Jan. 20
TENNESSEE:
Tennessee warned about use of controversial drug combination for lethal
injections
As of January 2017, there were 63 inmates on death row in Tennessee. Executions
have been on hold pending a challenge by inmates to the single-dose drug
protocol.
The drugs are supposed to put a death row inmate to sleep before stopping the
inmate's lungs and heart.
However, controversies around the country show a 3-drug combination Tennessee
is prepared to use as it resumes executions in 2018 may leave witnesses scarred
and death row offenders in pain - and alive.
Documents obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee show the state has a new
protocol for what drugs it will use to put inmates to death. A supplier of
those drugs also warned the state they may not actually stop inmates from
feeling pain before they die, according to emails also obtained.
The issues already prompted a legal challenge and will likely spur death
penalty critics to characterize use of the drugs as unconstitutional cruel and
unusual punishment.
Lethal injection is the primary means of carrying out the death penalty in
Tennessee, although the electric chair is also legal. The state had used
pentobarbital, a barbituate, but manufacturers have largely stopped selling the
drug to anyone using it for executions.
In 2017, the general counsel for the Tennessee Department of Correction said
the state did not have the drugs needed to carry out an execution but could get
them if they needed.
On Thursday, after the Tennessee Supreme Court announced it had scheduled three
executions, the department said it has the necessary drugs.
The documents and emails point to the department's inability to find
pentobarbital. It is instead relying on the easier-to-obtain but far more
controversial 3-drug mixture used in other states.
The 1st drug, midazolam, is supposed to put an inmate in a state akin to sleep.
The 2nd, vercuronium bromide, stops the inmate's lungs. The 3rd, potassium
chloride, stops the heart.
The problem in executions carried out in Oklahoma, Arizona, Ohio and elsewhere
is the midazolam in some cases has failed to put the inmate to sleep or stop
them from feeling pain.
A legal filing from attorneys defending death row inmates pointed to the emails
and new lethal injection protocol as a reason the state supreme court should
delay any executions.
"Tennessee deliberately chose to revise its execution protocol to include as
the 1st drug, midazolam, despite knowledge of the substantial harm that drug
will cause. It is the most controversial protocol ever adopted by the state,"
the legal filing states.
As noted in the legal filing, a supplier pointed out these problems to
Tennessee prison officials in September.
"Here is my concern with midazolam...it does not elicit strong analgesic
effects. The subjects may be able to feel pain from the administration of the
2nd and 3rd drugs. Potassium chloride especially," wrote the supplier in an
email.
"It may not be a huge concern but can open the door to some scrutiny on your
end."
A department spokeswoman did not immediately answers questions Friday about the
protocol.
James Hawkins, a 41-year-old Shelby County man convicted in 2011 of killing the
mother of his 3 children, is scheduled to die May 9.
Billy Ray Irick, a 59-year-old Knox County man convicted of the 1985 rape and
murder of a 7-year-old girl is set to be executed Aug. 9.
Sedrick Clayton, a 34-year-old Shelby County man convicted of a triple murder
in 2014, is scheduled to die Nov. 28.
Hawkins and Clayton have yet to exhaust their legal appeals, so it's likely
their executions will be delayed. Irick, who's been on death row in Nashville
for more than 3 decades, has fewer legal options.
(source: The Tennessean)
ILLINOIS:
Former Medill Innocence Project private investigator files defamation lawsuit
A 2nd lawsuit has been filed after investigations into a high-profile murder
case led to 2 exonerations, the repeal of the death penalty in Illinois and the
fall of one of Northwestern's most distinguished professors.
Paul Ciolino, a private investigator who obtained a video confession of Alstory
Simon for a 1982 double homicide, is defending his reputation - and that of
Northwestern and former Medill Prof. David Protess - in a defamation lawsuit
filed earlier this month. The suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, alleges
nine defendants engaged in a "conspiracy" to discredit the work of Ciolino,
Protess and the then-Medill Innocence Project, since renamed the Medill Justice
Project.
The suit, filed Jan. 2, claims Simon's lawyers and the 2 investigators they
hired made false claims in an effort to defame and discredit Ciolino's
investigation, despite continued confessions of murder by their client.
"Together they conceived a plan to ruin the reputations of Northwestern
University, David Protess and Plaintiff Ciolino," the complaint reads. "Part of
the strategy to discredit Protess and plaintiff was to attack the integrity of
their success stories."
The suit also claims the defendants intentionally inflicted emotional distress,
which led to Ciolino's depression, anxiety and fear. Additionally, the suit
claims the plot ruined his reputation and has made it difficult for him to find
work as an investigator.
Details of the alleged "swift-boat" plot to undermine the investigation include
claims that Simon and witnesses were paid to recant their stories. The
complaint also claims that Anita Alvarez, the prosecutor who freed Simon,
resorted to "unethical, underhanded and downright sleazy methods to discredit"
Protess and Northwestern.
The complaint mirrors a countersuit in an ongoing lawsuit against Ciolino filed
by Simon in 2015. The countersuit was dismissed for not having proper
jurisdiction, but the federal judge for the case said it could be taken to a
state court.
