May 22
KANSAS:
Floyd Bledsoe, wrongfully imprisoned for 15 years, pushes to end death penalty
in Kansas
A man who spent more than 15 years wrongfully imprisoned for a rape and murder
he did not commit shared his story in the basement of a Lawrence church on
Saturday, now on a mission to encourage action against the death penalty in
Kansas.
Floyd Bledsoe, 39, was released from prison in December 2015 after a judge
overturned his 2000 murder conviction. He said prior to addressing the crowd of
about 75 at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, 1234 Kentucky St., that
the court system is flawed, and asked what if his case had been a death penalty
case?
Floyd Bledsoe sits in prayer with his eyes closed before sharing his story with
audience members on Saturday evening at St. John the Evangelist Catholic
Church, 1234 Kentucky St. Bledsoe was exonerated and released from prison late
last year after serving 15 years of a life sentence where he was wrongfully
convicted of murder.
Floyd Bledsoe sits in prayer with his eyes closed before sharing his story with
audience members on Saturday evening at St. John the Evangelist Catholic
Church, 1234 Kentucky St. Bledsoe was exonerated and released from prison late
last year after serving 15 years of a life sentence where he was wrongfully
convicted of murder.
"Anytime you're dealing with somebody's life, once they're executed, there's no
bringing them back. There's no, 'Hey, we're gonna appeal this,'" Bledsoe said.
"Once they're dead, they're dead."
He said he wants people to understand he doesn't want them to believe in change
- he wants them to be the change, get personally involved and become a voice
for those who can't have one.
"I know what it's like to be stuck and not have a way to communicate with the
outside world," he said, which is a big reason he's taking the opportunity his
situation has presented to speak out.
Bledsoe cited the Million Man March that thrust the civil rights movement of
the 1960s forward.
"What if we get a million Kansans together saying, 'Enough is enough; let's
stop the death penalty, because we're unsure. One life is worth everything to
us,'" he said.
He wants Kansas to be ahead of the curve on the death penalty issue.
"Why don't we, instead of waiting until the end, like Kansas so notoriously
does, why don't we become a forerunner and say, 'You know what? Enough is
enough - let's stop this now," he said.
(source: Lawrence Journal World)
NEBRASKA:
Anti-death penalty advocate to speak in North Platte Tell North Platte what you
think
Nebraska State Sen. Colby Coash will appear in North Platte Tuesday, May 24 to
discuss the upcoming vote to retain the Legislature's vote to end Nebraska's
death penalty.
Coash will speak at 9:30 a.m. at Hobbe's Diner in the Parkade Plaza Restaurant
217 E 6th St. in North Platte.
He represents the group, "Retain a Just Nebraska," urging the retention of LB
268, the Nebraska Legislature's vote to end the death penalty. The coalition
advocates life in prison without parole instead of the death penalty.
Former death row inmate Randy Reeves died Wednesday night of natural causes in
the Nebraska State Penitentiary.
Coash said it is "an example of what Nebraska's tough life imprisonment statute
means - that the offender will only leave prison on a gurney." Reeves was first
sentenced to death, but the sentence as changed in 2000 to 2 counts of life
imprisonment.
Coash, who represents southwest Lincoln in the Legislature, is also conducting
Town Halls in Grand Island, Hastings, Kearney and McCook.
(source: The North Platte Bulletin)
OKLAHOMA:
No room for mistakes in Oklahoma's next execution protocol
One of the most telling findings made by members of a multicounty grand jury
that studied problems with Oklahoma executions is found on the next-to-last
page of the panel's 106-page report.
Most Department of Corrections employees, the grand jury said (with the word
"most" in italics and boldfaced), "profoundly misunderstood the protocol.
Although some ... were able to intelligently testify regarding the protocol,
the majority simply could not."
In other words, when it came to carrying out the state's most solemn duty, not
many people involved knew exactly what was going on. It's a startling
conclusion and a problem that must be remedied in full before Oklahoma
considers putting another inmate to death.
The grand jury's report, issued Thursday, was the product of a lengthy
investigation into how 1 wrong drug was used in the January 2015 execution of
Charles Warner and nearly was used in September 2015 in the planned execution
of Richard Glossip. The Glossip execution was halted when the mix-up was
discovered.
