June 7
TEXAS:
AG, Lawyers for Hank Skinner Argue Over DNA in Death Penalty Case
Lawyers for death row inmate Hank Skinner told a court, in documents filed
Friday, that testing on long-sought-after DNA evidence in his case should be
enough to forestall his execution. State prosecutors, who also submitted legal
arguements on Friday, said the same evidence should convince the judge to
confirm the 52-year-old's death sentence.
Jurors in 1995 found Skinner guilty of strangling and bludgeoning to death his
live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and fatally stabbing her 2 adult sons, Elwin
Caler and Randy Busby.
Skinner has long proclaimed his innocence. He has said he was so intoxicated
from a mixture of vodka and codeine that he could not have overpowered the
victims. Since 2001, Skinner has sought DNA testing to prove his theory that
the real killer was Busby's maternal uncle, who has since died but had a
history of violence. State prosecutors agreed to testing in 2012.
Last February, state District Judge Stephen Emmert held a 2-day hearing in Gray
County on the DNA evidence.
Defense attorney Rob Owen said at the DNA hearing and again in the proposed
findings of fact submitted to Emmert, that the issue was not whether DNA could
prove his client is actually innocent. Instead, Owen wrote, the issue is
whether the jury would have convicted Skinner if the DNA results had been
available at the time of the trial.
Skinner's defense team argued in the papers filed Friday that 3 hairs found in
Busby's hands were dissimiliar to any of the residents of the house and could
give a reasonable juror "basis to harbor reasonable doubt about Mr. Skinner's
guilt."
"The statute, as written, asks not whether the newly available DNA results
necessarily compel the conclusion that the defendant is innoncent of the crime,
but whether they would have raised reasonable doubt about his guilt," Owen
wrote.
But in the proposed findings that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's office
filed, state prosecutors argue that the DNA tests proved exactly the opposite,
that "it is reasonably probable that Skinner would have been convicted," in
1995.
At the hearing in February, the state's expert, Brent Hester, a forensic
scientist from the Texas Department of Public Safety's Lubbock laboratory, said
that more than half of the items from the crime scene that analysts tested
either produced no results or produced results that couldn't be interpreted.
The DNA tests that produced results allowed the state to identify Skinner's DNA
at 19 new locations at the crime scene, including on a knife blade used in the
crime and in blood smears on the walls. But, state lawyers emphasized, the DNA
testing revealed no evidence that Busby's uncle was at the crime scene.
************************************
Despite Demand, Halfway Houses Struggle to Provide Care
When Terry Pelz, a former warden with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
testified against a prison gang leader, Mark Fronckiewicz, in the 1993 capital
murder trial of a fellow inmate, he had choice words for him.
At his best, Pelz said, Fronckiewicz was a "true convict." At his worst, he was
a "little turd."
Decades later, after an appeals court overturned Fronckiewicz's death sentence
and he was paroled, the men became friends. The former inmate, who had found
work as a paralegal and become a fierce advocate for prisoner rehabilitation,
had started the Hand Up, a for-profit halfway house for former convicts. "It
was really a turnaround," Pelz said.
Fronckiewicz died last month at a time when the transition program in southeast
Houston is facing eviction after missing a rent payment.
While demand for transitional housing is high, few former offenders can afford
the $550 a month they must pay for rent, meals and utilities, said Sheila
Jarboe-Lickteig, who co-founded the program last year with Fronckiewicz, her
husband. Advocates for prisoner rights say the conundrum is typical. Few of the
thousands of offenders released by the Texas prison system each year are able
to find steady jobs or stable housing, both of which help prevent recidivism.
Roughly a quarter of them are back in prison within 3 years, according to
criminal justice department data.
The state has contracts with 7 halfway houses to offer subsidized housing to
about 1,800 former inmates upon their release. Last year alone, about 72,000
people were released from state prisons.
"It's a problem," said Jorge Renaud, a policy analyst for the Texas Criminal
Justice Coalition. "There is nowhere near the amount of transitional housing
that we need."
Jason Clark, a spokesman with the criminal justice department, said the agency
"is working to secure additional halfway house beds, but demand remains higher
than the beds that are available." Priority is given to those who "need closer
supervision and special services or who lack family and community resources,"
he said.
For many inmates, the private market is not an easy option.
