March 21
UTAH:
Defense attorney will focus on mitigating factors in effort to spare murderer
the death penalty
After a jury found him guilty for a 2nd time Wednesday for the 1985 murder of
Ogden woman Joyce Yost. Douglas Lovell's life is in the hands of those same
jurors.
Douglas Lovell has been convicted for the 1985 murder twice now. First back in
1993 and again on Wednesday.
"He has defined himself as a burglar," said Jeffrey Thomson, a deputy Weber
County Attorney. "He's a convicted burglar. He's a convicted robber. He's a
convicted kidnapper. He's a convicted rapist, and he's a convicted murderer."
In the prosecution's opening statement during the sentencing phase, they
quoted Lovell from a confession to his ex-wife in which he admitted he knew
what he had done was punishable by death.
Thomson said, quoting Lovell: "'Capital murder is the worst thing you can do,
probably the death penalty. I committed a 1st-degree felony to cover up another
felony, it's the death penalty.' Those words, all of those words, were his
words."
Lovell pleaded guilty to killing Yost back in 1985, saying he did so to keep
her from testifying that he had kidnapped and raped her. Lovell's 1993 plea was
part of a deal to keep him off death row, on the condition he led police to
Yost's body.
But Yost's body was never found, and a judge sentenced Lovell to die by lethal
injection.
In 2011, the Utah Supreme Court overturned the conviction. But his defense has
never challenged his guilt.
"Nothing that we present to you is intended to be a smoking gun," Defense
Attorney Michael Bouwhuis said. "You aren't going to hear anything that's going
to make you say, 'I get it. I understand why he raped and murdered this woman.'
You're not gonna hear anything like that."
Instead, in the sentencing phase, the defense said they plan to focus on
mitigating factors like Lovell's family history and good behavior in prison.
"It's intended to provide you with a reason not to kill him," Bouwhuis said.
Greg Roberts, the son of Yost, was the 1st witness called to testify Friday.
He said, "I'm haunted by a lot of guilt for leaving her unprotected."
Roberts was away at college in Virginia in 1985 when his mother, who was just
39 at the time, was murdered.
The last time a death sentence was imposed in Utah was in 2008. The penalty
phase of the trial will resume Monday.
(source: Fox News)
******************
Utah Representative Scared of Grandma's Opinions on the Death Penalty
Utah lawmakers passed a bill last week that would allow the state to bring back
the firing squad for executions if lethal-injection drugs were not available.
The governor, Republican Gary Herbert, has until April 1 to decide whether it
should become law - and he's leaning toward signing it. Utah currently has 8
inmates on death row and no lethal injection drugs. However, Herbert also said
that it was unlikely firing squads would even be used if the law were passed,
as the state is trying to procure the drugs.
"The debate is really more than just the firing squad," he told reporters
yesterday. "It's should we have capital punishment or not?"
Many states have considered alternative execution methods in recent months, as
drug companies here and abroad have grown more reticent to be associated with
death.
Utah is the 1st state to come this close to changing the law, however, and
death-penalty opponents have flooded the governor's office with calls and
comments in the past week. Since late January, Herbert has received at least
433 emails on the legislation; 396 opposed it, with many coming from a campaign
started by the American Civil Liberties Union, according to the Associated
Press. Many of them were from out of state, coming from places as far away as
New Zealand. A petition with 6,200 signatures opposing the measure was also
sent to the governor's office by Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
One man from Seattle threatened to "never again come to Utah to ski if this
barbaric execution style is used again in your state." However, the office
contends that they received far more comments over previous legislative fights
concerning issues like same-sex marriage.
Republican Representative Paul Ray, who wrote the legislation, says most of the
response he has received has been positive. Others offered alternative methods
of execution - one senior citizen from Florida explained how the state might
want to create a death chamber.
"She scared me," Ray told the AP. "I'm glad she's not my grandmother."
Oklahoma's House recently passed a bill that would allow nitrogen hypoxia
executions if lethal injection were declared unconstitutional. Last year,
Oklahoma used a relatively untested cocktail of lethal-injection drugs in an
execution, given shortages. It took more than 40 minutes for the man sentenced
to die to stop breathing.
The executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center told the
Oklahoman that the new legislation "seems like another experiment" and "they're
trying to find drugs and acceptable protocol, but I think this is too similar
to what Oklahoma did last year, which is use a new drug without knowledge of
what the right dosage was and what its side effects would be and what
contingencies they should have in place if things didn't go right."
(source: New York Magazine)
******************
It's time to reconsider the death penalty
I am far away from home but would like to enter into this firing squad
conversation back there as Provo is my hometown.
Utah, on March 10 our lawmakers decided it was time to bring back the firing
squad to execute inmates on death row, 11 years after they decided it was a
decidedly outdated, inhumane method of killing those inmates. The problem is
that our current chosen method of killing is a lethal cocktail of drugs that
certain suppliers in Europe and right here in America have decided not to sell
for the purpose of killing people anymore, so we risk not being able to kill
our inmates unless we change our laws.
Gov. Gary Herbert, in his public address on March 19, described the conundrum
succinctly.
"Utah is a capital punishment state," he said "That is the law of Utah. ... We
have to be able to carry that out."
Does this not seem like a weird statement to anyone else? Basically he said we
have to change the law so we do not have to change the law. The law must change
either way, so why not change it in the way that shows us to be more
compassionate, more humane, more human than our friends in Iran, Saudi Arabia,
Somalia and China?
Utah, we are the only country in the Americas (well, us and Cuba) -- and among
only a small handful of developed nations -- who still kill our inmates; and
though we are still part of the majority, Utah stands defiant against those of
our fellow states who have also decided the practice is no longer tolerable.
How about we consider joining those of our partners at home and abroad who have
taken the moral high ground in the world? Even better, how about we show how we
can actually be the moral model we wish to be?
Gov. Herbert also said, "The debate is really more than just the firing squad.
It's should we have capital punishment or not?"
That is a wonderful question, and it should be our focus across the nation with
this shortage of deadly drugs. We should be asking if killing is even right
rather than asking how we are going to go on killing. Gov. Herbert tells us we
should harass the drug companies, force them to sell the drugs so we can follow
our laws. Utah, how about we harass our public officials until they represent
the best parts of ourselves instead of the blood-thirsty, barbaric sides of our
society?