The report makes clear why Anita Trammell is no longer warden at Oklahoma State
Penitentiary, why Steve Mullins is no longer general counsel for the governor's
office, and why Robert Patton is no longer Department of Corrections director.
All three testified before the grand jury and later left their jobs.
As director, Patton was in charge of an agency whose execution protocols were
overhauled in 2014 following a botched execution of Clayton Lockett that was
blamed largely on poor training and an improperly placed injection needle. But
the grand jury said, among other things, that it found training to be
inadequate and that the paper trail to track the acquisition, transportation
and use of execution drugs was worse than before the overhaul.
The panel said Trammell worked on assumptions regarding whether the proper
drugs had been properly vetted and used. The warden "did not do (her) job and,
consequently, failed the Department and the state as a whole." The grand jury
noted that its investigation into the mix-up and litigation stemming from the
mix-up might have been avoided if the warden had paid closer attention to which
drugs were being used in executions.
"It is inexcusable for a senior administrator with 30 years as a department
employee to testify that 'there are just some things you ask questions about,
and there's some things you don't.'"
Mullins was criticized for urging that the Glossip execution go forward after
it was determined potassium acetate had been delivered for use in the 3-drug
mixture, instead of potassium chloride. The former had also been used in the
Warner execution.
The grand jurys said it was unacceptable for Mullins "to so flippantly and
recklessly disregard the written protocol and the rights of Richard Glossip"
and that he should have "resoundingly recommended an immediate stay of
execution." Instead, he argued to the deputy attorney general that the 2 drugs
were essentially the same, adding, "Google it."
Gov. Mary Fallin stayed the Glossip execution. Since then all executions have
been on hold in Oklahoma, and will remain so until at least 150 days after
release of the grand jury's report.
The panel recommended another revision of execution protocol be undertaken, to
ensure everyone's duties are crystal clear. Grand jurors also said DOC should
have an independent ombudsman on site during executions. Each person involved
in an execution "must be comfortable questioning anything they observe that
does not seem right," the grand jury said.
That hasn't been the case to date, which is partly how we got into this mess.
Getting out of it will require a wholesale change in state officials'
application of the death penalty so the public can be assured that yes, the
state really does know what it's doing.
(source: The Oklahoman Editorial Board)
ARIZONA:
Slaying my last 5 excuses to back the death penalty
After years of reading and writing about the horrors of violent crime, I
decided there are monsters among us who deserve to die, period. And the state
should kill them.
But there's a whole criminal justice system that goes along with implementing
the death penalty, and in order to hold onto your belief in capital punishment
you must believe in that system.
And now I don't. I can't.
Just last week U.S. District Court judge in Phoenix put Arizona's executions on
hold until the resolution of a case involving a controversial drug used by our
state to execute the condemned.
It turns out that we stink at killing guys.
We're so bad at it, and there are so many questions and concerns, legal,
medical, financial and moral, that we just need to stop trying.
This was made even more clear by an expansive report on Arizona's death penalty
by The Arizona Republic's Michael Kiefer, in which the last 5 reasons I
believed - or used to believe - in capital punishment were obliterated.
Fallacy number 1: The death penalty is efficient.
Kiefer reported that in Maricopa County Superior Court from 2010 through
November 2015 there were 194 ongoing capital cases. Of those, 28 - or 14 % -
ended in death sentences. That doesn't speak well for the proficiency of
prosecutors. Or perhaps for the reasoning that led them to seek the death
penalty.
Number 2: The death penalty is warranted.
As it turns out, that's not exactly true either. The Federal Public Defender's
Office in Phoenix reported that of the 306 death sentences imposed in Arizona
over the last 40 years, 129 - 42 % - were reversed or remanded on appeal. There
will always be some cases that should be overturned. But nearly 1/2?
Number 3: The death penalty is economical.
In this instance, it's not even close. Taxpayers pay through the nose for both
the prosecution and the defense in capital cases. Among the most well-known was
the defense for Jodi Arias. Her 2 trials cost $3.57 million. And we continue to
pay for these cases through a long appeals process, spending millions while the
condemned spend decades on death row. Some dying there of natural causes.
