December 4
TEXAS----impending execution
'Texas 7' Member Set To Die Under Controversial Law
A San Antonio man is set to die by lethal injection on Tuesday for a murder he
didn’t actually commit. As part of the notorious “Texas 7” escape, Joseph
Garcia was convicted and sentenced to die under a controversial law some say is
unconstitutional.
“Why am I here? Why am I on death row? You know, I don't get it," said Garcia
from death row Wednesday. "... Why are you trying to kill me for the actions of
somebody else?”
Garcia was sentenced to death under the “Law of Parties,” which holds a
non-shooter accomplice just as criminally liable as the person pulling the
trigger.
Stephanie Stevens, law professor, and supervising attorney for the St. Mary's
University Center for Legal and Social Justice, said the law is broader in
Texas than in other states.
“If you and another person were going to go rob a convenience store. If during
the course of that robbery, your friend inside the store shot and killed the
convenience store clerk, you would be guilty for capital murder as well, even
though you sat in the car the whole time,” she said.
On Dec. 13, 2000, the group of inmates, known as the Texas 7, broke out of the
Connally Prison Unit in Karnes County. The escape triggered the largest manhunt
in the state’s history. 11 days later, on Christmas Eve, members of the crew
fatally shot and ran over Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins during a robbery
of a sporting goods store.
“He was very nice and easy to get along with — very unassuming,” said Jeff
Spivey, chief of the Irving Police Department, of Hawkins.
But Garcia said he shouldn’t be executed because he didn’t actively take part
in the fatal shootout Hawkins.
"You have the testimony of these people who did actually kill," Garcia said.
"... They did it. And so, I mean, I think what it all boils down to ... is that
I'm one of the Texas 7.”
Garcia said his version of events is supported by the testimony of others — he
was inside the store and never fired a gun.
“I don't know. I don't know what caused them to start firing at the officer,"
he said. "By the time I got out there on the back dock, it was over.”
But Chief Spivey says that makes no difference. Garcia directly participated in
the murder of Hawkins in other ways.
“Joseph Garcia, due to his accomplice testimony is either credited with pulling
Officer Hawkins’ dead body out of the car and moving the car so that they could
then escape in the Ford Explorer," he said. "So I think it's a little
self-serving for Joseph to say that.”
Nevertheless, some anti-death penalty activists say using the Law of Parties in
death penalty cases might be a violation of the Constitution’s 8th Amendment,
prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. And with last-minute appeals filed
the courts could intervene. Garcia is scheduled to be executed Tuesday at 6
p.m.
(source: tpr.org)
*****************
Texas’s Death-Penalty System Is a Travesty. Joseph Garcia Is Proof.
Texas’s death-penalty system is a travesty. It is racist; kills people who are
probably innocent at an alarming rate; and has used drugs sourced from a
pharmacy that, according to BuzzFeed News, was “cited for scores of safety
violations,” forged quality control documents, and sent at least 1 child to the
emergency room because it had improperly compounded their medication. 5 of the
11 Texas inmates executed in 2018 said the drugs used to kill them felt like
they were “burning” them internally, even though they were supposed to be
pain-free — reflecting a nationwide pattern of excruciating deaths by lethal
injection. Perhaps even worse is that Texas is not unique. These issues
illustrate an ethical and logistical crisis facing the American death-penalty
system as a whole, from Tennessee to South Dakota to Oklahoma.
Yet barring a miracle, December 4 will be business as usual. Joseph Garcia is
set to be executed in Texas for his role in the Christmas Eve 2000 murder of
Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins, which occurred during a shoot-out after
Garcia and 6 other men broke out of a maximum-security prison in Kenedy and
robbed a sporting goods store. There is no proof that Garcia pulled the
trigger. In fact, he was inside the store while the shooting unfolded outside,
making his guilt unlikely. But Texas’s Law of Parties holds that he could be
convicted of a crime his associates had committed simply because he was
present.
Details from Garcia’s tragic personal story cast doubt on whether he should
have been in the prison he escaped from in the first place. Sister Helen
Prejean, a Catholic nun and prominent death-penalty abolitionist, outlined it
in a Twitter thread on Sunday:
The thread is worth reading in its entirety, but includes accounts of Garcia’s
trauma-filled childhood, including several instances of sexual abuse and his
first criminal conviction, for which he received a 50-year prison sentence. The
conviction stemmed from a 1996 incident where he stabbed and killed Miguel
Luna, an acquaintance with whom he attended a party one night. Luna — who had
had a history of violence against women and, in Prejean’s words, “men who he
perceived as obstacles to his access to women” — had stolen Garcia’s keys and
attacked him after Garcia separated him from a female partygoer Luna was trying
to coerce into sex.
