August 1
USA:
Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Death Penalty Appeal Set ---- A judge
said this week oral arguments in Boston Marathon bomber's Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
appeal will be on Dec. 12.
More than 4 years after he was sentenced to death for his part in the Boston
Marathon bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's case is set to return to court. A
federal judge this week said oral arguments in the Boston Marathon bomber's
death sentence appeal will happen Dec. 12.
Tsarnaev's attorney will also be allowed to review the last sealed FBI
interview of Ibragim Todashev before an FBI agent killed him, according to
federal court records made public this week.
The defense team requested and will get the recordings of Ibragim Todashev's
final interview with law enforcement, before he was killed. The FBI said
Todashev implicated himself and Tamerlan in the 2011 murder of 3 Waltham men.
Tsarnaev's lawyers said it was impossible for an impartial jury to be selected
in Boston. They also said the trial judge committed a "grave error" by not
permitting the defense to tell jurors that Tamerlan was connected to the 2011
Waltham triple-murder ahead of the bombings.
"This proof went to the heart of his defense: that Tamerlan was a killer, an
angry and violent man; that he conceived and led this conspiracy," Tsarnaev's
lawyers wrote in December court documents. "The exclusion of this mitigating
evidence violated the Eighth Amendment and yielded a verdict unworthy of
confidence."
Only 2 specific defense lawyers will be permitted to review the tapes and
cannot share those with anyone, including Tsarnaev. According to court
documents, any motions filed as a result of the tapes (like a motion to
suppress) and the state's response, must be under seal.
Tsarnaev was sentenced to death in 2015 for orchestrating — alongside his
brother — the April 15, 2013, bombings that killed three people and injured
more than 250 others. The pair also shot at a police officer who was killed in
the ensuing manhunt. Tsarnaev's brother, Tamerlan, was also killed in the
manhunt.
High-ranking law enforcement officials said he deserved the death penalty and
knew what he was getting into. Tsarnaev's lawyers claimed he was under the
influence of his older brother, Tamerlan. Tsarnaev was 19 years old at the time
of the bombings.
Tsarnaev is being held at a prison in Colorado, and isn't expected to show.
(source: patch.com)
******************
Correctional staff are the hidden victims of the death penalty
If the Trump administration moves forward with its plan to carry out 5
executions in barely a 1-month span, it will leave behind a fresh trail of
victims, largely hidden from public view. These are the correctional staff
harmed by the execution process.
I know from my own firsthand experiences, supervising executions as a state
director of corrections, that the damage executions inflict on correctional
staff is deep and far-ranging. Carrying out an execution can take a severe toll
on the well-being of those involved.
A 2016 documentary, “There Will Be No Stay,” effectively portrays the trauma
experienced by correctional staff tasked with carrying out executions in Texas,
South Carolina and Georgia. Execution team members experienced acute
post-traumatic stress disorder. One described how his symptoms included seeing
“faces of the people he executed in reoccurring nightmares.” Others suffered
from similar nightmares, insomnia and addiction. Some were so severely
traumatized that they are still not functional enough for employment or to
maintain marital relationships.
Psychologists have described the impact of executions on correctional staff as
similar to that suffered by battlefield veterans. But in my military
experience, there was one major difference: The enemy was an anonymous, armed
combatant who was threatening my life. In an execution, the condemned prisoner
is a known human being who is totally defenseless when brought into the death
chamber. Staff members know that he has been secured safely for many years
before his execution and poses no threat to them personally.
It is not just the members of the execution team who experience feelings of
guilt, shame and mental torment. The trauma extends through the many
correctional staff who interact every day with death row prisoners, often
forming meaningful bonds over the course of many years and, in many cases,
witnessing their changed mind-sets and profound remorse. In my experience, the
damage spills over into the larger prison community, causing depression,
anxiety and other mental and physical impacts even among correctional workers
who do not work directly with those on death row.
All these devastating effects are made much worse when executions are carried
out in rapid succession, as the Trump administration plans to do. This
compressed schedule, with executions just a few days apart, causes an extended
disruption to normal prison operations and precludes any attempt to return to
normalcy following an execution. It also prevents any meaningful review by
execution team members and other officials to address problems or concerns in
the execution process. That increases the risk that something could go horribly
wrong in the next execution. And if a “routine” execution is traumatizing for
all involved, a botched one is devastating.