Number 4: The death penalty is equitable.
There are many instances where there is little distinction between killers who
got the death penalty and killers who got life in prison or less. Take the case
of Daniel Cook, who got the death sentence while his accomplice pleaded to a
lesser charge and received a 20-year sentence in exchange for his testimony
against Cook. In that sense, the death penalty was not a punishment but a
bargaining tool for prosecutors. Is that justice?
Number 5: The death penalty is reliable.
The last inmate to be executed in Arizona, Joseph Wood, was injected 15 times
with an experimental lethal drug cocktail and spent nearly 2 hours heaving and
gasping before he died. And there was Jeffrey Landrigan, who was executed by
drugs the Arizona Department of Corrections obtained unlawfully from Great
Britain. How is acting illegally a justifiable way to execute someone? And
there was Ray Krone, convicted in 1992 of killing a bartender. He spent 10
years on death row before being exonerated by DNA evidence. Inevitably there
will be death penalty mistakes. That's unacceptable.
You may be like me. You may want to support the death penalty.
But there's only 1 reason left for any of us to do so:
Ignorance.
(source: Commentary, EJ Montini, Arizona Republic)
USA:
Lethal injections coming under scrutiny
While we were fortunate to have a pretty mild winter, spring has not been
ideal. And although I've been suffering from some serious hay fever, it's also
been cold and rainy. Usually it's one or the other, but this year has been a
double whammy.
My allergies have been so bad this year that a few mornings I've woken up with
my eyes matted shut. While this has provided Three Stooges-like entertainment
for my family, I am not amused.
Thank goodness for medicine. Every morning I shoot medicine up my nose and take
a small pill. While I still suffer, I don't even want to think about what bad
shape I would be in without my allergy medication. In fact, my whole family
doses up first thing in the morning. Thankfully, we are still under our facial
tissue budget.
This year alone, my family has taken medicines to help with allergies, fevers,
strep throat, the flu and asthma. My wife and son carry epinephrine pens with
them that literally are life-savers. While medicines definitely can save lives,
they can also be used to take them.
31 states still have capital punishment. When carrying out death sentences,
almost all of them utilize lethal injections. And those valuable medicines that
can heal, if mixed properly, also are used in these lethal injections.
But pharmaceutical juggernaut Pfizer recently announced that it was banning the
use of its drugs for lethal injections. A statement issued by the company
explained, "Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the
patients we serve. Consistent with these values, Pfizer strongly objects to the
use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment."
According to Reprieve, a human rights organization based in New York that
opposes the death penalty, Pfizer is the last of approximately 25 FDA-approved
international companies that are able to manufacture drugs used in executions
to now block the use of their drugs in executions. Reprieve Director Maya Foia
said that "Pfizer's actions cement the pharmaceutical industry's opposition to
the misuse of medicines."
The impact of this ban is that many states have delayed executions while
looking for an alternative to lethal injections. For example, Ohio has not
executed an inmate for more than 2 years. However, the state has more than 2
dozen inmates with firm execution dates, but they are being put on hold until
medications for injections have been obtained.
Some states are still using lethal injections but are not disclosing who made
the medicine being used. Consumers have filed lawsuits in Texas, Georgia,
Arkansas and Missouri, asking courts to force states to identify their drug
providers.
Other states, however, are taking matters into their own hands. Tired of
waiting for medicine for lethal injections, Virginia passed a bill this spring
allowing the use of the electric chair. 2 years ago, Tennessee passed a similar
law. If drugs aren't available in Utah, a 2015 law approved the use of firing
squads for executions. Oklahoma became the 1st state to approve nitrogen gas
for executions if drugs aren't available. The Attorney General for Mississippi
wants to be able to use electrocution, firing squads and nitrogen gas.
As more and more states abolish the death penalty (7 since 2007), the problem
may someday resolve itself.
(source: Commentary; Reg Wydeven is a partner with the Appleton-based law firm
of McCarty Law LLP----The Post-Crescent)
***************
Death Penalty States Are Running Out of Ways to Kill People
The new policy means there is no remaining open-market source of lethal
injection drugs in the USA, the New York Times reports.