At the Hand Up, roughly half of the 32 available beds are empty despite dozens
of applicants, because "you've got to be able to pay the rent," Jarboe-Lickteig
said. "You've got the people that are coming out of prison that can pay," she
added, "and you've got those that cannot pay. There are a lot more who cannot
pay."
Even with the high vacancy rate, she said, the house is full of success
stories.
The atmosphere is in some ways reminiscent of a college dormitory. On a recent
visit, pairs of roommates traded gossip and smoked cigarettes in front of a
television in the dining room. Others trickled in after work at maintenance or
construction jobs. Several praised the skills of the man on cooking duty that
week, a convicted murderer who identified himself as "Wild Bill."
Residents at the Hand Up are afforded more freedom of movement than at state
facilities, which they say makes it easier for them to find work and transition
into life outside prison.
Monitoring parolees can be thorny. After reports in April that hundreds of
residents had fled the state's largest contracted halfway house, State Senator
John Whitmire, Democrat of Houston and chairman of the Senate's Criminal
Justice Committee, called for more security there.
Jason Gehm, a 32-year-old at the Hand Up who spent 18 months in prison on a
burglary charge, was discharged to a state-chartered halfway house in Fort
Worth, but he said restrictions there made it "basically impossible" to find a
job. When he came to the Hand Up, Fronckiewicz helped him prepare a resume that
landed him a construction job.
Friends of Fronckiewicz said he viewed his work at the Hand Up as a way to make
a case against the death penalty.
"These are compelling examples of people who really try to change their lives
around and do good for society," said David Atwood, founder of the Texas
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Jarboe-Lickteig said the work was emotionally transformative, if financially
uncertain.
"I've found a lot more compassion for people that I thought I didn't have," she
said.
(source for both: Texas Tribune)
************************
Bench Won't Receive Another Competency Evaluation
A man charged with killing a 16-year-old Velma girl will not be granted a third
round of competency tests.
That decision was made today in Stephens County District Court.
The date for Miles Bench's 1st-degree murder trial hasn't been able to be set
up until this point because of continued competency proceedings.
23-year-old Bench is charged with 1st-degree murder in the June 2012 death of
16-year-old Braylee Henry when she came into the store where he worked.
He'd already twice been determined competent to stand trial for Braylee's
murder, including once by a Stephens County jury.
During today's hearing, defense attorneys said they requested a 3rd round of
evaluations not because they think their client is incompetent, but because
there was doubt as to his competency.
Defense attorneys questioned a licensed psychologist by phone during today's
proceedings.
That doctor, who spent nearly 6 hours with Bench one day last month, said he
thinks Bench suffers from 2 mental disorders, including Schizophrenia.
He testified Bench told him that he'd contemplated suicide 7 times while in
jail and said he might like the outcome of being sentenced to death if found
guilty.
Prosecutors called the Stephens County jail administrator to the stand, who
testified she observed normal behavior from Bench.
She also testified the jail has no record of Bench contemplating or attempting
suicide.
After hearing testimony, District Judge Joe Enos denied the defense's request
for another competency evaluation.
Now that this 3rd request is denied, the court can move forward with setting a
trial date.
The death penalty is still on the table in this case, so should Bench be found
guilty, that could be an option jurors could decide.
(source: texomashomepage.com)
CONNECTICUT:
Connecticut high court to hear death penalty case
The state Supreme Court has scheduled a rare summer special session to hear the
death penalty appeal of Russell Peeler Jr., who ordered the 1999 killings of a
woman and her 8-year-old son in Bridgeport.
The court was expected to hear Peeler's case last month, but it wasn't ready
and had to be delayed, lawyers said. Justices occasionally hold special
sessions when urgent issues arise and will hear Peeler's case on June 30.
The fates of Peeler and the other 10 men on Connecticut's death row hinge on a
Supreme Court decision expected to be released soon in another case. The court
is weighing whether the state's 2012 repeal of the death penalty for future
murders violates the constitutional rights of those still condemned to die and
whether it should apply to them as well.
Peeler was sentenced to death in 2007 for ordering his brother to kill Karen
Clarke and her son, Leroy "B.J." Brown, who were shot to death in their home.
The boy was expected to testify against Peeler in another murder case - the
1998 killing of Clarke's boyfriend and Peeler's drug-selling rival Rudolph
Sneed Jr. In January, Peeler was sentenced to 105 years in prison for Sneed's
murder.