But let's just say we cannot stomach the idea of being compassionate toward
allegedly terrible people (some innocent souls have been killed for crimes they
did not commit). What about our fellow upstanding citizens? What are we doing
to the ones who have to tie down a fellow person, the ones who have to pull the
triggers, the ones who have to take down the bullet-ridden body and replace the
blood-soaked sandbags? Utah, the executioner is not a mercenary we hire from
Chechnya: The executioner is us.
Utah, I am your son, though I am right now far away. I am your son and I have
spent several years in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have never killed another man,
but I have had to clean up the blood, wash the faces and pavement, burn the
clothes - and the memories haunt me still. The Internet is replete with similar
stories from executioners the country over; executions destroy many of the
people charged with carrying them out.
Here's the deal, Utah: By our votes we destroy or save our fellow residents,
both criminal and peaceful. Representative Ray, who introduced the bill sitting
on the Governor's desk claims this is going to be more humane than our other
options. He is basically saying that shooting a man in the chest and letting
him bleed to death is proper, at least more proper than some things.
Why do we not shoot for the head to end it quickly? Why do we put a hood on the
inmate before we shoot them? Why, Utah, do we not just stick with the methods
including hangings, guillotines or pushing one from a high place (as one
country's capital punishment laws allow) we reject? Dead is dead after all.
What does it matter how we do it?
I posit that we do these things because we recognize, if only slightly, that we
are disgusted, that killing our fellows, whatever they did, simply does not
jive with who we think we are; it is cognitive dissonance in the deepest parts
of ourselves. The truth is that it does not, in fact, match our values. We are
better than this, Utah: Let's prove it by getting rid of capital punishment
instead of worrying about how we will kill our fellow human beings. Let's be
better than that.
(source: Opinion; Jesse Card is a Utah resident and comes from a long line of
Utahns. He is currently serving in the U.S. Army at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
His opinions are his own---The Herald)
CALIFORNIA:
'Death Penalty For Gays' Ballot Initiative May Be Allowed To Proceed Under
California Law
A ballot proposal criminalizing sodomy and allowing the death penalty for
anyone who "touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual
gratification" is moving forward because constitutionally, there is really no
way to stop it, despite the neo-Nazi nature of the proposed law.
Huntington Beach attorney Matt McLaughlin filed papers to begin gathering
signatures for the ballot measure, the "Sodomite Suppression Act" on February
26th.
In California's "direct democracy" any citizen can follow procedures to propose
just about any law. That doesn't mean that any law could pass, and even if
passed, it doesn't mean that any law could actually go into effect. Even laws
passed by a majority of California voters may been overturned by judicial
review, as was the case in the Prop. 8 gay marriage debate.
This latest initiative is creating news not because of what it would do if
passed but because of the fact that it, so far, cannot be stopped at this
stage.
Along with the required $200 fee, McLaughlin's letter asking for certification
of his initative, sent to the coordinator for Attorney General Kamala Harris,
includes some bizarre language: "The abominable crime against nature known as
buggery, called also sodomy, is a monstrous evil that Almighty God, giver of
freedom and liberty, commands us to suppress on pain of our utter destruction
even as he overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha."
McLaughlin's ballot proposal continues, stating, "...the People of California
wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches
another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put
to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method."
Harris' office may actually be legally required to write a title and summary of
the legislation, allowing signature gatherers to stand in front of shopping
malls and grocery stores inviting patrons to sign a petition to put a death
sentence for gays on the statewide ballot.
The Sacramento Bee reports that the Legislature's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender Caucus has now written a letter to the State Bar calling into
question McLaughlin's fitness to practice law.
A petition to take away his law license already has over 6,000 signers.
While submitting a ballot proposal costs just $200, the preparation of the
proposal by the state can cost about $8,000.
(source: CBS news)
USA:
Executing the Insane Is Against the Law of the Land. So Why Do We Keep Doing
It?----Such "mindless vengeance," the Supreme Court points out, "simply offends
humanity."
6 years before he shaved his head, donned camo fatigues, and fatally shot his
in-laws in front of his estranged wife and daughter, Scott Panetti piled up
furniture and valuables in his yard in Fredericksburg, Texas, and sprayed it
all down with water to get rid of the devil he was sure had possessed the
house.
It was hardly the first time he'd done something bizarre. Starting in his early
20s, Panetti had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, delusions,
auditory hallucinations, and manic depression - he was hospitalized at least 14
times. 2 years prior to the murders, he was involuntarily committed after
swinging a cavalry sword at his wife and daughter. After he turned himself in
for the 1992 killings, he blamed the crime on "Sarge," one of several
personalities he was convinced shared his body. The state charged him with
capital murder.
"He wore a large hat and a huge bandanna. He wore weird boots with stirrups ...
He looked like a clown."
The trial was a farce. Over even the prosecutor's objections, Judge Stephen
Ables let Panetti act as his own lawyer, and allowed him to continue
representing himself after he went off his antipsychotic medication. The
defendant showed up in court decked out in what a family friend described as a
1920s-era cowboy outfit: "He wore a large hat and a huge bandanna. He wore
weird boots with stirrups - the pants were tucked in at the calf," she later
testified. "He looked like a clown."
Standing before the jury, Panetti called himself "Sarge" and rambled
incoherently for hours about everything from the TV show Quincy, M.E. to
castrating a horse, with little interference from the judge - who did, however,
intercede to question the relevance of belt buckles. In addition to his
veterinarian, Panetti subpoenaed Jesus, John F. Kennedy, and the pope, and
issued a stream-of-consciousness description of the crime:
Sarge is gone. No more Sarge. Sonja and Birdie. Birdie and Sonja. Joe, Amanda
lying kitchen, here, there, blood. No, leave. Scott, remember exactly what
Sarge did. Shot the lock. Walked in the kitchen. Sonja, where's Birdie? Sonja
here. Joe, bayonet, door, Amanda. Boom, boom, blood, blood.
Demons. Ha, ha, ha, ha, oh, Lord, oh, you.
It's hard to blame the jury that sentenced Panetti to die. At the time, Texas
had no option for life without parole, and some of the jurors stated they were
scared he'd get out someday. But whether or not Texas executes a schizophrenic
man isn't simply about that man and his crimes. It's about the moral ground on
which America's legal system rests.
Executing the insane, Justice Marshall wrote, "has questionable retributive
value, presents no example to others ... and simply offends humanity."
