July 25
TENNESSEE:
Voices from the Tennessee death penalty debate
The practice of execution in the US is growing increasingly complicated, as are
the attitudes Americans have about the death penalty. 5 people engaged in the
death penalty debate in Tennessee, which recently voted to use the electric
chair in executions should lethal injection drugs become unavailable, offer
their thoughts.
Arizona inmate Joseph Wood died this week by lethal injection, in a process
that took almost two hours. His death came after he and his legal team tried to
stop the execution because they didn't know the provenance of the drugs to be
used to kill him.
A shortage of the drugs used for lethal injections and the uncertainty about
the efficacy of the drugs that are available have forced many states across the
US to consider alternative means of execution. Earlier this month, Tennessee
passed a law that said inmates would be put to death in the electric chair
should drugs not be readily available.
The BBC travelled to Tennessee and found different perspectives on the death
penalty and the possible return of the electric chair.
The grieving father
Christopher Newsom was travelling with his girlfriend when the couple were
kidnapped and murdered. His father Hugh Newsom supports the death penalty.
"There are a lot of people that are parading across the United States and the
world against the death penalty. This is the 1st time that anyone has asked the
Newsom family what they think.
"We lost a very great kid by murder. His girlfriend was murdered. There are a
lot of people that throw us their opinion and they've never been affected by
crimes like this.
"We're not animals, we're humans and we all have feelings. If the choice was
there, I would want a person put to death with the least suffering, but if
that's unavailable then, whatever means the state has at their disposable is
acceptable."
The witness to an electrocution
Lawyer David Raybin drafted Tennessee's death penalty legislation four decades
ago. He also witnessed the execution of convicted child killer Darryl Holton,
the last man to be electrocuted in Tennessee, on 12 September 2007.
"He sat in the chair with his water dripping down his face. I had this vision
of the electric chair crying for its victim; it was just so bizarre.
"Then he started to hyperventilate and then they put this mask over him - it
was like a welder's mask, so you could barely see any of his face now and
hardly any skin - and they had a shroud over his head. And then this fan came
on and it was really loud. It couldn't have been more than 5 seconds later and
you heard this tremendous bang and that was the electrocution. The lights
didn't dim or anything. It was just a tremendous bang.
"I'm not adverse to the death penalty per se. I think in extreme situations
perhaps it's appropriate, but I think if you're going to have a death penalty,
the means of execution are just as important as the decision to have a death
penalty.
"There has to be different alternatives to the lethal injections that can be
found to accomplish this. I've seen this electrocution. It's horrible."
The man who walked free
Ndume Olatushani was released from prison in 2012 after serving 19 years on
death row. He now campaigns against the death penalty.
"The first 10 years when I was in prison I chose not to have a TV in my cell
because I didn't want to get lost in this little small space. Over the period
of time that I was in prison, I read thousands of books and I just tried to
spend my time trying to figure out how to get up each day and put my best foot
forward.
"The hardest moments on death row are the hours before an execution, when you
know a fellow inmate won't be returning.
"It's sombre. You don't want to see someone who is full of life that you know
in a matter of hours will be no longer existing. I think everybody is just kind
of sad and kind of in this moment of realising that if you sit there long
enough, eventually you will be that person that you see put to death."
The politician who voted to bring back the electric chair
Republican State Representative Ryan Haynes supported the bill to bring back
electrocution in Tennessee.
"Families and victims of crime deserve to have justice. People who are
convicted of heinous and disgusting crimes that are so unspeakable, deserve the
death penalty.
"Still, the odds of Tennessee bringing back the electric chair are truly slim
to none. I do think that bill was probably more political [than practical]."
The conservative campaigning against the death penalty----Marc Hyden runs
Concerned Conservatives Against the Death Penalty
"In the '80s and '90s and coming from a conservative Christian family, it seem
liked a foregone conclusion that we support the death penalty, but that mindset
is changing. We are sceptical of government power. Many conservatives don't
trust the government to deliver a piece of mail or to run healthcare, so why on
Earth would you trust them to administer a programme that kills you as
citizens?
"I think you have to give any policy what I call the conservative litmus test:
you have to ask whether it is constitutional, pro-life, whether it is fiscally
responsible and whether it is limited government. And the death penalty is
inconsistent with at least 3 of those."
Listen to Rajini Vaidyanathan's BBC Radio 4 documentary, At the End of Death
Row.
(source: BBC news)
MISSOURI----new execution date
September execution date set for Kansas City-area killer Leon Taylor
The Missouri Supreme Court today set a Sept. 10 execution date for Leon Taylor,
who murdered a service station attendant in Independence, Mo., in 1994.
Leon Taylor, 56, killed Robert Newton during a robbery that was witnessed by
Newton's 8-year-old stepdaughter. According to trial testimony, Taylor also
pointed the gun at the girl's head and pulled the trigger, but the weapon
jammed.
The order for the execution of Taylor came a day after a botched execution in
Arizona rekindled debate over the death penalty.
Joseph Rudolph Wood took nearly 2 hours to die and gasped for about 90 minutes
during his execution in Arizona on Wednesday. The execution took so long that
his lawyers had time to file an emergency appeal while it was ongoing. The
Arizona Supreme Court also called an impromptu hearing on the matter and
learned of his death during the discussions.