Ciolino was working with Protess and the Medill Innocence Project in 1999 when
he obtained Simon's confession. The confession helped to convict Simon and
exonerate Anthony Porter, who was just hours away from the death penalty after
he was convicted for the 1982 deaths of Jerry Hillard and Marilyn Green. Though
Simon pleaded guilty and continued to confess multiple times, as the suit
points out, he later renounced the admission, alleging Ciolino threatened him
at gunpoint, showed him a video of an actor falsely claiming he saw Simon
commit the murders and said he could avoid the death penalty if he confessed.
Though Ciolino disputes Simon's claim that he conspired to wrongfully convict
Simon, prosecutors released Simon in 2015 after they concluded the confession
was coerced. Ciolino has admitted previously that he showed Simon the video
with the actor.
The decision by prosecutors brought into question not only Ciolino's tactics,
but also those of Protess and the then-Medill Innocence Project. Protess left
the University in 2011 after allegations that he engaged in and encouraged his
students to adopt unethical reporting tactics, prompting administrators to
prohibit him from leading the organization he established.
The innocence project has since been under new leadership with Medill Prof.
Alec Klein as the director.
After 2 men were exonerated for the same murders, the project and case gained
widespread attention and scrutiny from across the nation.
Porter's exoneration is believed to have convinced then-Gov. George Ryan to
halt executions, a step toward the repeal of the death penalty in 2011.
Additionally, a 2015 documentary, "A Murder in the Park," and a book titled,
"Justice Perverted: How The Innocence Project at Northwestern University's
Medill School of Journalism Sent an Innocent Man to Prison," criticized the
case and the innocence movement for its tactics.
Ciolino's suit claims these projects also defamed him by including false
statements.
"The movie advanced the outrageous lie that Ciolino had obtained Simon's
video-recorded statement in 1999 by using an array of unethical and criminal
tactics," the suit claims. "Ciolino suffered devastating damages as a result of
the publication of the false and defamatory statements in MIP (and) 'Justice
Perverted.'"
A case management hearing is scheduled for March.
(source: The Daily Northwestern)
IOWA:
Capital punishment debate is unwarranted
Iowa lawmakers shouldn't reinstate the death penalty, or waste time discussing
it.
Proponents insist the death penalty is needed as a deterrent. Yet, FBI
statistics show the opposite: States with the death penalty have higher murder
rates than those without.
Polk County Attorney John Sarcone, in an effort to illustrate that perpetrators
rarely consider such consequences, previously has shared the story of 4 people
who murdered 2 elderly women. The group killed one woman in Iowa before driving
the other across the state line to commit the 2nd murder in Missouri, a death
penalty state.
Capital punishment is, by design, more expensive than life without parole.
As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer noted, "In this world, or at least
in this nation, we can have a death penalty that at least arguably serves
legitimate penological purposes or we can have a procedural system that at
least arguably seeks reliability and fairness in the death penalty's
application. We cannot have both."
The average delay between sentencing and execution now is more than 17 years;
an inevitable outcome due to needed "reliability and fairness." Many inmates on
death row succumb to natural causes before they face state executioners.
Other factors - psychological tolls on jurors and state officials tasked with
imposing the death penalty, prison infrastructure needs, disproportionate
application on racial minorities and the poor, difficulties in obtaining lethal
injection pharmaceuticals, the ever-present possibility of executing the
innocent - also must be weighed.
In addition to these ongoing national debates, state lawmakers cannot ignore
the limitations past budgetary decisions have placed on state institutions.
Legislators must decide, for example, if the cash-strapped Iowa judicial branch
is realistically able to absorb such an added and monumental duty.
Iowa courts employ 182 fewer people today than 1 year ago; 115 essential
positions remain unfilled. More judges will retire this year than in previous
years, and fewer private attorneys are seeking the bench. By its own admission,
the judicial branch cannot currently provide residents equitable services.
(source: The Gazette)
NEBRASKA:
Nebraska notifies 2nd death-row inmate of drugs to be used
Nebraska's corrections department has notified a second death-row inmate of the
drugs it intends to use for his execution.
The Department of Correctional Services sent the letter Friday to Carey Dean
Moore, who has been on death row since 1980 for fatally shooting 2 Omaha
taxicab drivers.
No execution date has been scheduled, and the department currently faces a
lawsuit challenging its efforts to proceed with one.
The department says it plans to execute Moore with diazepam, fentanyl citrate,
cisatracurium besylate and potassium chloride.
Nebraska officials provided the same notice on Nov. 9 to death-row inmate Jose
Sandoval, who was convicted for his role in a 2002 Norfolk bank robbery and
shooting. No execution date has been set in that case.
(source: Associated Press)
UTAH:
Death penalty sought in jealousy-fueled Utah trailer park murder
Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty against a 28-year-old Utah man
charged with killing a man who was in bed with his ex-girlfriend in a Cedar
City trailer park.
The Spectrum newspaper in St. George reports that Mark Mair's attorney, Douglas
Terry, called it "sobering" to hear prosecutors want the death penalty. Terry
says the facts in the case don't warrant that punishment.
Iron County Attorney Scott Garrett says the decision to pursue the death
penalty allows prosecutors to keep all options open.
Mair is accused of killing 34-year-old Justin Hannah on July 24, 2016 in an
alleged fit of jealousy. Hannah, who was shot 3 times, was in bed with Mair's
ex-girlfriend.
Mair and an alleged accomplice were arrested in Grand Junction, Colorado the
next day.
(source: Associated Press)
_______________________________________________
A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Unsubscribe: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/options/deathpenalty
