April 11
TEXAS:
Hold 3 Generations of Smith Co Prosecutors & Judges Accountable in the Kerry
Max Cook Case
It is time to hold the Smith County District Attorney's Office accountable for
a history of reckless disregard for due process and the rule of law.
We ask that A. D. Clark, III, Jack Skeen, David Dobbs, Deborah Tittle, former
114th Smith County District Judge Cynthia Sevens-Kent, Sgt. Eddie Clark, Lt.
Ron Scott and others be taken before an Ethics Committee and disbarred so they
cannot hurt any one else. We ask that you restore the appearance that a person
accused of a crime can get a fair and impartial trial in Smith County, Texas.
The case of Kerry Max Cook is the worst example of documented police and
prosecutorial misconduct in Texas history. These are the sustained facts this
40-year Smith County capital murder case:
1977-1978: Kerry was inducted into his legal nightmare first by A.D. Clark,
III, Jerry Landrum, Lt. Ron Scott, Texas Ranger Stuart Dowell, Sgt. Eddie Clark
based on a bizarre 1977 "Psychological Profile" that said the killer was a
young homosexual. Kerry worked at a gay bar in Dallas and the rest is history.
Smith County District Attorney A. D. Clark III is the architect of the police
and prosecutorial misconduct that falsely created the August 1977 arrest
warrant, the indictment, and the June 29th, 1978 conviction and death sentence.
September 1991: 15 years later, the conviction was overturned. Smith County
District Attorney Jack Skeen inherited Kerry's case. A. D. Clark III and Jack
Skeen are first cousins. Skeen immediately adopted all of Clark's original
misconduct - records prove Skeen and his First Assistant David E. Dobbs
suppressed more exculpatory evidence and suborned more perjury to keep the
appearance that Kerry was responsible for a crime that he did not commit.
March 1994: District Attorney Jack Skeen and First Assistant David Dobbs
convinced another jury to re-convict Kerry Cook a 2nd time based on the exact
misconduct first created by A. D. Clark III.
November 6, 1996: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled "Police and
prosecutorial misconduct has tainted this entire matter from the beginning."
The 2nd conviction obtained under Jack Skeen and David Dobbs was thrown out.
[source: Chasing Justice by Kerry Max Cook]
see: http://tinyurl.com/kerrymc
(source: change.org)
****************
Death penalty concerns voiced ---- Donna man???s execution is 1 of over 500
carried out in Texas since 1923
At midnight Monday, Pablo Lucio Vasquez was placed on a 72-hour death watch
inside the Polunsky Prison Unit in Livingston where he has lived since 1999
after he was convicted for capital murder and sentenced to death.
The 38-year-old Donna man, originally from Dawson County in West Texas, was
found guilty for the brutal murder of 12-year-old David Cardenas the night of
April 18, 1998.
According to his taped confession, Vasquez and his 15-year-old cousin, Andy
Chapa, met the boy at a local party and later beat the boy outside Chapa's
house with a metal pipe and a shovel. Vasquez told police he was hearing voices
in his head telling him to kill Cardenas and to drink the boy's blood. He also
admitted to taking a ring and a necklace from the boy's body.
Less than 24 hours before his scheduled execution, prison guards continued to
log his every move revealing Vasquez hardly slept and barely touched his food,
according to Jason Clark, spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice.
Clark said he spoke to Vasquez briefly Wednesday morning and described him as
being in "good spirits." At 10 a.m. Vasquez talked with visitors and took
pictures during an hourlong visit. He then was escorted back to his
60-square-foot cell where he received his last pieces of mail.
At noon, he was transferred from the Polunsky Unit, which has housed all death
row inmates in Texas since 1965, and booked into the red brick, 2-story
Huntsville prison unit that houses the death chamber.
About a dozen protesters gathered about 4 p.m. Wednesday across the street from
the red prison walls. Led by 64-year-old Pat Hartwell, the protesters held up
pink cardboard signs with Vasquez's picture that read "Do not kill me," and
"Abolish the Death Penalty," in bold black letters.
"The man has grown up in prison. He's never caused any trouble in prison; he's
never had anything but good marks, so let him stay in prison for this horrific
crime," Hartwell said. "We are not advocating that we should let the prison
doors open and let everybody run free. We think that they should be responsible
for their actions, but we as a society need to take responsibility also."