It was the 3rd execution in 6 months to go awry, handing potentially new
evidence to those building a case against lethal injection as cruel and unusual
punishment.
It was not yet clear whether the problems in Arizona would have consequences
for Missouri. Arizona uses a 2 drug cocktail including a Valium-like drug,
midazolam, with an opioid, hydromorphone.
Missouri, meanwhile, uses a single heavy dose of the sedative pentobarbital.
"The State of Missouri has its own execution protocol," Scott Holste, the press
secretary for Gov. Jay Nixon, wrote in an email. "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."
The next execution in the United States is scheduled to be in Missouri on Aug.
6. Michael Shane Worthington, convicted of murder, rape and 1st-degree burglary
in the slaying of Melinda "Mindy" Griffin, 24, at her condominium in Lake Saint
Louis on Sept. 30, 1995.
(source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
ARIZONA:
Arizona prolonged execution rekindles death penalty debate
The nation's 3rd execution in 6 months to go awry rekindled the debate over the
death penalty and handed potentially new evidence to those building a case
against lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment.
Joseph Rudolph Wood took nearly 2 hours to die and gasped for about 90 minutes
during his execution in Arizona on Wednesday. The execution took so long that
his lawyers had time to file an emergency appeal while it was ongoing. The
Arizona Supreme Court also called an impromptu hearing on the matter and
learned of his death during the discussions.
"He has been gasping and snorting for more than an hour," Wood's lawyers wrote
in a legal filing demanding that the courts stop it. "He is still alive."
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne's office said Wood, 55, was pronounced dead
at 3:49 p.m., 1 hour and 57 minutes after the execution started.
It is the 3rd prolonged execution this year in the U.S., including one in Ohio
in which an inmate gasped in similar fashion for nearly a half-hour. An
Oklahoma inmate died of a heart attack in April, minutes after prison officials
halted his execution because the drugs weren't being administered properly.
Gov. Jan Brewer said later that she was ordering a full review of the state's
execution process, saying she's concerned by how long it took for the
administered drug protocol to kill Wood.
An Associated Press reporter who witnessed the execution saw Wood start gasping
shortly after a sedative and a pain killer were injected into his veins. He
gasped more than 600 times over the next hour and a half. During the gasps, his
jaw dropped and his chest expanded and contracted.
An administrator checked on Wood a half dozen times. His breathing slowed as a
deacon said a prayer while holding a rosary. Wood finally stopped breathing and
was pronounced dead 12 minutes later.
"Throughout this execution, I conferred and collaborated with our IV team
members and was assured unequivocally that the inmate was comatose and never in
pain or distress," said state Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan.
Defense lawyer Dale Baich called it a botched execution that should have taken
10 minutes.
"Arizona appears to have joined several other states who have been responsible
for an entirely preventable horror - a bungled execution," Baich said. "The
public should hold its officials responsible and demand to make this process
more transparent."
Family members of Wood's victims in a double 1989 murder said they had no
problems with the way the execution was carried out.
"This man conducted a horrific murder and you guys are going, let???s worry
about the drugs," said Richard Brown, the brother-in-law of Debbie Dietz. "Why
didn???t they give him a bullet, why didn???t we give him Drano?"
Wood looked at the family members as he delivered his final words, saying he
was thankful for Jesus Christ as his savior. At one point, he smiled at them,
which angered the family.
Arizona uses the same drugs - the sedative midazolam and painkiller
hydromorphone - that were used in the Ohio execution earlier this year. A
different drug combination was used in the Oklahoma case.
"These procedures are unreliable and the consequences are horrific," said Megan
McCracken, of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law's Death
Penalty Clinic.
States have refused to reveal details such as which pharmacies are supplying
lethal injection drugs and who is administering them out of concerns that the
drugmakers could be harassed.
Wood filed several appeals that were denied by the U.S. Supreme Court. Wood
argued he and the public have a right to know details about the state's method
for lethal injections, the qualifications of the executioner and who makes the
drugs. Such demands for greater transparency have become a new legal tactic in
death penalty cases.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had put the execution on hold, saying the
state must reveal the information. But the Supreme Court has not been receptive
to the tactic, ruling against death penalty lawyers on the argument each time
it has been before justices.
Deborah Denno, professor of criminal law and criminal procedure at Fordham Law
School, said it may be up to Legislatures or the public to bring any change.
"I think every time one of these botches happens, it leads to questioning the
death penalty even more," she said.
*******************
As inmate died, lawyers debated if he was in pain
The nearly 2-hour execution of a convicted murderer prompted a series of phone
calls involving the governor's office, the prison director, lawyers and judges
as the inmate gasped for more than 90 minutes.
They discussed the brain activity and heart rate of Joseph Rudolph Wood, who
was gasping over and over as witnesses looked on. The judge was concerned that
no monitoring equipment showed whether the inmate had brain function, and they
talked about whether to stop the execution while it was so far along.
But the defense lawyers' pleading on the grounds that Wood could be suffering
while strapped to a gurney, breathing in and out and snoring, did no good.
Nearly 2 hours after he'd been sedated Wednesday, Wood finally died.
A transcript of an emergency court hearing released Thursday amid debate over
whether the execution was botched reveals the behind-the-scenes drama and early
questions about whether something was going wrong.
Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan read a statement Thursday
outside his office dismissing the notion the execution was botched, calling it
an "erroneous conclusion" and "pure conjecture." He said IV lines in the
inmate's arms were "perfectly placed" and insisted that Wood felt no pain.
But he also said the Arizona attorney general's office will not seek any new
death warrants while his office completes a review of execution practices. He
didn't take questions from reporters.
Defense lawyer Dale Baich called it a "horrifically botched execution" that
should have taken 10 minutes.
U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake convened the urgent hearing at the request of
one of Wood's attorneys, notified by her colleagues at the execution that
things were problematic.
A lawyer for the state, Jeffrey A. Zick, assured Wake that Wood was comatose
and not feeling pain.
He spoke to the Arizona Department of Corrections director on the phone and was
given assurances from medical staff at the prison that Wood was not in any
pain. Zick also said the governor's office was notified of the situation.
Zick said that at one point, a 2nd dose of drugs was given, but he did not
provide specifics. The participants discussed Wood's brain activity and heart
rate.
"I am told that Mr. Wood is effectively brain dead and that this is the type of
reaction that one gets if they were taken off of life support. The brain stem
is working but there's no brain activity," he said, according to the
transcript.
The judge then asked, "Do you have the leads connected to determine his brain
state?"
The lawyer said he didn't think so.
"Well if there are not monitors connected with him, if it's just a visual
observation, that is very concerning as not being adequate," the judge said.
Wood died at 3:49 p.m., and judges were notified of his death while they were
still considering whether to stop it.
Zick later informed the judge that Wood had died.
Anesthesiology experts say they're not surprised that the combination of drugs
took so long to kill Wood.
"This doesn't actually sound like a botched execution. This actually sounds
like a typical scenario if you used that drug combination," said Karen Sibert,
an anesthesiologist and associate professor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Sibert was speaking on behalf of the California Society of Anesthesiologists.
Sibert said the sedative midazolam would not completely render Wood
incapacitated. If he'd felt pain or been conscious, he would have been able to
open his eyes and move, she said. The other drug was the painkiller
hydromorphone.
"It's fair to say that those are drugs that would not expeditiously achieve
(death)," said Daniel Nyhan, a professor and interim director at the
anesthesiology department at Johns Hopkins medical school.
But the 3rd execution in 6 months to appear to go awry rekindled the debate
over the death penalty and handed potentially new evidence to those building a
case against lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment.
An Ohio inmate gasped in similar fashion for nearly 30 minutes in January. An
Oklahoma inmate died of a heart attack in April, minutes after prison officials
halted his execution because the drugs weren't being administered properly.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said later that she was ordering a review of the
state's execution process, saying she's concerned by how long it took for the
drug protocol to kill Wood.
Family members of Wood's victims in a 1989 double murder said they had no
problems with the way the execution was carried out.
"This man conducted a horrific murder and you guys are going, 'let's worry
about the drugs,'" said Richard Brown, the brother-in-law of Debbie Dietz. "Why
didn't they give him a bullet? Why didn't we give him Drano?"
Arizona uses the same drugs that were used in the Ohio execution. A different
drug combination was used in the Oklahoma case.
States have refused to reveal details such as which pharmacies are supplying
lethal injection drugs and who is administering them out of concerns that the
drugmakers could be harassed.
Wood filed several appeals that were denied by the U.S. Supreme Court. Wood
argued he and the public have a right to know details about the state's method
for lethal injections, the qualifications of the executioner and who makes the
drugs. Such demands for greater transparency have become a legal tactic in
death penalty cases.
Wood was convicted of fatally shooting Dietz, 29, and her father, Gene Dietz,
55, at their auto repair shop in Tucson.
(source for both: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Lawyers Cite Recent Death Penalty Ruling in Dekraai Defense
In the final chapter of an unprecedented hearing in Orange County Superior
Court, public defenders are seeking to use a recent federal court decision
prohibiting the death penalty in California to win a life sentence without
parole for convicted mass-murder Scott Evans Dekraai.
On Friday in Santa Ana before Judge Thomas M. Goethals, defense attorneys will
argue only life sentences should be given to Dekraai - who pleaded guilty in
May to the largest mass killing in Orange County history.
The Orange County District Attorney's Office is seeking the death penalty for
Dekraai, who acknowledged killing his ex-wife and 7 others in 2011 shooting
spree at a Seal Beach beauty salon.
During 6 months of an evidentiary hearing that is having far-reaching
implications, public defenders have argued that the death penalty should be
blocked because the Orange County District Attorney's Office and law
enforcement officers allegedly violated Dekraai's constitutional rights by
illegal use of jailhouse informants.
And now, with the hearing coming to a close, Dekraai's lawyers might be the
first in the state to cite a momentous decision on July 16 by U.S. District
Judge Cormac J. Carney that the system for imposing the death penalty in
California is so dysfunctional that it constitutes cruel and unusual
punishment.
In that case, a Los Angeles man case was convicted in 1995 for the rape and
murder of his girlfriend's mother in 1992.
Carney's ruling, issued in federal court in Santa Ana, is not precedential in
California yet because it has not been affirmed on appeal. But in rare
instances, like Dekraai's, such decisions are cited.
In documents filed Wednesday, Dekraai's attorneys asked Goethals "to find that
the imposition of the death penalty in this case would be unconstitutional and
to immediately sentence him to 8 consecutive life sentences without possibility
of parole."
