmates were executed in the United States last year.
Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all cases because the inherent
dignity of the person cannot be squared with the death penalty, a form of
punishment unique in its cruelty and finality. It is a punishment inevitably
and universally plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error. The death
penalty is widely rejected by rights-respecting democracies around the world,
including all 47 member countries of the Council of Europe.
Lockett is the latest inmate on whom states have tested new lethal injection
protocols. In January, Ohio executed a man using an untested cocktail. The
inmate struggled and made snorting and choking sounds for 10 minutes during
that execution. In another execution that month in Oklahoma using a different
drug protocol, the inmate said, "I feel my whole body burning" before he died.
"These men are testifying as they die," Ginatta said. "States should stop
experimenting and trying to find a painless or humane way to kill inmates ???
there isn't any."
(source: Human Rights Watch)
*******************
Oklahoma's botched lethal injection marks new front in battle over executions
A botched lethal injection in Oklahoma has catapulted the issue of U.S. capital
punishment back into the international spotlight, raising new questions about
the drugs being used and the constitutional protection against cruel and
unusual punishment.
"We have a fundamental standard in this country that even when the death
penalty is justified, it must be carried out humanely -- and I think everyone
would recognize that this case fell short of that standard," White House
spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday.
What went wrong Tuesday in Oklahoma "will not only cause officials in that
state to review carefully their execution procedures and methods," said Richard
W. Garnett, a former Supreme Court law clerk who now teaches criminal and
constitutional law at the University of Notre Dame, "it will also almost prompt
many Americans across the country to rethink the wisdom, and the morality, of
capital punishment."
"The Constitution allows capital punishment in some cases, and so the decision
whether to use it or abandon it, and the moral responsibility for its use and
misuse, are in our hands," he said.
Precisely what happened during the execution of convicted murderer and rapist
Clayton Lockett remains unclear. Witnesses described the man convulsing and
writhing on the gurney, as well as struggling to speak, before officials
blocked the witnesses' view.
It was the state's 1st time using a new, 3-drug cocktail for an execution.
Oklahoma halted the execution of another convicted murderer and rapist, Charles
Warner, which was scheduled for later in the day.
32 U.S. states have the death penalty, as does the U.S. government and the U.S.
military. Since 2009, 3 states -- New Mexico, Connecticut, and Maryland -- have
voted to abolish it. States that have capital punishment have been forced to
find new drugs to use since European-based manufacturers banned U.S. prisons
from using theirs for executions. One of those manufacturers is the Danish
company Lundbeck, maker of pentobarbital.
Carney, speaking to reporters at a daily briefing, said he had not discussed
the Oklahoma case with President Barack Obama.
"He has long said that while the evidence suggests that the death penalty does
little to deter crime, he believes there are some crimes that are so heinous
that the death penalty is merited." The crimes committed by the 2 men in
Oklahoma "are indisputably horrific and heinous," Carney said.
'There was chaos'
Lockett lived for 43 minutes after being administered the 1st drug, CNN
affiliate KFOR reported. He got out the words "Man," "I'm not," and
"something's wrong," reporter Courtney Francisco of KFOR said. Then the blinds
were closed.
Other reporters, including Cary Aspinwall of the Tulsa World newspaper, also
said Lockett was still alive and lifted his head while prison officials lowered
the blinds so onlookers couldn't see what was going on.
Dean Sanderford, Lockett's attorney, said his client's body "started to
twitch," and then "the convulsing got worse. It looked like his whole upper
body was trying to lift off the gurney. For a minute, there was chaos."
Sanderford said guards ordered him out of the witness area, and he was never
told what had happened to Lockett, who was convicted in 2000 of 1st-degree
murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery.
After administering the first drug, "We began pushing the second and third
drugs in the protocol," said Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert
Patton. "There was some concern at that time that the drugs were not having the
effect. So the doctor observed the line and determined that the line had
blown." He said that Lockett's vein had "exploded."
The execution process was halted, but Lockett died of a heart attack, Patton
said.
"I notified the attorney general's office, the governor's office of my intent
to stop the execution and requested a stay for 14 days," said Patton.
Gov. Mary Fallin issued a statement saying that "execution officials said
Lockett remained unconscious after the lethal injection drugs were
administered."