Pfizer joins over 20 United States and European Union pharma firms that have
stopped making their drugs available.
The option for several states has been to consider using the single drug method
like Texas, or explore alternatives such as bringing back firing squads, gas
chambers and electric chairs.
As we have reported previously, each of these drugs is used in some part of the
lethal injection cocktail, which varies at different states.
The pharmaceutical company Pfizer said Friday it will move to prevent its drugs
from being used in lethal injections. According to Inquisitr, Pfizer was their
last source of lethal injection drugs, so without any other source, they may
turn to underground means to get the drugs or using another method for capital
punishment altogether. In 2013, German drugmaker Fresenius Kabi scolded a US
wholesaler after it accidentally sold its anesthetic propofol to the state of
Missouri, which meant to use it for executions.
"The Florida Department of Corrections does not disclose the identities of our
drug suppliers", Department of Corrections spokesman McKinley Lewis said.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the center, points out that despite the
objection by pharmaceutical firms for years, state correctional facilities
could still buy the drugs from distributors. But he cautions any attempt to
tweak the law would likely trigger a fierce debate over whether IN should
abolish the death penalty.
"Regardless of how the public votes in November, this is another sign Nebraska
will never be able to carry out an execution".
With Pfizer's decision, every one of the roughly 25 companies approved by the
FDA to make these drugs has established a policy to stop their use in
executions, according to Reprieve, an advocacy group opposed to capital
punishment. And this state has not exactly been prolific in its use of capital
punishment. The only solution states such as IN have to this problem is to find
an alternative company to produce lethal injection chemicals or to bring back
other execution methods such as the electric chair. And of the 27 men and 1
woman put to death past year (the lowest number since 1984), all but 4 were in
the execution-leading troika of Georgia, Missouri and Texas.
The US Supreme Court issued in June 2015 a landmark decision declaring death by
lethal injection legal.
With restrictions on 2 of the most used execution drugs, thiopental and
pentobarbital, some states have begun using less tested drugs - like midazolam
- that may take longer than expected to take effect. Texas has at least 8 more
executions scheduled in the coming months, with 2 due in June.
(source: info-europa.com)
***********
Momentum firmly against death penalty in U.S., Dead Man Walking author
says----Sister Helen Prejean discussess her position on the death penalty with
CBC Radio's On the GO
World-renowned activist, author and Catholic nun Sister Helen Prejean does not
mince words about why the death penalty should be abolished.
Prejean is the author of numerous books, including Dead Man Walking, a New York
Times bestseller for 6 months upon its release in 1993. The book was later
adapted into an Academy Award-winning film and an opera, both of the same name.
She spoke to Ted Blades of CBC Radio's On the Go this week.
She had come to St. John's to deliver the Arrupe Lecture at St. Bonaventure's
College.
The death penalty was abolished in Canada in 1976, although the journey to
abolish it began in 1950. Canada is one of 103 countries in the world which
have abolished the death penalty. However, 36 countries, including the United
States, China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, still practise the death
penalty.
Q: So how would you describe the current state of the death penalty in the
United States, both in practice and in theory?
Well, we put it back in 1976 - the very year Canada's parliament voted not to
bring it back, even though 70 % of the people of Canada in polls said they
wanted it - so for these 30 years we've executed over 1,200 people by shooting,
gassing, electrocuting, lethal injection.
Polls started out that there was 80 % support for the death penalty in the
United States; in the deep south states, it was almost 90 %. And now, for the
1st time, when people are given the question do you prefer the death penalty or
life without parole, they prefer life without parole. We got over 50 % ... so
the death plenty is in diminishment.
In the last 10 years, 7 states have abolished it, and California is poised to
do it next in a referendum. For the 1st time we have a Supreme Court justice,
[Stephen] Breyer, who has listed constitutionally all the problems with the
practice of the death penalty. So the theory of the death penalty is that it is
always been it's reserved for the worst of the worst.
In practice, over 75 % of all the actual executions have happened in the 10
southern states that practised slavery.