Garcia’s court-appointed attorney failed to note Luna’s history or make a
self-defense argument, but the system’s failure to give Garcia a fair shake did
not stop there. 4 years later came the Irving store robbery that spiraled out
of control, resulting in the death of a police officer for which there is still
no proof of Garcia’s hands-on involvement. In 2003, his case was overseen by a
judge named Vickers “Vic” Cunningham, who made headlines in May when the Dallas
Morning News reported that his living trust rewarded his children for marrying
white people rather than interracially. These injustices continued in the
absurdity of Garcia’s death sentence. Participating in a robbery is not murder.
Yet under Texas law, he was found guilty of killing Officer Hawkins — which he
has maintained he did not do, and which nobody has proven he did — because the
people with whom he was simultaneously committing a different crime may have.
This is an unacceptable pretense on which to convict anybody of a crime, let
alone sentence them to death.
But in a broader sense, Garcia’s case illustrates the fundamental illogic on
which the death penalty is predicated. There is no proof that capital
punishment deters crime. It is racist, as demonstrated locally by the 102 black
inmates executed in Texas, as of July 2017, out of the 235 total — a rate of 43
%, compared to black Texans’s 12.7 % population share. Every European nation
has abolished it, save for Belarus, a dictatorship. It is such a contentious
practice that its application is often subject to years of appeals, deferring
closure to victims and leaving the convicted to languish on death row for
decades, awaiting what can end up being an agonizingly painful death. The
details of its implementation aside, the existence of the death penalty
presumes that a country whose wealth was derived from black slave labor and
indigenous-land theft, and seen thousands of racist lynchings, has moral
legitimacy to be executing people in the first place.
America’s commitment to this horrific farce persists nonetheless. Capital
punishment is cast often as the overwhelming province of former slave-holding
states in the South, like Texas, but California houses one in every 4 death-row
inmates. Its use is declining across the country, but efforts to do away with
it entirely face severe opposition. After Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis
Ayala — the 1st and only black elected prosecutor in Florida history —
announced in March 2017 that she would not seek the death penalty in any case
tried by her office, Republican then-governor Rick Scott personally reassigned
several of her cases to another prosecutor. “He’s taking away the authority
that she was given by the people [who elected her],” State Senator Randolph
Bracy told the Orlando Sentinel at the time. Most of these national tensions
converge at Garcia’s case, which illustrates vividly the dysfunction and
immorality of a systemic atrocity masquerading as justice. Nobody is served by
the death penalty’s continued existence save its financial profiteers and those
committed to the delusion it constitutes anything more than revenge. That a
broken man like Garcia can be killed legally, here, in its name, is Texas’s
shame, and ours as a nation.
(source: Zak Cheney-Rice)
**********************
‘We don’t do it’: As protesters gather, Texas pharmacy owner denies providing
lethal injection drugs
Denouncing capital punishment and shouting into a bullhorn grisly descriptions
of executions, a small cadre of anti-death penalty activists turned out Monday
to protest a Houston area pharmacy that allegedly compounded death drugs for
the Texas prison system.
But even as the sign-carrying crowd gathered outside, the owner of Greenpark
Compounding Pharmacy & Gifts emerged to clear the air and refute allegations
that his business compounds drugs destined for the Huntsville death chamber.
“It’s the wrong pharmacy and we don’t do it,” said Ken Hughes. “They have been
mistaken or misinformed.”
For more than an hour, close to two dozen activists posted up outside the
Southside Place store that BuzzFeed last week identified as one pharmacy that
mixes the state’s supply of pentobarbital, the deadly barbiturate used to dole
out capital punishment. Previously, Hughes told the online news outlet that his
store only did drug testing for the prison system, but did not offer a clear
answer when asked if he’d ever compounded death drugs for the Texas Department
of Criminal Justice.
“They need to tell us today that they are going to stop making execution
drugs,” said long-time activist Gloria Rubac.
Another activist called lethal injection a “modern-day lynching” and likened it
to the Holocaust.
Although the store owner came out to document who turned up, the gathering
stayed well-behaved. At one point, Southside Place police Chief Don McCall
pulled up and politely asked the protesters not to block the driveways and
please not swear on the bullhorn because “there’s women and kids around.”
The protest plans came together in response to Wednesday’s reporting by
BuzzFeed’s Chris McDaniel who, citing unidentified federal documents, named the
small gift shop in southwest Houston as 1 of 2 compounding pharmacies allegedly
providing drugs to the state.
Aside from identifying Greenpark as the alleged source of the drugs, the news
report also laid out a slew of documented safety violations that landed the
Braeswood business on probationary status 2 years ago.