Another state, another botched execution
Earlier this year, a convicted murderer and rapist in Ohio, Dennis McGuire,
appeared to gasp and convulse for at least 10 minutes before dying from the
drug cocktail used in his execution.
Ohio used the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone in McGuire's
January execution, the state said.
Louisiana announced later that month that it would use the same 2-drug
cocktail.
Oklahoma had announced the drugs it planned to use: midazolam; vecuronium
bromide to stop respiration; and potassium chloride to stop the heart. "2
intravenous lines are inserted, 1 in each arm. The drugs are injected by
hand-held syringes simultaneously into the 2 intravenous lines. The sequence is
in the order that the drugs are listed above. 3 executioners are utilized, with
each 1 injecting 1 of the drugs."
The execution was the 1st time Oklahoma had used midazolam as the 1st element
in its 3-drug cocktail. The drug is generally used for children "before medical
procedures or before anesthesia for surgery to cause drowsiness, relieve
anxiety, and prevent any memory of the event," the U.S. National Library of
Medicine says. "It works by slowing activity in the brain to allow relaxation
and sleep."
The drug "may cause serious or life-threatening breathing problems," so a child
should only receive it "in a hospital or doctor's office that has the equipment
that is needed to monitor his or her heart and lungs and to provide life-saving
medical treatment quickly if his or her breathing slows or stops."
Cruel and unusual?
The question for courts is whether using such drugs in executions constitutes
"cruel and unusual" punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution.
After his execution, McGuire's family filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction of
the execution protocol the state used.
"The lawsuit alleges that when Mr. McGuire's Ohio execution was carried out on
January 16th, he did endure frequent episodes of air hunger and suffocation, as
predicted," the office of the family's attorney Richard Schulte said in a
statement. "Following administration of the execution protocol, the decedent
experienced 'repeated cycles of snorting, gurgling and arching his back,
appearing to writhe in pain,' and 'looked and sounded as though he was
suffocating.' This continued for 19 minutes."
In Oklahoma, attorneys for both Lockett and Warner have been engaged in a court
fight over the drugs used in the state's executions.
They'd initially challenged the state Department of Corrections' unwillingness
to divulge which drugs would be used. The department finally disclosed the
substances.
Lockett and Warner also took issue with the state's so-called secrecy provision
forbidding it from disclosing the identities of anyone involved in the
execution process or suppliers of any drugs or medical equipment. The Oklahoma
Supreme Court rejected that complaint, saying such secrecy does not prevent the
prisoners from challenging their executions as unconstitutional.
After Lockett's execution, Adam Leathers, co-chairman of the Oklahoma Coalition
to Abolish the Death Penalty, accused the state of having "tortured a human
being in an unconstitutional experimental act of evil."
"Medical and legal experts from around the country had repeatedly warned
Oklahoma's governor, courts and Department of Corrections about the likelihood
that the protocol intended for use ... would be highly problematic," said
Deborah Denno, death penalty expert at Fordham Law School.
"This botch was foreseeable and the state (was) ill prepared to deal with the
circumstances despite knowing that the entire world was watching. Lethal
injection botches have existed for decades but never have they been riskier or
more irresponsible than they are in 2014. This outcome is a disgrace," Denno
said.
Amnesty International USA called the botched execution "one of the starkest
examples yet of why the death penalty must be abolished."
"Last night the state of Oklahoma proved that justice can never be carried out
from a death chamber," Executive Director Steven W. Hawkins said in a
statement.
Investigation
The Oklahoma attorney general's office is "gathering information on what
happened in order to evaluate," said spokeswoman Dianne Clay.
Fallin ordered an independent review of the state's execution procedures and
issued an executive order granting a 2-week delay in executions.
"I believe the legal process worked. I believe the death penalty is an
appropriate response and punishment to those who commit heinous crimes against
their fellow men and women. However, I also believe the state needs to be
certain of its protocols and its procedures for executions and that they work,"
she told reporters Wednesday.
Fallin gave no deadline for the review, which will be led by Department of
Public Safety Commissioner Michael Thompson. If it is not done within the
14-day period, the governor said she would issue an additional stay for Warner.
