May 20
OKLAHOMA:
ACLU calls for international investigation of Oklahoma execution
Executions in Oklahoma and Missouri, including one scheduled for Wednesday,
will violate international law and should be halted until an international body
can investigate, the ACLU said in a petition Monday.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a petition Monday with the
Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
seeking to halt the execution of Russell Bucklew, set for Wednesday in
Missouri, and Charles Warner, set for Nov. 13 in Oklahoma.
"The upcoming executions by lethal injection in Missouri and Oklahoma will most
certainly violate international law against torture, cruel, inhuman, or
degrading treatment, should they go forward," the ACLU states in a release.
Bucklew's execution would be the 1st in the United States since the botched
execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma on April 29.
Bucklew's attorneys claim that he will suffer during the execution due to a
rare medical condition, cavernous hemangioma. The disorder causes tumors that
have severely compromised Bucklew's airways, placing him at risk of extreme
pain during the execution, his attorneys have said in court filings.
Bucklew was convicted in the 1996 shooting death of Michael Sanders, who was
living with Bucklew's ex-girlfriend at the time.
Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program, said in the group's
news release: "Lethal injection in the United States has reached such a level
of barbarism that the world needs to know the facts.
"The application of the death penalty itself in the U.S. violates international
human rights standards, yet we continue to administer it with methods shown
over and over to flout our own Constitution's prohibition against cruel and
unusual punishment."
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld lethal injection in the United States,
provided that carrying it out does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment,
which is banned by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Federal courts have held that inmates are not entitled to a pain-free death but
that states can cause only the amount of pain necessary to carry out the
punishment.
After a doctor had declared Lockett unconscious, witnesses watched the inmate
writhe in pain and mumble for 3 minutes on a gurney before a window covering
between the death chamber and the witness room was closed.
Prison officials later said a problem with Lockett's vein prevented them from
carrying out the execution as planned.
The DOC has refused to say whether any lifesaving measures were taken after the
execution was ordered halted, but Lockett died 43 minutes after it began.
DOC records show that an unknown quantity of the lethal drugs was absorbed into
Lockett's tissue, leaked out of his body, or both.
Lockett was executed for the 1999 death of Stephanie Neiman, 19, of Perry. He
was convicted of abducting her, shooting her twice and ordering an accomplice
to bury her in a shallow grave while she was still alive.
Warner was convicted in the 1997 rape and murder of 11-month-old Adrianna
Waller, his roommate's baby, in Oklahoma City. He was scheduled to be executed
2 hours after Lockett on April 29, but his execution was stayed six months
while the state investigates and revises its protocol.
For Lockett's execution, the DOC used a new drug - a sedative called midazolam
- followed by 2 drugs used in past executions. The DOC's protocol called for
the inmate to receive 100 miligrams of midazolam, 5 times less than the amount
used in Florida executions.
The Tulsa World has reported that state officials consulted no experts in
devising the new protocol, relying on legal research instead. Attorney General
Scott Pruitt's office has said it advised the DOC on the protocol and that
prison officials were responsible for final decisions on the methods.
Pruitt and Gov. Mary Fallin did not comment Monday on the ACLU's lawsuit.
In past statements, Fallin has defended the state, saying the problem with
Lockett's execution was that "it took too long."
It is unclear what, if any, authority the international human rights body would
have to investigate or halt executions in Missouri and Oklahoma.
Lockett's botched execution was condemned by the United Nations commissioner
for human rights. In addition, President Barack Obama said the execution was
"deeply troubling" and ordered a national review of capital punishment.
"Even in the face of a global outcry over the Lockett execution, Oklahoma has
refused to order an independent investigation into the failed experimental
protocol," the ACLU petition states.
Fallin has assigned her public safety commissioner, Michael Thompson, to lead
the state???s investigation. Critics have said the investigation lacks
independence because Thompson was appointed by Fallin, was a witness to the
execution and oversees the DOC in his Cabinet capacity.
According to the Organization of American States' website, the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights "derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the
American Convention on Human Rights."