In 2016, according to state records, the Texas State Board of Pharmacy found
that the company had mixed up the wrong drug for 3 kids. In a warning letter
two years later, the FDA dinged the Houston business for “insanitary
conditions” that could have contaminated drugs.
It was those problems that prompted lawyers for death row inmate Joseph Garcia
- 1 of the notorious “Texas 7” escapees, who’s set for execution Tuesday - to
ask the governor for a 30-day reprieve and file a last-minute federal appeal.
Exactly where the state gets its death drugs has been shrouded in mystery, as a
2015 law keeps secret the suppliers’ names. Previously, the state has argued
that revealing identifying information about the source of the drugs could
endanger businesses and their workers.
“Releasing publicly the identity of any supplier of execution drugs raises
serious safety concerns that real harm could come to the business, operators
and its employees,” Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel
told the Chronicle in October.
But Monday’s protest stayed peaceful if, at times, loud. And the activists
stressed that their presence didn’t present any threat.
“It’s just the right thing to do,” said protester Ward Larkin, “to let these
people know that they’re not acting ethically.”
(source: Houston Chronicle)
*************************
Local death penalty case moved to Greene County
A Texas County death penalty case will be heard in Greene County, a judge in
Steelville determined Monday.
Andrew J. Vrba, 19, of Houston, is charged with 1st-degree murder, armed
criminal action and abandonment of a corpse in the September death of Joseph M.
Steinfeld, 17, who went by “Ally” and planned to transition to a female,
according to family members. Authorities allege the victim was stabbed and the
remains burned.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case.
No trial date has been set.
2 other defendants were previously sentenced, and another, Briana Calderas,
still faces a trial. A pre-trial conference was Wednesday in her case. A trial
in Pulaski County is Feb. 25-March 1. She also is charged with 1st-degree
murder, armed criminal action and abandonment of a corpse.
(source: Houston Herald)
***************************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----38
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----556
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
39---------Dec. 4-----------------Joseph Garcia-----------557
40---------Dec. 11----------------Alvin Braziel, Jr.------558
41---------Jan. 15----------------Blaine Milam------------559
42---------Jan. 30----------------Robert Jennings---------560
43---------Feb. 28----------------Billy Wayne Coble-------561
44---------April 11---------------Mark Robertson----------562
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
FLORIDA:
U.S. Supreme Court rejects death row appeal
With Florida death row inmate Jose Antonio Jimenez scheduled to be executed
next week, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to take up an appeal.
The Supreme Court, as is common, did not explain its reasons. Gov. Rick Scott
last month scheduled a Dec. 13 execution for Jimenez, who was convicted in the
1992 murder of 63-year-old Phyllis Minas during a burglary in Miami-Dade
County.
Neighbors tried to enter the home through an unlocked front door after hearing
Minas’ cries, but Jimenez slammed the door shut, locked it and fled by going
onto a bedroom balcony, according to court documents.
Jimenez, now 55, also has 2 appeals pending at the Florida Supreme Court,
including one filed Monday.
Scott signed a death warrant in July and initially scheduled the execution of
Jimenez in August. But the Florida Supreme Court issued a stay of execution so
it could look further at issues in the case.
The Florida Supreme Court on Oct. 4 lifted the stay, allowing Scott to
reschedule the execution.
(source: Florida Politics)
OHIO:
Should those with serious mental illnesses be exempt from the death penalty in
Ohio?
If Ohio is going to execute convicted murderers, it shouldn't execute
individuals with serious mental illnesses, a bipartisan group of lawmakers
says.
That is the aim of House Bill 81, which would prohibit capital punishment for
anyone with a clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder,
bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder or delusional disorder. The
proposal has stalled for years in the Ohio House but could advance this week
for the first time after gaining support from a handful of Republicans.
Those facing the death penalty would present evidence, including an expert
evaluation, to prove they were "significantly impaired" at the time of the
offense – they didn't know what they did was wrong or illegal. Prosecutors
could dispute that.
If a judge or jury finds the person was impaired at the time of the murder, the
defendant could not be sentenced to death. They could still face life in
prison.
The idea came from a 2014 task force of judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys
and academics who recommended several changes to Ohio's death penalty. It
builds on U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
The bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. Bill Seitz of Green Township and
Democratic Rep. Nickie J. Antonio of Lakewood, has bipartisan support. Groups
such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Ohio and Ohio Psychiatric
Physicians Association agree that certain people shouldn't face the death
penalty.
“If we are going to have a death penalty, it should be reserved only for those
who are the worst of the worst, not for those who are suffering from impaired
judgment due to a severe mental illness," said Richard Cline, chief counsel
with Ohio Public Defender's death penalty department, during a Nov. 27 hearing.