Hartwell, of Houston, has been fighting to end the death penalty in Texas for
more than a decade. She keeps meticulous records of appeals, mental health
records and court documents of the 248 people currently on death row and from
every person who has been executed in Huntsville.
Since 1923, 537 people have been put to death here. Vasquez was the 6th this
year alone. Before Huntsville, hanging was the means of execution and was the
responsibility of the individual counties throughout the state.
In 1923, the state of Texas authorized the use of the electric chair. Nicknamed
"Old Sparky," the chair, used to electrocute 361 inmates, stands on display at
the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville.
In 1977, Texas adopted the lethal injection as the method of execution. Charlie
Brooks of Tarrant County was the 1st inmate to be executed by lethal injection
on Dec. 7, 1982, for the kidnapping and murder of a Fort Worth mechanic.
3 oversized injections are on display at the museum that once administered
sodium thiopental to induce unconsciousness, pancuronium bromide to cause
muscle paralysis and respiratory arrest, and potassium chloride to stop the
heart of inmates. In 2011, the 3 chemicals were replaced with pentobarbital due
to a shortage.
Several handwritten notes hang over the needles detailing several inmates' last
meal requests. Vasquez's last meal Wednesday afternoon was a Salisbury steak,
which was given to all the other inmates at the Huntsville Unit. The state no
longer provides a special last meal for those about to be executed, according
to Clark.
At 6 p.m., the clock tower over the front entrance of the prison began to ring
as Vasquez was taken from his holding cell to the death chamber. His family
members stood quietly in an office nearby listening to the ringing of the
clock, waiting to be escorted.
"This is the end result," Hartwell said standing outside the prison Wednesday.
"Pablo, or 'Pelon' as he is called in the system, is not the only one that is
going to suffer tonight. Right now there is still one victim in this case, but
when this is over, there will be multiple victims because we will make victims
of his family."
At 6:02 p.m., Vasquez was laid on a metal gurney resembling the shape of a
cross draped in white sheets. A large leather belt around his chest secured him
to the gurney along with ties around his wrists and gauze around his hands
covering his fingers.
At 6:04 p.m., the solution began to flow into his veins as witnesses walked
quietly through the prison halls and into the viewing rooms. At 6:11 p.m.,
Vasquez delivered his last statement immediately followed by the lethal dose of
pentobarbital.
A prison chaplain stood at his feet for the next 23 minutes as Vasquez's heart
rate slowed with every breath. At 6:30 p.m., a doctor walked into the pastel
green chamber to check Vasquez's eyes with a small flashlight and feel for
Vasquez's pulse on the right side of his neck with his fingers.
He finally listened with a stethoscope placed over Vasquez's heart and
pronounced him dead at 6:35 p.m.
"Nothing can be undone from what is done tonight," Hartwell said. "And at the
end that young boy is not going to rise from the dead."
"We need to look at our inner selves and ask, 'How can we raise our children or
our grandchildren not to do this?" she added. "What have we done to help the
little Pablo's in the Valley?"
(source: The Monitor)
PENNSYLVANIA:
In Pa. and elsewhere, death penalty is dying a slow death
The crime was horrific: LaQuanta Chapman fatally shot his teenage neighbor,
then dismembered him with a chainsaw.
The Chester County District Attorney's Office promised it would seek the death
penalty - and it delivered.
Chapman was sent to death row in December 2012. But he remains very much alive,
and 2 weeks ago the state Supreme Court reversed his death sentence, citing
prosecutorial error.
Chapman is just the latest example of a death-row inmate spared execution.
In fact, no one has been executed in Pennsylvania since Philadelphia
torturer-murderer Gary Heidnik in 1999. And he requested it. He is 1 of only 3
prisoners put to death since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
In Pennsylvania and in other states around the nation, the death penalty - once
a hot-button political issue - has been dying a quiet death. Experts cite a
variety a reasons, including a general decline in crime nationwide that has
turned voters' attentions elsewhere.
District attorneys and other law enforcement officials continue to advocate for
it, but as a political issue, it has all but disappeared.
"Let's face it, how many people actually get put to death?" said G. Terry
Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College, calling the death penalty "virtually
nonoperative" in Pennsylvania. "In many states, it's a dead letter."
Gov. Wolf last year imposed a moratorium on executions pending a bipartisan
committee's report on the commonwealth's use of capital punishment. The report,
more than 2 years overdue, is looking at costs, fairness, effectiveness,
alternatives, public opinion, and other issues.