"The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect for human
rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this matter.
The Commission is composed of seven independent members who are elected in an
individual capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who do not represent their
countries of origin or residence," the website states.
Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU capital punishment project, said the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights can hold a hearing to investigate
executions in Oklahoma and Missouri. The commission can also ask the U.S.
government to seek action by the 2 states, she said.
In a May 6 press release, the organization urged that all states using lethal
injection for executions fully disclose the drugs' source and information about
the composition and training of the execution team.
Oklahoma and Missouri have state laws banning the release of information
related to executions, including drug suppliers and the names of physicians,
pharmacists and others on the execution team.
Oklahoma is 1 of 32 states where the death penalty remains legal. The state
ranked No. 1 nationally in a 2011 study of the number of executions per capita
by state.
Resolutions seeking a moratorium on executions in Oklahoma have not received a
hearing in the state Legislature.
(source: Tulsa World)
COLORADO:
Colorado's latest case of death-penalty maneuvering
And so it begins: the seemingly endless round of legal maneuvering over another
potential death-penalty case, although this time the spectacle is occurring in
Denver rather than Arapahoe County.
Those who follow local news are well-acquainted with the blizzard of motions
filed over the past year in the runup to the trial of alleged Aurora theater
shooter James Holmes.
Now a similar process is apparently underway in the trial of Dexter Lewis, who
could face the death penalty if convicted of stabbing 5 people to death in a
Denver bar.
On Monday, Lewis' attorneys asked the judge to declare the death penalty
unconstitutional because of how it is applied. And that's only one of many
objections to capital punishment we're almost certain to see before this
process is over.
Proponents of the death penalty rarely acknowledge how costly and
time-consuming its sporadic enforcement has become. And yet a life sentence
without possibility of parole remains the just and logical alternative.
(source: Editorial, Denver Post Editorial Board)
CALIFORNIA:
DA Seeks Death Penalty in Sierra LaMar Case
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Antolin Garcia-Torres, the man
charged with kidnapping and murdering teenager Sierra LaMar, the Santa Clara
County District Attorney announced Monday
"He took her away from us," Sierra's father, Steve LaMar told NBC Bay Area.
"She isn't here to enjoy her life. We agree he should receive the ultimate
punishment."
This is the 1st capital punishment case that DA Jeff Rosen has sought,
according to his office. He was elected in 2010.
"Given the facts of this case and after a comprehensive review...I have
concluded that this defendant should face the ultimate penalty," Rosen said in
a statement. He declined to say more, adding that he did not want to taint the
jury pool.
Torres' alternate defender, David Epps, told NBC Bay Area in an email that he
and co-counsel, Al Lopez, are "extremely disappointed" Rosen is seeking the
death penalty, saying that the "circumstances of the case and the criminal
record" of their client don't appear to rise the level of capital punishment.
"As everyone is aware, there are serious issues with the administration of the
death penalty not only here in California but around the nation," Epps wrote.
"Since 1973, 112 death row inmates have been exonerated. We have always viewed
this as a missing person case not a homicide."
Rosen sent a letter to Santa Clara County Presiding Judge Thang N. Barrett
(PDF) on Monday informing him of his decision.
Sierra was last seen at her bus stop in Morgan Hill on March 16, 2012. Her
abduction deeply affected the Bay Area, especially because the 15-year-old
girl's body has never been found. Volunteers continue to search for her
remains, even 2 years after her disappearance and assumed death.
Her father told NBC Bay Area in March that it's been an extremely "frustrating"
2 years, both in terms of not knowing what happened to his daughter, and
because the court process has taken so long.
Garcia-Torres, a 1-time grocery clerk, pleaded not guilty in February 2014. He
was formally indicted by a criminal grand jury that week of 3 counts of
attempted kidnapping and carjacking for 3 separate crimes in 2009 outside South
Bay supermarkets, as well as the Sierra's murder and kidnap.