In a verdict that shocked prosecutors and the victims' family, Peeler's brother
was acquitted of murder charges but convicted of conspiring to kill Clarke and
her son. Adrian Peeler was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Russell Peeler's public defender, Mark Rademacher, has raised 33 issues in
Peeler's appeal to the state Supreme Court, including the 2012 death penalty
repeal, the state's rejection of three black people for the jury and alleged
prosecutorial misconduct during closing arguments. Peeler is black.
Prosecutor Jonathan Benedict, now retired, told the jury that since Peeler had
already been sentenced to life in prison in a federal drug case, giving him a
life sentence in the killings of Clark and her son would "allow him two free
murders with no punishment whatsoever."
"There's nothing worse that anyone could say during a penalty hearing that a
life sentence insults the victims and the death penalty is the only meaningful
sentence," Rademacher said Thursday.
Prosecutor Marjorie Dauster declined to comment on the specifics of the appeal.
But she wrote in court documents that all the defense arguments have no merit.
(source: Associated Press)
FLORIDA:
Florida judge disbarred over 'personal relationship' with prosecutor after they
exchanged 949 phone calls and 471 texts during death penalty trial
--Ana Gardiner, 52, sentenced Omar Loureiro to death in 2007 after presiding
over his murder trial
--It was later uncovered she had entered into a 'personal and emotional'
relationship with the prosecutor in the case, Howard Scheinberg, 53
The Florida Supreme Court disbarred a former circuit judge on Thursday for
having a 'personal and emotional relationship' with a prosecutor that started
during a death penalty case he was trying before her.
The 7 high court justices voted unanimously to toughen the penalty recommended
by a hearing officer, who had called for a 1-year suspension of Judge Ana
Gardiner.
The high court said such an ethical lapse in a capital case that later resulted
in a death sentence being reduced to life in prison, and her initial efforts to
downplay her involvement with assistant state attorney Howard Scheinberg,
required her disbarment.
The court said Gardiner had a chance meeting with Scheinberg at a restaurant
during the murder trial of Omar Loureiro in 2007, and they joined some others
at a bar after dinner.
Between March 23, several days before a jury returned a guilty verdict against
Loureiro, and August 24, when she sentenced him to death, the court said
Gardiner and Scheinberg exchanged 949 cell phone calls and 471 text messages.
Loureiro was charged with the fatal stabbing of James Lentry, 57, in Lighthouse
Point on New Years Day in 2001.
He had claimed Lentry made unwanted and aggressive sexual advances toward him.
When the Judicial Qualifications Commission began an investigation in late
2008, the court said Gardiner 'failed to disclose the honest and true nature of
her relationship with Scheinberg' during Louriero's trial.
It was not until the following April, when the Broward state attorney was
investigating, that Gardiner 'acknowledged for the 1st time her ongoing
emotional relationship with Scheinberg'.
According to The Sun Sentinel, the relationship between Gardiner and Scheinberg
was not romantic.
She resigned from the bench in 2010, after 11 years as a judge.
In 2013 Gardiner married David Bogenschutz, who acted as her attorney during
the Scheinberg investigation.
The Supreme Court suspended Scheinberg from practice for 2 years.
He will be allowed to return to the practice of law in 2015.
After the relationship between judge and prosecutor became known, Loureiro got
a new trial and his sentence was reduced from death to life in prison.
'Considering Gardiner's dishonest conduct and the harm that her actions have
caused to the administration of justice in a capital 1st-degree murder case, we
conclude that disbarment is the appropriate action,' said the Supreme Court
order.
The court also ordered her to pay $8,117.18 in costs.
(source: Daily Mail)
TENNESSEE:
State outlines its history of capital punishment
Capital punishment has existed in Tennessee off and on throughout its history,
although the methods have changed. Prior to 1913, the method of execution was
hanging and there are few records of those executed by this method.
Electrocution became the method of execution in 1916 after a 2-year hiatus from
the death penalty from 1913-1915. Then there was a period in the state when
death row was empty. From 1972 until 1978, there were no inmates sentenced to
death in Tennessee because of the U.S. Supreme Court declaring it
unconstitutional. When the death penalty became legal in the state again in
1978, those inmates sitting on death row from 1960 to 1978 had their sentenced
commuted mostly to life.