There’s no good reason for the Trump administration to move forward with
executions. There hasn’t been a federal execution since 2003, and the prisoners
under federal death sentence have been safely managed by the Bureau of Prisons
in high-security federal prisons. But if executions are going to happen at all,
they should not be carried out on this rushed schedule, piling one on top of
another. That will only heighten the chance of mistakes and compound the
stressful impacts on the extraordinary men and women who work in the Bureau of
Prisons.
(source: Allen L. Ault, the former dean of the College of Justice & Safety at
Eastern Kentucky University, served as a chief for the Justice Department’s
National Institute of Corrections from 1996 to 2003; as commissioner of state
departments of corrections in Georgia, Mississippi and Colorado; and as
chairman of the Florida Department of Corrections----The Washington Post)
****************
The expensive folly of federal executions
In recent decades, the United States has gone through a vast experiment in
crime and punishment to answer the question: “What would happen if you began
phasing out the death penalty?” We have an answer, not that the Trump
administration cares.
At Donald Trump’s campaign rallies, you could see people in T-shirts with the
message: “Trump 2016. F--- your feelings.” (A 2020 version is available
online.) But when it comes to capital punishment, the president and his
supporters put their visceral impulses above real-world experience.
In July, Attorney General William Barr announced that in December the federal
government will resume executing inmates who have been given death sentences,
something it hasn’t done since 2003. The Justice Department says this will
serve the purpose of “bringing justice to victims of the most horrific crimes.”
In Barr’s mind and the minds of many others, that may be true. But while the
thirst for vengeance may be understandable, it is a weak basis for criminal
justice. It offers no more protection for society at large than a sentence of
life without parole.
Death sentences are handed out in an unpredictable and arbitrary manner. Among
the factors are the preference of the prosecuting office, the location of the
crime, the race of the killer and the race of the victim.
When it comes to whether the death penalty will be sought, says Robert Dunham,
executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, “the biggest factor
is not what you did, but who the prosecutor is who makes the decision.”
A murder that might be deemed to warrant the death penalty in one county might
not be in the adjacent one, and likewise with one state versus another. In the
case of the federal death penalty, the key may be whether it takes place on
federal land. The border between life and death can be a literal border.
Race takes a leading role. Studies of different states have found that those
who kill white people are far more likely to get death sentences than those who
kill African Americans. Dunham says the data indicates that in the capital
punishment process, “black lives don’t matter as much.”
The Supreme Court struck down all death penalty laws in 1972 and established
standards for restoring them. Most states made the needed changes, and
executions became increasingly frequent, rising from one in 1981 to 23 in 1990.
But the murder rate barely budged over that period.
During the 1990s, supporters could claim a turnaround. As the number of
executions rose to a peak in 1999, the murder rate dropped by more than a
third. But the improvement can’t be attributed to capital punishment, because
it was part of a broad drop in crime. Aggravated assaults, which aren’t subject
to the death penalty, declined even more than murders.
As dozens of death row inmates were exonerated and public support for capital
punishment ebbed, the number of death sentences carried out plunged by 74%,
from 98 at the peak to 25 last year. Today, reports the DPIC, 21 states have
abolished it, and four others have moratoriums declared by their governors.
Barr said in 1991, “We need a death penalty to deter and punish the most
heinous federal crimes such as terrorist killings.” Oh? Where is the evidence
that it deters anyone? As executions became far less common after 1999, the
national murder rate didn’t climb, as you might expect. It declined slightly.
The idea that al-Qaida confederates would be scared straight is especially
ludicrous. People who contemplate terrorism are not the sort who buy annuities
to provide for their old age.
The 9/11 hijackers were at no risk of a lethal injection, because their own
deaths were part of the plan. Suicide bombers don’t worry about prosecution.
Mass shooters face a higher risk of dying at the scene than in a prison
execution chamber.
The administration’s insistence on pursuing the death penalty makes anger a
higher priority than fiscal economy. Seeking and imposing it is far more
expensive than settling for life imprisonment for killers.
A study found that Louisiana spent $200 million over the past 15 years on a
death penalty system that yielded one execution. In 2008, a California
commission figured the state could save about $125 million a year by abandoning
capital punishment.
The Trump administration and its supporters, however, don’t care that the death
penalty wastes money and fails to deter crime. All that matters is how it makes
them feel.