The last time a Santa Clara County jury decided to put a man to death was in
2010. In fact, there were two cases that year. Juries found that both Rodrigo
Paniagua Jr. should be sentenced to death for stabbing his pregnant girlfriend
and young daughters, before setting him on fire. A jury also decided to execute
Melvin Forte in that same year for kidnapping, raping and murdering a
23-year-old German woman, Ines Sailer.
Before that, a Santa Clara County jury hadn't come back with a positive death
penalty since 1997.
Legal Analyst Steven Clark said the DA's decision to seek the death penalty
against Garcia-Torres means it could now be years before the case goes to
trial.
"I am surprised by the DA's decision," Clark said. "There is no body and no
evidence of trauma or a crime scene."
Steve LaMar says he is aware he and his family will have to wait even longer
now, but he says he still feels it is important to pursue the death penalty for
the man accused of murdering his daughter.
(source: nbcbayarea.com)
USA:
These Are The Only 7 People In The US Pardoned AFTER They Were Executed
As many as 300 U.S. inmates sentenced to death over a 30-year period were
probably innocent, according to a recent study in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.
The courts converted many of their death sentences to life, the study found.
The U.S. judicial system, however, has actually killed innocent people.
While doubt exists in many past executions, seven people have received official
pardons after their executions in prison. Read their stories below.
Joe Arridy, executed in 1939
Joe Arridy
Executed for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old Colorado girl, Joe Arridy
died by lethal gas in 1939. As his last request, the 23-year-old asked for lots
of ice cream and his toy train, the Denver Westward reported. With an IQ of 46,
Arridy couldn't quite grasp the concept of death.
Arridy confessed to attacking Dorothy Drain and her 12-year-old sister,
Barbara, with a hatchet in 1936. (Barbara survived the attack.) Decades later,
overwhelming evidence proved his innocence. He wasn't in town at the time of
the killing, and someone else even admitted to the crime.
Police coerced Arridy's confession, the state said when it finally pardoned
him. Aside from the fact that he was innocent, imposing the death penalty on
someone as intellectually disabled as Arridy would also be considered
unconstitutional today.
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter officially pardoned Arridy in 2011. "Pardoning Mr.
Arridy cannot undo this tragic event in Colorado history," Ritter said. "It is
in the interest of justice and simple decency, however, to restore his good
name."
Thomas Griffin and Meeks Griffin
Thomas and Meeks Griffin, relatively wealthy black farmers, were electrocuted
in 1915 for killing a 73-year-old white Civil War veteran named John Q. Lewis.
A prominent legal historian's recent research, however, revealed Lewis was
having an affair with a much younger black woman, CNN reported. That woman and
her husband may have actually committed the murder.
One hundred years after South Carolina executed the Griffin brothers, the state
issued its 1st posthumous pardon in a unanimous vote. The Griffins'
grandnephew, nationally syndicated radio host Tom Joyner, spurred research into
the case after Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. traced his family
history and discovered the double-execution.
"It's good for the community. It's good for the nation. Anytime that you can
repair racism in this country is a step forward," Joyner told CNN.
Lena Baker, the only woman Georgia ever executed
Lena Baker
The only woman executed in Georgia, a 44-year-old black maid named Lena Baker,
died in the electric chair in 1945 for killing her employer, Ernest Knight.
At her trial, Baker told the all-white, all-male jury Knight had imprisoned her
and threatened to shoot her if she tried to leave, The Guardian reported. She
finally grabbed a gun and shot him when he held up a metal bar to strike her,
she testified.
Baker and Knight had a sexual relationship that sparked outrage in the
community, and his son had threatened her and beat her multiple times.
60 years after her death in 2005, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles
granted her family an official proclamation, pardoning her. While the board
didn't find her not guilty, it called the decision to refuse her clemency a
"grievous error," according to The New York Times.
John Snowden
The murder of a pregnant naval officer's wife in Maryland sent John Snowden, a
29-year-old black man, to the gallows in February of 1919. He professed his
innocence until the day he hanged. Even given one last chance to confess, he
said, "I could not leave this world with a lie in my mouth."
