[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS
Dec. 2 TEXASstay of impending execution Battaglia again wins stay of execution days before he was condemned to die for killing daughters 2 weeks after a judge found John Battaglia mentally fit to be executed for killing his two daughters in 2001, the Dallas man has received another stay of execution. The state Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Friday that Battaglia's competency needs to be evaluated further. In 2001, Battaglia made national headlines when he shot his daughters, 9-year-old Faith and 6-year-old Liberty, at his Deep Ellum loft while their mother listened helplessly on the phone. "No, Daddy! Don't do it!" Faith pleaded, seconds before her father pulled the trigger in an act of revenge against his ex-wife. Battaglia was to be put to death next Wednesday after State District Judge Robert Burns ruled on Nov. 18 that he understands his case and execution well enough to remain on death row. According to a report from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Battaglia's attorneys now have 60 days to file a brief with the appeals court concerning his competency, court spokesman Abel Acosta said. Battaglia was previously scheduled to be executed in March but was granted a stay, again to sort out competency concerns. A defendant is considered competent for execution under Texas law if he understands why he's been sentenced to die and that his execution is imminent. Prosecutors and defense attorneys agree that the 61-year-old former accountant and Marine has a factual understanding of his conviction and execution date, but there had been debate over whether he has a "rational understanding" of it all. Psychologists testified that Battaglia suffers from a delusional disorder that makes him believe he did not kill his children, but Burns questioned whether he has developed this delusion as a coping mechanism. After the murders, Battaglia had two roses tattooed on his arm in memory of his girls. He then left a chilling message on the family's answering machine. "Goodnight, my little babies," he said in the message. "I hope you are resting in a different place. I love you." (source: Dallas Morning News) ** http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/death_row/dr_scheduled_executions.html Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present20 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982present-538 Abbott#scheduled execution date-nameTx. # 21-January 11---Christoper Wilkins539 22-January 25---Kosoul Chanthakoummane540 23-January 26---Terry Edwards-541 24-February 2---John Ramirez--542 25-February 7---Tilon Carter--543 26-March 14-James Bigby---544 27-April 12-Paul Storey---545 28-June 28--Steven Long---546 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) ___ 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
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., CALIF., WASH., USA
Dec. 2 NEBRASKA: Nebraska Gov. Ricketts defends death penalty proposal Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts defended a proposal Tuesday that would allow the state to obtain lethal injection drugs without disclosing its supplier, saying it would provide greater flexibility to move forward with executions after voters reinstated the death penalty earlier this month. The administrative proposal announced Monday would let the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services' director choose which drugs are used in an execution and withhold the name of the supplier. Ricketts said the current administrative rules and 3-drug lethal injection protocol were "more restrictive" than what state law allows. "We're really not changing anything with regard to confidentiality," Ricketts said at a news conference on an unrelated subject. "Claims of secrecy really just aren't founded." Ricketts argued that the changes are already allowed under a 2009 state law which changed the protocol from electrocution to lethal injection. That law allows the identities of "all members of the execution team" to remain confidential. Ricketts said the proposal would count a pharmacist or a pharmaceutical chemist as a part of the execution team, and thus exempt from public disclosure. The corrections department would also have to notify condemned inmates which drugs were chosen, the quantities to be used and the order in which they'd be administered at least 60 days before the Nebraska attorney general's office requests an execution warrant. Ricketts said the 60-day window gives inmates "plenty of time" to appeal. Nebraska's last execution took place in 1997, using the electric chair. The state switched to lethal injection after the Nebraska Supreme Court declared the electric chair unconstitutional, but officials have never used the current 3-drug protocol in an execution. Certain lethal injection drugs have become virtually impossible to obtain in the United States or Europe because companies, fearing a public backlash, have refused to sell them. Ricketts spokesman Taylor Gage said the cost of the drugs would remain a public record under the new proposed protocol. Nebraska spent more than $54,000 last year on lethal injection drugs from a company based in India, but never received them because federal officials blocked the shipment. Chris Harris, the company's CEO, declined the state's request for a refund. Nebraska's death penalty spent more than a year in limbo after lawmakers abolished the punishment in 2015, overriding Ricketts' veto. Voters reinstated capital punishment earlier this month through a ballot measure partially financed by Ricketts. Death penalty opponents have promised to fight any attempt to shroud the process in secrecy. The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska said the corrections department should be taking extra steps to maintain transparency and accountability given its history of high-profile missteps. 2 inmates escaped from a Lincoln prison earlier this year because staff members failed to follow security procedures. In 2014, under a previous administration, prison officials acknowledged that they had miscalculated hundreds of inmate sentences and failed to follow a Nebraska Supreme Court ruling. University of Nebraska-Lincoln law professor Eric Berger said the proposed protocol raises new legal questions that will likely end up in the courts. "It violates the Nebraska norm of open and transparent government," said Berger, who worked with death penalty opponents during the recent ballot campaign. "It also creates the risk of a botched execution. When they have that secrecy, (state officials) may feel they don't need to be as careful." Berger said the decision not to stick with one specific protocol suggests that state officials could try to use different drugs on different inmates, depending on what's available. Doing so would force them to "reinvent the wheel" for every execution and relearn the properties of a particular drug, he said. Berger said other parts of the proposal are vague. For instance, the drugs would have to be tested at least 60 days before an execution, but Berger said it's not clear who would test them. Additionally, Berger said the proposal could make it impossible to know whether the corrections director is getting advice from qualified medical experts when selecting the drugs. (source: Associated Press) ** Give state public input on death penalty protocol It's up to the Legislature to decide whether to accept the governor's proposal through legislation that would codify it or reject it. For now, the public is left to weigh the Corrections Department proposal. Nebraska voters have spoken definitively in favor of the death penalty. Now the state needs a way to carry it out. The last Nebraska execution was in 1997, when Robert Williams was electrocuted. The state hasn't
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.J., N.C., FLA., ALA.