(source: Column; Steve Chapman, a member of the Tribune Editorial Board,
Chicago Tribune)
*****************
Booker, Durbin and Leahy introduce bill to ban death penalty
Senate Democrats introduced a bill to ban the death penalty less than a week
after the Justice Department announced it would resume federal capital
punishment for the 1st time in nearly 2 decades.
Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.) and Cory Booker
(N.J.), all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced the bill
Wednesday. The legislation is co-sponsored by Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.),
Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).
Booker, Harris, Klobuchar and Sanders are all seeking the Democratic nomination
for president.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced companion legislation in the House
last week.
“Try as we might, we cannot escape the fact that the death penalty in America
is disproportionately imposed on minorities and poor people,” said Durbin. “I
am also struck by the revelations we have had over the last few decades that
led to dozens of exonerations of innocent prisoners who had languished for
years on death row, awaiting execution for crimes they didn’t commit."
“The death penalty fails by any objective measure. It is too final and too
prone to error. It fails as a deterrent. It is racially biased. And it is
beneath us as a nation,” added Leahy.
Several states currently bar capital punishment or have suspended the practice
due to past wrongful convictions brought to light by groups such as the
Innocence Project, which have secured the release of several death-row inmates.
The total number of executions has declined over the last decade, in part over
concerns of its racial implications, with only three federal executions having
taken place since 1988.
The Senate legislation is in direct response to the Justice Department’s
announcement that it will resume the federal use of the death penalty, which
specifically cited 5 prisoners convicted of murdering children.
“Congress has expressly authorized the death penalty through legislation
adopted by the people’s representatives in both houses of Congress and signed
by the President,” Attorney General William Barr said in a statement Thursday.
“Under Administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought
the death penalty against the worst criminals, including these five murderers,
each of whom was convicted by a jury of his peers after a full and fair
proceeding. The Justice Department upholds the rule of law — and we owe it to
the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our
justice system.”
The death penalty has been abolished in about 70 % of countries, including in
most democratic, industrialized nations similar to the U.S.
************************
Court to hear Boston Marathon bomber's death penalty appeal
A federal court will hear arguments in the Boston Marathon bomber's death
sentence appeal.
A federal judge said Tuesday that oral arguments will take place Dec. 12. Each
side will be given an hour to make its case.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted and sentenced to death in 2015 for carrying out
the April 15, 2013, attack with his older brother, who was killed by
authorities.
3 people died and more than 260 were wounded in the attack.
Tsarnaev's lawyers argue it was impossible to find a fair jury in Boston.
Prosecutors say an impartial jury was carefully selected.
Tsarnaev is being held at a Colorado supermax prison and isn't expected to
attend the hearing.
(soure: Associated Press)
*****************************
Bringing Back Federal Death Penalty Will Hit LGBTQ and People of Color the
Hardest | Opinion
Attorney General William Barr's directive last week for the federal Bureau of
Prisons to resume the use of the death penalty after almost two decades is
another step backwards for our justice system under his tenure. This move is at
odds with the 21 states and Washington, DC that have abolished the death
penalty and the 4 states with gubernatorial moratoria. It is chilling to see
the Department of Justice return to the "machinery of death" at a moment when
public opposition to the death penalty is at an all-time high.
The discrimination that pervades the use of capital punishment conflicts with
the goal of equality for all and much of my work seeks to correct errors and
overturn unjust outcomes that result from personal and societal biases all too
frequently not left outside the courtroom door. In April, I wrote about a gay
man who was sentenced to die because jurors thought he would enjoy men's prison
too much. As I wrote then, if our legal system allows anti-gay bias in jury
deliberations, the integrity of our entire court system is undermined.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court denied review of this case.
If we want an impartial court to which we all have equal access, we should be
very concerned that bias, prejudice, and politics could interfere with the fair
administration of justice, especially when an individual's very life is at
stake. Since 1973, over 160 people have been released from death row due to
evidence of their wrongful convictions. The numbers of those who have been
exonerated raise serious concerns regarding how many people are sentenced to
death as a result of legal error as well as how many are executed who, in fact,
are innocent. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Breyer has explicitly questioned
whether the death penalty violates our Constitution's prohibition on cruel and
unusual punishment because of its serious unreliability, arbitrariness in
application, and unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty's
penological purpose.
