June 18
TEXAS:
Roberson Execution Stayed----Court of Criminal Appeals sends case back to
Anderson County
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay on the execution of Robert
Roberson Thursday, sending the case back to the Anderson County court where
Roberson was initially tried. The 49-year-old was sentenced to death for the
2002 murder of his 2-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis.
Roberson, who is from Palestine, Texas, argued to the state's highest criminal
court on a last ditch effort before his pending June 21 execution that the
evidence used to convict him for his daughter's death was rooted in junk
science. The state argued at his trial in 2003 that Nikki died after Roberson
shook her - hard enough, prosecutors said, that she slipped into a coma. A jury
agreed that Roberson, high on drugs the night that Nikki died, returned her to
bed after he shook her, and left her there for hours, until she was unable to
be saved.
Roberson always contested those claims. Since the questioning after his arrest,
he has maintained that his daughter fell out of her bed. It wasn't until 2014,
when a Houston case exposed new forensic theories on the phenomenon known as
"Shaken Baby Syndrome," that Roberson was able to shift the nature of the
effort to save his life from one dependent on his mental state to one centered
on the actual facts of his case. A June 8 application for relief filed to the
CCA by Office of Capital Writs attorney Gretchen Sween argued that Roberson
should be granted a new trial due to the "prior medical understanding" that "a
specific set of symptoms" - retinal hemorrhaging, subdural
hematoma/hemorrhaging, and brain swelling - "could be viewed together as
categorical proof of SBS/AHT," and because that flawed science resulted in a
violation of Roberson's civil rights to due process.
In an order issued late on Thursday afternoon, the CCA agreed with Roberson's
argument, offering little more than that the justices "find that his claims
satisfy the requirements" of Article 11.071 of the Texas Code of Criminal
Procedure - that the state relied on false, misleading, and scientifically
invalid testimony. The CCA remanded Roberson's case to the trial court, taking
his execution off the docket. The state now has 120 days to file an answer to
Roberson's claims to the CCA.
Roberson's stay may not be the biggest news to come out of the CCA this week,
however. Also on Thursday, in a concurring and dissenting opinion issued in the
case of Julius Jerome Murphy, who was convicted in 1998 of killing stranded
motorist Jason Erie in Texarkana, Justice Elsa Alcala argued that the remand
hearing issued to Murphy should include not just claims that the state withheld
evidence that could have spared Murphy, but that the court should consider
altogether "whether the death penalty remains a constitutionally acceptable
form of punishment under the current Texas scheme."
The 17-page opinion challenges the tenets of the death penalty on a wide
variety of issues. Alcala questions the validity of allowing states to
determine health standards for whether someone is too mentally ill to die,
lists the vast number of (sometimes arbitrary) possibilities that could elevate
a murder charge to capital murder (thus bringing the death penalty into play),
the role race typically plays in determining death sentences, and the flaws
present in considering whether a convicted Texan could be considered a future
threat to society. She notes Murphy's claims that "the death-penalty scheme is
plagued by excessive delays and that this has resulted in cruel and unusual
punishment, partly because, throughout this delay, [Murphy] has been held in
solitary confinement."
The opinion is notable for its contents as much as it is for its source. The
CCA's reputation is that of a conservative court, long fundamentally unopposed
to the death penalty as a practice. And while Alcala's opinion represents one
solitary voice on a panel of 9 justices, it establishes a modicum of concern
for whether the death penalty is truly moral.
"I do not decide the ultimate merits of applicant's arguments that the death
penalty is unconstitutional, though it should be evident from my numerous
opinions on this subject that, in my view, the Texas scheme has some serious
deficiencies that have, in the past, caused me great concern about this form of
punishment as it exists in Texas today," Alcala wrote. "Rather than refuse to
afford applicant the opportunity to factually develop his complaints as this
Court does today, I would instead permit applicant to make an evidentiary
record of his assertions and to have the habeas court make findings of fact and
conclusions of law."
(source: Austin Chronicle)
CONNECTICUT:
Waterbury Cop Killer Richard Reynolds Resentenced After Death Penalty
Abolishment ---- He will now face a new sentence by order of the Connecticut
Supreme Court.
The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Friday that Richard Reynolds' murder
convictions will be upheld, though his death sentence will be overturned,
according to media reports.
Reynolds has been previously convicted for killing a Waterbury police officer
and was sentenced to death, according to Fox 61. The state, however, has since
abolished capital punishment as of last year.