The committee, formed in 2011 during Gov. Tom Corbett's administration, has
been collecting data with Pennsylvania State University's Justice Center for
Research, which has just begun to analyze the information. The basis for the
center's death-penalty analysis will be 1,106 first-degree murder cases
completed between 2000 and 2010, said Jeff Ulmer, a Pennsylvania State
University professor working on the analysis.
The committee's report should follow before the end of the year, said Glenn
Pasewicz, executive director of the state commission that oversees the
committee.
Richard Long, executive director of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys
Association, which supports the death penalty, said the report needs to come
out as soon as possible.
The moratorium, he said, "becomes less and less temporary with every day that
passes."
State Sen. Stewart Greenleaf (R., Bucks), one of the leaders of the state task
force, stressed the need for it to be thorough.
"I think it's going to be a landmark review of the death penalty, certainly in
Pennsylvania, maybe nationally," he said.
The American Bar Association and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on
Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System are among the groups that have
criticized the inequality of Pennsylvania's capital punishment system and have
urged changes.
About 150 death sentences and capital convictions in the state have been
overturned in the post-conviction process, according to the Death Penalty
Information Center, a nonprofit anti-capital punishment group. Of those, 120
have had new sentences imposed.
But juries continue to issue death sentences. Pennsylvania has 180 people on
death row, the 5th largest number in the country. The 178 men and 2 women are
housed in 3 state correctional institutions.
Nationwide, the death penalty has continued to fall out of both favor and
public consciousness. In the 1988 presidential election, Democratic nominee
Michael Dukakis was famously asked whether he would oppose the death penalty
even in the hypothetical case of a man who raped and murdered his wife. Among
issues raised in the 2016 presidential campaigns, the death penalty hasn't been
one of them.
In addition to Pennsylvania, governors have imposed moratoriums in
Pennsylvania, Washington, Oregon, and Colorado, according to the Death Penalty
Information Center. Nineteen states have gotten rid of the death penalty,
including New Jersey, which spiked it in 2007.
All five candidates vying to succeed Kathleen G. Kane as Pennsylvania attorney
general support the death penalty, saying that the law reserves the punishment
for egregious murders.
State Sen. John Rafferty (R., Montgomery) opposes Wolf's moratorium, saying the
governor "took a tool out of the tool belt of our prosecutors." He added that
the death penalty should be used for people who kill children, senior citizens,
and first responders in the line of duty.
John Morganelli, Northampton County's district attorney and a past appointee to
the state Supreme Court's committee on capital cases, said the state should
enforce the death penalty. But, said Morganelli, a Democrat, it also should
provide more training and resources for defense lawyers handling capital cases
to even the playing field for everyone.
Joe Peters, a Republican and former spokesman for Attorney General Kathleen G.
Kane, echoed that sentiment, saying, "We always have to be vigilant [the death
penalty] is not being imposed in a disparate fashion."
The former prosecutor said a thorough death-penalty report is worth the wait,
especially because the death-row inmates still are removed from society.
Josh Shapiro, a Montgomery County commissioner and chairman of the state's
Commission on Crime and Delinquency, said the report needs to come out soon to
fix Pennsylvania's broken system.
Shapiro, a Democrat, said a debate over the death penalty needs to be part of a
larger discussion on criminal-justice reform.
Stephen Zappala, Allegheny County's district attorney, said the death penalty
must be applied in a thoughtful way. He is concerned that the death penalty is
not a deterrent and does not actually bring closure to victims. Recently, his
office argued a couple of death-penalty cases that went back to the trial level
more than 10 years after convictions.
"That's not closure, by any means," said Zappala, a Democrat.
In Pennsylvania, hundreds of death warrants have been signed, although only 3
have been carried out, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death
Penalty Information Center.
"If any other public policy had a failure rate that enormous," he said, "one
would expect something would have been done about it."
(source: philly.com)
VIRGINIA:
Virginia Governor Scraps Electric Chair Law
The electric chair has already been declared cruel and unusual punishment by
two death penalty states.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) has killed a bill that would have given the
state power to put people to death by electric chair. Instead, he added an
amendment permitting the state to hire a pharmacy to secretly make a special
batch of lethal injection drugs.
McAuliffe had until midnight Sunday to veto HB 815, which would make it easier
for Virginia to execute people with the electric chair if lethal injection
drugs become unavailable. The bill would have become effective law on July 1
had he not taken action. The governor had more than a month to consider the
bill after state senators approved it.
