[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENNESSEE
November 1 TENNESSEEexecution Tennessee murderer Edmund Zagorski is executed after receiving unusual last meal Edmund Zagorski — the Tennessee death row inmate who chose pickled pig knuckles and pig tails for his final meal — has been executed. Zagorski, 63, died at 7:26 p.m. CT on Thursday, the Tennessean reported. He was executed by electric chair. The inmate — who reportedly said "let's rock" before he was pronounced dead — was the 134th person the state of Tennessee put to death in more than 100 years, and was the first inmate since 2007 to have died via electric chair. In 1984, Zagorski was sentenced to death for killing two men during an April 1983 drug deal. Prosecutors said Zagorski shot John Dotson and Jimmy Porter and then slit their throats after robbing them when they went to him to buy marijuana. His initial execution was scheduled for Oct. 11, but the courts halted it because Zagorski, according to his lawyer, wanted to avoid the "unspeakable" torture of a lethal injection death. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday night denied his appeal, which argued it was unconstitutional to force him to choose between the electric chair and lethal injection. He reportedly chose not to order a last meal for his originally scheduled execution. At the time, other inmates at Riverbend Maximum Security Institute who are friendly with Zagorski reportedly collected money to get him pizza. "Should he change his mind and want to have dinner, his meal will be the same as the one provided to the other inmates at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution," the Tennessee Department of Corrections said when Zagorski chose not to select a last meal. Death row inmates are given $20 for a meal of their choice prior to their execution. Nationwide, only 14 other people have been put to death in the electric chair since 2000, the most recent being in Virginia in 2013. In Tennessee, condemned inmates whose crimes occurred before 1999 can choose the electric chair — 1 of 6 states that allow such a choice. Zagorski becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Tennessee and the 8th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 2000. Zagorski becomes the 20th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1, 485th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. The USA carried out 21 executions in 2017; there are 4 more possible/likely executions scheduled in the country this year. (sources: Fox News & 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----TENNESSEE
November 1 TENNESSEEimpending execution Tennessee Inmate Edmund Zagorski Scheduled to Die Tonight By Electric Chair. History Shows It Could Get Ugly. Sentenced to death for a double murder, he chose electrocution over lethal injection but is now arguing both are too cruel. The last time someone in the United States was put to death by electric chair was in 2013 when a Virginia triple murderer, Robert Gleason, opted for that method of execution. One of the media witnesses, Michael Owens, reported that Gleason died “with fists partially clenched and smoke rising from his body,” his frame wracked with spasms as two 1,000-volt jolts of electricity coursed between his calf and his head. That’s the scene that is poised to play out again Thursday night in Tennessee unless another death-row inmate, Edmund Zagorski, convinces the Supreme Court to halt his execution. Or it could be much worse. Fordham Law professor Deborah Denno, a capital punishment expert, catalogued state-sponsored electrocutions in a 2002 academic paper and found 19 that she believed were botched. “Severe burning, boiling body fluids, asphyxiation, and cardiac arrest, can cause extreme pain when unconsciousness is not instantaneous,” she wrote. When Pedro Medina was electrocuted in Florida in 1997, for the murder of a teacher, the Associated Press account of what happened was stomach-churning. “Blue and orange flames up to a foot long shot from the right side of Mr. Medina's head and flickered for 6 to 10 seconds, filling the execution chamber with smoke,” the correspondent wrote. “The smell of burnt flesh filled the witness room in the Florida State Prison and lingered as observers left two minutes after the execution.” Tennessee, like most states, abandoned use of the electric chair in recent years with the adoption of lethal injection as the preferred method. But in 2014, facing a shortage of drugs thanks to anti-execution activists, lawmakers voted to make the electric chair a backup option. Zagorski, who was sentenced to for slitting the throats of John Dale Dotson and Jimmy Porter in 1983, asked for the electric chair over the needle, citing recent lethal injections that went awry. At the time, his attorney said the drugs would make Zagorski experience “10 to 18 minutes of drowning, suffocation and chemical burning.” The original Oct. 11 execution date was then postponed to give the state time to prepare the chair. Meanwhile, Zagorski’s lawyers filed a new round of appeals, which were unsuccessful. On Thursday morning he appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that both lethal injection and electrocution violated the Constitution’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The petition argued that Zagorski was forced to choose between two unacceptable options, one of which has been banned by