Reynolds attempted to appeal his sentence, claiming his public defenders failed
to question jurors about racial biases, according to the CT Post. They
reportedly also failed to introduce evidence that Reynolds suffers from an
antisocial personality disorder.
Justices ruled that Reynolds be resentenced to life in prison without
possibility of release by a lower court, according to Fox 61. The 10 men
remaining on death row are expected to be resentenced to the same punishment
following Reyonlds' ruling.
In 1992, Reynolds shot Officer Walter Williams in the head after the officer
stopped him during a routine patrol, as reported by The New York Times at the
time. Reynolds was 24 at the time and wanted in New York on drug charges.
Information at the time suggested Reynolds intended to kill Williams with the
pistol in his pocket after refusing to show his hands to the bullet-proof
vest-less officer, according to The New York Times. While fleeing the scene,
Reynolds reportedly fired 4 more shots (that missed) at the officer, who left
behind 2 children and a wife who was expecting.
(source: patch.com)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Uniontown couple charged with killing daughter could face death penalty
The former Greene County couple charged in the starvation death of their
23-month-old daughter at their Uniontown apartment could face the death
penalty.
Fayette County District Attorney Richard Bower filed notice in court this week
that he will seek the death penalty against Andrea Dusha and Michael Wright Jr.
if convicted of 1st-degree murder in their daughter's death.
Bower wrote in his filing Wednesday that he came to the decision through
aggravating factors such as the girl's age and because her death was caused "by
means of torture."
Lydia Wright died of severe malnourishment and dehydration Feb. 24.
Investigators said Lydia weighed only 10 pounds and they believe she had been
dead for several hours before Dusha brought the girl to Uniontown Hospital
after finding her unresponsive.
Her parents, Dusha, 26, and Wright Jr., 32, were arrested March 17 and charged
with homicide, endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment.
They were formally arraigned on the charges Thursday morning by Fayette County
Judge Steve Leskinen. Both are being held without bond at the Fayette County
jail while awaiting trial.
Dusha's attorney, Wendy Williams, and Wright's public defender, Jeffrey
Whiteko, could not be reached for comment Friday.
The couple and 3 children previously lived in Cumberland Township before being
evicted from the apartment in February 2015. They moved to Uniontown and lived
there until the girl's death.
(source: Observer-Reporter)
************
State Seeks Death Penalty for Parents in Child's Starvation
A prosecutor will pursue the death penalty against a western Pennsylvania
couple in the starvation death of their 23-month-old daughter, who authorities
say weighed just 10 pounds when she died in February.
The prosecutor's office announced its intention Friday when 32-year-old Michael
Wright Jr. and 26-year-old Andrea Dusha were formally arraigned on charges of
criminal homicide, child endangerment and reckless endangerment.
Authorities allege the child, Lydia Wright, was left in a car seat for more
than 13 hours at the family's squalid Uniontown home before she died of
malnutrition and dehydration.
? The couple's attorneys didn't return calls for comment.
Wright's former attorney says Wright thought Dusha was caring for the child.
Dusha's former lawyer says Dusha did "everything that she was supposed to do at
the 1st sign of distress."
(source: Associated Press)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Dying for equality: Supreme Court ruling could affect NC death row inmates
Inmates on death row in North Carolina could soon have new hearings thanks to a
ruling in Georgia by the U.S. Supreme Court.
A ruling last week by SCOTUS could give North Carolina death row inmates new
avenues to challenge racial bias in capital trials and will force the state to
confront discriminatory jury selection practices.
The Court ruled 7 to 1 in a Georgia case, Foster v. Chatman, that prosecutors
violated the Constitution by excluding African-Americans from the jury in a
capital case, and that the Georgia courts made a huge mistake by refusing to
consider evidence proving that discrimination, according to information from
the Center for Death Penalty Litigation.
In the Georgia case, the prosecutor got rid of all 4 potential black jurors.
While he gave the court "race-neutral" reasons for his strikes, the
prosecutor's notes showed that he highlighted the names of black jurors, marked
them with a letter "B" and put them 1st on his list of jurors to strike.
The prosecution also ranked the African-Americans in case "it comes down to
having to pick 1 of the black jurors," according to the CDPL.
Similar evidence of discrimination in jury selection has been uncovered in
North Carolina.