A community survey by Lambda Legal, Protected and Served, found that
discriminatory attitudes against LGBTQ people negatively affect their
experiences in the civil and criminal courts as jurors, litigants, court
employees, and other participants. For example, in a 2001 study of the
California court system, more than 1/3 of lesbian, gay, and bisexual court
users "felt threatened in the court setting because of their sexual
orientation." Of jurors who participated in mock trials between 2002 and 2008,
a jury research firm found that 45 % believed that being gay "is not an
acceptable lifestyle." The LGBTQ community should oppose the death penalty
because bias in the courts, including racism, gender bias, and homophobia
affects who is sentenced to death.
The race of the victim and the race of the defendant in capital cases are major
factors in determining who is sentenced to death in this country. Since 1977,
the overwhelming majority of death row defendants (77 % ) have been executed
for killing white victims, although African-Americans make up about 1/2 of all
homicide victims. While there is not as much data about the rates of
discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation in capital cases, there
have been a number of instances that document the overrepresentation of people
at the intersections of race, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity
among those facing capital punishment. For example, Wanda Jean Allen, an
African American lesbian, was the first woman executed in the state of
Oklahoma. Her sentencing was influenced by her gender expression, as the
prosecution asserted that Allen "wore the pants in the family." The implication
that Allen dominated her lover overwhelmed the evidence that both women had
abused each other.
Capital punishment violates one of the most fundamental principles under widely
accepted human rights law—that states must recognize the right to life. Over
the past few decades, the use of the death penalty has been on the decline
around the world, but this administration wants to resurrect what has already
been abolished in 140 countries. The U.S. ranks fifth for the most executions
in the world, behind only China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Despite all
this, the Trump Department of Justice does not seem too concerned as long as
this President can claim to be tough on crime by wielding this irreversible
misuse of government power.
(source: Opinion; Richard Saenz is a Senior Attorney and the Criminal Justice
and Police Misconduct Strategist at Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest
national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the
civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those
living with HIV----Newsweek)
********************
Bishops Deplore Return of Federal Executions----Attorney General William Barr
on July 25 announced that executions of federal death-row inmates would resume
for the first time since 2003, with 5 executions scheduled for December 2019
and January 2020.
Catholic leaders have condemned the federal government’s announcement last week
that it will resume of executions after an almost 2 decade-long hiatus.
“I am deeply concerned by the announcement of the United States Justice
Department that it will once again turn, after many years, to the death penalty
as a form of punishment,” said Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, Florida, chair of
the U.S. bishops’ domestic justice and human development committee, in a
statement released July 30.
Attorney General William Barr on July 25 announced that executions of federal
death-row inmates would resume for the 1st time since 2003, with 5 executions
scheduled for December 2019 and January 2020.
“Under Administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought
the death penalty against the worst criminals, including these five murderers,
each of whom was convicted by a jury of his peers after a full and fair
proceeding,” said Barr, who is a practicing Catholic and a member of the
Knights of Columbus.
Federal executions are rare, with only 3 occurring in the modern era and the
last one being in 2003, the Death Penalty Information Center reports. The
federal death penalty was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1972
in Furman v. Georgia, but revised federal death penalty statues were reinstated
in 1988.
In 2014, President Obama ordered a Department of Justice (DOJ) review of the
federal death penalty after several botched executions by lethal injection in
states including Oklahoma and Ohio. However, executions will once again take
place and more will be scheduled in the future, the DOJ said Thursday.
In 2018, Pope Francis approved updated language for the Catechism of the
Catholic Church calling the death penalty “inadmissible because it is an attack
on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
In paragraph 2267, the Catechism acknowledges that the death penalty was “long
considered an appropriate response” to grave crimes by legitimate authorities
after a fair trial. However, it says, there is now an “increasing awareness” of
human dignity even after such crimes have been committed, as well as more
secure means of detention by societies that keep open the possibility of
redemption.
When the change was announced, bishops across the United States welcomed the
change. Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles said at the time that he was
“grateful for Pope Francis’ leadership in working for an end to judicial
executions worldwide,” and that the revisions “reflect an authentic development
of the Church’s doctrine that started with St. John Paul II and has continued
under emeritus Pope Benedict XVI and now Pope Francis.”
“The Scriptures, along with saints and teachers in the Church’s tradition,
justify the death penalty as a fitting punishment for those who commit evil or
take another person’s life,” Archbishop Gomez wrote.
