Oct. 9
ARKANSAS:
Judge halts executions of 8 on death row
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen temporarily halted the scheduled
executions of 8 death row prisoners on Friday.
In an order issued in the inmates' lawsuit against the Arkansas Department of
Correction, Griffen wrote "that immediate and irreparable harm will result to
plaintiffs absent a temporary restraining order enjoining defendants from
executing plaintiffs as scheduled."
9 inmates filed suit June 29 seeking to have the state law that sets out the
method of execution declared unconstitutional. The suit also asked that the
state be permanently blocked from using the current lethal injection method of
execution.
Friday's order applies to all 9 inmates, but only 8 of them have scheduled
execution dates, the earliest being Oct. 21. Plaintiffs Don Davis and Bruce
Ward were to be executed that day.
(source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
USA:
Mark White and Mark Earley: Enough is a enough on capital punishment
On Sept. 30, at the very last minute, Oklahoma once again stayed Richard
Glossip's execution. The state had been about to inject him with a drug
cocktail using potassium acetate instead of the specified potassium chloride,
but the Department of Corrections apparently did not realize it had the wrong
drug until just before the scheduled execution and, because of Oklahoma's
secrecy laws, no one else did, either.
The victim's family issued an agonized statement about the confusion and delay;
while Glossip, in the execution holding cell, wondered why he hadn't been
executed yet, his grieving family and friends believed he had been executed.
We had once been fervent supporters of capital punishment. One of us, Mark
White, oversaw 19 executions while governor of Texas; the other, Mark Earley,
oversaw 39 while attorney general of Virginia. Gradually, as we have seen the
fallibility of the capital punishment system, we have come to the conclusion
that the death penalty serves no one and, as we saw recently in Oklahoma, is
simply cruel to all involved.
We do not yet know how Oklahoma got the wrong drug. We know that Glossip's
lawyers had been desperately trying for months to get information on the
execution protocol, including the source of the drugs and the qualifications of
the execution team, but the state secrecy laws prevented them from doing so.
At the very last minute, the state realized it had the wrong drug, and
officials at the Department of Corrections did the right thing by asking Gov.
Mary Fallin to stay the execution until they could get things straightened out.
We don't know if they can, because the state has now asked for and received an
indefinite stay not only of Glossip's execution, but also of 2 others who had
been scheduled for later this month.
Had there been appropriate transparency, perhaps this whole mess would have
been avoided. We simply don't know.
And that is the heart of the matter. No one knows what is happening as states
continue their efforts to execute people, even in the face of botched
executions (including the Clayton Lockett execution in Oklahoma last year),
death row inmates without lawyers, racial discrimination, possibly exonerating
evidence that is revealed, if at all, at the last minute, and other profound
problems.
In Glossip's case, witness recantations and changes in stories have raised real
questions about whether he was even involved in the murder for which he is to
be executed. Despite Glossip maintaining his claims of innocence throughout the
process, the courts have ruled that his execution should go forward anyway.
Perhaps this delay in carrying out the sentence will give Glossip's lawyers
more time to pursue these claims.
This is not justice, not for anyone involved in the system, and certainly not
for the families of victims, and for those who might be executed despite weak
or erroneous evidence, mistaken drug protocols, and states desperately trying
to keep it all secret.
The most extreme expression of any state's power is its ability to execute one
of its citizens. Having watched these tragedies play out across the country for
years, we have now come to the only conclusion possible: Enough is enough. It's
time for every governor (or other elected official or relevant agency) in every
state that continues to rely on capital punishment - an increasingly dwindling
number - to impose an immediate moratorium on administration of the death
penalty.
If states are going to have the death penalty, then state officials cannot
continue to cloak their executions and inquiries into the execution process in
secrecy, preventing counsel for the condemned, the courts and the public from
obtaining basic details about how the states intend to carry out the ultimate
punishment of death.
The Constitution Project, the American Bar Association, and any number of other
good government organizations oppose this secrecy and advocate complete
transparency. We agree. Death penalty states must not continue to conceal their
lethal injection practices behind walls of secrecy.
(source: Mark White, a Democrat, is a former governor of Texas, having
previously served as the state's attorney general. Mark Earley, a Republican,
is a former attorney general of Virginia. They are members of The Constitution
Project Death Penalty Committee----Tulsa World)
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