Jay H. Ferguson is a capital defense attorney in Durham and said the ruling
could mean new hearings since many of the people on death row in the state were
convicted of a jury not of their peers.
"There are almost 150 people on death row in North Carolina," he said in a
taped interview. "Almost 1/2 of those people were sentenced by juries that
consisted of no more than 1 person of color. About 20 % of people on death row
today were sentenced by an all white jury."
There is too much diversity within the state for the lack of people of color on
juries to be truly representational, according to Ferguson.
"In a state as great and diverse as North Carolina, that's absolutely
unconscionable," he said.
Ken Rose is the senior attorney at The Center for Death Penalty Litigation and
said he hopes the SCOTUS ruling means the laws against such procedures will now
be enforced throughout the state and the country.
"The court sent a message that we must stop making excuses and start enforcing
the law against discrimination in jury selection," he said. "The privilege and
obligation to serve on a jury, regardless of race, is fundamental to our
democracy. Yet, African-Americans in North Carolina are routinely denied the
right to participate in the most important decisions our criminal justice
system ever makes."
Lawyers like Ferguson who specialize in the death penalty say the ruling will
give many men and women who are sentenced to death new rights to bring forward
evidence of racial discrimination in jury selection at their own trials. Such
evidence is usually barred if it is not introduced during the initial trial,
according to the CDPL.
The ruling also will compel North Carolina courts to enforce laws that prohibit
race discrimination in jury selection.
The N.C. Supreme Court has heard more than 100 cases where prosecutors were
accused of intentionally getting rid of minority jurors, but it has never found
a prosecutor's explanation for striking a black juror to be a cover for race
discrimination, despite compelling evidence that the practice of excluding
black jurors is prevalent, according to the CDPL.
"It has been illegal for 3 decades to exclude jurors based on race, but the
reality is our courts have refused to enforce that law," Rose said. "The U.S.
Supreme Court said that we cannot continue to ignore this blatant racism in our
death penalty system."
North Carolina tried to fix the problem of discrimination in jury selection in
2009 by passing the N.C. Racial Justice Act, which allowed death row inmates to
present statistical proof that African-Americans were systematically excluded
from their juries.
Because of the Racial Justice Act, NCDL says North Carolina death row inmates
have uncovered even stronger evidence of discrimination in jury selection than
in the Georgia case:
-- In a Cumberland County case, defense attorneys discovered a prosecutor's
handwritten notes that labeled prospective jurors with terms like "blk wino"
and "blk, high drug neighborhood."
-- In a Forsyth County case, prosecutors struck all but a single black juror.
According to a handwritten note attached to that juror's questionnaire, he was
accepted because he attended a "multiracial" church, rather than a black one,
and went to "predominantly white schools."
-- Several N.C. prosecutors attended training, sponsored by the N.C.
Conference of District Attorneys, where they were given a cheat sheet of
"race-neutral" excuses that they could use to justify their illegal strikes of
black jurors.
-- A comprehensive statewide study of capital cases from 1990-2010 found that
prosecutors removed qualified black jurors from jury pools at more than twice
the rate of white jurors. The disparity was even more pronounced when the
defendant was black.
The Racial Justice Act was repealed in 2013. More than 100 death row inmates
who filed motions under the law are still pursuing their claims in court, but
most have so far gone unheard.
"The Supreme Court today reaffirmed the importance of the evidence those
defendants uncovered," said Rose. "North Carolina courts must finally begin to
take this critical issue seriously. The illegal practice of excluding
African-Americans from jury service must end."
(source: Morgantown Hews Herald)
GEORGIA:
Georgia executions rise, while death sentences plummet
It's Georgia's new death penalty paradox: the state is executing inmates at a
record clip, but prosecutors almost never seek the death penalty anymore, and
juries refuse to impose it when they do.
During each of the past 2 years, Georgia executed 5 inmates. If, as expected,
the state carries out another execution later this year, it will have put more
people to death - 6 - in 2016 than in any single year since the U.S. Supreme
Court reinstated capital punishment 4 decades ago.
But the last time a Georgia jury imposed a death sentence was in March 2014.
And district attorneys have been turning away from death as a sentencing
option, more often allowing killers to receive sentences of life in prison
without the possibility of parole.
A decade ago, state prosecutors filed notices of intent to seek the death
penalty against 34 accused killers. That number dropped to 26 in 2011 and to 13
last year.
How many times have Georgia DAs sought the death penalty so far this year?