In his statement on Tuesday, Dewane noted that last month, at their annual
Spring meeting, the U.S. bishops States voted overwhelmingly to adopt updated
language “reflecting this position” in the U.S. catechism for adults.
“I urge instead that Federal officials take this teaching into consideration,
as well as the evidence showing its unfair and biased application, and abandon
the announced plans to implement the death penalty once more,” he said.
The Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994, enacted as part of the Violent Crime
Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, expanded the list of eligible death
penalty offenses.
1 of the 5 inmates, Daniel Lewis Lee, was convicted in 1999 by a federal court
jury on “numerous offenses, including three counts of murder in aid of
racketeering.” Lee was a member of a white supremacist group, robbing and
killing a family of 3 in gruesome fashion, the DOJ said.
Lawyers for Lee said Thursday that the crime for which he was sentenced to
death was actually orchestrated by a different member of a white supremacist
group, who only received a life sentence; they argued that Lee did not conduct
the murder, and that evidence used against him during the trial was later
overturned by DNA testing.
Morris Moon, Lee’s attorney, stated that “the trial judge, the lead prosecutor,
and members of the victims’ family all oppose executing him and believe a life
sentence is appropriate,” but the federal government ordered prosecutors to
proceed with a death sentence. Furthermore, Lee suffered “relentless” abuse and
trauma as a youth, he said.
Another of the 5 inmates, Wesley Purkey, raped and murdered a 16 year-old girl
and bludgeoned to death an 80 year-old woman, the DOJ said. Purkey's lawyer
said on Thursday that he suffered serious abuse and trauma at a young age, and
now “suffers from a multitude of mental and physical disabilities, including
dementia” at age 67.
According to the DOJ, inmate Lezmond Mitchell murdered a 63 year-old woman and
forced her 9 year-old granddaughter to sit beside her corpse on a 30 to 40-mile
drive before murdering her as well. Mitchell’s attorney said that he is a
member of the Navajo nation, which opposes the death penalty in its own
jurisdiction, and which has opposed the sentence.
Mitchell is “the only Native American on federal death row,” his counsel said.
He was eligible for the death penalty because carjacking resulting in death is
a federal crime.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), Federal
administration of the federal death penalty is geographically-concentrated in
the South, with more than half of federal death sentences coming from just
three states—Virginia, Texas, and Missouri. Additionally, the 3 federal circuit
courts comprising that region—the Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth—are responsible for
42 of the 61 current federal death sentences.
More than 1/2 of current federal death row inmates are African-American,
Latino, Asian or Native American, the DPIC said.
The Catholic Mobilizing Network last Thursday called the DOJ decision
“unconscionable,” arguing that the death penalty system in the U.S. “is
tragically flawed.”
“The actions of the Federal government are meant to represent the values of the
American people — values of equality, fairness, and for Catholics, above all, a
belief in the sanctity of human life,” stated Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy,
Executive Director of CMN.
“The resumption of executions at the federal level flies in the face of these
values, and promotes a culture of death where we so desperately need a culture
of life,” she said.
(source: National Catholic Register)
********************
'The Death Penalty Is a Failed Experiment in the U.S.'
We should all be deeply troubled by the recent announcement by U.S. Attorney
General William Barr that the federal government plans to resume executions.
Not only did he announce his intention, but he also announced that there are 5
executions planned. For perspective, that is more federal executions than we
have had in over 50 years combined — we’ve only had three federal executions
since 1963.
After 16 years without a federal execution, this is a step in the wrong
direction.
When it comes to executing people, these are the most pro-death countries in
the world: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United States. The U.S. is
always in the top 10, and usually in the top five. When it comes to human
rights, this is not the best company to keep.
Most of the world has done away with the death penalty — in fact, the U.S.
stands alone in the Western, industrialized world when it comes to executing
our own citizens.
Each of the 62 men in the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., are quite likely
guilty of horrible crimes, and those crimes should have consequences. To be
anti-death-penalty is not to be anti-victim or anti-justice. To be anti-death
penalty is simply to insist that we can deal with violent crime without
mirroring the violence and taking another life.
We often like to say we reserve the death penalty for the “worst of the worst,”
but that isn’t the case. Jeffrey Dahmer didn't get the death penalty. Charles
Manson died of natural causes in prison. Harvard-educated Ted Kaczynski is
still alive. We're not executing the "worst of the worst" — we are executing
the poorest of the poor, and disproportionately people of color. The most
reliable determinant of who is executed is not the atrocity of the crime, but
the resources of the defendant and other arbitrary things like the race of the
victim(s). The death penalty is a failed experiment in the U.S.