Carney, a former Orange County Superior Court judge, based his decision on the
fact there are 900 people on California's death row, but only 13 have been
executed - in an arbitrary and capricious way - since 1978. His decision is
under review by the state Attorney General's Office and legal authorities say
it likely could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Regardless, the request is the latest dramatic maneuver by Dekraai's lead
Public Defender Scott Sanders, who has captivated the Southern California legal
community with his arguments.
In 600 pages of motions filed in February, the defense argued that prosecutors
used a secret network of informants to illegally secure information in
violation of Dekraai's right to a fair trial, due process and legal counsel.
In addition to blocking the death penalty, Sanders seeks to have Orange County
prosecutors recused from Dekraai's case.
For months, Sanders and his colleagues have intermittently called to the stand
top prosecutors, Orange County Sheriff's deputies, Santa Ana police and others
to show what they contend is a pattern of prosecutorial rights abuses in the
case of Dekraai and many others.
In this week's motions, Sanders cited instances from the hearings where, he
claims, false statements were made by authorities, perjury committed, a
Superior Court judge falsely impugned as a liar, and inflammatory media
statements made in April by District Attorney Tony Rackauckas that violated
attorney professional conduct codes.
"The prosecution's unwillingness to treat the defendant fairly has been
demonstrated by efforts to illegally, unethically and deceptively" violate the
defendant's right, wrote Sanders.
Sanders also noted the Dekraai hearing revealed that 14 other defendants
charged with serious crimes - including special circumstances murder - didn???t
receive evidence to which they were entitled in their cases.
And 2 defendants facing death sentences also didn't have evidence discovered to
them as required.
The conviction and life sentence of one defendant already was vacated because
of discovery failures.
Despite prosecutors conceding evidence discovery failures in several cases and
dropping evidence obtained improperly from Dekraai, they argue there were no
rights violations.
"There has been no misconduct in the investigation or preparation of the
Dekraai case," wrote senior deputy district attorney Howard Gundy. "In
additional, the defendant has failed to demonstrate his ability to receive a
fair penalty phase trial has been jeopardized as a result of government
misconduct."
In allegations first unveiled Wednesday, Sanders argued that newly uncovered
evidence regarding a key informant against Dekraai further shows the need to
recuse the entire District Attorney's office.
The motion describes how just 10 days ago he learned of another case in which
the informant, Fernando Perez, was caught allegedly trying to use heroin in a
county jail in 2009.
After reviewing files in this new case involving 11 defendants, Sanders wrote
that records on Perez clearly should have been discovered to Dekraai when the
court ordered disclosure of all such cases. A number of defendants in other
cases also did not get this particular discovery, Sanders added.
The records include 2 police reports on the allegations regarding heroin abuse
by Perez, who wasn't prosecuted for the drug offense, and a cellmate.
A deputy district attorney, Erik S. Petersen, who has drawn fire for failing to
discover informant evidence in a number of cases, is the prosecutor in the
newly identified case, wrote Sanders. And a sheriff's deputy, Sgt. Seth
Tunstall, who has been accused of aiding the withholding of informant
discovery, authored one of the police reports in the new case, Sanders added.
Perez - a former leader in the Mexican Mafia from Santa Ana - has served as an
informant for years after his conviction, as his potentially long sentence was
deferred by prosecutors to whom he provided jailhouse information.
The police reports and two associated letters "should have been discovered 18
months ago" to Dekraai's defense team, Sanders wrote, so the information could
be used during the testimony of Perez and law enforcement officers during the
recusal hearing.
"The contents of the undiscovered reports and material, Tunstall and Petersen's
role in suppressing them, and the Dekraai prosecution team's knowledge of the
reports...are all relevant to the motion to dismiss the death penalty based
upon outrageous government conduct and violation of due process," Sanders
wrote.
Sanders also is asking Goethals for a delay in the ongoing proceedings to
further investigate these new documents.
"The fact there is still outstanding discovery is perhaps the most powerful
evidence of why the District Attorney's Office is unable to give Dekraai a fair
trial and thus must be recused," wrote Sanders.
"For the District Attorney's Office, the fundamental issue that cuts to the
core of both motions is the [office's] willingness to engaged in concealment
and deception -- whether to obtain records or make it more difficult for the
defense to get informant discovery, or to receive any advantage."
After arguments Friday, Goethals may make some decisions from the bench, but he
previously has said he will file a written opinion on the defense's main
motions in the coming week or so.
(source: Voice of Orange County)
**************
California's death penalty is cruel, unusual and 'arbitrary'
A federal judge issued a stunning decision last week, holding that the
dysfunctional administration of California's death penalty violates the Eighth
Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
As Judge Cormac Carney, a Bush appointee, found, systemic delays result in
execution of only a "random few (who) will have languished for so long on death
row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose and
will be arbitrary." Of the more than 900 people who have been sentenced to
death since the penalty was reinstated in 1978, only 13 have been executed.
There are currently 748 death row inmates. The process for reviewing each of
their sentences takes an average of 25 years and is getting longer - delays, as
the court found, that are inherent in the system and not the fault of the
inmates themselves. California Attorney General Kamala Harris has not announced
any decision on whether her office will appeal this ruling to the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. It is hoped that Harris will
accept this well-reasoned, well-documented decision - that she will not seek to
have it overturned nor object to its application in all other capital cases.