Lockett's attorney slammed the announcement and called for a "truly"
independent investigation.
"The DPS is a state agency, and its Commissioner reports to the Governor. As
such, the review proposed by Governor Fallin would not be conducted by a
neutral, independent entity.
"In order to understand exactly what went wrong in last night's horrific
execution, and restore any confidence in the execution process, the death of
Clayton Lockett must be investigated by a truly independent organization, not a
state employee or agency," Dean Sanderford said in a statement.
Lockett was convicted in 2000 of a bevy of crimes that left Stephanie Nieman
dead and two people injured.
Nieman's parents released a statement Tuesday prior to Lockett's scheduled
execution.
"God blessed us with our precious daughter, Stephanie for 19 years," it read.
"She was the joy of our life. We are thankful this day has finally arrived and
justice will finally be served."
Warner, who now awaits execution, was convicted in 2003 for the first-degree
rape and murder six years earlier of his then-girlfriend's 11-month-old
daughter, Adrianna Waller.
His attorney, Madeline Cohen, said further legal action can be expected given
that "something went horribly awry" in Lockett's execution Tuesday.
"Oklahoma cannot carry out further executions until there's transparency in
this process," Cohen said. "... Oklahoma needs to take a step back."
In a CNN/ORC poll earlier this year, 50% of Americans said the penalty for
murder in general should be death, while 45% said it should be a life sentence.
The survey's sampling error made that a statistical tie. Fifty-six percent of
men supported the death penalty for murder in general, while 45% of women did.
A Gallup poll last year found 62% of Americans believe the death penalty is
morally acceptable, while half as many, 31%, consider it morally wrong.
(source: CNN)
********************
Oklahoma Vows Review of Botched Execution
As Clayton D. Lockett writhed and groaned on the gurney on Tuesday night after
a large dose of sedatives had apparently not been fully delivered, the Oklahoma
chief of corrections rushed to call the governor and the attorney general.
Something had gone disastrously wrong with the lethal injection, he told them,
and the execution of a second man must be delayed. Gov. Mary Fallin instantly
agreed.
On Wednesday, the state faced an outcry and the White House condemned the
execution as inhumane. Ms. Fallin defended the death penalty but ordered a
thorough review of the state's procedures for lethal injections. She promised
an independent autopsy of Mr. Lockett, who had been sentenced for shooting a
woman and burying her alive, and who died 43 minutes after the initiation of a
procedure that was supposed to be quick and painless.
Ms. Fallin said the execution of Charles F. Warner, originally also planned for
Tuesday, would be delayed until May 13 or later if necessary, but added, "His
fellow Oklahomans have sentenced him to death, and we expect that sentence to
be carried out as required by law."
Mr. Lockett's lawyer said the governor's vow of an investigation fell short
because the task was given not to an outsider but to the state's public safety
commissioner.
Medical and legal experts said the sequence of events in the Oklahoma State
Penitentiary here on Tuesday night raised serious concerns about the methods
the state uses for executions and the medical training of those who carry them
out.
It was also a stark reminder of the problems with lethal injections, which once
seemed to promise a relatively humane, inexpensive way to take lives. There is
a history of botched procedures, made worse recently by the unavailability of
key drugs and by states' experimentation with new regimens.
In January, a convict in Ohio gasped for more than 10 minutes while dying, and
another Oklahoma inmate cried out, "I feel my whole body burning," after being
injected with drugs from a compounding pharmacy, which mix up drugs to order
and are lightly regulated.
At issue in Oklahoma and other states is the secrecy imposed on the sources of
lethal drugs, making it impossible for defendants to know whether untested
combinations may cause suffering barred by the Constitution.
Groups opposed to the death penalty called for an immediate moratorium on
executions in Oklahoma. "In Oklahoma's haste to conduct a science experiment on
2 men behind a veil of secrecy, our state has disgraced itself before the
nation and world," said Ryan Kiesel, executive director of the Oklahoma branch
of the American Civil Liberties Union.
State officials said the drug cocktail had not been at fault. Rather, they
said, the intravenous needles had apparently damaged Mr. Lockett's veins,
reducing the amount of drugs entering his bloodstream: the sedative, a
paralyzing agent intended to halt breathing and another agent to stop the
heart.