Once. And this was against a man accused of killing a priest - a clergyman who
had signed a document saying if he died a violent death he did not want his
killer to face the death penalty.
The incongruity of the increasing numbers of executions and the plummeting
numbers of death sentences took both prosecutors and defense attorneys by
surprise.
"Wow," Atlanta criminal defense attorney Akil Secret said. "Maybe the times are
changing."
The precipitous declines raise the question of whether prior capital sentences
were justified, Secret said. "If a life-without-parole sentence is sufficient
for today's worst crimes, why isn't it sufficient for those crimes from the
past where death was imposed?"
In March, Secret represented 1 of the only 2 defendants to face death-penalty
trials in Georgia this year. In both cases, juries in Fulton and Newton
counties unanimously voted for sentences of life without parole.
Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter also expressed surprise at the
ongoing trends.
"It's certainly one of those odd occurrences," said Porter, who has three
pending capital cases. "But part of me says these (current) executions were
cases where the sentences should have been carried out long ago. Also, the
option of life without parole was never an option for them. It's almost apples
and oranges."
Asked whether he thought cases that received death sentences in the past should
now be reconsidered for life without parole, Porter quoted a passage from the
"Dune" science fiction series, "If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets."
Is the death penalty no longer necessary?
Brian Kammer, head of a nonprofit agency that represents condemned killers
through their final appeals, said many inmates would not have been sent to
death row had they been represented by competent lawyers. Today, he said, the
state has a dedicated office with highly trained public defenders with the
resources to thoroughly investigate their clients' backgrounds.
"Had such legal teams with adequate resources been available to these recently
executed prisoners at the time they were tried originally, I am confident they
would be alive today," Kammer said.
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court used a Georgia case to abolish capital
punishment. In 1976, in another Georgia case, the high court reinstated the
death penalty. Since that ruling, Georgia has executed 65 condemned killers.
There are now 63 inmates on death row.
There is a consensus among state prosecutors and defense attorneys as to why
the death penalty is not being sought as frequently as it was in the past and
why juries are reluctant to impose it. 7 years ago, state lawmakers unanimously
voted to allow prosecutors to obtain a life-without-parole sentence without
having to file a notice to seek the death penalty.
"It has made an enormous difference," said Chuck Spahos, head of the
Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia. "When you start talking about the
expense, the years of appeals and the length of the process that goes on and on
and having to put victims' families through that with no closure, the
availability of life without parole with a guilty plea has become an attractive
option."
Years ago, some state prosecutors sought the death penalty because all they
really wanted to do was send a defendant to prison for the rest of his or her
life, said Jerry Word, head of Georgia's Capital Defender Office. "Now they no
longer have to seek death to get what they really want. And the polls show that
the public is becoming much more comfortable with life without parole."
'We've lost our sense of outrage'
Doug Pullen, who made a name for himself obtaining death sentences as a
Columbus district attorney in the early 1990s, said he believes society has
become desensitized to violence.
"We've lost our sense of outrage at such things," said Pullen, who later served
as a judge until he resigned amid an ethics probe. "For me personally, and I
think for a large portion of my age group, it's just absolutely appalling."
A defense attorney once told him that the death penalty would become so
expensive and time-consuming it would die a natural death, Pullen said. "I
guess I knew it was coming, but that it got here this fast kind of surprises
me."
Not only are death sentences rare, death sentences once routinely imposed for
certain types of murders have become nonexistent.
Lawyers representing Brandon Astor Jones tried unsuccessfully to stop his
execution in February. In 1979, Jones was sentenced to death for killing the
manager of a Cobb County convenience store during an armed robbery. But death
sentences for these kinds of armed robbery cases have not been imposed in
Georgia in the past 20 years, an appeal filed on Jones' behalf said.
Layla Zon, the district attorney for Newton and Walton counties, said after she
took office in 2010 she reviewed cases in which death sentences were obtained
by her predecessors more than a decade ago. "You'd never get the death penalty
in most of those cases today," she said.
"To me, it seems like a gunshot killing of a single victim is not going to rise
to the level in jurors' minds of what it takes to impose a death sentence," Zon
said. "Torture, depravity of mind, the killing of a child. That's what it
takes."
Zon leads state in death cases
A recent motion filed on behalf of Rodney Young, sentenced to death in Newton
County in 2012 for killing his ex-fiancee's son, accused Zon of being
"pathologically enthralled" with the death penalty. It said she has sought
death at a rate unmatched by any other district attorney in Georgia and noted
she had a battery-powered toy electric chair, called "Death-Row Marv," in her
office.