at least two state courts. “The supreme courts of Georgia and Nebraska have both found the electric chair to be cruel and unusual under their respective state constitutions,” the lawyers wrote. “Georgia concluded that, factually, the electric chair carries the ‘specter of excruciating pain’ and the ‘certainty of cooked brains and blistered bodies.’” If the high court denies Zagorski’s request for a delay, at 7 p.m. he will moved from the cell next to the death chamber and put in the electric chair. Straps and sponges soaked in salt water for better conductivity will be placed, and a shroud will cover his face. Then the executioner will turn on the electricity and send 1,750 volts through his body. What happens next, as history has shown, is anyone’s guess. (source: thedailybeast.com) ___ 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----worldwide
Nov. 1 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Man gets death penalty after failed proposal leads to murder in UAE He was drunk at the time of the incident. A man accused of killing another man who asked for his sister's hand in marriage has been sentenced to death in Abu Dhabi. The Asian victim had allegedly refused the suspect who proposed to marry his sister, as per Al Bayan report. The 2 men got into an argument on the matter and the victim brandished a knife. The suspect struck him, which led to the man dying as a result of his injuries. The suspect claimed he was forced to strike in self-defence with no criminal intent. Medical reports showed the victim had been drunk at the time of his murder. (source: Khaleej Times) SOUTH SUDAN: Former SA army colonel escapes South Sudan death penalty Following an amnesty from South Sudan President Salva Kiir, former South African army colonel William Endley has escaped being hanged after he was sentenced to death by a Juba court in February. He will be released from prison on Thursday and then deported back to South Africa. On Wednesday South Sudan President Salva Kiir declared the release of 2 political detainees, including Endley, who was sentenced on charges of treason, the East African reported. Also released was James Gatdet, a former spokesman of rebel leader Dr Riek Machar. Gatdet was arrested in 2017 after his deportation from Nairobi for allegedly subversive activities against the Juba administration. In addition to the charges of conspiracy and attempts to overthrow South Sudan's government, the supply of weapons the South African national was also accused of espionage, waging an insurgency, sabotage, terrorism and illegal entry into South Sudan. (source: iol.co.za) NIGERIA: NGOs want death sentence for armed robbery abolished 2 non-governmental organisations, Access to Justice and Avocats Sans Fronteires France, have commenced a lawsuit seeking the abolishment of death sentence for armed robbery. In their suit before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, the NGOs are urging the court to declare that Section 1(2) of the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions Act) Act is unconstitutional, null and void. According to them, the provisions of the Act are in conflict with Section 34(1) of the 1999 Constitution and Articles 4 and 5 of the African Charter, which guarantee the right to human dignity and equality before the law. The NGOs contended further that the provisions of the Act are also in conflict with sections 6(6)(a), 42 and 45 of the 1999 Constitution. They described Section 1(2) of the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions Act) Act "and similar statutory provisions that mandate death penalty" as unreasonable, unjustifiable, and unconstitutional. The NGOs are urging the court to order the defendants in the suit to immediately review the cases of all convicts who had been sentenced to death pursuant to Section 1(2) of the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions Act) Act. Joined as defendants in the suit are the Attorney General of the Federation; the Controller General of the Nigerian Prisons Service; and the National Human Rights Commission. The plaintiffs want the court to order the Controller General of the Nigerian Prisons Service "to immediately remove convicts who have been sentenced under the aforesaid provision from the death row and reassign them to appropriate prison facilities, pending the review of their sentences." They want the court to direct the NHRC to review the cases of affected death row inmates within six months of the final judgment in the case. (source: punchng.com) KENYA: DPP Seeks Death Penalty in Endarasha Boys' High School Dormitory Fire Case The Director of Public Prosecutions on Wednesday prescribed the death penalty for 14 people over a dormitory fire that occurred at Endarasha Boys' High School 8 years ago. Presenting in court, State Counsel Njagi Njue stated that circumstantial evidence showed that the fire that killed 2 students was caused by human beings using petroleum products. "Circumstantially, the prosecution has been able to show the bodies were of a human being and belonged to the two students. The pathologist indicated that scientifically, the victims were burnt to death and ruled out the possibility of them being dead before the fire started. He explained that through what he called mechanism of death," he told Justice Jairus Ngaah. The prosecutor told the court that the two killed in the fire were Kennedy Karogo and Joseph Mwangi arguing the reason a jerican was found in the dormitory. 3 Endarasha Boys' High School students leave Nyeri Law Courts after they denied arson charges on July 17, 2017. "[Why was that jerican in] the dormitory? It was not a garage. The container was used to carry petrol. Those who went to the scene said the fire was fierce and that they