For decades, we have been moving away from the death penalty as a country. The
number of executions drops nearly every year. New death sentences, a good
indicator of the death penalty’s future, are the lowest they’ve been in 40
years. The U.S. is steadily abandoning the archaic idea that we can kill to
show that it is wrong to kill. Public opinion is opposed to the death penalty
in the highest numbers in nearly a generation, especially among young
Christians. According to a 2014 Barna Group poll, only 23 percent of practicing
Christian millennials support the death penalty. Almost every year a new state
abolishes the death penalty, and only a handful of states and outlier counties
are actively executing.
It is deeply troubling to think that the federal government would overextend
its reach to pursue execution even for crimes committed in states that have
abolished the death penalty. And, in contrast to state laws, the federal
government lists some 60 death-worthy crimes including espionage and treason.
The first federal execution scheduled is Lezmond Mitchell, a member of the
Navajo nation, where there is no death penalty because capital punishment
violates tribal custom and culture. The victims’ family and the Navajo Nation,
where the crime took place, oppose the death penalty. Despite that and the fact
that only one Native American was on the jury during the trial, the government
pursued the death penalty and is putting Mitchell on the gurney first.
It obviously raises important concerns about how much we trust our imperfect
criminal justice system with the irreversible power of life and death. We know
that for every nine executions in the U.S., there has been one exoneration.
That’s a terrible track record – can you imagine if one in every 10 planes
crashed?
For decades we have been moving away from the machinery of death to pursue more
effective, cost-efficient, humane, and redemptive means of criminal justice.
The death penalty extends trauma, exacerbates wounds, and creates more victims.
We can do better. In the industrialized world, we have ways to protect the
public from people who are dangerous – without killing them.
The charge to keep the death penalty alive is being led, almost exclusively, by
leaders who claim to be Christians. It must break the heart of the God who
said, “Mercy triumphs over judgment” and “Blessed are the merciful for they
will be shown mercy.”
But Christians also have a long line of saints who have spoken out faithfully
for life over the centuries, including Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr.,
and now Pope Francis. One of the great thinkers of the early church, Cyprian,
took note of the irony that when an individual kills another individual we call
it evil, but when the State kills another individual we sanctify it and call it
justice.
The death penalty contradicts the gospel and undermines the possibility of
redemption for which Christ died. There is nothing Christ-like or pro-life
about the death penalty. Christ shows us a God who would rather die than kill …
a Savior who is executed and who died with forgiveness on his lips, even for
those who were killing him.
It is heartbreaking to hear the news that the Trump administration will attempt
to resume federal executions. In a world with so much violence, why would we
want to add more? Violence is the problem, not the solution.
(source: Shane Claiborne is a Red Letter Christian and a founding partner of
The Simple Way community, a radical faith community in Philadelphia. His newest
book is Executing Grace: Why It is Time to Put the Death Penalty to
Death----sojourners.com)
************************
U.S. federal death penalty protocol faces fresh legal scrutiny
Plans by President Donald Trump’s administration to resume executions of
inmates sentenced to death for federal crimes is set to face a stiff court
challenge, but a judge’s decision on the legality of its new protocol for
lethal injections may come too late for 5 men scheduled to die starting in
December.
Attorney General William Barr’s July 25 announcement of a single-drug protocol
for executing federal prisoners jump-started a long-running civil lawsuit
challenging the Justice Department’s capital punishment procedures as a
violation of the U.S. Constitution and a federal law governing how regulations
are enacted.
None of the seven federal death row inmates who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit
were among the 5 selected by Barr for execution, though the legal questions
raised in the litigation are directly relevant to those men.
The eventual ruling in the suit could come after scheduled new round of
executions is carried out on the five men, who were convicted of murder and
other charges.
The last federal execution took place in 2003.
“It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for them to go ahead and execute five
people while we’re litigating the legality of the method they’re using,” Paul
Enzinna, lead counsel for the 7 plaintiffs in the case pending before U.S.
District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, told Reuters.
The lawsuit, filed in 2005, has asserted that the Justice Department’s death
penalty protocol runs afoul of the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel
and unusual punishment by carrying a risk of severe pain as well as a law
called the Administrative Procedure Act because it was written in secret
without the required public input.