Zon, who said the toy was in her office when she became DA and that she has
since removed it, said she seeks death in cases that warrant it. Since 2011,
there have been 13 death-penalty trials in Georgia, with 4 taking place in
Newton. Zon's office also obtained 2 of the state's 5 death sentences during
that time.
Last month, Ashley Wright, district attorney of the Augusta Judicial Circuit,
filed the first and only notice to seek death so far this year. She is seeking
it against Steven James Murray, who is accused of kidnapping Catholic priest
Rene Robert, forcing him into the trunk of his car and then driving him to
Burke County, where he shot and killed him.
After the notice was filed, Wright said, Robert's Catholic diocese in St.
Augustine, Fla., sent her a document that Robert had signed years ago. The
document said that in the event he died a violent death, Robert, who had
protested against executions, did not want his killer to get the death penalty
no matter how heinous the crime or how much Robert had suffered.
Wright said she is proceeding with the capital prosecution.
"We make our decisions based on the facts and the law, not public opinion," she
said.
(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
ALABAMA:
Alabama appeals court: Death sentence law constitutional
An Alabama appeals court on Friday ordered a Jefferson County judge to vacate
her rulings earlier this year that declared the state's capital punishment
sentencing scheme unconstitutional.
In its order the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals says the state's capital
sentencing scheme is constitutional and told Jefferson County Circuit Court
Judge Tracie Todd to vacate her March 3 order in the pending capital murder
cases of four men that says otherwise.
The Alabama Attorney General's Office had filed four petitions for a writ of
mandamus asking the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to direct Todd to vacate
her orders and allow the state to decide whether to seek imposition of the
death penalty in those cases if it decides.
The cases involve Kenneth Eugene Billups, Stanley Brent Chapman, Terrell Corey
McMullin, and Benjamin Todd Acton who were all indicted for various counts of
capital murder. Chapman and McMullin are charged in the same case and the
others in separate cases.
Before their trials, the men each filed a motion to bar imposition of the death
penalty in their cases and to hold Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme
unconstitutional based on the United States Supreme Court's decision in January
declaring Florida's death sentencing system unconstitutional.
Todd had heard arguments from lawyers for capital murder defendants Benjamin
Acton, Terrell McMullin, Stanley Chatman, and Kenneth Billups.
Todd agreed and declared the capital murder sentencing law unconstitutional in
a 28-page order.
"The Alabama capital sentencing scheme fails to provide special procedural
safeguards to minimize the obvious influence of partisan politics or the
potential for unlawful bias in the judiciary," Todd stated in her ruling. "As a
result, the death penalty in Alabama is being imposed in a "wholly arbitrary
and capricious" manner."
The Court of Criminal Appeals, however, said Friday that it the state's capital
sentencing law is constitutional.
"Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme is constitutional under (U.S. Supreme
Court rulings) Apprendi, Ring, and Hurst, and the circuit court (Todd) erred in
holding otherwise and prohibiting the State from seeking the death penalty in
capital-murder prosecutions," the appeals court opinion on Friday states.
The Alabama Attorney General's Office established the prerequisites for the
appeals court to issue an order to Todd telling her to vacate her opinion, the
appeals court stated in its order. "Therefore, the circuit court (Todd) is
directed to set aside its order holding Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme
unconstitutional and to allow the State to seek the death penalty in
capital-murder prosecutions if it chooses to do so.
The appeals court ruled that under Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme a
capital murder defendant "is not eligible for the death penalty unless the jury
unanimously finds beyond a reasonable doubt, either during the guilt phase or
during the penalty phase of the trial, that at least 1 of the aggravating
circumstances ... exists."
The court noted that Florida's law, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme
Court in January as unconstitutional, was conditioned a first-degree-murder
defendant's eligibility for the death penalty on a finding by the trial judge,
rather than the jury, that an aggravating circumstance existed.
Judges Mike Joiner and Liles Burke concurred with the majority although they
differed on some points in separate opinions.
Both Joiner and Burke criticized Todd's order.
Todd's order "contains sparse analysis on the application of Hurst to Alabama's
capital-sentencing scheme," Burke wrote.