Some experts wondered why an attending doctor had prematurely pronounced Mr.
Lockett unconscious and how a blown intravenous line could have gone undetected
for so long.
On social media, some people said they wished Mr. Lockett had suffered more, in
keeping with what he did to his victim.
But Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said the incident had been
inhumane.
"We have a fundamental standard in this country that even when the death
penalty is justified, it must be carried out humanely," Mr. Carney said, noting
that President Obama approved of the death penalty in some circumstances. "And
I think everyone would recognize that this case fell short of that standard."
Tuesday's events have fanned the embers of concern about lethal injections,
which have not turned out to be the cure-all that some had hoped for when
Oklahoma, in 1977, was the 1st state to adopt a 3-drug protocol for executions.
"We started with hangings, then moved to electrocution in 1890 and to lethal
gas in 1921, with the firing squad always around on the outskirts," said
Deborah W. Denno, a law professor at Fordham University and an expert in the
history of lethal injections. "The move to lethal injection in 1977 was an
effort to combat all the ills associated with other methods. Nevertheless,
we've seen botch after botch."
Incidents of clear suffering have become more common in recent years, Ms. Denno
said, as states have experimented with new drugs and combinations.
Some advocates of the death penalty have long argued that moving to lethal
injections was a mistake. Kent S. Scheidegger, legal director at the Criminal
Justice Legal Foundation, which favors the death penalty, said, "I have never
liked the idea of medicalizing executions, where we have a procedure now
requiring people who perform executions to have medical skills."
If lethal injections are to continue, a government agency may eventually have
to produce the drugs, Mr. Scheidegger said, because "the opponents are able to
intimidate the private sellers."
Douglas A. Berman, an expert on sentencing law and policy at Ohio State
University, said, "There's a reasonable modern consensus that death alone
should be our maximum punishment, not a torturous death."
One of the challenges for lethal injections is the scarcity of medical
professionals willing to participate. Both the American Medical Association and
the American Society of Anesthesiologists say doctors should not take part in
executions.
The execution of Mr. Lockett on Tuesday seemed at first to be proceeding
normally. When witnesses first saw him through windows, he was strapped onto a
gurney with a sheet covering his body. A technician had already placed an
intravenous line, emerging from a wall, in each arm, with the locations covered
by the sheet.
At 6:23 p.m., the prison warden, Anita Trammell, asked Mr. Lockett if he had
any last words - he did not - and called out, "Let the execution begin." That
was a signal to anonymous officials behind a wall to begin pumping a sedative,
midazolam, which the state had not used before, into both of Mr. Lockett's
arms.
Mr. Lockett started blinking, his eyes turned glassy, and after a few minutes
they closed, said Dean Sanderford, one of his lawyers.
After the doctor in attendance pronounced Mr. Lockett unconscious, the warden
announced it loudly, signaling the figures behind the wall to move on to the
next phases.
A few minutes later, things went visibly wrong. Mr. Lockett twitched and
mumbled, witnesses said, then began writhing and trying to raise his upper
body.
Ziva Branstetter, an editor at The Tulsa World, wrote that Mr. Lockett had
begun rolling his head from side to side. "He again mumbles something we can't
understand, except for the word 'man,'" she reported. "He lifts his head and
shoulders off the gurney several times, as if he's trying to sit up. He appears
to be in pain."
16 minutes into the execution, the rattled warden pulled the blinds on the
witnesses, and the sound link was turned off.
10 minutes later, Robert Patton, the director of corrections, told the
witnesses that the execution was being aborted because "we've had a vein
failure in which the chemicals did not make it into the offender."
At 7:06 p.m., officials said, Mr. Lockett died of a "massive heart attack."
Mark J. Heath, an anesthesiologist at Columbia University and a death penalty
opponent, said that many aspects of the Oklahoma procedures were troubling.
"The team was not sufficiently skilled in inserting the intravenous catheters,
at testing them to make sure they were working and continuously assessing the
entire IV administration system during the injections," he said.
If the IVs had been visible and monitored, Mr. Heath and other experts said,
the doctor in the room might have detected the problem more quickly. And the
injection of drugs, they said, should have been done by a trained person
standing next to Mr. Lockett, not by a layperson behind a wall.