That's essentially what the United States Supreme Court ruled in the 1986 case
of Ford v. Wainwright. Citing centuries of English common-law precedent, the
court pronounced that a civilized society cannot condone the execution of a
person with so weak a grasp on reality that killing him, as Justice Thurgood
Marshall concluded for the majority, "has questionable retributive value,
presents no example to others, and thus has no deterrence value, and simply
offends humanity ... Whether the aim is to protect the condemned from fear and
pain without comfort of understanding, or to protect the dignity of society
itself from the barbarity of exacting mindless vengeance," the Constitution
forbids it as cruel and unusual punishment.
How is it, then, that Scott Panetti has spent nearly two decades on death row,
even though the justices have since reaffirmed the ban on executing the insane
- in a ruling on his specific case? How is it that he came within eight hours
of lethal injection this past December, only to be saved by a last-minute stay?
And how is it that numerous seriously mentally ill people have been put to
death in recent years, in defiance of the law of the land?
The short answer is that, despite its lofty rhetoric, the Supreme Court punted
on how states should determine whether someone is sane enough to be killed. In
fact, were it not for the persuasive powers of Marshall, who had handled
capital cases as an NAACP lawyer, the court wouldn't have even taken the Ford
case - let alone cast 5 votes in the petitioner's favor. But Marshall couldn't
convince the holdouts, including Justice William Rehnquist, who pointed out in
his dissent that death row inmates were liable to simply fake mental illness.
Giving them an opportunity for a preexecution sanity hearing, he wrote, "offers
an invitation to those who have nothing to lose by accepting it to advance
entirely spurious claims of insanity."
In the end, the court offered little guidance on how to define insanity for
legal purposes. Marshall had suggested that a prisoner too impaired to assist
in his own defense could not be executed. But the legal test that most of the
lower courts ultimately adopted was that of Justice Lewis Powell: The offender
had to be "unaware of the punishment they're about to suffer and why they are
to suffer it." That is "an extremely low standard," explains Phillip Resnick,
the director of forensic psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University's
medical school. "You can be quite psychotic and still know those 2 things."
"The law is still basing decisions on folk psychology," notes one death penalty
expert.
Further muddying the waters, the Supreme Court left the interpretation of its
ruling to state court judges, who are often elected and who can share the
public's misconceptions about psychiatric illness' - not understanding, for
instance, that even highly delusional people can seem normal in certain
settings. (Prosecutors in Panetti's case recently exploited this
misunderstanding by citing lucid snippets from a taped conversation with his
visiting parents to argue that he is not insane, even though, in the same
conversation, Panetti recalls grooming steers with former CIA agent Valerie
Plame.)
"The law is still basing decisions on folk psychology," notes Christopher
Slobogin, a professor of law and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University. Some
judges, he says, "worry that mental illness is this very wide-ranging concept
that could apply to a huge percentage of the population depending on how it's
defined."
The result of all of this ambiguity has been a steady stream of executions of
profoundly mentally ill people, some of whom - like Nollie Lee Martin, a
Florida man executed in 1992 - were literally missing pieces of their brains.
According to a study published in the Hastings Law Journal this past June, 18
of the 100 most recently executed convicts had been diagnosed with
schizophrenia, PTSD, or bipolar disorder. Another 36 had other serious
mental-health problems or chronic addictions that in some cases had rendered
them psychotic.
Following his conviction, Panetti tried to waive his right to a lawyer for the
appeal (a move akin to suicide), but Judge Ables ruled him too mentally
incompetent to make that choice. After many more appeals, Ables set a 2004
execution date and ruled, without a hearing, that Panetti was sane enough to
die. The case ultimately landed before the Supreme Court, where Texas Solicitor
General Ted Cruz (now the state's junior US senator) defended the state's right
to execute Panetti.
In 2007, the court ruled 5-4 that Judge Ables not only had unjustly denied
Panetti a hearing on his mental state, but that the federal court reviewing the
decision had applied an incompetency standard that was too restrictive. It
wasn't enough that Panetti knew the state was going to execute him for the
murders of his in-laws, the court said. After all, it acknowledged, Panetti
could regurgitate these facts. But he also sincerely believed that the state
wanted to execute him to stop him from preaching the Gospel.
"A prisoner's awareness of the State's rationale for an execution is not the
same as a rational understanding of it."
Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy proclaimed, "A prisoner's
awareness of the State's rationale for an execution is not the same as a
rational understanding of it." The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals had ignored the
reality that "gross delusions stemming from a severe mental disorder may put
that awareness in a context so far removed from reality that the punishment can
serve no proper purpose." The 5th Circuit was ordered to further investigate
Panetti's mental state based on this new "rational understanding" standard.
But the Supreme Court's attempt to codify and expand upon the vague guidelines
it set out in the Ford case has made little difference in practice. Judges
often ignore the new guidelines, or rule in a way that simply reiterates Ford.
Cornell law professor John Blume recently did some number crunching involving
"Ford claims," the last-ditch defense petitions arguing that a person is too
insane to be executed. He found that the Panetti decision had little impact on
the outcomes, especially in the states with the most active death chambers.
Florida, 3rd in the nation in executions last year, has never found anybody too
insane to execute. Nor have Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, or Utah. In Texas, the
most prolific killer of convicts, the last time a prisoner prevailed on such a
claim was back in 2006, a year before the Panetti decision - which so far
hasn't even saved Panetti himself.
So how do judges decide whether a prisoner is too delusional for a civilized
society to execute? Often, it turns out, they rely on psychiatrists whose
recommendations seem to have little basis in science - hired guns whose
testimony can give pro-death-penalty jurists cover for rulings that otherwise
would seem to contradict the dictates of the Supreme Court.
Consider Dr. Alan Waldman, a forensic psychiatrist and neurologist whose
testimony has helped send at least 3 mentally ill men to their demise, and whom
Texas hired to evaluate Panetti in advance of a 2008 hearing on the prisoner's
fitness for execution. Waldman spent his early career working in various
hospitals and clinics, including a stint with the Florida Department of
Corrections. Today, he works in private practice and serves as an expert
witness for both prosecutors and defense lawyers, holding himself out as an
expert in the detection of malingering - feigning or exaggerating symptoms of
illness - although he admitted during the Panetti hearing that he'd never
published anything on the subject in a peer-reviewed journal. In fact, the only
published work since 1993 listed in Waldman's public resume is an article in a
prosecutors' newsletter.