"The majority of the order is devoted to the trial court's opinions regarding
partisan politics, the effects of an elected judiciary, court funding, and the
propriety of the death penalty in general," Burke states. "Additionally, the
trial court extensively cites secondary sources, including materials from
"Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty" as well as from the Web site of the
Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization whose attorneys are
representing the defendants in this very proceeding."
"In reviewing the materials that were filed with this Court, I find no mention
of these issues," Burke writes. "Thus, I question whether the trial court's
(Todd's) ultimate conclusion is based on its analysis of Hurst or on the trial
judge's personal opinions regarding Alabama's death penalty."
(source: al.om)
*************
Opioid addicts overpopulate our nation's prisons and death rows
Addicts hooked on pain pills or "opioids" overpopulate our country's prisons
and death rows - particularly in Alabama.
As Anne Hull's revealing article for The Washington Post ("The lonely road of
staying clean: In a town where pills are currency opioid addicts have few
options," June 11) describes, "[d]octors in Alabama prescribe more opioid
painkillers than physicians in any other state in the nation."
Saucily noting that Walker County, Alabama, "is usually nowhere to be found in
the pages of The Washington Post," Ryan Ray of Alabama Today reported, "the
rural county one hour away from Birmingham was front and center in a long-form
story about a family torn asunder by pill mills and opioid addiction."
Ray writes that The Washington Post story, "details in depth the suffering of
thousands of mostly white, low-income Alabamians resigned to life that revolves
around the cycle of drug abuse, poverty, and recovery." The pills that these
profiteering quack-M.D.s in rural Alabama have over-prescribed, Hull writes,
"are so enmeshed in the local economy that they're traded for lawn mowers and
school clothes."
In poor, agrarian areas of Alabama, where manual labor and minimum wage mete
out subsistence - where the best paying jobs are at a plant or a prison, and
where pills are interchangeable with money - it's not hard to see how opioid
addiction-related crime seeps into (or is directly implicated) in death penalty
cases.
Hull's article, though it does not mention capital punishment, does note: "2
generations of prescription painkillers have changed the way people die here.
Even more they have changed the way people live. Great-grandparents are now
raising the children of addicted parents and grandparents. 4 out of 5 arrests
in the county are drug-related."
When I worked in Alabama between 2012 and 2015 representing poor folks
sentenced to die (as an assistant federal public defender), a recurring
commonality among my cases and those of my colleagues - as well as other
lawyers representing clients on the state's death row - was opioid addiction.
Nothing has changed.
Indeed, in the office where I worked in Montgomery, we had
psychopharmacologists and neuropsychopharmacologists (try saying those tongue
twisters 3 times in a row) on speed dial. We'd hire these specialized experts
all the time to help illuminate how opioid addiction, often generational in
Alabama as Hull's article poignantly notes, should mitigate a client's sentence
- usually, to LWOP, an overly-benign acronym for life without the possibility
of parole.
Off of the top of my head I can think of a panoply of people facing execution -
right now in Alabama - where opioid addiction either directly, or indirectly,
played a part in the crime that put them on death row.
In the story of Jessica Kilpatrick's struggle with opioid addiction that Hull's
article zones in on, Kirkpatrick's addiction began when she was over-prescribed
pain pills (330 pills a month) for a volleyball injury.
Similarly, I worked on a death penalty case in Alabama where my client grew up
in a county no different than the one where Kirkpatrick lives; the hardscrabble
downtown area where my client went to school and where all local commerce took
place was literally awash in prescription pain pills. The richest man in town
was the pharmacist. His pharmacy was immediately adjacent to a "pain management
clinic" that dispensed hydrocodone (an opioid) by the armful to my client, and
before that, to my client's grandmother, aunts, uncles, and parents. This
particular pharmacist, apart from owning one of the biggest, most expensive
houses in town, had his last name carved into the local high school football
stadium; that's a big-deal-statement of power in small-town Alabama.
It was in that very high school football stadium, during practice and in a
game, that my client was knocked unconscious, developing back and other health
problems as a result. Guess where he went for help to manage the pain?
In February, I wrote "why Flint's water crisis should give death penalty
supporters pause," and how "unacceptable racial bias persists in capital
punishment." This time, though, the reason I humbly beseech the United States
to stop "tinkering with the machinery of death": Massive, long-standing
societal addiction to opioids - a problem that is especially nefarious and
pervasive in the hills, hamlets and countryside of Alabama - and in the stories
of its death row population.
(source: Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. and federal public
defender----themoderatevoice.com)
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