When Harris was the San Francisco district attorney, she courageously decided
against authorizing death-penalty prosecutions in controversial cases.
When she campaigned for the job of attorney general, she acknowledged that
California's death penalty system was flawed, arguing that it had not made us
safer and that the money spent could be used far more productively to stop
recidivism. As she put it, "not housing octogenarians on death row could put
1,000 more cops on the street."
She was right. A bipartisan commission found that California's death penalty is
"plagued with excessive delay in the appointment of counsel" and "a severe
backlog in the review" of cases before the California Supreme Court. Another
extensive study determined that it has cost taxpayers roughly $4 billion "to
fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13
executions." Despite these vast expenditures, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye
acknowledged, the death penalty is not effective, and fixing its problems would
require "structural changes" that California cannot afford.
The infrequency of executions and the randomness with regard to which condemned
inmates actually will be executed have made a mockery of the supposedly
rational justifications for the death penalty. A federal judge has now agreed:
"or all practical purposes ... a sentence of death in California is a sentence
of life imprisonment with the remote possibility of death - a sentence no
rational legislature or jury could ever impose."
The attorney general, who represents the people of California, has the duty to
enforce and apply the law. But where a court has found that law to be
unconstitutional, she would be well within her discretion to abide by the
court's decision. By accepting a ruling that confirms what she has long stated
- that California's death penalty is broken - Kamala Harris would be taking the
kind of principled position for which she is so admired. Please join me in
urging her to do so.
(source: Andrew Love is a Bay Area lawyer who has represented death row inmates
for 25 years; SFGate.com)
************************
No decision on California death penalty appeal----Federal judge ruled state's
death penalty process unconstitutional
California's attorney general said it's too soon to say if the state will
appeal a federal judge's ruling that the state's death penalty process is
unconstitutional.
Kamala Harris said Thursday a decision will be made by year's end on last
week's ruling by U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney.
"I have many clients in that matter, so I cannot talk with you about what we're
doing in terms of the case," Harris said. "But my personal opinion on the death
penalty has not changed. I'm personally not in favor of the death penalty, but
I will follow the law as we've been doing."
She said she personally opposes capital punishment, but will follow the law.
Could Arizona's flawed execution affect the Golden State's potential appeal?
"You know, I think that the information and facts about what happened there are
still rolling out," Harris said. "Obviously, the decision that will be made in
California will be based on the facts that are presented in court."
Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones said he'd like to see the law appealed.
"Any time a judge decides to use judicial activism to try and change the law, I
think it needs to be challenged - and this case certainly is no exception,"
Jones said Thursday.
Harris made her comments after presenting valor awards to law enforcement
officers at the California Highway Patrol Academy in West Sacramento.
The president of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation said Wednesday's Arizona
execution "worked fine."
"Who cares? He died much better than the victims," Mike Rushford said. "The guy
was convicted of murder and sentenced to death and he is currently dead."
A recent poll conducted by the foundation showed 69 % of Californians wanted to
see the death penalty reformed and sped up, Rushford said.
His group is seeking a 2016 ballot measure that would speed up executions by
expanding the appeals process to more judges.
"Somebody kills somebody today, in 10 years he will get his lethal injection or
whatever method we choose to use," Rushford said.
(source: KCRA news)
USA:
The Guardian view on America's botched executions----The 2-hour killing of a
convicted murderer should force America to rethink the practice and the
principle of capital punishment
On Wednesday, Arizona took an hour and 58 minutes to execute Joseph Wood, a
convicted murderer. Injected with a lethal mix of sedatives and painkillers,
Wood was seen to be ???gasping and snorting" for more than an hour and was
confirmed to be still alive after 70 minutes. One eyewitness counted 660 gasps.
Another said Wood was "like a fish on shore gulping for air". Wood's death took
so long that his lawyers had time to file an emergency appeal while the
procedure was taking place.
The 8th amendment to the US constitution outlaws the use of cruel and unusual
punishment, but the US supreme court has ruled that the death penalty does not
violate that ban. Many would disagree. Penal Reform International classes the
death penalty as the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and more
than 2/3 of the world's nations have now abolished it either in law or in
practice, as have 18 US states. Whatever one's opinion in principle about
capital punishment, it is hard not to see Wood's killing as anything other than
needlessly cruel and unusual punishment. It was a shameful act for a civilised
country.
Yet it was not exceptional. The Wood execution has many echoes of the botched
execution by injection of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma in April. Similar
distress marked the execution of Dennis McGuire in Ohio in January. There have
been several other cases - including of botched electrocutions and
asphyxiations - since the US restarted executions in 1977.
Amnesty International classes the United States as one of the world's 9
"persistent executioner" states - those which have executed criminals in each
of the past 5 years. The others are Bangladesh, China (which is estimated to
execute more prisoners than the whole of the rest of the world put together -
all in secret, unlike those in the US), Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia,
Sudan and Yemen. Executions in the US have fallen by 1/2 in the past 15 years
and the US kills far fewer prisoners than China, Iran and Iraq in particular.
But this is not a club to which America should be comfortable belonging. It
does massive international damage to the US's reputation.
Capital punishment remains destructively entangled in America's culture wars.