When I reached out to Waldman, he directed his secretary to tell me that he
would not talk to me under any circumstances and "don't call back." But he has
a considerable public track record, having served on "competency commissions" -
panels of psychiatrists convened to assess whether an inmate is too insane to
execute - in 3 Florida death penalty cases. Like Panetti in Texas, each of
these 3 prisoners had a long history of mental illness. But Waldman deemed all
of them legally sane.
To evaluate Panetti's sanity, Texas hired a psychiatrist who'd been arrested
for threatening a teen with an AK-47 following a traffic incident.
One of them was Thomas Provenzano, an Orlando man who signed documents "Jesus
Christ" and showed pictures of Jesus to his nephews and nieces. "That's me,"
he'd whisper. "A five-year-old kid could tell my brother had mental problems,"
his sister, Catherine Forbes, told me.
In the mid-1970s, Provenzano checked himself into a mental hospital because he
was hearing voices. He was eventually released, but his behavior grew
increasingly bizarre, to the point where his sister begged the doctors to have
him committed. (They demurred.) In 1983, he was arrested for disorderly conduct
after screaming obscenities at pedestrians and leading police on a car chase.
Following the arrest, he started dressing like Rambo and hanging out at the
courthouse, obsessing over his legal file and the officers who'd apprehended
him. In early 1984, he smuggled 3 guns into an Orlando courthouse, where he
shot and killed one man and critically injured 2 other people before an officer
shot him in the back. In the ambulance en route to the hospital, he yelled, "I
am the son of God! You can't kill me."
In 1999, then-Gov. Jeb Bush signed Provenzano's death warrant and appointed a
competency panel that included Waldman. After evaluating Provenzano, Waldman
reported that he was malingering.
The prisoner's sister was dumbstruck. She tearfully recounted to me how her
brother had spent more than 15 years on death row sleeping under his cot with a
box on his head because he was hearing voices. But the Florida Supreme Court
sided with Waldman, and Provenzano was executed in June 2000.
About 6 months later, Waldman had his own run-in with the law. He allegedly cut
in front of a teenage girl at a red light, and she believed he'd clipped the
front of her purple Saturn. But rather than pull over, she said, he took off
when the light changed. Incensed, she followed him home to try to get his
insurance information. According to a police report, Waldman emerged from his
front door carrying an AK-47. He pointed the gun through the car window. "He
was so close I could feel him spitting at me," she told me.
She drove away and called the cops, only to be told that Waldman had reported
her first, saying he was scared for his life. After corroborating the gist of
her account, they arrested Waldman instead. The young woman, who asked me not
to use her name, decided not to press charges, but says she's still traumatized
by the episode.
In 2012, Florida executed John Ferguson, who had a long history of paranoid
schizophrenia. His last words: "I am the Prince of God and I will rise again."
In 2012, Florida Gov. Rick Scott appointed Waldman and two other psychiatrists
to evaluate John Ferguson, a prisoner with a 40-year history of paranoid
schizophrenia who had once received free legal help from John Roberts Jr., now
chief justice of the Supreme Court. Ferguson had killed 8 people after he was
released from a mental institution over the warnings of state doctors,
including one who said he was homicidal and "should not be released under any
circumstances." After a 90-minute interview, Waldman and his colleagues
concluded that Ferguson was legally sane. He was executed the following year.
His last words: "I am the Prince of God and I will rise again."
When Waldman evaluated Scott Panetti in 2007, the prisoner insisted on calling
him "Dr. Grigson" after the late James Grigson, a.k.a. "Dr. Death"???the
discredited Texas psychiatrist who inspired the Errol Morris film The Thin Blue
Line. Grigson was known for testifying in capital trials, where he would almost
invariably argue that the defendant was an incurable sociopath who would
certainly kill again if allowed to live.
Waldman noted in his report that Panetti had answered most of the questions
about his crime with Bible quotes and made-up stories, and had claimed JFK had
once cleaned his burns. He'd talked like a cowboy, and said the other inmates
hated him for his faith. (Prison staffers told Waldman the inmates didn't like
Panetti because "he screams and yells and is constantly disturbing the unit by
preaching the Gospel.") Panetti also told Waldman that "Sergeant Iron Horse"
was his in-laws' real killer.
Nevertheless, Waldman claimed that Panetti demonstrated "organized" thoughts
and displayed no evidence of serious mental illness. Furthermore, the
prisoner's repeated references to Grigson proved that he was malingering.
Waldman was unaware, he later admitted, that Grigson had in fact testified at
Panetti's trial, and that Panetti had been obsessed with him ever since.
For his efforts, Waldman charged the state at least $23,000. (The federal
courts allotted Panetti a total of $9,000 to hire his own experts.) When
Panetti's lead lawyer cross-examined Waldman in federal court before Judge Sam
Sparks, she demonstrated that Waldman was unfamiliar with key details of the
case and hadn't given Panetti a single test or standard psychological exam,
even though such tests - including 1 to assess whether a patient is faking
schizophrenia - are used regularly in the field. When the attorney asked about
the AK-47 incident, Sparks cut her off. He found Panetti eligible for
execution.
Last November, a state court judge in Indiana offered a glimpse of what a
competency process conducted in the spirit of the law might look like.
Panetti's lawyers appealed again. But the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which
covers the busy death penalty states of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi,
ruled that Panetti was sane enough to die, quoting Waldman at length - even
though he was the only 1 of 6 experts to testify that Panetti wasn't affected
by any psychotic disorder. Last October, the Supreme Court declined to
reconsider his case, and Texas moved to execute him on December 3. Only after a
national uproar that drew in prominent conservatives - among them former Texas
congressman Ron Paul, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and
Maggie Gallagher, cofounder of the National Organization for Marriage - did the
5th Circuit hold up the execution.
So what might a competency process look like if it were conducted in the spirit
of the law? This past November, Jane Woodward Miller, a state court judge in
Indiana, gave the nation's judiciary a glimpse.
The Indiana Supreme Court had appointed Miller to determine the mental
competence of Michael Overstreet, a man convicted of abducting, raping, and
murdering a college student. Overstreet had shown symptoms of psychosis at 17,
had been in a mental hospital prior to the murder, and, once in prison, was
repeatedly diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia by state doctors. By 2013, he
had intractable hallucinations of "shadow people" and firmly believed he was
already dead and in a coma. He thought his execution would free him from
purgatory and bring him back to be with his family - and this was when he was
on his meds.