Convicted killers could be exempt from the death penalty even if they are found
competent to stand trial and don't meet the standards for being found not
guilty by reason of insanity.
Prosecutors and some GOP lawmakers aren't convinced that the changes are
needed.
Under the bill, those already on death row could ask a judge to take another
look at their mental state at the time of the offense and possibly have their
death sentence vacated.
Some worry that every inmate on death row would claim some mental illness to
escape execution.
“It would be a substantial miscarriage of justice for someone convicted and
sentenced to death years ago to be able to now claim that they had a serious
mental illness at the time and should, therefore, be excluded from the death
penalty,” said Lou Tobin, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys
Association.
Opposition from prosecutors has stalled the proposal once before.
Still, the bill could get a vote in committee Tuesday. From there, the proposed
law would need approval from the Ohio House and Ohio Senate before heading to
Gov. John Kasich. The Legislature has only a handful of sessions remaining.
(source: cincinnati.com)
TENNESSEE----impending execution
Tennessee inmate asks US Supreme Court to halt execution
A condemned Tennessee inmate is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his
Thursday execution and consider his claims that the electric chair is
unconstitutional but the state's lethal injection method is worse.
Attorneys for David Earl Miller filed a petition with the high court Monday
after a panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the
inmate.
Miller has chosen to die by electrocution, the second Tennessee inmate in just
more than a month to make that choice. His attorneys have argued that
Tennessee's preferred execution method of midazolam-based lethal injection
cause a prolonged and torturous death.
The 6th Circuit ruled that Miller could not challenge electrocution because he
chose that method. His attorneys argue the choice was coerced by the threat of
something even worse.
(source: Associated Press)
*********************
Appeals court denies attempt to delay David Earl Miller's execution
A federal appeals court has blocked an attempt to delay David Earl Miller's
execution while he challenges the constitutionality of lethal injection and the
electric chair.
In an opinion handed down Monday, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with
the federal district court in Nashville, saying Miller's execution should move
forward as scheduled Dec. 6 while his lawsuit against Tennessee's execution
methods is pending.
Miller, 61, has told prison officials he wants to be executed using the
electric chair. He was sentenced to death for killing 23-year-old Lee Standifer
in 1981.
Miller was 1 of 4 death row inmates to file suit in November, arguing that a
firing squad would be more humane than the state's 3-drug lethal injection
protocol or the electric chair.
In order to secure a stay of execution, the appellate judges wrote, Miller
would have to show he was likely to succeed in challenging Tennessee's lethal
injection and electrocution methods as unconstitutionally cruel and unusual.
A majority of the judges said he had failed to do so.
"Miller (has) not shown that the new (lethal injection) protocol is 'sure or
very likely' to be less humane than electrocution" the majority wrote in a 2-1
decision. "Because Miller has elected to be executed by electrocution, he has
waived any challenge to his execution by that method."
But Judge Helene White dissented, saying he had shown adequate evidence that
the state's lethal injection and electrocution methods were cruel and unusual
enough to violate the U.S. Constitution.
The defeat at the 6th Circuit further limits Miller's options to stop his
execution, although a few remain.
His attorneys have appealed the 6th Circuit's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court,
which has yet to rule on a separate request for a stay in this case.
And Gov. Bill Haslam has not decided on Miller's application for clemency,
which was filed Friday.
(source: The Tennessean)
***************************
David Miller should not be executed because of his childhood adversity
Children are our future; what happens while they are young has life-long
consequences. I recently retired after 45 years advocating in Tennessee for
improving outcomes for children and families. The last several years focused on
preventing adverse childhood experiences – ACEs – and mitigating their impact
on children, families and society.
Research on ACEs demonstrates childhood adversity leads to trauma and toxic
stress that damage the developing brain. This can cause developmental damage,
violence, substance abuse, and physical and mental health challenges.
Gov. Bill Haslam and other state leaders launched Building Strong Brains
Tennessee, an effort to establish Tennessee as a national model promoting
culture change to prevent and mitigate ACEs and their impact, and to enhance
long-term prosperity by improving outcomes for children.
The original ACEs study identified 10 types of childhood trauma. 5 are
personal: physical, verbal or sexual abuse, and physical or emotional neglect.
5 are caused by family dysfunction: parental substance abuse, mental illness,
incarceration, domestic violence and the absence/loss of a parent.
Each experience of trauma counts as 1 ACE. So, if before age 18, a child
experiences physical abuse and a father in jail, his ACE score is 2. Higher
scores increase risk for poor mental and physical health outcomes (depression,
addiction, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and
psychosocial outcomes (incarceration, job failure, lower education).