If it is to continue, the US will have to devise a swifter form of licensed
execution. The current shambles, much of it the result of desperation in the
face of welcome global campaigns against the suppliers of lethal drugs, has
created an intolerable situation for prisoners and the nation alike. Until it
is fixed, US states should suspend the death penalty. What the US really needs,
though, is to find dignified ways to face up to, as a nation, the failure and
damage that are associated with a punishment that is now so clearly, in and of
itself, both cruel and unusual.
(source: Editorial, The Guardian)
******************
Is The Death Penalty Worth It?
Convicted murderer Joseph Wood's execution began at 1:52 p.m. yesterday. He was
pronounced dead at 3:49 p.m., according to a statement from Arizona Attorney
General Tom Horne. Some witnesses insist that Wood continued to gasp for air at
least 600 times after he was supposedly fully sedated. Others argue that he was
merely snoring. Everyone agrees that the lethal injection process took a lot
longer than the expected. Death by lethal injection typically occurs within ten
minutes or so.
America has grown accustomed to long delays in carrying out the death penalty.
Inmates sit on death row for years, even decades. As Chief Judge Alex Kozinski
wrote, "Old age, not execution, is the most serious risk factor for inmates at
the San Quentin death row." We may be used to delays before denizens of death
row get to the death chamber, but we have only recently started to see delays
once an execution has actually begun....
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney of the Central District
of California issued an order vacating the death sentence of Ernest Jones and
declaring California's system of capital punishment unconstitutional. Judge
Carney wrote:
Since 1978, when the current death penalty system was adopted by California
voters, over 900 people have been sentenced to death for their crimes. Of them,
only 13 have been executed. For the rest, the dysfunctional administration of
California's death penalty system has resulted, and will continue to result, in
an inordinate and unpredictable period of delay preceding their actual
execution. [ . . . ] As for the random few for whom execution does become a
reality, they will have languished for so long on death row that their
execution will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary.
Sometimes, in the swirl of controversy, people gloss over the fact that whether
to include death as possible criminal sentence is never more than an option
citizens through the democratic process can exercise or decline to exercise.
Just because we can execute does not mean we must execute. So, for the moment,
set aside the question of whether capital punishment violates the Eighth
Amendment. Set aside whether it is morally permissible when administered
properly. Even if the death penalty is a morally permissible option, and even
if it is a constitutionally permissible option, is the death penalty an option
worth exercising?
Here are 3 reasons why capital punishment is not worth fighting for.
First, capital punishment is expensive. According to the Death Penalty
Information Center, the difference between a capital murder trial and a
non-capital one often exceeds $1 million. Jury selection for capital cases
takes longer. Additional defense counsel must be appointed. Expert testimony
presented as mitigating evidence is pricey. Even as long ago as 1992, the
Dallas Morning News reported that the average cost of a Texas death penalty
case was $2.3 million, whereas the average cost of a case involving a life
sentence was $750,000. In Texas, individual counties bear the cost of capital
trials and the automatic state appeals that follow. Despite these costs, only
one in ten death sentences nationwide results in an actual execution.
From the defense side, handling capital cases requires expertise most lawyers
lack. Yet because of the high number of indigent defendants in capital cases,
many defendants rely on over-worked public defenders or poorly qualified court
appointed counsel. (Most pro bono representation in capital cases occurs during
post-conviction habeas proceedings.) Resources are scarce. Rather than being an
effective cost-saving measure for the public, however, tight budgets may
produce more error for the appeals process to sift through. Whatever costs we
save by limiting public funding for capital defenses at trial, we may often
lose by paying for the administration of state appeals and the habeas process
under AEDPA. (I've complained about AEDPA before.)
Second, capital punishment is politically divisive when the body politic has
better things to argue about. Cases like Halbig v. Burwell, the D.C. Circuit's
current conundrum about Obamacare, draw sharp divisions among members of the
American public, but their impact touches the lives of millions of people.
Fighting over such issues is worth the effort for both sides, and worth the
cost the public pays in unity. On the other hand, relatively few people are
directly affected by capital punishment. I don't mean to dismiss the interests
of capital defendants, victims, and the families of both, nor do I suggest that
the general public has no stake in the administration of justice. But there's
no shortage of hot-button fundamental disagreements demanding a finite amount
of public attention, many of them necessarily placing liberal and conservative
values at odds. Why devote so much to an issue that affects so few? More
importantly, why divide over an issue on which both conservatives and liberals
can agree?
Third, capital punishment has a high potential for error. The specter of
executing an actually innocent defendant haunts every death sentence. That's
old news, of course. (Pretty important news, granted. But old.) Recently, the
potential for error involves the execution of executions.
In January 2014, Ohio's execution of Dennis McGuire took 25 minutes, with
witnesses reporting that McGuire struggled considerably more than expected.
McGuire's family filed suit after the execution, claiming that he continued
"repeated cycles of snorting, gurgling, and arching his back, appearing to
writhe in pain." Then, in April, Oklahoma injected Clayton Lockett with an
experimental drug protocol. Lockett's execution drew public attention because,
not only did he take longer than expected to die, but he appeared to revive
after he was supposed to be sedated. After officials had declared him sedated,
Lockett apparently started twitching, struggling against his restraints,
gritting his teeth, and supposedly even uttering the understatement, "Oh, man."