In 1998, the state legislature added lethal injection giving those inmates
committing their crimes before January 1, 1999 the choice of electrocution or
lethal injection. Legislation enacted in March 2000 specifies lethal injection
as the primary method of execution. Inmates who committed their offense and
were sentenced to death prior to January 1, 1999 may request electrocution.
When capital punishment was reinstated in 1916, records were kept of those
sentenced to death by the warden in an "official ledger" that accounted the
name, crime, and the time of death of the 125 executed in Tennessee. From 1916
to 1960, all executions took place at the Tennessee State Penitentiary located
in Nashville. Tennessee's 1st execution in nearly 40 years took place April 19,
2000 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution where Robert Glen Coe was
executed by lethal injection.
On February 1, 2007 Governor Bredesen issued an executive order directing the
TDOC to review the manner in which the death penalty is administered. All
executions were put on hold. On April 30, the department delivered revised
death penalty protocols to Governor Bredesen. The moratorium was lifted on May
2, 2007.
On September 12, 2007 Daryl Keith Holton became the 1st person to be executed
by electrocution since 1960.
Death row
Today, inmates sentenced to death are primarily housed in a separate unit at
Riverbend Maximum Security Institution except for a few inmates who may be
housed at the Morgan County Correctional Complex located about 45 miles
northwest of Knoxville. The one female inmate sentenced to death is housed at
the Tennessee Prison for Women located in Nashville.
The housing and supervision of "death row" inmates are strictly guided by
policies and procedures developed by the department. For example, the
department has developed a management tool of behavioral levels to supervise
these inmates on a daily basis. They are all maximum-security inmates, but they
are classified into behavioral levels of A, B, and C.
Female death row inmates are subject to similar policies as their male
counterparts; however they are not housed in a separate housing unit because of
the small number of females sentenced to death.
(source: Tennessee Department of Corrections)
**********************************
Capital punishment: What you're saying
This week, the Daily News Journal posted this question online: Is the death
penalty in Tennessee an appropriate measure against heinous crimes and an
effective deterrent to future crimes or "cruel and unusual punishment" or a
waste of resources that could be better used in the criminal-justice system?
Why?
James Peach: Whether it's an appropriate punishment or not is impossible to
sort out.
The real problem is that death is final and our justice system is fallible.
So even if it is appropriate and humane, we still should not have it, because l
we can't keep innocent people from getting convicted and sentenced.
It's not worth killing! people who didn't commit the biggest crime just do we
can kill the ones who did.
Daniel Catalano: The most serious crimes should use the chair.
The torture of knowing you will be electrocuted for your crime helps as a
deterrent especially those that believe they can get away with it.
Make it for public viewing and watch the amount of its use drop by 75%. If you
are a 2 strike criminal, it should be mandatory viewing.
Bob Moore: Ropes dont break, at least not 1/2" ones nor do all 5 in a firing
squad miss from under 20 feet
Joseph Kendall: 2 out of 3 people that are initially sentenced to death end up
having the sentence overturned on appeal.
The other 1/3 either sit on death row eating up resources and probably die of
old age.
CNN had an article where they say 9,722 people have been sentenced to death
from 1970 to 2009.
Of those only 12% were actually executed.
Really I think the death sentence is just a tool used by "get tough on crime"
politicians so they can gain conservative votes.
It's a real waste of money too. Now I'm not saying that some of these offenders
don't deserve to die for doing what they did. But I'm not going to stand by a
waste of money we hardly use.
People are on death row are virtually in Protective Custody.
Send them to the main line and let the other prisoners handle what the state
can't.
Jesse Dotson (Lester Street Killer) wouldn't last a week on a compound before
they were extorting, raping and eventually killing him.
If they went to his cell in Riverbend and told him to pack up he's going to
Northwest of South Central he'd probably break down and beg for PC because he
knows how he's going to be handled in those compounds.
Richard Lasater: No peer reviewed research has ever shown that the death
penalty is a deterrent.
(source: The Daily News Journal)
KANSAS:
Comments After 4 Deaths At Issue In Kansas Case
Lawyers for a Kansas man accused of killing 4 people will get more time to
respond to prosecutors' attempts to use comments the defendant made to police.
Kyle Flack is accused of killing Kaylie Bailey, her 18-month-old daughter,
Lana-Leigh; Andrew Adam Stout and Steven Eugene White last spring in Franklin
County. He's charged with 1st-degree murder in the deaths of Stout and White.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Flack for the deaths of
Kaylie Bailey and her daughter.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports a detective testified that Flack told him he
killed White. Flack's lawyers contend the statement shouldn't be used during
trial because he made it after asking if he needed a lawyer.