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., OKLA., UTAH, USA
November 1 MISSOURI: Argument preview: Justices to consider another lethal-injection challenge, this time by inmate with complicated medical history Next week the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case of Russell Bucklew, a Missouri death-row inmate who argues that the state's plan to execute him by lethal injection violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment because he suffers from a rare medical condition that could lead to his gagging on his own blood. When it was first adopted as a method of execution in the late 1970s, lethal injection was envisioned as a more humane alternative to other methods - such as the gas chamber, firing squad or hanging - that states had previously used. The idea was that the condemned inmate would peacefully drift off to sleep after receiving a series of drugs designed to anesthetize and then kill him. But since then, inmates have challenged lethal injections as a violation of the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, pointing to a series of botched executions that sometimes lasted over an hour and left inmates gasping for breath. They have also raised concerns about the drugs used in executions and the secrecy surrounding some states' plans for lethal injections. The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected challenges to lethal injection. But now comes Bucklew, who argues that - whatever you think of lethal injection generally - it would be unconstitutional to execute him specifically by lethal injection because of the likelihood that he will suffer a gruesome death. Bucklew was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Michael Sanders, along with the kidnapping and rape of Bucklew's former girlfriend, Stephanie Ray; a state trooper was also wounded in a shootout before Bucklew was taken into custody. Bucklew suffers from an extremely rare disease, known as cavernous hemangioma, that has caused "unstable, blood-filled tumors to grow in his head, neck, and throat." He contends that, if he has trouble breathing when the execution begins, the tumor in his throat could rupture, filling his mouth and airway with blood and causing his execution to be "painful far beyond the pain inherent in the process of an ordinary lethal injection." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit rejected Bucklew's challenges to the plan to execute him by lethal injection, but earlier this year the Supreme Court agreed to put Bucklew’s execution on hold while it considers his appeal. Bucklew argues that the 8th Circuit's decision got it wrong in several ways. First, he contends, the court of appeals was wrong to assume that Bucklew's execution will go smoothly when the whole point of Bucklew's challenge is that, even if all goes according to plan, Bucklew's medical problems mean that execution by lethal injection will likely cause him agonizing pain. The state pushes back, expressing skepticism about how serious Bucklew's cavernous hemangioma actually is: It notes that a "growth near his airway shrunk nearly 10 % between 2010 and 2016," and it accuses Bucklew of repeatedly changing his story about the different things that could go wrong if the state were to try to execute him by lethal injection. The state stresses that Bucklew has not provided any evidence showing that he is "sure or very likely" to suffer serious pain as a result of lethal injection. To the contrary, it emphasizes, the lone drug that the state uses in its lethal-injection protocol - pentobarbital - will quickly render Bucklew unconscious, so that he "will not be able to suffer pain from choking, bleeding, or any other source." The only pain that he might feel, the state added, would be "minor discomfort associated with inserting an IV." Bucklew next argues that, contrary to the 8th Circuit's ruling, he should not have to show that there is another method of execution that is both feasible and will significantly reduce his risks when he is only challenging the use of the state's lethal-injection protocol in his own execution (known as an "as-applied" challenge). Bucklew acknowledges that, under the Supreme Court's caselaw, an inmate who contends that a method of execution is always unconstitutional (known as a "facial" challenge) must show that an alternative method is available; otherwise, inmates would be able to launch a "back-door attack on the" death penalty itself by taking the only available method of execution off the table. But that rationale doesn't extend to as-applied challenges, Bucklew suggests, because the challenged method of execution will still be available in other cases even if it isn't in his. Moreover, he adds, no "value would be served by demanding that an inmate with a complicated medical condition custom-design his own execution." The state offers a different reading of the Supreme Court's cases, arguing that the justices have made clear that any inmate who challenges the
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., IND., KY., TENN.