To assess whether Overstreet was sane enough to execute under the Panetti
standard, Miller held a hearing lasting 4 days (twice as long as Panetti's). It
involved 13 witnesses and nearly 1,300 pages of medical records. The state,
which acknowledged that Overstreet suffered from severe mental illness, could
rally but a single mental-health expert, a doctor with limited experience in
forensic psychology.
"The idea that this convicted rapist murdering monster is too sick to be
executed is nothing short of outrageous," a local prosecutor complained.
Although the case itself was similar to Panetti's, the outcome was entirely
different. The judge personally watched hours of video of the doctors
interviewing Overstreet. She also scrutinized their credentials and grilled
them on their understanding of the Supreme Court's Panetti decision. Her
137-page opinion determined that the state's mental-health expert's report
wasn't especially thorough or his conclusions especially credible. And while
Overstreet knew the state wanted to execute him and why (the test Powell had
suggested in Ford), that wasn't enough to justify his execution under the
Panetti standard. "This Court concludes Overstreet means exactly what he said:
He is dead, in a coma," she wrote. "And that is a delusion...Delusions or other
psychotic symptoms cannot simply be discounted because a petitioner has a
cognitive awareness of his circumstances."
One of the local prosecutors went ballistic, texting to the Indianapolis Star,
"the idea that this convicted rapist murdering monster is too sick to be
executed is nothing short of outrageous and is an injustice to the victim, her
mother, the jury, and the hundreds of people who worked to convict this
animal."
But in December, state Attorney General Greg Zoeller announced that Miller had
done such a good job of adhering to the Panetti ruling that there was nothing
to appeal. Overstreet will remain in prison for life, and cannot be executed
unless he one day recovers his sanity, which isn't likely.
As for Panetti, he remains on death row, growing increasingly paranoid and
delusional, according to court filings, as he waits for a panel of federal
judges to decide whether the Supreme Court case bearing his name might, in
fact, apply to him.
(source: Mother Jones)
**********************
Execution drug supply is running low, and states are looking for lethal backup
plans----Nitrogen chamber? Firing squad? Electric chair?
A bulky wooden chair outfitted with leather straps sits in Huntsville's Texas
Prison Museum, still fully functional, but unused in its faux death chamber.
But before its retirement in 1964 this electric chair, dubbed Old Sparky,
carried out 361 executions. For visitors, the chair stands as an illustration
of how far Texas has advanced in capital punishment - a relic of what some
consider past barbarism. But with a dwindling supply of lethal injection drugs
in the U.S., states have started looking to bygone execution methods - not
unlike Old Sparky - as a backup plan.
If Texas goes through with Kent Sprouse's execution April 9, it will have
exhausted its last dose of pentobarbital, the lethal injection drug it has used
since 2012. That leaves the state, which has the macabre distinction of being
the nation's leading executioner, with 3 more April executions and no plan as
to how to carry them out. Jason Clark, a spokesperson with the Texas Department
of Criminal Justice, said the department is "exploring all options, including
the continued use of the pentobarbital or alternate drugs."
But could "all options" also include plugging Old Sparky back in?
That's what officials in other states are considering. This month, Alabama's
House of Representatives voted on a bill that, in case of a continued drug
shortage, would bring back the electric chair. And in May, the Tennessee
Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the state's attempt to bring back the
electric chair.
And if the electric chair sounds antiquated in this age of lethal injection,
just consider the firing squad.
The Utah state legislature passed a bill this month that would reauthorize
death by a firing squad if lethal injection drugs cannot be secured 30 days
before an inmates' scheduled execution. Rep. Paul Ray, the bill's sponsor,
decided to draft it after he learned last year that Utah had no execution
drugs.
"It became apparent at that time that we needed a plan B just in case," Ray
said. "We're still 2 or 3 years out on our next execution, but my thought was,
'Well, let's get something in place now. Just in case we need it, it'll be
there.'"
Legislation to allow firing squads in Arkansas also was introduced this year,
along with a failed attempt in Wyoming. Oklahoma, meanwhile, is toying with a
new take on the gas chamber. The Oklahoma House passed a bill earlier in March
that would allow nitrogen chamber executions. Like its predecessor, nitrogen
chambers would involve an airtight chamber, but instead of filling it with
poison gas, the nitrogen would cause death by asphyxiation.
But it isn't some nostalgia for brutality fueling this wave of states seemingly
backpedaling on progress. It's increasingly becoming a necessity. A recent GAO
report shows that the U.S. faces a widespread drug shortage that started in
2007.
As the stock of drugs began to dwindle, few domestic suppliers were able to to
keep up with the deadly demand. So states turned to European pharmacies. It
turned out to be a temporary fix, as 1 by 1 Italian, German and Dutch suppliers
cut off drugs supplies when they discovered they were being used to kill. The
companies' bans reflect a larger cultural difference - the U.S. is the only
Western country that still carries out executions.
Keeping dates with death
But if the aim was to stymie executions, the plan looks like it backfired.
"Our hand has kind of been forced without the availability of drugs," Ray said.
"There's still support for the death penalty, so you have to have a way to do
that."
He continued, "The interesting thing is that these companies in Europe are
opposed to the death penalty so they withhold these drugs. They seem to be
opposed to the firing squad over there. But they're the reason we're using the
firing squad. They need to understand that they might not like what we're
doing, but they're the reason we're doing it."
Most of the state legislation, however, is nothing but the sketching of a
backup plan. Still, with the clock ticking for 2015's roster of death row
inmates, 10 across the country and 6 in the state, Texas needs a solution -
fast. Even for trigger-happy Texas, it's unlikely that there will be a sudden
shift to another form of execution - or at least not in the next month. Meghan
Ryan, a law professor at Southern Methodist University, pointed out that even
if states dodge the problems that lethal injections pose, new methods would be
open to judicial scrutiny.
"The problem with going to other methods of execution is that there are
potentially constitutional concerns about that, just like there are
constitutional concerns about what states are doing now in experimenting with
different lethal injection cocktails," Ryan said. "We're sort of in a state of
uncertainty regarding executions in general."