The legislation is yet another example of the measures some death penalty
states are considering as the supply of lethal injection chemicals dwindles -
and as legal challenges to the execution method mount.
Drugs used in both single-drug and 3-drug lethal injection protocols have
become increasingly hard to find since European manufacturers banned their sale
to U.S. executioners, and since domestic producers yanked their supplies from
the market.
Religious leaders in Virginia and around the country appealed to McAuliffe to
veto the bill, with Regent University professor Antipas Harris told News
Channel 3 that "It's just morally wrong, inhumane. We absolutely don't need
this in the Commonwealth."
Virginia is currently 1 of 8 states that permits the electric chair to be used
as a legal method of execution. All of the states but Tennessee relegate it to
a backup method to be used in the event that lethal injection is ruled
unconstitutional or if an inmate requests it.
In 2014, Tennessee brought back the electric chair as an option for the state -
rather than the inmate - to select. But the state suspended executions within a
year due to legal challenges contending that state-sanctioned executions,
whether by lethal injection or electric chair, constitute cruel and unusual
punishment.
In the past 15 years, state supreme courts in both Georgia and Nebraska have
determined the electric chair violates state laws against cruel and unusual
punishment.
Virginia state Sen. Scott Surovell (D), who opposed the bill, last month
decried the lack of transparency in the state's execution process - which, as
in many states, is effectively a secret.
He added, however, that the bill's success would hasten the end of the death
penalty in the long run.
"Every court that has looked at [the electric chair] in the past 20 years said,
'We don't do this anymore,'" Surovell told The Huffington Post last month,
describing the evolving standards of what's considered cruel and unusual
punishment.
"I think the [U.S.] Supreme Court will get rid of the electric chair now that
we've teed it up for them," he said, noting that he'd told his colleagues in
favor of HB815 that "If you vote 'yes' on this, you're hastening the end of the
death penalty."
Since 2000, 6 of Virginia's prisoners executed by the electric chair
specifically chose the method, most recently in 2013, according to an analysis
by Harvard University's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and
Justice.
While 31 states still have the death penalty, only 8 states carried out
executions in 2015. Some states, like Oklahoma, have approved untested methods
of execution like the nitrogen gas chamber.
(source: Kim Bellware, Huffington Post)
GEORGIA----impending execution
Panel to hold clemency hearing for Georgia death row inmate
A Georgia death row inmate scheduled to die this week was neglected and
mistreated as a child and has substantial intellectual impairments that have
affected his ability to act appropriately, his lawyers wrote in a clemency
petition.
Kenneth Fults, 47, is set to be put to death Tuesday by injection of the
barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. His lawyers and
supporters planned to ask the State Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare his
life during a clemency hearing Monday. The parole board is the only entity that
can commute a death sentence in Georgia.
Fults pleaded guilty to killing 19-year-old Cathy Bounds in January 1996, and a
jury sentenced him to die.
In a clemency petition submitted to the parole board, Fults' lawyers detail a
childhood characterized by neglect and abuse at the hands of heavy drinking
family members and his mother's string of violent boyfriends.
"Throughout his life, Kenneth Fults was abandoned and rejected by those who
were supposed to care for him, ridiculed and dismissed by those who could have
helped him, and beaten up and down by family members and strangers alike," his
lawyers wrote.
Fults has an intellectual disability that means he "functions in the lowest one
percent of the population," meaning he has insufficient reasoning abilities,
lacks impulse control and fails to learn from experience, the clemency petition
says.
He is extremely remorseful, having told Bounds' mother at trial that he would
trade places with Bounds if he could, and took responsibility for his actions
by entering a guilty plea, his lawyers wrote.
Fults' trial lawyer failed to tell the jury during sentencing that Fults is
intellectually disabled and didn't go into the details of his rough childhood,
his lawyers wrote. Jurors quoted in the clemency petition say the trial lawyer
slept through parts of the sentencing and didn't seem prepared or interested in
protecting the best interests of his client.
His death sentence is unfair because 1 of the jurors who sentenced him to die
was motivated by racial prejudice, Fults' lawyers wrote.
During jury selection, Thomas Buffington told the judge and lawyers on both
sides he felt no racial prejudice. He was selected for the jury that sentenced
Fults to death.
An investigator who was part of Fults' legal team reached out to Buffington 8
years later to ask about his experience on the jury.
"Once he pled guilty, I knew I would vote for the death penalty because that's
what that (N-word) deserved," Buffington said, according to an affidavit signed
April 12, 2005.