Individuals who become violent often have experienced substantial trauma and
have high ACE scores. ACEs are facts, not fate, so safe, stable, nurturing
relationships and environments can reduce damage from significant childhood
stressors.
David Miller has been on Tennessee’s death row nearly 37 years and is scheduled
for execution Dec. 6. As a child, David experienced chronic physical, sexual
and emotional trauma, giving him an irregularly high ACE score. His biological
father and mother both had mental illness; his mother sexually abused him for
years. David’s stepfather beat him regularly, sometimes to unconsciousness.
David repeatedly fled the abuse only to be returned home, where the beatings
and sexual abuse continued. Later, he was sent to a boys’ school, another
experience marked by rampant abuse and assaults. At age 14, David began
experiencing seizures and episodes of losing contact with reality, attributable
to his severe, chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. This condition led to
the crime for which he was sentenced to death.
David was dating Lee Standifer in Knoxville when she was murdered. According to
court documents, he had significant memory lapses that night and couldn’t
explain what happened. He did not dispute that he had killed Ms. Standifer, but
only remembered hitting her with his fists.
In his 1982 trial, the law did not allow a defense expert as it does today, so
no expert testified about David’s diminished mental health. The law had changed
by his resentencing in 1987, but his attorney failed to call an expert to
testify about his brain damage and psychosis, factors juries often find warrant
a sentence of life in prison instead of the death penalty.
Though lay witnesses shared his history of abuse in his resentencing in 1987,
Tennessee's death penalty statute failed to let the jury weigh this as
mitigation, a defect in Tennessee law since addressed. Today, jurors can
consider any facts supporting a life sentence over a death sentence.
Someone with a life-long history of ACEs whose abuse and mental health problems
weren't properly considered by the courts should not be executed. David
Miller's traumatic experiences should have been mitigating factors and would be
if he were tried today.
As we continue advocating for children today, we must also stand up for those
who have been extensively victimized since childhood. In cases like David's,
execution is not the answer.
(source: Linda O'Neal, Guest Columnist; Knoxville News Sentinel)
OKLAHOMA:
Jihadist Beheader In Oklahoma Cleared For Execution ----The Alton Nolen case is
very much worth remembering, along with all terror attacks that occur on U.S.
soil, not just for the victims and their survivors but for lessons that must be
learned.
This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court essentially cemented the execution of
America’s least known Islamic terrorist. Jihadist convert Alton Nolen is now
set to be put to death in Oklahoma, likely by nitrogen gas inhalation.
The Supreme Court’s October 1, 2018 rejection of Nolen’s final death penalty
appeal went unremarked upon by news media so, partly as a result, I missed it.
But the Nolen case is very much worth remembering, along with all terror
attacks that occur on U.S. soil, if not just for the victims and their
survivors but for lessons that can and must be learned.
The September 24, 2014 attack in Oklahoma is somewhat notable in the annals of
many officially uncalled terrorist strikes in that Nolen emulated a favorite
ISIS death tactic no doubt learned online: he fully beheaded a co-worker—the
beloved wife, mother, and grandmother Colleen Hufford—inside the Moore,
Oklahoma food processing plant where they both worked. Shouting “Alluah Akbar”
throughout the attack, Nolen used the same oversized butcher knife on the neck
of a second co-worker, Tracy Johnson, when the company’s chief operations
officer, a reserve law enforcement officer named Mark Vaughn, burst in with an
AR-15 rifle. He shot and wounded Nolen as Nolen disengaged from his second
victim and charged at him with the bloody knife.
Such an attack must generate a particular horror in its witnesses and, when
Nolen is finally put to death, one should keep in mind what Hufford must have
experienced in her last moments.
The Benefits of Calling Terror Attacks ‘Terror Attacks’
Rather than to call this an Islamic terror attack and charge it federally as
such, President Obama’s U.S. Department of Justice let the local district
attorney charge Nolen under state murder statues (and as an assault and battery
against survivor Traci Johnson). The whole disgusting affair was quickly
forgotten by the rest of the nation, government, and all but those involved and
some locals. But make no mistake: This was a jihadist terror attack on American
soil.
This attack and its repercussions warrants our full national attention and
should be properly memorialized until all related matters are finally resolved,
not least for any comfort this can still bring the victim, survivors, and
witnesses. Terrorism acknowledgement and media treatment can encourage the
nation to comfort those who were there and help them close the emotionally
important loop of knowing why loved ones and innocents died, who did it, and
for what cause.
Calling terrorism out for what it is portends practical benefits too. Federal
acknowledgement of Islamic terrorism opens the throttle on investigations that
can identify co-conspirators and foreign connections. Public acknowledgement
and remembrance can spur suspicious activity reporting from the general public,
which can roll up other cocked and loaded extremists before they also kill.