Enzinna said he is planning on Thursday to file a response for Chutkan, an
appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama, to review after the
Justice Department last week notified the court of its new protocol as part of
the case.
The plaintiffs are expected to demand answers about how federal executions will
be carried out, whether inmates are at risk of a painful death that would
amount to cruel and unusual punishment and why the new procedures were devised
behind closed doors without public dialogue.
The 7 plaintiffs have had their executions put on hold by the court pending a
resolution of the litigation. The case had remained largely dormant since 2011
after the department abandoned its previous three-drug protocol because of a
shortage of 1 of the drugs, an anesthetic called sodium thiopental.
The death penalty policy disclosed last week was the administration’s latest
announcement appealing to Trump’s conservative political base as he seeks
re-election in 2020.
Barr, a Trump appointee who took office in February, effectively brought the
litigation back to life with his disclosure that his department had approved a
new protocol that calls for using the barbituate sedative pentobarbital for all
lethal injections rather than a 3-drug combination.
The 5 inmates scheduled for execution are Daniel Lewis Lee, Lezmond Mitchell,
Wesley Ira Purkey, Alfred Bourgeois and Dustin Lee Honken.
Some of their lawyers said they were blindsided by Barr’s announcement, and
accused Barr’s department of improperly dodging judicial review by carefully
selecting death row inmates known to be outside the pending litigation.
“If they really wanted to explore and give oversight, and throw some sunshine
on this process, they would have done what the court expected them to do,” said
Ruth Friedman, who is helping represent Lee as director of the Federal Capital
Habeas Project, part of the Federal Defender program that provides lawyers in
certain death penalty cases when defendants cannot afford counsel.
“Instead, they are hoping to obviate that litigation,” Friedman added.
Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle declined to comment on the case
because it “remains in active litigation,” instead citing Barr’s comments last
week noting that the U.S. Congress has “expressly authorized” use of the death
penalty.
When the case was filed 14 years ago, it focused on the Justice Department’s
process for using 3 drugs to carry out lethal injections including questions
about how staff members were trained to carry out executions, how drugs were
obtained, what pain they might inflict and how they would be administered.
Friedman said lawyers for the 5 inmates scheduled to die are “scrambling” to
figure out their legal strategy in light of Barr’s new protocol.
“None of them had any idea that their clients were about to be told they were
going to be executed,” Friedman said.
Enzinna said some of the 5 could try to intervene in the civil case so they can
be added as plaintiffs, or file their own challenge on similar grounds. Celeste
Bacchi, a federal public defender who represents Mitchell, said both those
options are being considered.
(source: Reuters)
*************************
Political rope-a-dope: Reprise of federal executions
Muhammad Ali coined it the “rope-a-dope” almost 50 years ago, but the political
folks in the Trump Administration are proving themselves masters of the
technique. The tactic is simple: You back yourself into a seemingly vulnerable
position — on the ropes — luring your over-eager opponent to launch an
ill-conceived attack, for which you’re ready. When he does, you maneuver as
planned and pummel the exhausted would-be aggressor.
The Administration’s surprise announcement last week that it will start
executing federal convicts again — after a 16 year pause — is a classic
example. There was clearly no sudden urgency to kill convicts incarcerated in
federal prison for decades; after all, it’s been almost 1,000 days since the
inauguration. Nor is the public somehow clamoring for more executions — only
some 2 percent even see crime generally as the nation’s most important problem,
Gallup says.
The more plausible explanation is that re-starting federal executions is pure
political rope-a-dope — cleverly timed for this week’s Democratic debates.
Angling for the support of progressive activists in primary contests, some
Democratic presidential hopefuls have already taken the bait. They’re outdoing
one another condemning the “moral outrage” of the death penalty and suggesting
that supporting capital punishment — as a clear majority of registered voters
do — is essentially supporting racism.
It’s a set-up. In their zeal to demonstrate moral rightness, or simply improve
their chance to build profile in the crowded field, they’ve forgotten how the
death penalty has proven to be a bear trap for Democrats since George H.W. Bush
creamed Michael Dukakis. Not so for the party’s most recent leaders: Secretary
Hillary Clinton all supported the death penalty in some cases, and President
Barack Obama did not repudiate it.