Buffington died in 2014.
Though many of these arguments have already been rejected by various courts,
Fults' lawyers say the parole board isn't bound by the same rigid rules and ask
the board to commute his sentence to life without parole.
Prosecutors have said Fults killed Bounds during a weeklong crime spree that
started when he stole two guns during burglaries. After trying unsuccessfully
to kill his former girlfriend's new boyfriend with 1 of the stolen guns, Fults
broke into the trailer next to his, where Bounds lived with her boyfriend.
Bounds, who was home alone, pleaded for her life, but Fults forced her into the
bedroom, wrapped electrical tape around her head, put her face-down on the bed,
put a pillow over her head and shot her 5 times in the back of the head,
prosecutors said.
Fults would be the 4th man executed in Georgia this year. Another man, Daniel
Lucas, is scheduled to die April 27.
(source: Associated Press)
MISSISSIPPI:
Mississippi lawmakers are asking the wrong questions about the death penalty
On Good Friday, Christians recognize the execution and death of their savior.
This Good Friday, Mississippi lawmakers voted to bring back execution by firing
squads.
For years, the United States has been forced to face the dwindling supply of
sodium thiopental, one of the drugs necessary for a safe, "humane" execution.
Only 1 company in the United States makes it, and they've recently stopped.
Foreign nations have stopped selling the drug to the United States to pressure
them to abolish the death penalty.
Because of this shortage, there have been several botched executions because of
untested, unapproved drug cocktails. Rather than stopping executions, the
Mississippi House has approved using death by firing squad as an alternative to
lethal injection.
We aren't the only state that supports the firing squad. The last person killed
by firing squad was Ronnie Lee Gardner in Utah in June 2010.
Death by firing squad is a favorite of fascist regimes attempting to silence
dissenters. It has no place in the U.S. But firing squads aren't the only
problem here. There is no humane way to kill someone. Just as murder is
immoral, the taking of someone's life by the hand of the government is
inherently immoral and inhumane.
Most Americans support capital punishment. In 2013, a Gallup poll showed 63 %
of Americans supported the death penalty, despite the fact that it is more
expensive than life in prison, it doesn't decrease violent crimes and innocent
people die.
According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, 1,414 people
have been executed since 1976, 156 people have been exonerated before death.
This means 1 out of every 10 people on death row have eventually been proven
innocent. This is before considering the number of innocent people who were
executed and exonerated after death - or innocent people whose innocence was
never proven.
Instead of focusing on reforming our justice system to minimize innocent
deaths, our state legislature is - once again - focused on finding solutions
for unimportant problems. Fortunately, lack of lethal injection drugs and
lengthy appeal periods have limited the number of executions in the state. No
one has died by execution in Mississippi since 2012.
Only 1 European country, Belarus, has the death penalty. In the Americas, 19
countries have the death penalty but only 2 countries - the U.S. and Saint
Kitts & Nevis - execute people.
Most of the world has come to recognize capital punishment as an enemy to human
rights. Instead of catching up to the rest of the world, various state
lawmakers have doubled down and said, "If we don't have the drugs, we've got
the bullets."
And those of us who don't support the barbaric slaughter of our fellow
Americans? We sit, sometimes silently, sometimes with raucous shouting, and
hope for a change.
(source: Holly Baer is a senior religious studies major from Flowood----The
(Univ. MIssissippi) Daily Mississippian)
USA:
Shining a light into the darkness of Death Row
With a new exhibition, Windows on Death Row, Swiss journalist Anne-Frederique
Widmann and press cartoonist Patrick Chappatte aim to shine a light on the dark
- and still taboo - subject of the death penalty in the United States.
Over the course of a year spent in California in 2014, the pair visited 4
penitentiaries and met some 30 death row inmates who contributed artworks to
the project, depicting their situations. The exhibition also includes artworks
from well-known American press cartoonists.
From Geneva's cosmopolitan Paquis quarter, Chappatte explains the motivation
behind the project as he hones a comic strip rendition of life on death row
that will be published by the New York Times later this month.
"Death row itself is not very well known in the United States. Even though
capital punishment is a part of the mythology of the American justice system,
the reality that we are trying to show is still a taboo subject. These
high-security facilities where the condemned are isolated while awaiting
execution are the United States' dungeons," Chappatte says.