Dec. 2 TEXAS: Texas Defends Mental Standards in SCOTUS Death Penalty Case Another Texas death penalty case was argued at the United States Supreme Court this week. The 2 questions presented was whether executing someone 35 years after the imposition of a death sentence, and allegedly using outdated medical standards to determine intellectual disability, is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. The Eighth Amendment prohibits executing those who are intellectually disabled. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Solicitor General Scott A. Keller were in Washington, D.C. with Keller arguing the case on behalf of the State of Texas. The transcript of the oral argument is attached below. Marc Rylander, spokesman for the Office of the Texas Attorney General told Breitbart Texas after the oral argument, "Texas' standard for intellectual disability is constitutional and fits well within the national consensus among states about how to define intellectual disability." The petition for writ of certiorari asking the Supreme Court to hear the case of Bobby James Moore v. Texas (#15-797) was filed on December 15, 2015. Moore was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1980 for shooting a 70-year-old grocery store clerk in Houston while he was committing or attempting to commit robbery. The majority of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals noted in its opinion that the Supreme Court has determined that the execution of the intellectually disabled violates the Eighth Amendment "but left it to the States to develop appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction." Judge Elsa Alcala filed a dissenting opinion at the time stating, "it is time for Texas to reevaluate the decade old, judicially created standard in Ex parte Briseno in light of a shift in the consensus of the medical community regarding what constitutes intellectual disability, and in light of the Supreme Court's recent holding in Hall v. Florida indicating that courts are required to consider that consensus in assessing intellectual-disability claims." As stated in the majority's opinion of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Briseno adopted the definition of intellectual disability stated in the 9th edition of the AAMR manual published in 1992, and the "similar definition" of intellectual disability contained in the Texas Health and Safety Code. Washington D.C. lawyer Clifford M. Sloan, arguing on behalf of the Petitioner, told the Court during oral argument that "Texas has adopted a unique approach to intellectual disability in capital cases in which it prohibits the use of current medical standards. It relies on harmful and inappropriate lay stereotypes." He urged "that the entire category of the intellectually disabled, every person who is intellectually disabled, is exempt from execution under the Eighth Amendment." Sloan argued that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest criminal appellate court in Texas, used a standard established in 1992 and prohibited the use of current medical standards. He told the Court that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals "said that the State habeas trial court erred by employing the current standards." Saying she wanted to "cut to the chase," Justice Sotomayor asked Mr. Sloan: "Was the criminal court of appeals using any clinical standard, any medical clinical standard?" He told her no. Justice Sotomayor said later during Petitioner's presentation that the CCA had found that Mr. Moore did not meet 2 prongs - he could not prove that he was clinically intellectually disabled, and that his IQ was higher than what was generally recognized clinically. Sloan maintained that both prongs were in "very sharp conflict" with clinical guidance generally, and "especially with current clinical standards." Justice Ginsberg fired off and her statement is a strong indication about what she might be thinking about the issue. She said, "There is no doubt about what the Texas court said. It's marching orders for Texas courts. It said the habeas judge erred by employing current clinical definition of intellectually disabled, there in that respect, rather than the test we established in Briseno. The test we established in Briseno is - is stated sharply and clearly as the test that must be applied by Texas courts." Mr. Keller urged that Petitioner argued in their reply brief that there is no material difference between the language in Texas' standard and the current clinical frameworks, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals applied the factors in the Briseno case which are in the Texas Court's precedents. Part of the discourse between the Texas Solicitor General and individual justices on the Court was whether Texans would agree that the Petitioner should be exempt from the death chamber, and whether you try to get standards to reflect that, or rather, you look at the consensus of