Ms. Fallin said the review would examine the cause of Mr. Lockett's death,
determine whether the corrections department had followed protocol and make
recommendations to improve executions.
(source: New York Times)
****************
State-Sponsored Horror in Oklahoma
At 6:36 p.m. on Tuesday in McAlester, Okla., Clayton Lockett started kicking
his leg, then twitching, then writhing and moaning in agony, and everyone
watching knew something had gone terribly wrong. Mr. Lockett, a convicted
murderer, was strapped to a gurney in the death chamber of the Oklahoma State
Penitentiary, about to be executed by lethal injection, but the untested
combination of a sedative and a paralyzing agent had failed.
According to an eyewitness account by a reporter for The Tulsa World, Mr.
Lockett tried to raise himself up, mumbled the word "man," and was in obvious
pain. Officials hastily closed the blinds on the chamber and told reporters
that the execution had been stopped because of a "vein failure." But at 7:06,
the inmate was pronounced dead of a heart attack.
This horrific scene - the very definition of cruel and unusual punishment -
should never have happened. The Oklahoma Supreme Court tried to stop it last
week, concerned that the state refused to reveal the origin of the deadly
cocktail. But several lawmakers threatened to impeach the justices, and Gov.
Mary Fallin blindly ignored the warning signs and ordered the execution to
proceed. (She said it was outside the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which
normally deals with civil matters.)
On Wednesday afternoon, a few hours after her employees tortured a man to
death, Ms. Fallin suddenly showed an interest in execution procedures. She
ordered an independent review of the injection protocol, halting further state
killings until the investigation is complete.
She should have gone much further and followed other governors and legislatures
in banning executions, recognizing that the American administration of death
does not function. Mr. Lockett's ordeal, along with the botched deaths of other
inmates around the country, showed there is no reliable and humane method of
execution. As Gov. John Kitzhaber of Oregon said in 2011: "I refuse to be a
part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer; and I will not
allow further executions while I am governor."
7 states have put the death penalty on hold over the last 5 years because of
issues of fairness or methods; another 11 states are debating the issue. Even
in states where the death penalty is applied, the number of executions has
fallen sharply since 2009. Republicans in Oklahoma seemed so eager to buck this
tide that they ignored what happened during a January execution, when an inmate
named Michael Lee Wilson said "I feel my whole body burning" just before the
drugs killed him.
Many drug companies, fearful of political attack, have stopped supplying the
means of execution, and states determined to inflict the maximum punishment
have turned to questionable sources like compounding pharmacies for lethal
chemicals. Oklahoma, among other states, won't say where it is getting the
drugs, leading one state judge to say "I do not think this is even a close
call" that the execution procedures are unconstitutional.
The medieval mechanics of death, though, are hardly the only reason that states
are abandoning the practice. There is growing evidence that capital sentences
are handed out in an arbitrary and racially biased way, often to innocent
victims. A new study published by the National Academy of Sciences estimated
that more than 4 % of all death-row defendants are innocent.
The authors reached that figure by extrapolating from the growing number of
exonerations of death-row inmates. They accused Justice Antonin Scalia of the
Supreme Court of miscalculating when he wrote in 2007 that convictions in
American courts have only a 0.027 % error rate. "That would be comforting, if
true," the study says. "In fact, the claim is silly." Even more disturbing, the
report says, is the stark reality for innocent people sentenced to death: most
will never be exonerated.
Jurists and lawmakers are increasingly aware that an immediate moratorium on
death is the only civilized response to this arbitrary cruelty. As Wallace
Carson Jr., the former chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, put it
recently, "the exceptional cost of death penalty cases and the seemingly
haphazard selection of which cases deserve the death penalty outweigh any
perceived public benefit of this sanction."
The "exceptional cost" refers not just to dollars and cents. It refers to the
moral diminishment of the United States when a man dies by the hasty hand of
government, writhing in pain.
(source: Editorial, New York Times)
MISSOURI----impending execution
Gov. Nixon's office says no plans to suspend executions after problems with
Oklahoma lethal injection
In the wake of a botched execution in Oklahoma, lawyers for condemned Missouri
prisoner Russell Bucklew asked Gov. Jay Nixon today to suspend Missouri's death
penalty.