Practically, every 8 out of 10 chosen to die, it's because they killed a white
person. When people of colour are killed, it's never practised. And the other
big factor is we now have 156 wrongfully convicted people who've managed to get
off of death row because they were saved by college kids in innocence projects.
So people now see the thing's broken. It's not working.
And the other factor that we have to put in here is the exorbitant cost. It
costs millions of dollars to keep capital punishment in pace.
At first, that sounds counterintuitive, but everything is more costly. One
[district attorney] put it, "It's like the Cadillac of the criminal justice
system." You have a capital case, you have two trials, one is for guilt to
innocence, and the second is "what will the sentence be?", and that can last as
long or longer, then you got to build a special part of your prison.
The costliness of it is stopping people in their tracks because they don't see
a practical difference or effect, that if someone was put in prison for life,
and you know they can't kill again, why are we going through all this expense
of killing a few people ... so funds are doing it, practical sense of "it's not
worth it", and the moral sense has been building in people about it, because I
think going into Iraq, Afghanistan, we now see military solutions to social
problems are not that helpful, and the death penalty is a military solution to
domestic crimes.
My work has been to get those books out there, to get the film out there, to
help change the consciousness of people about it, to help them see that we need
to choose a life road.
Even Conservatives now are coming on board saying, "If you're for a lack of
government intrusion in private life, and if you're for fiscal responsibility,
what are we doing entrusting the government with the right to take life, even
without the huge exorbitant cost?"
Q: Even though you're an opponent of the death penalty, you've witnessed 6
executions. How did that come to be?
A: Well when I took the 1st man on death row -which is the story in Dead Man
Walking - I thought I would only be writing letters. We hadn't had an execution
in Louisiana in 20 years. That led to 2 1/2 years down the road. The letters,
then the visits. He was killed in front of my eyes.
He was electrocuted to death. And it changed my life, because when you see
something close up, as the saying goes, what the eye doesn't see, the heart
can't feel, but I got involved in that whole process, seeing the protocol of
death, and seeing what it meant to kill a human being. Part of the journey too
was then to witness and experience with the victims' families, who were being
told, "Now what we're going to do for you, you've gonna have to wait, hopefully
not too long, not 15 years or whatever, but when it's time we're going to let
you send a representative to actually watch when we kill the person, execute
the person, who killed your loved one."
So I got drawn into that through the 1st person. And then after that, Millard
Farmer, who's a great lawyer who was trying to save people's lives, he came
back to me after 6 months after Pat had been executed, and said, "Sister Helen,
we have two more clients in Louisiana - they don't have anybody."
And I looked at Millard and I knew that he wasn't trying to save himself from
fire of going in with his clients, and he said "You can do it - they need
somebody to be their spiritual advisor."
So I've continued to do it, and I've done it ever since. I'm accompanying a man
on death row in Louisiana. He's the 7th. 3 of the 7 have been innocent. 3 of 7
- that's how broken this thing is.
So I kept doing it because it's a privilege to be with human beings even though
they've done terrible crimes, and it's not to make them heroes, but boy it
brings you up against life and death, or compassion and vengeance, and what are
you for? And then I spend the other part of my time on the road getting out on
the road to wake people up in the United States about how we got to choose
another road.
Q: But how does it make you feel, as a citizen of the United States, as a human
being, to witness death not caused in the heat of the moment, in a moment of
passion for a lack of a better world, but in a cold, methodical,
state-conducted manner?
It could paralyze me, or galvanize me, and it has galvanized me. You got the
words exactly right; cold, calculated. The protocol of death.
When we were doing the movie, Susan [Sarandon, who won an Oscar for playing
Prejean] kept saying to me while we were on the set, "It's so surreal!" I've
been with people that died naturally, like in a hospital ... but to see, to be
with a person who's alive, and drinking coffee, and talking to me, and just
know with my mind and my watch that in another hour he is going to be
absolutely dead, that they're going to kill him over in the other room, how do
you get your mind around that?
So I knew that when I wrote the book, Dead Man Walking, and I tell the stories,
I take people over into both of these abysses.
One is to stand in the presence and feel the outrage when innocent people are
killed.