Ryan said that the state push for lethal injection alternatives could hit a
snag under the Eighth Amendment's bar on cruel and unusual punishment. It is
unclear if bringing old techniques out of retirement when lethal injections
exist would hold up in court.
"The idea that punishments ought to be evolving toward more humane methods of
execution suggests that moving backward, such as toward the electric chair or
firing squad, might be questionable or possibly unconstitutional," Ryan said.
Texas does have a stockpile of the sedative midazolam that it could adopt into
its protocol with the stroke of a pen. But the controversial drug, which
replaced the depleted sodium thiopental in some states' drug cocktails, has
been used in 3 botched executions. Most notably, it was part of the horrific
death of Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett last April, which drew worldwide
attention to lethal injection practices.
"Every Department of Corrections in the country is looking at all of this,"
said Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University and expert on lethal
injections. "They're very aware that if they do anything wrong, and they're so
capable of it, that this is going to set into motion a series of questions
about this entire process."
And if midazolam's link to botched executions wasn't enough, there's the
upcoming Supreme Court case brought by three Oklahoma death row inmates that
centers on the drug. The case, which is set to be argued April 29, has already
led judges in Florida and Oklahoma to halt executions until the court reaches a
decision. So for now, it seems that midazolam's reputation will keep Texas - or
any other state - from touching its stash.
"My sense is that they're probably scrambling to find a compounding pharmacy in
this country that would make more pentobarbital for them. That would be my 1st
guess," Denno said.
The long-term solution to lethal injection drug shortages will take time and
likely many court battles to sort out. But it's time that Texas, at least,
doesn't have - unless it wants to do what Ohio did when it halted executions
indefinitely after one was botched in 2014. The chances of that in the Lone
Star state? Slim, especially since there have been no efforts for the state to
take a break from its busy schedule.
"Knowing the history of Texas and other states that are advocates of capital
punishment, I think they will do what they can to try to keep executions in
line and on schedule," Ryan said.
Much like the rest of the country, the next steps for Texas are unclear. The
Supreme Court's guidance on midazolam usage could clear pathways for states to
use the drug. On the flip side, it could completely bar it, sending the U.S. on
another pharmaceutical scramble. Or perhaps the frustration of switching from
one drug to another, each step taken with unsure footing, will lead states to
alternatives like in Utah.
Meanwhile, Old Sparky is still on display.
(source: Commercial Appeal)
*****************
The drugs don't work----When lethal injection gets tricky, try guns or gas
In 1996 the state of Utah put John Albert Taylor, a man who had raped and
murdered an 11-year-old girl, to death by firing squad. Chris Zimmerman, a
retired police officer who investigated the murder, witnessed the execution.
"Off to our left was Mr Taylor, off to the right, behind a wall, was the firing
squad," he remembers. "There was a countdown, and the firing squad were ordered
to aim and fire. I heard a simultaneous explosion - you couldn't tell the guns
apart. He clenched his fists, his chest rose a little, like it was suddenly
filled with gas. Then he unclenched his fists, the doctor walked out with a
stethoscope and checked his pulse, and it was over."
Since 1976, when capital punishment was brought back in the United States, only
3 people have been executed by firing squad in America - all in Utah. The state
banned the method in 2004 (though since the law did not apply to past cases,
another man was shot in 2010). But on March 10th its legislature passed a law
to bring back the guns. Utah is one of several states trying to ensure it can
kill people if lethal injection, the preferred modern way, is not available. To
the relief of abolitionists, not many are succeeding.
Lethal injection has been becoming more controversial, and trickier, since
2011, when the European Commission banned the sale of eight drugs if the
purpose was to use them in executions. Many manufacturers, including American
ones, fearing bad publicity as well as regulatory problems, stopped making or
supplying drugs too. The result has been an acute shortage of the chemicals
with which it is legally possible to execute people in most of the 32 states
that still have the death penalty. Last year 35 people were executed in
America, the fewest since 1994.
Several states have tried to acquire drugs in other ways - typically from crude
"compounding pharmacies". But since this has not always worked, they must find
alternatives. In Oklahoma, where a botched lethal injection took 43 awful
minutes to kill a prisoner last year, the state House on March 3rd
overwhelmingly approved a bill to allow the state to execute people by gassing
them with nitrogen. On March 12th the Alabama House voted to reintroduce the
electric chair. In Wyoming, the state House has passed a bill to bring back
firing squads. Several states now also keep the names of their
lethal-drug-suppliers secret, to protect them from protests.
So far, however, few alternatives have passed into law. Several states retain
the option of the electric chair, and a few the use of hanging, but such
executions are now extremely rare, and almost only because the prisoner
requests it (the last man to die by the electric chair was in Virginia in
2013). Wyoming's bill on firing squads was held up by a debate about whether
prisoners should be sedated, and ultimately failed; Utah's barely made it to a
vote, and may yet be vetoed by the governor. Only in Tennessee has a law
reintroducing the electric chair made it on to the books.
While executions are held up, some 3,000 condemned prisoners are left unsure of
their fate. While waiting, they are in effect serving life sentences of
solitary confinement, with few visitors allowed. Their number, however, is
gently declining. In 2013, the latest year for which figures are available,
more prisoners were removed from death row than were executed, mostly because
their sentences had been commuted to life.
The problem with resurrecting older methods of execution, says Robert Dunham,
the head of the Death Penalty Information Centre, an NGO, is that they will
instantly be challenged as unconstitutional "cruel and unusual punishment" -
creating as much delay as the drugs shortage. This is why many states moved
away from the electric chair in the first place. In addition, polls suggest
that even death-penalty supporters are squeamish about most alternatives to
lethal injection. "Don't we care about how Utah is perceived in the country and
in this world?", asked 1 Utah state representative in the firing-squad debate.
Notoriously, the state was the 1st to seize its chance to execute a criminal
after 1976. The case of Gary Gilmore caused a media sensation; and so did the
state's latest use of the firing squad in 2010.
In reality, insists Mr Zimmerman, shooting is hardly more barbaric than
poisoning with drugs. "There was no blood. He died so quickly he didn't bleed,"
he says of Taylor's execution. But whatever the alternatives, free-flowing
drugs are not returning. On April 9th Texas is expected to use its last dose of
pentobarbital, its preferred drug; earlier this month Georgia delayed an
execution to check the quality of its supply. Death's proponents are not giving
up, but life is getting harder.