Also importantly, federalizing the identification of terrorism cases helps
homeland security authorities look inward to determine if intelligence failures
occurred. Homeland security professionals learn from those what not to repeat
and how to fix broken processes, to reduce the chances of future law
enforcement intelligence failures.
The Obama administration decided not to call this a terror attack or count it
as one soon afterward, even though Nolen, a prison convert to Islam, had filled
his Facebook page with hideous ISIS propaganda and openly praised the death
cult’s rise to global prominence through constant blood-letting. Nolen had just
been suspended after co-workers rejected his Islamist proselytizing and demands
for religious accommodations at Vaughan Foods. This gave those already
predisposed to downplay Islamic terror attacks the excuse needed to suggest
workplace violence and mental illness was somehow at play, instead of the prima
facie terror attack it was.
Proof of Terrorism Overflowed at Trial
The 2017 trial, which received only some highly localized Oklahoma TV news
coverage, decisively showed this was neither mental illness nor workplace
violence. Taped police interviews of Nolen and other evidence showed Nolen was
motivated by Qur’anic scripture and the very same well-worn extremist ideology
we have seen cited for attacks across the globe, to include the 9/11 attacks.
Nolen has proven unrepentant.
On September 29, after hearing the evidence a jury rejected defense arguments
that Nolen was insane. Right after the attack, for instance, police asked a
very calm and collected Nolen if anyone had told him to behead unbelievers. He
responded that the Qur’an gave him the idea. (Qur’an 47:4 states that “When you
meet the unbelievers, strike their necks.) Nolen answered: “Uh, no. I read the
Qur’an. Like I say, the Qur’an is easy to understand. No one guides me but
Allah.”
When asked why he beheaded Hufford, he answered: “I just feel like…I did what I
needed to do. What Allah says in the Qur’an to do. Oppressors don’t need to be
here. You know the Muslim is somebody who submits their will to Allah…Whatever
he wants done, that’s what we do…And you know he wants us to get the oppressors
out of this place.”
When asked if he regretted murdering Hufford, Nolen answered: “There wasn’t
nothing but a trial for me. I passed it because, like I said, I felt oppressed.
I knew for sure that, if I was to die right then, I was going to heaven.” He
added: “I feel, you know, you know what I’m saying, if I was to die in five or
10 minutes, I’m going to heaven. That’s all that matters to me.”
Nolen also confirmed that he had screamed “Allahu akbar” as he beheaded
Hufford.
Johnson testified that she ran into the next room after hearing screaming and
saw Nolan standing over Hufford with a bloody knife. “When I saw the defendant,
I was frozen. I couldn’t move. And I saw the knife with the blood on the knife,
and he made a mad dash toward me and pushed me up against the wall and held me
up with his forearm against the wall and just started splicing my neck. He was
just going back and forth like he was just cutting a piece of meat.”
The hero of this tragedy is Vaughan, then COO of Vaughan Foods and an Oklahoma
County Sheriff’s Office reserve deputy. When the call came that a knife attack
was underway, Vaughan suited up with his weapon, ammo, and first aid on a vest.
Vaughan testified that he and another employee entered the building where the
attack was underway and saw Nolen on top of Johnson. He testified that he
called for Nolen to stop. Nolen jumped up, ran around a corner and charged
Vaughan at full speed. Vaughan said he fired 3 rounds.
Nolen leaned against a wall and fell to the ground. Vaughan then held Nolen at
bay until police arrived and took the suspect away.
Deserves National Acknowledgement and Coverage
Although Nolen’s execution warrants national notice, no solid date was readily
available. Oklahoma has been caught up in political wrangling with death
penalty opponents and thus shut down the state’s supply of lethal injection
drugs. Most of the state’s executions are awaiting a resolution over state
plans to start using nitrogen gas. Earlier this year, the state announced it
was working to develop a new execution protocol making nitrogen hypoxia the
preferred method.
When this is all sorted out, politically and legally, Nolen’s turn will come
and bring the state’s only possible final resolution to this terrorism episode
so we can all properly move on. When that resolution is at hand, I hope somehow
the world finds out about it.
(source: Todd Bensman is a Texas-based senior national security fellow for the
Center for Immigration Studies. For nearly a decade, Bensman led
counterterrorism-related intelligence efforts for the Texas Intelligence and
Counterterrorism Division----The Federalist)
USA:
On death row, Marvin Gabrion plans appeal in woman's 1997 killing
Condemned killer Marvin Gabrion filed notice he would appeal a federal judge's
ruling rejecting his multiple, long-running allegations of mistreatment by the
justice system.