In recent years, states moved away from electrocution and gas chambers as
execution methods, largely because of a series of gruesome mishaps. For
example, John Evans and Frank Coppola both caught fire while in the electric
chair, and Jimmy Lee Gray died while banging his head against a steel pole in a
gas chamber execution improperly administered by a drunk prison official.
Lethal injection seemed a more humane - or at least more aesthetically
acceptable - means of carrying out death sentences. However, with the recent
shortage of drugs traditionally used for lethal injection, states have been
experimenting with new cocktails, with some mixed results.
As Chief Judge Kozinski reasoned in his dissent from the denial of rehearing en
banc in Joseph Wood's case, "If some states and the federal government wish to
continue carrying out the death penalty, they must turn away from this
misguided path and return to more primitive - and foolproof - methods of
execution." Kozinski comments on a catalog of options, suggesting that "the
guillotine is probably best but seems inconsistent with our national ethos,"
but "the firing squad strikes me as the most promising." He goes on to write,
"Sure, firing squads can be messy, but if we are willing to carry out
executions, we should not shield ourselves from the reality that we are
shedding human blood. If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an
execution carried out by firing squad, then we shouldn't be carrying out
executions at all."
So, can we stomach the splatter? Can we tolerate experimentation with lethal
drug cocktails? Do we want to allocate tax dollars to defending the right to do
so? Is a rarely used, too frequently flawed punishment option worth the
expense, the political division, and the perpetual potential for horrendous
error? Voters, conservative and liberal, in the 32 states that currently allow
capital punishment ought to conclude that death sentences are simply not worth
the trouble.
(source: Tamara Tabo is a summa cum laude graduate of the Thurgood Marshall
School of Law at Texas Southern University, where she served as Editor-in-Chief
of the school's law review. After graduation, she clerked on the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit----abovethelaw.com)
********************
Untried death cocktails causing botched executions
After Arizona death row inmate Joseph Wood took almost 2 hours to die, New
Scientist looks at why a drug combination is being experimented with in the
death chamber
What exactly happened here?
On Wednesday afternoon in Arizona state prison, death row prisoner Joseph Wood
was administered a lethal injection. He survived for 1 hour and 58 minutes
before dying. Onlookers described Wood as struggling for air for an hour, and 1
journalist on the scene reported him as gasping 640 times before finally
collapsing.
What were the drugs used?
Wood's injection consisted of a 2-drug cocktail of midazolam, a sedative and
anaesthetic, and hydromorphone, a painkiller.
There have been several cases in the last year using midazolam, a non-standard
lethal injection drug, and all have been botched. It is approved for use in
Ohio, Florida, Oklahoma and Arizona, but, says anaesthesiologist David Waisel
of Harvard University, "They're working with doses that are clinically absurd
??? we have no idea what they do."
Has midazolam caused problems before?
On the 4 occasions on which it has been used, midazolam has consistently been
linked to drawn-out deaths characterised by suffocation. According to Waisel,
these reactions are to be expected from the particular drug combination used.
Midazolam was first used as a death penalty drug in the 2013 execution of
Florida prisoner William Happ, in a 3-drug cocktail. While the Florida state
department reported the execution as proceeding without problems, the
Associated Press reported that he "remained conscious longer and made more body
movements after losing consciousness than other people executed recently by
lethal injection under the old formula".
The 2-drug cocktail saw its 1st use in the case of Dennis McGuire, executed in
Ohio in January. The injection caused McGuire to lurch, gasp, snort and choke
until he finally died 25 minutes later.
Arizona decided to go ahead with Wood's execution using the same cocktail. The
state refused to reveal the source of the drugs to Wood's lawyers and the
public.
Why are ineffective drugs being used?
States with the death penalty are running out of options. Over the past few
years, international drug manufacturers in the European Union and elsewhere
have clamped down on selling drugs to the US for use in executions. The 3-drug
cocktail typically used for lethal injection in the US - composed of a
sedative, a paralytic agent and a 3rd drug to stop the heart - are no longer
easy to get hold of. So some states have been turning to so-called compounding
pharmacies, which make non-FDA regulated custom medications for patients with
allergic reactions, or novel drug cocktails such as the midazolam-hydromorphone
mix.
With combinations that are being tested for the 1st time in the execution
chamber, it's unclear what will work. "I do not know why they chose midazolam,"
says Waisel.
According to Deborah Denno, law professor at Fordham University, New York, what
is clear is that states should stop choosing it. "The worst thing about the
execution last night was that it was such a part of a bigger pattern," she
says. "It's been known, people have been so warned, and we have this track
record now. There's such a track record you wonder why they're continuing to
take place."
(source: New Scientist)
*********************
Death by firing squad? How America executes inmates on death row
Death row convicts in the United States have gasped for air, have been
strangled accidentally and have even been decapitated when executions go awry.
Recent problems with lethal injection, the nation's most popular method of
execution, have raised questions about how states execute condemned prisoners,
which now number more than 3,000.
A federal judge called for the use of firing squads this week, saying U.S.
citizens need to confront the "savage" reality of capital punishment. His
comments were made in connection with an appeal by Joseph Rudolph Wood III for
a stay in his execution by lethal injection. Wood was executed Wednesday in
Arizona, dying after he gasped and snorted for nearly two hours. His was the
fourth lethal injection this year that had problems.