But a spokesman for Nixon said he continued to support his state's execution
protocol, which has been upheld by courts.
Bucklew, 45, is scheduled to die by lethal injection May 21. He was convicted
of fatally shooting Michael Sanders on March 21, 1996.
In Oklahoma, Gov. Mary Fallin is calling for an independent review of the
state's execution protocols after an inmate had an apparent heart attack
Tuesday night 43 minutes after his execution began.
Oklahoma was using a brand-new protocol in Clayton Lockett's execution. The
execution was halted after more than 20 minutes, after Lockett began writhing
on the gurney. He died later, and an autopsy is underway.
The execution protocols in Oklahoma and Missouri are fundamentally different.
Oklahoma uses a 3-drug sequence
In a news release, Bucklew's lawyers, Cheryl Pilate and Lindsay Runnels, said
the Lockett execution was botched "by the extreme secrecy surrounding lethal
injection that Oklahoma fought hard in the courts to protect."
Like Oklahoma, Missouri has fought hard to keep confidential the identities of
its execution team and lethal drug suppliers.
"Last night's botched execution in Oklahoma holds important lessons for
Missouri and should lead to an immediate suspension of all executions in
Missouri pending full disclosure by the State of its protocols and its drug,"
the statement said. "It is only through full disclosure that the State can be
accountable to the public, and qualified professionals may evaluate Missouri's
execution protocol. Like Oklahoma, Missouri relies on unknown drugs and
untested protocols, hiding everything behind a wall of secrecy. Under these
circumstances, a botched execution is inevitable."
The lawyers for Bucklew said independent medical specialists had reviewed
Bucklew's records and found that he has malformed blood vessels, creating grave
and significant risks that he would suffer an excruciating execution.
In an emailed statement, a spokesman for Nixon noted that "the State of
Missouri has its own execution protocol."
"This protocol has been upheld by the courts and used by the Department of
Corrections to fulfill its obligation under the law and carry out these
sentences for the most heinous of crimes in an efficient, effective and humane
manner. The Governor continues to support the ultimate punishment imposed by
juries and courts for the most merciless and violent crimes."
(source: lakeexpo.com)
*******************
Attorney calls for halt to Missouri executions
The botched execution in Oklahoma has at least 1 Missouri attorney calling for
a halt to all Missouri executions.
"They were experimenting with a human being!" said Cheryl Pilate, the attorney
who called Oklahoma's botched execution torture.
Now she says Missouri executions need to be put on hold until state officials
remove the secrecy surrounding execution drugs including the drug maker. The
law protects the identity of the members of the execution board and that now
includes the pharmacy who supplies the drug.
"They don't want us to know what they're doing because I don't think they know
what they're doing," she said.
Her client, Russell Bucklew, is the next Missouri inmate set to die. She said
Bucklew suffers a medical condition that makes it very likely his veins will
rupture and very likely that his execution will be botched too, causing
unnecessary pain.
"We don't stoop to the level of people who carry out murders," Joe Luby said.
He and Pilate are 2 of the attorneys representing 16 inmates suing the Missouri
Department of Corrections. They want full public disclosure about the execution
drugs because they say they need that information to properly fight for stays
of execution.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon defended Missouri's execution protocols.
"We're constantly looking at ways to make sure that it is humane and efficient
and effective," he said.
"Who cares!" shrugged Pete Edlund.
The investigation the retired Kansas City Police Department sergeant led in the
kidnapping, rape and murder of Anne Harrison in 1989 led to the execution of
Michael Taylor this year.
"25 years later. That wasn't justice," he said.
But is a prolonged, painful execution legal? Pilate wants an independent
medical professional present at Bucklew's execution and a full video recording.
"We want a record of what happens to Mr. Bucklew," she said.
Edlund is more concerned with the pain caused by killers than the executioners.
"What they did to the victim far outweighs anything that society can do them in
their execution," Edlund said.
The pending lawsuit involving 16 inmates started with 22 but their executions
continued. Bucklew is set to be executed May 21.
(source: KSHB news)
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