Gabrion, 65, is awaiting the death penalty in the 1997 killing of Rachel
Timmerman, 19.
He is also suspected of killing her 11-month-old daughter, Shannon, whose body
was never found, and 3 others.
Gabrion, who has already exhausted direct appeals, has waged a "collateral
attack," a civil process that alleges violations of the U.S. Constitution, in
an attempt to vacate his conviction and sentence or get a new trial.
He wanted to depose attorneys, prosecutors, FBI agents, mental-health experts,
a forensic pathologist, state police and others and examine evidence and
records used to convict him. His attorneys provided an extraordinary report
looking at four generations of his family's history, including mental illness,
substance abuse and "chaotic" home environments.
Marvin Gabrion is awaiting the death penalty in the 1997 killing of Rachel
Timmerman, 19. Authorities suspect he also killed her 11-month-old daughter and
3 other men.
"Marvin did not escape this family tree unscathed," a defense report said.
He has filed notice to appeal a ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker in
Grand Rapids to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
Jonker rejected Gabrion's claims that Gabrion's incompetence, ineffective
counsel, false or misleading evidence, lying witnesses and other issues led to
his wrongful conviction.
Attorneys for Marvin Gabrion submitted a detailed report on Gabrion and 4
generations of his family in an effort to overturn his death sentence for
killing a 19-year-old girl in 1997, court records showed.
"The evidence of Gabrion's guilt and of the aggravating factors in support of
his sentence are overwhelming," Jonker wrote in a 216-page opinion.
"His trial attorneys provided admirable assistance in the face of this
evidence, despite Gabrion's uncooperative and unpredictable behavior. .. the
evidence of Gabrion's guilt is so strong.. ."
The government says Gabrion, awaiting trial accused of raping Timmerman, killed
her to prevent her from testifying against him. She was bound and gagged,
chained to concrete blocks, and thrown from an old, metal boat into a weedy,
muddy lake in the Manistee National Forest.
Marvin Gabrion is awaiting execution in the 1997 killing of Rachel Timmerman,
19, who was killed 2 days before she was to testify he raped a year earlier.
She was alive when she was put into Oxford Lake and drowned. Her body was
recovered about a month after her early June 1997, killing.
She disappeared 2 days before Gabrion was to stand trial for raping her in
August 1996.
Attorneys for Marvin Gabrion have asked a judge to hold a hearing to determine
if he is incompetent and should be treated with psychiatric medication so he
help appeal his conviction and sentence.
Gabrion was sentenced to death by a jury in 2002. Michigan law does not allow
the death penalty but Gabrion was tried under federal law after the prosecution
showed the killing happened on federal land.
The federal appellate court has previously cited the "the utter depravity of
the manner in which (Gabrion) killed (Timmerman)." The U.S. Supreme Court has
refused previous request to hear his case.
Gabrion is held in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where most
condemned prisoners stay. His execution is anything but certain. Since 1988,
when the federal penalty was re-instated after a 16-year moratorium, only 3 on
death row have been put to death.
Among them: Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 in the April 19, 1995, bombing of
the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He did not challenge
the sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy VerHey says Gabrion's challenge to the
appellate court could be his last legal avenue.
The government said John Weeks, at Gabrion's urging, convinced Timmerman to go
to dinner with him. She brought her daughter. They soon went missing. Weeks
also went missing. So did Wayne Davis, a witness to the sexual assault, and
Robert Allen, a mentally disabled Kent County man whose Social Security checks
were stolen by Gabrion.
For many years, Gabrion tried to get U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell to
recuse himself, including when Bell told MLive/Grand Rapids Press in 2016 that
Gabrion "is in the right place" on death row. Bell would not recuse himself. He
retired at the end of 2016 and Jonker took the case.
In a strongly worded opinion, Jonker rejected Gabrion's claims. Many of them
have been litigated, at length, over the years.
"Furthermore, in the Court's own judgment, the death penalty is not
automatically an excessive punishment for all criminally responsible people who
have some form of mental illness," Jonker wrote.
"In this case, all the evidence before the Court indicates that Gabrion is
unwilling to cooperate with counsel, not that he is unable to do so. Gabrion's
current counsel assert that '(e)fforts to discus (Gabrion's) case are met with
derision and anger,' and that Gabrion is 'consumed with topics having nothing
to do with this litigation and that is all he will discuss with counsel. He is
actively delusional,'" the judge wrote.
Those are "virtually identical" observations of trial attorneys, the judge
said.
He was "always hostile" to his attorneys. During the sentencing phase, he
punched an attorney, which he later contended should have served as grounds for
a mistrial.
The judge said Gabrion filed "an exhaustive list of challenges" to the criminal
proceedings but none had merit.