Snowden had a loose connection to the victim, Lottie Brandon: He drove an ice
truck in her neighborhood. Yet he endured hours of questioning and abuse from
the police.
2 of the main trial witnesses eventually recanted their testimony, according to
a report distributed through the Death Penalty Information Center. The jurors
who convicted him even became convinced of his innocence: 11 of the 12 wrote
the state government, asking it to commute Snowden's sentence.
In 2001, then-Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening finally gave John Snowden a full
pardon.
"The more I looked into it, the more I said, 'Something's just not right
here,'" Glendening told the Baltimore Sun.
William Jackson Marion
4 years after William Jackson Marion was hanged in 1887 for supposedly killing
his railroad co-worker, James Cameron, the "murdered" man turned up alive and
well.
Days before Cameron disappeared, he and Marion made a business agreement that
clearly benefitted Marion. Cameron's mother also told police she suspected
Marion's involvement in her son's disappearance.
About 11 years later, a dead body, wearing clothes similar to Cameron's, was
found on a Native American reservation. After a mistrial, a jury eventually
found Cameron guilty of the murder and sent him to the gallows.
Cameron - who showed up alive and well 4 years after the execution - explained
to authorities he'd fled for Mexico to avoid a shotgun wedding in Kansas. On
the centennial anniversary of Marion's execution in 1987, Nebraska Governor Bob
Kerrey granted Marion a full posthumous pardon.
Jack Kehoe
Jack Kehoe - leader of an anti-Civil War group called the Molly Maguires - was
hanged by the state of Pennsylvania in 1878 for the murder of a dissenting coal
miner named Frank Langdon.
Police first charged Kehoe's group with threatening to kill Langdon, and when
he turned up dead days later, they handcuffed Kehoe 1st.
Despite no physical evidence linking Kehoe to the scene of the crime, a mining
big-wig at the time named Franklin Gowan rallied for Kehoe to be put to death.
In 1978, Kehoe's great-grandson asked for his pardon. He claimed Gowan stacked
the jury, some of whom didn't even speak English, against Kehoe, among other
stilted circumstances, the Beaver County Times reported.
In 1979, then-Gov. Milton J. Shapp issued a full pardon to Kehoe, proclaiming
him innocent.
(source: Business Insider)
*********************
Major report urges reform of U.S. capital punishment system
Innocent people will be executed in the United States if the country's capital
punishment system is not reformed, warns a new report.
These reforms include improving the use of forensic science, taping
confessions, and providing better trained counsel to defendants. These
suggestions were among 39 recommendations released May 7 in a report by the
Constitution Project, a nonpartisan group working to improve the U.S. criminal
justice system.
The report's authors, collectively known as the Death Penalty Committee,
include both supporters and opponents of the death penalty. The publication
comes as the United States, 1 of just 43 countries that haven't outlawed
capital punishment, is in the midst of one of its largest national discussions
on the issue in years.
More than 30 states in the United States continue to allow the death penalty,
despite findings that the capital punishment system appears to be biased
against minorities - and despite dozens of known cases of innocent people being
sentenced to death. Since 1973, over 140 people have been exonerated from
"death row," but critics say it is impossible to tell how many of the 140 who
have been executed may have been innocent.
"Most disturbingly, there is evidence that defendants have been put to death
despite significant questions regarding their innocence, undermining confidence
in the entire criminal justice system," the report states.
"There can no longer be any doubt that innocent people do get convicted of
horrific crimes, spend years in prison and even face execution. Wrongful
convictions undermine society's confidence in the ability of the criminal
justice system to perform its most basic function - to convict the guilty and
acquit the innocent."
The report came a week after a botched execution in the Midwestern state of
Oklahoma. A prisoner named Clayton Lockett was scheduled to die by lethal
injection, but the deadly chemicals were erroneously injected into his flesh.
The procedure reportedly drug out for almost half an hour, during which the
conscious Lockett writhed in pain, according to his lawyer.