Like any good wedge issue, the political potency of renewing federal executions
far outstrips its day-to-day import for the broad electorate. Only 62 federal
convicts — all found guilty of heinous crimes — are directly affected, and the
issue is narrower than “the death penalty” generally, which is mainly a matter
for each state, many of which have ended the practice. Timing the renewal
announcement just a week before the Democratic debate, though, makes that
divisive issue, one that would not otherwise merit precious debate time, a
gotcha topic tough to resist.
Any Democratic debater who falls for it and wins the nomination can count on a
modern-day reprise of Bush’s highly-effective Willie Horton advertisements that
K.O.’d the “soft-on-crime” Massachusetts governor. No doubt the country will
hear repeatedly and in gruesome detail the horrendous crimes committed by the 5
named child-murderers the Department of Justice wants to execute, and how
bleeding-heart Dems prefer to “coddle” these monsters at taxpayer expense.
Better still from a GOP perspective, it’s an emotional wedge that promises to
exacerbate the supposed split between Democratic progressives and the moderate
voters the president needs to win re-election. And it’s tailor made for
tonight’s expected reprise of the he’s-not-exactly-a-racist attacks on former
Vice President Biden, who just happens to be the one Democrat consistently
polling better than President Donald Trump head-to-head. It hardly matters that
only one of the five convicts to be executed is Black. Biden has already been
forced to back away from his “failure” to renounce the widely-supported death
penalty earlier. Score one for the White House.
Democrats should call out the new rope-a-dope for what it is — another tactic
to divide the electorate and energize “the base” with an emotional hot button
issue of little consequence to Americans’ daily lives, doubly cynical when it
involves the government’s solemn power over life and death. By refusing to take
the bait and resisting the temptation to use federal executions against each
other in a contest of moral purity, the Democratic contenders can hope to avoid
going down for the count.
Mark Gerchick is a principal at Gerchick-Murphy, a strategic consulting firm
focused on airlines and airports. He is a former acting Assistant Secretary of
Aviation and International Affairs in Bill Clinton’s Department of
Transportation (1994-1996) as well as former Chief Counsel for the Federal
Aviation Administration. He has also served in volunteer roles in nearly every
Democratic presidential campaign since Jimmy Carter, including as one of the
team members managing Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential transition and doing
legal work and convention delegate selection for the Michael Dukakis
campaign----thehill.com)
**********************
USA----impending/scheduled executions
With the execution of Marion Wilson Jr. in Georgia on June 20, the USA has now
executed 1,500 condemned individuals since the death penalty was re-legalized
on July 2, 1976 in the US Supreme Court Gregg v Georgia decision.
Gary Gilmore was the 1st person executed, in Utah, on January 17, 1977. Below
is a list of further scheduled executions as the nation continues its shameful
practice of state-sponsored killings.
NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution
dates are added and possible stays of execution occur.
1501------Aug. 15-------------Dexter Johnson-----------Texas
1502-------Aug. 15------------Stephen West-------------Tennessee
1503-------Aug. 21------------Larry Swearingen---------Texas
1504-------Aug. 22------------Gary Ray Bowles----------Florida
1505-------Sept. 4------------Billy Crutsinger---------Texas
1506-------Sept. 10-----------Mark Anthony Soliz-------Texas
1507-------Sept 25------------Robert Sparks------------Texas
1508-------Oct. 1-------------Russell Bucklew----------Missouri
1509-------Oct. 2-------------Stephen Barbee-----------Texas
1510-------Oct. 10------------Randy Halprin------------Texas
1511-------Oct. 16------------Randall Mays-------------Texas
1512-------Oct. 30------------Ruben Gutierrez----------Texas
1513-------Nov. 3-9-----------Charles Rhines-----------South Dakota
1514-------Nov. 6-------------Justen Hall--------------Texas
1515-------Nov. 20------------Rodney Reed--------------Texas
1516-------Dec. 5-------------Lee Hall Jr.-------------Tennessee
1517-------Dec. 9-------------Daniel Lewis Lee---------Federal - Ark.
1518-------Dec. 11------------James Hanna--------------Ohio
1519-------Dec. 11------------Lezmond Mitchell---------Federal - Ariz.
1529-------Dec. 13------------Wesley Purkey------------Federal - Mo.
1521-------Jan. 13-----------Alfred Bourgeois----------Federal - Tex.
1522-------Jan. 15-----------Dusten Honken-------------Federal - Iowa
1523-------Jan. 16-----------Kareem Jackson------------Ohio
(source: Rick Halperin)
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