(source: The Economist)
***************
Here's how hard it will be to put Aurora theater shooter to death
Sentencing someone to death in Colorado is harder than you may think, as proven
by the lengthy process involved in capital punishment cases.
It's a process that thousands of potential jurors in the Aurora theater
shooting trial have been getting an education in over the course of the last 3
months.
Usually in a 1st-degree murder trial, if the jury returns a guilty verdict, the
judge must return a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of
parole. However, in cases like the theater shooting trial, when the prosecution
seeks the death penalty, as the Arapahoe County District Attorney is doing in
this case, it's the jury that decides the sentence.
This is why jury selection on capital punishment cases takes so long: The court
has to ensure each and every juror can be fair and impartial throughout both
the trial and the sentencing hearing, if there is a sentencing hearing.
Following a guilty verdict, jurors have to be able to consider both penalties -
life imprisonment and death by lethal injection - and follow a specific process
to decide the appropriate punishment.
Capital punishment sentencing hearing phases
A sentencing hearing consists of 3 phases. In phase 1, the prosecution must
prove beyond a reasonable doubt at least 1 statutory aggravating factor, or a
fact or circumstance which makes a murder more serious than others.
There are 17 aggravating factors in Colorado, including killing a police
officer, killing a judge, an ambush, killing a child, and killing multiple
victims, the latter of the 2 will in all likelihood be presented in the Aurora
theater shooting case should it continue to the sentencing phase, as 12 people
were killed in the shooting, including Veronica Moser-Sullivan, a 6-year-old
child.
In phase 2, jurors must consider mitigation, or any reason that might favor a
life sentence over a death sentence. Mitigation can include mental illness, a
defendant???s background or upbringing, the age of a defendant and a catch-all
category that would detail any and all reasons a defense attorney might believe
a jury should consider a life sentence. Jurors have to weigh each mitigating
factor against any aggravating factors, and only if they are convinced beyond a
reasonable doubt that the mitigation does not outweigh the proven aggravation
does the hearing proceed to phase 3.
In phase 3, each juror is called upon to make a moral evaluation of the
defendant's character and crime. In this phase, each juror is asked to apply
his or her individual reasoned, moral judgment as to whether death is the
appropriate penalty, beyond a reasonable doubt.
The process is set up in such a way that unless every condition is met and
every phase is completed, the jury must return a verdict of life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole. The vote must be unanimous to return a death
sentence.
And therein lies the heart of jury selection in the theater shooting case.
The defense is searching for that one juror who could vote for life in prison
against 11 others who vote for death, and the prosecution is fighting just as
hard to eliminate those sorts of jurors.
Lawyers fight for death penalty jurors
When prospective jurors for the theater shooting trial come in for individual
questioning, they first watch a video in which Arapahoe District County Judge
Carlos Samour discusses the aforementioned three phases of a sentencing
hearing. He follows up with them as a group, making additional remarks to put
the discussion in perspective. Then, the jurors are each questioned by the
judge and both counsels to ensure they both understand the process and can be
fair and impartial.
To say it's thorough might be an understatement.
Jurors must be willing and able to consider and decide the facts, fairly and
impartially. Unlike following traffic laws, it's completely allowed -
encouraged, in fact - for jurors to be honest and say they can't follow the law
in being fair and impartial. They may just be better suited for a different
kind of case, Samour says.
Having a bias in favor of or against the death penalty doesn't necessarily
disqualify a juror, though. The standard Colorado law applies is whether a
juror's views on the death penalty prevent or substantially impair the
performance of his or her duties as a juror in a sentencing hearing.
"To put it even more simply, can you set that bias aside?" Samour says in his
group remarks.
Both the defense and the prosecution thoroughly question prospective jurors
trying to prove a juror can or cannot set their preformed biases aside. The
defense always ensures that jurors understand even though the court is talking
about possible sentences, their client, James Holmes, the admitted gunman in
the July 2012 theater shooting, is presumed innocent unless proven otherwise.
The prosecution almost always asks jurors if they can sentence "that man" to
death, pointing to Holmes and never naming him. That question is always
accompanied by another question, with prosecutors asking the juror whether he
or she could also sentence Holmes to life in prison.
Jurors weigh in on sentencing process
Most prospective jurors have found the sentencing process to be long and a tad
tedious, but necessary. Some have even expressed relief that it's so difficult
to sentence someone to death, saying that it's refreshing to see that the
justice system doesn't take the death penalty lightly.
"It seems long, but it's something that needs to be done. Without proper
thought, something could go wrong," said a juror retained Thursday, a foster
father of 5.
Another juror retained Thursday started sobbing when one of the alleged
aggravating factors in this case, the murder of a child, was mentioned. A
mother of 3, she said it hit close to home but she could still consider both
penalties.
"It still doesn't mean he doesn't deserve a fighting chance. He's a human," she
said, referring to Holmes.
Even though the court has taken its time with individual questioning to make
sure every juror kept can be fair and impartial, it has still retained jurors
at a much faster pace than expected, moving the theater shooting trial date up
to April 27 from the projected date in June. Group questioning, the final phase
of jury selection, will take place on April 13, possibly spilling over into
April 14. At that time, the court will narrow down a pool of 120-130 jurors to
just 24.
The trial is expected to last 4 to 5 months, Samour said.
(source: KDVR news)
****************
Dispatches: Saving US Children From the Death Penalty
10 years ago this month, the United States Supreme Court found the death
penalty unconstitutional when imposed on people who committed crimes when they
were younger than age 18.
The decision, Roper v. Simmons, spared the lives of 72 inmates on death row at
the time. It also paved the way for later decisions that addressed other
abusive sentences.
Until that moment, the US had been the world leader in executing juvenile
offenders. In fact, just eight other countries had put juvenile offenders to
death between 1990 and 2004, and the 19 executions of juvenile offenders
carried out in the US during that period equalled the known total for the rest
of the world combined.
The court had considered the constitutionality of the juvenile death penalty
before, but in 1989 ultimately decided that the punishment was acceptable for
someone who was 16 or older at the time of the crime.
So what had changed in a decade-and-a-half?
Advances in neuroscience, for one thing. Research was beginning to show what we
already knew from everyday experience: teenagers have limited comprehension of
risk and consequences, and they are much more likely than adults to engage in
risky behavior, particularly with peers.