The Death Penalty Committee is recommending a single-dose injection, rather
than the three drugs that Oklahoma and most other states currently use. The
committee would also require that the federal government approve the drug or
drugs used - a potentially important new issue given that states across the
country are currently experimenting with new drugs, after pharmaceutical
companies have started refusing to supply their products for lethal injections.
The horrific story has re-ignited a broad public conversation here. Yet
advocates that work with the issue say that, while it is good to have the
public's attention on this issue, the more important concerns involve judicial
mistakes.
"Despite the Oklahoma execution, I think the more important recommendations [in
the new report] have to do with mistakes of innocence," Richard Dieter, the
executive director of Death Penalty Information Center, a clearinghouse, told
IPS.
"Recommendations about improving the quality of counsel, the forensics, the DNA
testing, the testing of evidence, the videotaping of suspects who are sometimes
pressured into confessing something they did not want to do ... these are the
kinds of things that could help prevent wrongful convictions on death row and
possibly wrongful executions."
Fatal mistakes
A federally funded study recently found that a minimum of 4 % of prisoners on
death row in the United States are innocent, according to research published
May 5 in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences.
Although small, any number above zero represents an innocent person sentenced
to death, like Anthony Graves. Mr. Graves was convicted in 1994 for murder and
sentenced to death based on testimony supplied only by the other convicted
murderer, Robert Carter.
Before his own execution, Mr. Carter repeatedly admitted that Mr. Graves was
not involved, but the process of re-investigation took years. Finally, in 2010,
Mr. Graves was exonerated and released.
"We're never ever going to stop killing innocent people as long as we have the
penalty," Mr. Graves said May 7 at a panel discussion here.
"But if this," he continued, holding up a copy of the Constitution Project
report, "had been in place before I went to trial, I probably would not have
gone to death row."
Potentially of help to Mr. Graves would have been a report recommendation on
videotaping custodial interrogations. Following such a procedure, proponents
say, would reduce the risk of false confessions - and provide juries with the
context of confessions provided.
Another series of suggestions detail how to improve the use of forensic science
in providing evidence.
Mark White, a former governor of Texas and co-chair of the Death Penalty
Committee, described the forensics police department in Houston, where "leaks
in the ceiling contaminated samples and people were not qualified to do the
sampling."
According to a 2011 study, over 50 % of the 1st 250 people exonerated by DNA
testing were convicted based on forensic mistakes.
Another problem are inadequately trained attorneys.
Mark Earley, a former attorney general of Virginia, described how he was
appointed fresh out of law school to represent a defendant on trial for his
life. Mr. Earley said he also witnessed incompetent representation repeatedly
during his time as attorney general, when he oversaw 36 executions in 3 1/2
years.
"For someone who is a 'small government' conservative, why did I believe the
government always gets it right?" he asked.
"It's not about being for or against the death penalty. But it's about saying
that if there is a death penalty, the trial process should be fair."
Slow reform
Some say the political climate in the U.S. is ripe for reform on the issue of
capital punishment. Following the botched execution in Oklahoma, President
Barack Obama requested that Attorney General Eric Holder review the application
of the death penalty throughout the country.
"In the application of the death penalty in this country, we have seen
significant problems - racial bias, uneven application of the death penalty -
situations in which there were individuals on death row who later on were
discovered to have been innocent because of exculpatory evidence," Mr. Obama
told reporters. "And all these, I think, do raise significant questions about
how the death penalty is being applied."
Experts in the field say that reform is likely, but only after a long and slow
process.
"Unfortunately the death penalty is immersed in a political ballet," the Death
Penalty Information Center's Dieter told IPS.
"I think the death penalty is actually declining by dramatic levels, and that
will probably continue. It is not serving people well: it is expensive and it
is picking out those who happen to be poor and minorities."
(source: The Final Call)
*****************************
Quick Takes - Televising Executions
With the media's focus on the recent botched executions in the news, some
journalists have proposed making the process publicly viewable to make
audiences reassess the morality of the death penalty.