He also wants to represent himself now, saying his attorneys "are in a
conspiracy with an 'Obama crime syndicate,'' and he has been "proven innocent
through DNA evidence," the judge said.
Jonker said that Timmerman "made it clear to others that she was terrified that
Gabrion would kill her. At one point, she stopped by a friend's house, closed
the curtains, and stated repeatedly that Gabrion was going to kill her because
of the rape case," Jonker wrote.
She had called police twice to report seeing Gabrion in an effort to leave a
"trail" in case he followed through on a threat to kill her, the judge said.
"Rachel's fear was justified."
(source: mlive.com)
********************
If There's Nothing Wrong With the Death Penalty, Why All the Secrecy?
In the nineteenth century, the United States began quietly moving executions
from the public square to the insulated walls of prisons.
The change was largely in response to a powerful movement in the 1830’s to
abolish the death penalty, with proponents of capital punishment believing that
the disgust produced by public executions would eventually lead to outright
abolition. And thus began the modern day death penalty system, one that has
largely been shrouded in secrecy since its inception.
Since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977, 90 % of executions have used
lethal injection to carry out sentences, predominately to avoid legal
challenges over prior methods such as electrocution and hanging and to foster
the image of a humane process for the public. That image, however, is a farce,
and state governments have gone to great lengths to conceal practically all
facets of modern day executions.
“Behind the Curtain: Secrecy and the Death Penalty in the United States,” a new
report by the Death Penalty Information Center, delves deeply into the
problematic practices currently at play and showcases the unethical behavior
being carried out by big government across 30 states and the federal and
military death penalty systems.
Some tactics have been in place for decades, serving to block the government
from transparency and accountability measures: Information about those who
carry out the executions and their qualifications are withheld. Very few
members of the public are able to witness executions. Those who do observe
executions are seldom able to view the entire process.
In recent years, however, disturbing new layers of secrecy have been added.
States are now blocking information about the drugs they are using in lethal
injections, and not just from the public, but frequently from the very
manufacturers producing the drugs who do not want their product used in this
manner.
Since 2011, 13 state legislatures have passed new laws that have enacted
secrecy statutes to prevent the public from obtaining important information
about executions. 8 additional states have invoked existing laws or protocols
to refuse disclosing this type of information. In four of these states, it is
either a civil or criminal offense to disclose such information.
These laws are a mechanism for the government to thwart the constitutional
rights of individuals, the ability of courts to ensure the protection of those
rights, and the capability for the public to hold their government accountable.
It seems in many, many areas of our system, elected officials have forgotten
that they work for us — not the other way around.
We know beyond the shadow of a doubt that botched executions occur, whether due
to error of the executioners or problems with execution drugs. Despite the use
of a paralytic in most execution drug cocktails to mask any symptoms of pain,
witnesses have still reported signs of severe distress in several executions,
notably where the drug midazolam was used. By covering this information up,
governments are preventing rigorous and robust discussion on the death penalty
along with any public oversight that might come from that.
Another unethical practice these secrecy laws are veiling are the corrupt
lengths to which state governments are going to obtain the needed drugs for
executions. Pharmaceutical companies do not want their medicines used in
executions. Period, end of story. When you consider the amount of money it
takes to develop a medication and bring it to market, it is wholly
understandable why a company that is producing a product meant to cure would
object to it being used instead to kill — on both moral and financial grounds.
Use of one’s medication in an execution is not exactly a great marketing
strategy.
However, despite the explicit wishes of these companies, states have
deliberately circumvented drug distribution contracts that prohibited the sale
of medicines for use in executions using false pretense and trickery. Several
drug companies have alleged as much in lawsuits and have also pointed out that
use of these tactics will make it harder for people who actually need their
medicines to obtain them.
States often claim these secrecy laws are to protect the pharmaceutical
companies from harassment, but that's an obvious lie considering that every
FDA-approved supplier of the drugs has sought to block the use of their product
in executions. This makes it vividly apparent that states are trying to conceal
knowledge on the drugs being used from the manufacturers themselves.
It should surprise no conservative that the government is out of control.
It’s time those on the right realize that the death penalty is another failed
big government program, filled with all the ineffectiveness and corruption as
the others. Clearly, when this much secrecy is needed to carry out the death
penalty, it’s not operating correctly.
(source: Hannah Cox is the National Manager of Conservatives Concerned About
the Death Penalty. Hannah was previously Director of Outreach for the Beacon
Center of Tennessee, a free-market think tank. Prior to that, she was Director
of Development for the Tennessee Firearms Association and a policy advocate for
the National Alliance on Mental Illness----newsmax.com)
_______________________________________________
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