November 1 TEXASnew death sentence 'You executed my daughter': Hit man condemned to die for killing Dallas dentist A Dallas County jury on Wednesday condemned to death the hit man in a murder-for-hire plot against an Uptown dentist — a scheme allegedly set in motion by the jealous ex of the victim's boyfriend. Kristopher Love was convicted last week of capital murder in the September 2015 slaying of Kendra Hatcher, who was ambushed and shot in the parking garage of her Dallas apartment complex. "For 3 years, you've only been known as the shooter. I will never call you by your name because you are just the shooter," Hatcher's mother, Bonnie Jameson, told Love after he was sentenced. "You executed my daughter." Love, 34, was paid in cash and drugs for his part in the meticulously plotted crime that was meant to look like a botched robbery. "It was planned. It was thought out," Hatcher's sister Ashley Turner said Wednesday. "It could've been stopped." Love is the 1st Dallas County killer sent to death row since 2013, when 3 people were condemned to die. It took jurors about 3 hours to decide Love's punishment: lethal injection. The death sentence will be automatically appealed. Arguing for the death penalty, prosecutor Kevin Brooks said Love would always be a threat to society and to his fellow prisoners if he were housed with the general population. "If you put this man in gen pop, he becomes the go-to guy if you want something done," Brooks said. After the sentence was read in the courtroom, Love's sobbing mother rushed out to the hallway. Several of his other relatives remained in the courtroom, their bodies shaking from crying. Love didn't show any emotion when the sentence was read and looked back at his family before he was led from the courtroom. Before deciding on punishment, jurors had to determine whether Love was a future threat to society, which can include prison, and whether there were reasons to save his life. Defense attorney Paul Johnson questioned the fairness of Love's sentence when the others involved in the murder-for-hire plot won't receive capital punishment. He said prosecutors didn't prove that Love would be dangerous even behind bars and said the punishment should not be solely about the heinousness of the crime. Hatcher, 35, was found fatally shot in the head on Sept. 2, 2015, in the parking garage of her Uptown apartment building. Prosecutors demonstrated how Hatcher must have looked in her final moments: hands raised behind her head to protect herself with her chin tucked. She was shot in the back of the head. The bullet pierced her spinal cord and exited through her chin. The medical examiner said Hatcher would've labored to breathe during the final minutes of her life. "She knew as she struggled for breath that she was going to die," prosecutor Glen Fitzmartin said in closing arguments Wednesday. "He needs to feel that as well." But Johnson argued that Love was the "instrument" for 36-year-old Brenda Delgado, who was said to be jealous of Hatcher's relationship with Delgado's ex-boyfriend, Ricardo Paniagua. Delgado's capital murder trial has not been scheduled. She can't face the death penalty because of an extradition agreement with Mexico, where she fled after Hatcher's killing. "Kendra Hatcher was dead the moment Brenda Delgado decided to take her life," Johnson said during closing arguments. Several witnesses testified during Love's trial that Delgado had asked them to harm or kill Hatcher. One woman, 26-year-old Crystal Cortes, agreed to act as the getaway driver in exchange for $500. Though originally charged with capital murder like Delgado and Love, she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of murder in exchange for a 35-year sentence. Cortes testified against Love and is expected to testify against Delgado. Prosecutors argued that Hatcher's death was possible only because Love agreed to kill her. "This wasn't even happening until he said yes," Fitzmartin argued. Prosecutors painted a picture of a career criminal who first got in trouble at age 17 for stealing a car. Defense attorneys portrayed Love as a model inmate and a beloved member of his family. Relatives who testified on Love's behalf Tuesday described him as a loving father of 3. They also said his childhood had been disrupted by his parents' frequent breakups. His mother estimated that she and Love's father separated at least 20 times before ultimately divorcing. Jailers described Love as "peaceful" in the Dallas County Jail and said he caused no problems. Love hadn't shown much emotion or reacted visibly during the trial until Tuesday when his sister, Meisha Beasley, testified. While she spoke of their bond and childhood, Love stood to leave. Several bailiffs hurried over to him to put him back in a cell while jurors were escorted from the courtroom. It was about 20 minutes before he was