A judge Friday set an Aug. 29 hearing to consider the issue.
(source: Associated Press)
MISSOURI:
Will John Winfield Be the 4th Inmate Missouri Executes During A Federal Appeal?
Missouri's affair with the death penalty has become a monthly ordeal. 6 inmates
have been executed since November, and it would have been 7 if not for a
convicted murderer's birth defect.
Now, we've got June 18 to look forward to - that's the date John Winfield is
scheduled to die for murdering 2 women in 1996. But Winfield's lawyer worries
that Missouri will prematurely kill his client before the higher courts can
fully review his motions. That's not a baseless worry, either.
"It's only Missouri that has this nasty habit of executing people while state
remedies are still pending," says attorney Joesph Luby, who cites 3 other
recent executions where Missouri offed an inmate before receiving the federal
go-ahead to do so.
On Wednesday, Luby appeared in the Cole County 19th Judicial Circuit Court to
challenge the Missouri Department of Corrections over the secrecy around its
execution drug; similar lawsuits have been filed by local and national news
media, as well as death-row inmates in other states.
But Missouri's secrecy is just one part of the dysfunction, says Luby. He
points to the January execution of Herbert Smulls, who was pronounced dead 30
minutes before the U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal.
"What would have happened if the state had killed Mr. Smulls and the United
States Supreme Court were to rule that we're staying this man's execution?"
Luby says.
If the state pulls the same move on Winfield in June, he would be the 4th
inmate in the past 5 executions to get this macabre early-bird special: The 1st
was serial killer Joseph Franklin in November, then Allen Nicklasson in
December and then Smulls a month later.
In an open letter sent to Republican state representative Jay Barnes in
February, Luby described the state's tendency to ignore death -inmates' pending
federal reviews.
--Luby filed Franklin's final appeal in the U.S. District Court on November 19.
He says he contacted the state's attorneys by email at 5:24 a.m. to request
that they stay the execution until the motion was reviewed. The state
apparently ignored that email and began Franklin's execution at 6:07 a.m..
--Nicklasson was executed under "similarly troubling circumstances" on December
12, writes Luby. He describes another last minute request for appeal to the
Eighth U.S. Circuit Court. The state did not wait for the federal judges to
review that appeal either.
--Smulls' execution brought a wave of scrutiny against Missouri officials after
they brazenly ignored a pending review for appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Writing in The Atlantic, Andrew Cohen remarked that "Herbert Smulls may be dead
and gone but his case and his cause continue to hang over this state like a
ghost."
Luby isn't the only one upset with Missouri's overly expeditious executions. In
his dissent on the federal ruling that lifted the stay of execution for
Nicklasson, Eighth U.S. Circuit Court Judge Kermit Bye criticized the the
layers of dysfunction in the state's execution process, including its prior
trust in an error-prone doctor to administer the killing drugs. Bye wrote:
Missouri's past history of scheduling executions before a death row inmate has
exhausted his constitutional rights of review, using unwritten execution
protocols, misrepresenting dosage levels for drugs used in lethal injections,
and providing unfettered discretion to a dyslexic physician to mix the drugs
and oversee its executions, has earned from this federal judge more than just a
healthy judicial skepticism regarding Missouri's implementation of the death
penalty.
In addition to the lawsuit demanding Missouri reveal the source of its
execution drugs, Winfield is also suing the warden of Potosi Correctional
Center. His lawsuit alleges prison officials intimidated a staff member there
who was planning on writing letters supporting Winfield's petition for
clemency.
The staff member describes Winfield as among the "elite 1 % of all inmates,"
citing his compassion toward other prisoners, including those with special
needs. But the day after the employee notified his supervisors that he was
supporting Winfield, prison officials opened an investigation against the staff
member as "suspect" for his "overfamiliarity" with Winfield, according to the
suit.
Fearing for his job, the staff member apologized to Luby's co-counsel and said
he could not write the letter of support. The suit claims that the
"investigation" targeting the staff member would actually prohibit him from
writing such a letter, because an employee under investigation is technically
not permitted to participate in activities potentially related to the
investigation.