Televising Executions Would Show the Brutality of the Death Penalty
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the United States has
executed 1,379 people since 1976. It is the only country in the West that still
executes prisoners. Citizens of the United States have voted in favor of
execution but don't seem to clearly understand what that means for the justice
system. Televising executions and making them publicly viewable or choosing a
method that seems less like a routine medical procedure than lethal injection
would force the citizens to see exactly what goes into taking a life.
The death penalty is something that a majority of the citizens of the United
States have agreed should exist, but very few civilians besides the families of
criminal victims and the media have ever actually seen what happens when
someone is killed in the name of the law. Trial consultant Richard Gabriel says
that a technique like the lethal injection "simply gives us greater
psychological distance from killing another human being."
United States citizens have to be willing to admit that when they vote to have
the death penalty, they are "codifying revenge," according to Gabriel.
Televising executions would trigger emotions in people in a way that newspaper
headlines simply can't. People must have the opportunity to view the
consequences of their votes and be able to live with the ramifications of
taking a life. If broadcasting executions and making them more clearly
murderous than a privately administered injection is what it takes, then
campaigning for such changes should be the next step for proponents and
opponents of execution alike.
Charu Mehra Staff Writer
--
Making Executions "Cleaner" Won't Absolve Society of its Moral Guilt
In light of the upcoming execution of convicted Oklahoma City terrorist Timothy
McVeigh, some argue that televising the procedure may influence the public to
demand more humane executions. However, arguing for "cleaner" executions is
really the public's way of trying to clear its collective conscience.
Today, the most common method of execution in the U.S. is lethal injection.
This involves administering drugs to the criminal in hopes of making his or her
passing as quick and painless as possible. Lethal injection was seen as a more
humane way of killing convicts because it did not create a bloody mess.
However, as recent executions in Oklahoma illustrate, this method is not as
smooth as was first thought and instead can leave victims writhing and
convulsing.
As further evidence, one can look back to the French Revolution, when the
guillotine was the method of choice for executions. Like lethal injection, the
guillotine was classified as humane because it was thought to be less painful.
But the duration of pain does not mitigate the inherent brutality of such a
killing.
No matter how we choose to kill our criminals today, no method will truly ever
be quick and painless. Demanding more humane executions is society's attempt to
alleviate the guilt for having collectively sentenced someone to death.
Citizens don't want to feel the blood on their hands and thus cry for a
"humane" killing. But their concern has nothing to do with caring for our
society's criminals and everything to do with our guilty consciences.
Ayat Amin Contributing Writer
--
Executions Are a Private Matter, Not a Form of Tasteless Entertainment
In a guest commentary for CNN, trial consultant Richard Gabriel argues that
public, televised executions would persuade audiences to re-evaluate the death
penalty because it would allow them to see the accused as a real human. While
it is definitely important to question the validity of the death penalty,
allowing the public to view a sensitive and private event does not help anyone.
Most notably, public viewership of an execution could possibly violate the
Eighth Amendment's "cruel and unusual punishment" clause. It is inhumane and
disrespectful to allow the public to watch someone die, even if he or she is a
convicted criminal. Furthermore, publicized executions will turn the death
penalty into some sort of depraved form of entertainment akin to the days when
spectators would watch executions in the Roman Colosseum.
According to an ABC News article, Eastern Michigan University professor and
death penalty expert Paul Leighton describes public executions as "prurient,"
or being an unhealthy interest. With so much other graphic content on TV
nowadays, the brutality of real-life televised executions might even be
psychologically harmful for viewers. Helen Prejean, an anti-death penalty
advocate, claims that although the death penalty intends to bring relief to
victims??? families, many have said that watching the perpetrator die does not
offer closure for them.
Several experts, including Leighton, agree that having the public view
executions will not serve a legitimate purpose. Ultimately, it is tasteless to
glorify and dramatize the death penalty by publicizing what is a sensitive and
serious issue.
--Rosina Garcia Contributing Writer
(source: UCSD Guardian)
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