These studies confirmed that for most adolescents, risk-taking and criminal
behavior is fleeting. That means that young offenders are particularly amenable
to change and rehabilitation.
International law also played a part. The court in Roper cited the Convention
on the Rights of the Child and other human rights treaties and incorporated
points made in the amicus brief submitted by human rights organizations,
including Human Rights Watch.
The Supreme Court has since gone on to apply these lines of reasoning to
juvenile offenders sentenced to life without the possibility of parole -
incrementally, to be sure. In Graham v. Florida, the court struck down
life-without-parole sentences for juveniles convicted of crimes other than
homicide. In Miller v. Alabama, the court determined that the mandatory
imposition of life-without-parole sentences for juveniles, including those
convicted of homicide, violates the US Constitution.
The Supreme Court hasn't yet addressed the non-mandatory imposition of life
without parole for juvenile offenders. It's also left open the question of
whether resentencing was available to people already serving mandatory
life-without-parole sentences for crimes committed when they were juveniles -
although a case now before the court could resolve that question and apply the
rule of Miller retroactively, as Florida's highest court has just done.
Now that the US is out of the business of executing juvenile offenders, the
shameful club of countries that put children to death has only a handful of
members. Pakistan and possibly Iran have carried out such executions this year;
Yemen also likely has juvenile offenders on death row.
US juvenile justice practices still don't fully comply with international
standards, but Roper and the cases that followed represent enormous strides
forward. Roper also removes any cover for the few other countries that continue
to engage in the abhorrent practice of putting people to death for crimes they
committed as children.
(source: Human Rights Watch)
*********************
Mental competency report delays federal trial for man in 2007 fatal Bessemer
bank robbery
The federal trial of a man who faces a possible death sentence if convicted in
the 2007 slayings of 2 Bessemer bank tellers and the wounding of 2 others has
been delayed again after a government expert found the man is not competent to
stand trial.
U.S. District Court Judge David Proctor, in an order issued Friday afternoon,
indefinitely delayed the trial of William Merriweather Jr. The trial had been
slated to begin April 20.
The judge ordered Merriweather to be taken to a federal mental health facility
for a period of not more than 4 months to determine "whether there is a
substantial probability that in the foreseeable future he will attain the
capacity to permit the trial to proceed."
Examiners are then to file a psychological report regarding Merriweather's
treatment and their conclusions at the end of that period, the judge ordered.
He also ordered that hundreds of people summoned to be in the pool of potential
jurors for the trial be released from jury duty. The trial was expected to last
2 months and included a larger jury than normal.
"The order reflects that there are still competency matters pending, but the
government is still seeking the death penalty in the case," Peggy Sanford,
public information officer for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Birmingham, said
Friday afternoon.
Richard Jaffe, one of Merriweather's attorneys, declined comment on the delay.
Merriweather is charged in the May 14, 2007 bank robbery and deaths of Eva
Lovelady Hudson and Sheila McWaine Prevo, and with the wounding of Anita Siler
Gordon, Latoya Shaniece Freeman, all tellers at a Wachovia Bank branch in
Bessemer.
Merriweather faces 1 count of killing during the commission of a bank robbery
and 2 counts of use of a firearm during a crime of violence. If convicted he
could face the death penalty.
Merriweather's trial has been reset multiple times as attorneys have argued the
past 8 years that Merriweather is schizophrenic and is incompetent to stand
trial.
Proctor first ruled Merriweather competent in early 2013 - based on a 2011
hearing. The judge set a trial, but then delayed it as Merriweather's attorneys
argued that previously undisclosed nurses notes from his mental evaluation at a
federal prison plus a doctors' new concerns deserved new look at competency.
Proctor held another competency hearing last summer and in October issued a
124-page ruling, again declaring Merriweather competent for trial.
In his ruling Friday Proctor noted his previous rulings. But he wrote that the
court must "remain alert" to any changes that would render Merriweather
incompetent to stand trial.
"The recent reports of a government-retained expert finding that defendant
(Merriweather) is not competent presents just such a circumstance," Proctor
wrote.
The U.S. Attorney's Office has had what's called a "firewall team," made up of
prosecutors unknown and operating separately to the trial prosecutors. That
firewall team prepares for the possibility of a sentencing hearing involving
the death penalty in the event of a guilty verdict.
The government's firewall team arranged for a psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Welner,
to evaluate Merriweather in Feb. 2015, Proctor states in his order. "As it
turns out, before his retention by the Firewall Team, Dr. Welner had been
assisting the government's trial team for more than 6 years," the judge stated.
Dr. Welner had advised and assisted the trial team of prosecutors in evaluating
and confronting the defense's mental health evidence, Proctor wrote. "As part
of his earlier work with the trial team, however, Dr. Welner did not actually
interact with defendant (Merriweather). In fact, he did not actually meet with
-- and personally evaluate -- defendant until February 2015, when he did so on
behalf of the Firewall Team."
Welner reported that Merriweather's disorganized thought processes and speech
were consistent with schizophrenia and that his current condition impedes his
ability to rationally consult with this lawyers, Proctor wrote. Welner,
however, also reported that Merriweather's condition is treatable with
medication.
"Dr. Welner's conclusions appear to hold that before December 2014 defendant
(Merriweather) was not suffering from a mental disease so severe that it
compromised his competency and that defendant has been selectively cooperative
with evaluators," Proctor stated. "These opinions are consistent with the
court's findings articulated in its previous competency opinions."
But Welner reported that Merriweather's mental state had recently begun to
deteriorate, Proctor stated.
A fresh look at Merriweather's competency is warranted because a "competency
finding is not static," the judge wrote.
The more than 7-year wait for a trial has frustrated and angered the victims
who survived and the families of the 2 tellers who died.
Merriweather, wearing a green baseball-style cap, white shirt, tie, and slacks
and shoes partially wrapped in electrical tape, walked into the Wachovia Bank
branch on Ninth Avenue in Bessemer.
Minutes later, Merriweather walked out of the bank with $11,255 cash and the
bank manager in tow as a hostage after having killed and wounded the tellers.
Merriweather didn't make it out of the parking lot after being wounded by a
sheriff's deputy.
(source: al.com)
_______________________________________________
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/deathpenalty@lists.washlaw.edu/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A free service of WashLaw
http://washlaw.edu
(785)670.1088
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