(source: Riverfront Times)
*************************
Death Lab: Missouri Eyes Its Own Lethal Injection Pharmacy----Missouri's
attorney general wants his state to manufacture execution drugs, but the cost
and logistics might not be worth it
In a speech to the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis late last month,
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster called for a "state-operated,
DEA-licensed laboratory to produce the execution chemicals in our state," and
urged the legislature to fund the country's 1st pharmacy specifically for
carrying out lethal injection.
By manufacturing its own drugs, the state could, in theory, get around several
difficulties in administering executions. It wouldn't have to rely on
compounding pharmacies, which are often kept anonymous and are unregulated by
the federal government. It would be able to have a consistent and adequate
supply of drugs, helping the state avoid changes to its drug protocol and the
use of drugs in untested combinations. And most importantly, the state might be
able to avoid future lawsuits regarding the origins of lethal injection drugs,
which have put a halt to many executions around the country - not to mention
troublesome executions like that of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma and Dennis
McGuire in Ohio. Meanwhile, the Associated Press, the Guardian and three other
news organizations have sued Missouri in an attempt to get the state Department
of Corrections to reveal its drug sources. But even considering all that, the
cost and sheer logistics of building a pharmacy from the ground up to
manufacture a handful of drugs may not be worth it.
"There's no way I could justify the cost on something like that" if the state
is only using it to produce just one or two drugs, says Ernie Gates, president
of Gates Healthcare Associates, which consults and advises pharmacies. "The
commitment would have to be significant."
The suggestion by Missouri's attorney general comes as states around the U.S.
struggle to figure out how to keep executing by lethal injection. This year
alone, 22 executions have been stayed, largely due to lawsuits involving the
drugs being used and the secrecy surrounding them. The Lockett execution went
so poorly in April that it elicited a response from President Obama, who called
it "deeply troubling" and said he would ask the attorney general to look into
the method's problems.
Like most states with the death penalty, Missouri is struggling to obtain
execution drugs. A few years ago, a number of pharmaceutical companies stopped
manufacturing drugs for lethal injection, so many prisons turned to compounding
pharmacies, which are not federally regulated and loosely monitored at the
state level. Many prison systems and state legislatures have worked to protect
the anonymity of those pharmacies, which fear consumer backlash if it becomes
known that they're involved in executions. The use of compounded drugs from
unknown sources has triggered a series of lawsuits in which inmates are
challenging the constitutionality of their executions, arguing that it's
impossible to know whether the drugs are safe and effective if they don't know
where they were made.
No state currently makes its own drugs for executions and instead relies on
private drugmakers. Making their own would likely be an involved undertaking,
the cost alone easily reaching $1 million, Gates says - not to mention the
money needed to regularly staff pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, who often
earn 6-figure salaries.
Gates says the state would have to abide by United States Pharmacopeia
guidelines, which are nationally followed standards for the establishment of
pharmacies and ensure a pharmacy's sterility. The state would need to locate a
facility that doesn't have high amounts of mold or mildew in order to keep the
space sterile while also requiring its own air conditioning and heating
systems, as well as high-efficiency air filters keep the drugs from becoming
tainted.
Many compounding pharmacies are also often built with redundancies - for
example, another room will be built in case the main "clean room," the sterile
area where drugs are mixed, becomes unfit for manufacturing.
Gates says there's no reason a compounding pharmacy couldn't be built on prison
grounds, but it may not be worth the cost if only a few drugs are being
produced.
"It's not just about building a room," Gates says. "You have to have a real
understanding of what you hope to accomplish."
Since 2011, Missouri has only executed 7 inmates, 4 of whom were executed this
year and most given just 1 drug, pentobarbital.
A state-run pharmacy also may not halt legal challenges surrounding death row
inmates. While the state would seek approval from the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration for its pharmacy, the drugs themselves would not be overseen by
the Food and Drug Administration, which doesn't approve drugs for use in lethal
injection.
DEA approval "does not make the drugs safer," says Richard Dieter, executive
director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "Only legal."
Many death penalty opponents say that compounded drugs are unsafe because
they're only loosely regulated by states. A compounding pharmacy in
Massachusetts has been linked to a meningitis outbreak resulting in dozens of
deaths and hundreds of injuries.
"[A state-run pharmacy] would be more transparent than the currency secrecy
about sources," Dieter says, "but this implies that the qualifications of those
preparing the drugs be revealed in a way that can be checked, and that the
drugs be independently verified by an accredited and identified lab."
(source: TIME)
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