And the other is to come very close to see what it means to entrust over to our
government to do this killing of a human being. One time when I was in the
death house in Louisiana ... a guard came to me and said "Sister, the man we're
killing tonight is a very different man from that young brash animal that
walked in here 20 years ago, cursing God and everybody, but we gotta kill him
anyway. It's such a futile and despairing act, to freeze frame a person in the
worst act of their life, and then freeze frame ourselves as a society into
having to kill them."
Q: But you're a Roman Catholic nun. You're a Christian. You've got a cross
around your neck. The Bible says, "He that smitest a man so that he dies, shall
surely be put to death"?
The Bible says those that commit adultery should be stoned. The Bible says
those that have sex with animals should get the death penalty, and the poor
animal gets the death penalty as well. The Bible says if you disrespect the
priest or your parents, you should die. And then you come to Jesus. And the
hardest thing has been to see how long it's taken the Christian churches to
take a strong stand against the death penalty because we've gotten so
culturized, we've gotten so domesticated, we've domesticated Jesus ... and
Jesus' words are never quoted.
Pain, and sacrifice, and death, is the way to get to God, and that God is
please with sacrifice. So, there's been a theology in there too that's been
upholding this ... it took a while for there to be principled opposition to the
death penalty from the Catholic church.
Q: But what do you say to the loved ones of the victim of a murderer?
Especially the particularly heinous crimes involving rape and torture before
the final act? You hear many of those people who say, 'That person who killed
our daughter or our son doesn't deserve to see sunshine, doesn't deserve to
live out the rest of their days with a TV in their cells and 3 square meals a
day. What do you say to them?
?A: What do I say to victim's families? I don't say much to victims' families;
I listen to them. And what my experience has been with people, the starting
point for most human beings, and I can't say it wouldn't happen in me as well,
is, "I want to see that person dead who killed my loved one."
But that's not where most of them stop. And it depends on who they have around
to help them. The hero in my book, Dead Man Walking, is one of those fathers
whose son, David, just 17, was killed, and he, as I got to know him, said to
me, "Sister, everybody is saying to me, 'Lloyd, you got to be for the death
penalty, or it'll look like you didn't love your boy. Everybody was saying that
to me??? I wanted to see him suffer pain??? But then I saw what it was doing to
me. I was angry all the time, I was filled with this hate."
It's so hypocritical for the prosecutors to say to a victim's family, "We're
going to give you closure. We're going to give you justice." New Jersey, one of
the states that did away with the death penalty nine years ago, they had 62
victims' families that came to testify legislative hearings saying, 'Don't kill
us. The death penalty revictimizes us, putting us in this holding pattern,
waiting for this justice to come, which sometimes never even happens.
We never want to hear the person's name again, let them disappear into a prison
for life, but don't just keep us in the public while we're waiting for this
death penalty, as if watching you kill the one who killed our loved one, and
watching our violence is going to heal us. We've had more and more victim's
families speaking out, and that's helping us in the United States to end the
death penalty.
Q: Do you think we will we see it? Maybe not in your lifetime or mine but do
you think we are going to see the end of it?
A; Yup. No, we are going to see it in our lifetimes. You can see it beginning
to happen. That's a lot of education, a lot of deaths. In theory, it would only
be reserved for the worst of the worst, and now we look at who it's actually
applied to. They're all poor??? you know what being poor means when you're up
against the power's of the state for your life? Who do you have by your side?
Just like [if] you got a brain tumour, you need a good surgeon, you need a good
physician, you need a crackerjack attorney by your side. But then you get into
the culture of the south, where you have [district attorneys who] run for
office and brag about how many death penalties they get, because it's part of
the culture.
The guidelines of the Supreme Court never held up in the culture, and in
practice it's been broken from the start. You got to give people information,
and then you got to bring them through story, bringing them over to both sides
of the horror, and leaving them with the question leading to deeper reflection.
I had that hunch when I started out: if we could bring the American people
close tot his, they're going to get it. Most people don't think about the death
penalty. It doesn't affect them. But you get people to reflect about it, and
that's why the arts are important ... it brings people into deep reflection.
(source: CBC news)
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