But what are the alternatives? In the United States, 5 methods are in use -
firing squad, hanging, gas chamber, electrocution and lethal injection. Here's
a look at the executions carried out since 1976, where the specific methods are
legal and some of the things that could go wrong.
Firing squad: 3 executions
The prisoner is strapped into a chair and hooded with a target pinned to the
chest. 5 marksmen, 1 with blanks, take aim and fire.
Utah: Offenders condemned before May 3, 2004, can select the method of
execution. A firing squad would be used if lethal injection is ever declared
unconstitutional.
Oklahoma: A firing squad would be used if other methods are ever deemed
unconstitutional.
Hanging by the neck: 3 executions
Death on the gallows requires a precise drop distance. If the drop is too
short, the prisoner will die by strangulation. If the drop is too long, the
head may be torn off.
Delaware: Offenders condemned before June 13, 1986, can select the method of
execution.
Gas chamber: 11 executions
The introduction of the gas chamber was an attempt to improve on electrocution
but has been criticized in some courts as "cruel and unusual punishment."
Arizona: Offenders condemned before November 1992 can select the method of
execution.
Maryland: Offenders condemned before March 25, 1994, can select the method of
execution.
Electric chair: 158 executions
Electrocution was the most widely used form of execution in the 20th century.
The condemned prisoner is strapped into a chair and electrodes are fastened to
the head and legs. A switch is thrown and sends as much as 2,000 volts through
the body.
Arkansas: Offenders condemned before July 4, 1983, can select the method of
execution.
Kentucky: Offenders condemned before March 31,1998, can select the method of
execution.
Tennessee: Offenders condemned before Jan. 1, 1999, can select the method of
execution.
Lethal injection: 1,210 executions
The prisoner is injected with a fatal dose of drugs, typically a barbiturate, a
paralytic and a potassium solution. The drugs put the prisoner to sleep, stop
his breathing and finally, his heart. 2 IVs are inserted, 1 in each arm. The
primary IV carries out the execution and the other is a backup.
Connecticut: The state abolished the death penalty in 2011 but the ban was not
retroactive, leaving 11 prisoners on death row.
New Mexico: The state abolished the death penalty in 2009 but the ban was not
retroactive, leaving 2 prisoners on death row.
[sources: ACLU, Death Penalty Information CenterCopyright 2014, Los Angeles
Times]
(source: Los Angeles Times)
********************
It's Time for a Nationwide Moratorium on the Death Penalty
We still don't know where the drugs came from.
We know they used midazolam and hydromorphone. We know the combination was
experimental. And now we know that instead of working, the drugs took nearly 2
hours to kill Joseph Wood, as he snorted and gasped for air 660 times.
Within a couple hours of Mr. Wood's death, the state of Arizona started damage
control. Last night, Governor Jan Brewer called for an investigation into why
the execution had taken so long, but she also released a statement saying: "by
eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer."
That's not what the reporters who were in the room have written. "It was very
disturbing to watch... liked a fish on shore gulping for air," Troy Haydentold
The Arizona Republic.
1 hour and 57 minutes is horrifically long, even when compared to the recent
botched execution of Clayton Lockett, who writhed in pain for 45 minutes while
the state of Oklahoma struggled to kill him in May.
It's time to ask the question: How is it possible that, in 2014, state after
state is utterly failing at lethal injection? How can it be, given modern
medicine, that it could take hours instead of minutes for states to kill
someone?
The answer is that the death penalty simply has no place in this country. As
method after method of state-sponsored killing has been deemed barbaric and
archaic, states are left scrambling to invent new ways to execute.
Lethal injection started as a seemingly more humane alternative to the gas
chamber, the electric chair, and firing squads. But as companies both in the
U.S. and in Europe have refused to let the drugs they produce be used in
executions, lethal injection has become what is essentially medical
experimentation, with novel drugs and doses leading to botched execution after
botched execution.
Lethal injection is not modern medicine. Executioners do not have proper
training, leading to some prisoners being conscious but paralyzed as they
slowly asphyxiate. States are fumbling to find drugs, concocting different
combinations every time. In the case of Mr. Wood's execution, the state used a
2-drug combination that had been used only once before, when the state of Ohio
took 25 minutes to kill Dennis McGuire.
And these killing experiments are being carried out in secrecy. The hours
before Mr. Woods was strapped to the gurney were a frenzied attempt to figure
out where the drugs came from before they could be shot into his vein. We still
don't know.
The greater problem underlying the horrific executions we have recently seen is
not lethal injection or a matter of simply getting the drugs right. The
execution of the innocent, the shameful role of race, mentally ill defendants,
poor defense lawyering, and prosecutors who hide the truth - these are the
problems that make the death penalty completely inappropriate in the modern
world. Yet we continue to slowly pick off killing methods that are simply too
barbaric to condone, but the truth is that there is no way for states - for our
government - to kill someone that is in line with the type of country we want
to be.
Today, my heart is with Jeanne Brown and all of those who loved Debra Dietz. My
thoughts are with the executioners who will have to live with the horrific
botch they carried out yesterday. This entire story is a tragic one, and it
should push us to admit that the path to justice simply cannot include more
gruesome violence.
It's time for a nationwide moratorium on the death penalty.
(source: Brian Stull is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Capital
Punishment Project. He also writes on Medium, where this post first
appeared----Huffington Post)
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