"We used a newsletter to reach out to some 3,000 prisoners currently on death
row in America and tell them about our project. About 30 contacted us. They
were the ones still standing. The overwhelming majority of those condemned to
death are vegetables. They have become half mad, psychotropic. Most are
completely destroyed."
"Those whom we were able to meet demonstrated an exceptional capacity for
resilience, thanks to art. They all learnt to draw and paint in prison. Art has
helped them to stay sane, like the hope that their case might be reviewed. As
one prisoner told me: you say that as long as there is life there is hope. For
me, as long as there is hope, there is life."
This is the reality that Windows on Death Row reveals. A journalistic rather
than activist endeavour, the project has received significant support from the
Swiss foreign ministry.
"In the collective imagination, those condemned to death are inhumane monsters
and criminals," says Chappatte. "We lock them up and execute them. Most are
criminals, but they are still part of humanity. Also, many were convicted in
error. The conditions of their incarceration remain little known, and the
isolation in which they are held 23 hours out of 24 can carry on for decades."
That said, the certainties of the merits of the death penalty are weakening,
says Chappatte.
"A majority of Americans continue to support capital punishment. But public
opinion has been shaken by two things. The advent of DNA testing has exonerated
a number of people. Currently, one person every 3 months is being found
innocent and released from prison. And then, in 2013-14, there were botched
executions following the European Union???s boycott on the sale of lethal
products to the US."
The exhibition mounted by the 2 Swiss is currently on show in Morges and Geneva
as part of the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights. It
reveals the death penalty as a metaphor for American society as a whole.
"[This exhibition exposes] the history of the United States which is very
violent, religion and the way it imagines punishment, and the social
inequalities which particularly affect Afro-Americans," Chappatte says.
"Moreover, there is an expanded form of the death penalty in the US, which are
the executions without trial. These people - often black - are shot by police
in more or less questionable circumstances. You could call them extrajudicial
executions."
Swiss diplomacy against the death penalty
The Swiss foreign ministry, which has provided financial support for the
Windows on Death Row project, says in a statement: "The universal abolition of
the death penalty is a priority for Swiss diplomatic actions in favour of human
rights. This exhibition, which is designed to contribute to the American and
global debates about the death penalty, is above all an invitation to increase
dialogue."
That "Switzerland wants to contribute to the universal abolition of the death
penalty by 2025, or at least to the introduction of a universal moratorium on
executions" has been defined as a formal objective in a strategy to push for
the abolition of the death penalty around the world.
In 2015, for the 1st time, a majority of countries around the world (102) had
completely abolished the death penalty. In total, 140 countries have abolished
it in law or in practice, according to Amnesty International.
However, 2015 also saw a 50% increase over the previous year in the number
executions carried out: 1,634. It was the highest number of executions recorded
by Amnesty International since 1989.
In the United States, Pennsylvania has imposed a moratorium on executions,
bringing to 18 the number of American states that have abolished the death
penalty.
(source: swissinfo.ch)
*************
Conservative support of alternatives underscores death penalty's failures
Support for the death penalty in America's most conservative corners has been
crumbling as of late. The Nebraska Legislature voted overwhelmingly to repeal
capital punishment. The Utah State Senate approved a measure to end its use,
but full repeal was only stymied because their legislative session ended.
The signs of a turning tide are also starting to surface in Oklahoma. Recently,
polling showed that a plurality of Oklahoma Republican voters were open to
replacing the death penalty with an alternative, and, in light of recent
events, that is an understandable sentiment. The national spotlight has focused
on Oklahoma following embarrassing botched executions, a subsequent ongoing
grand jury investigation, and repeated attempts to execute a man despite a lack
of physical evidence - Richard Glossip.
Botched executions halt capital punishment
Early last year, Oklahoma executed Charles Warner, but not everything went as
expected. An open-records request revealed that the state had administered the
wrong drug. Rather than injecting Warner with the approved lethal-injection
combination, he was given a dose of a chemical normally used to treat icy
airport runways. As disconcerting as this was, it wasn't Oklahoma's 1st botched
attempt. In 2014, Clayton Lockett's execution went so poorly that in the midst
of the execution, officials hastily halted the process, and Lockett later died
of a heart attack.
Executions have since been placed on hold as a multi-county grand jury has been
tasked with investigating Oklahoma's lethal-injection drug debacle. Their
findings are expected to be released soon, but, considering that 3 senior
officials connected to the episode have recently resigned, the malfeasance must
run deep. Regardless of the grand jury's conclusions, Oklahoma is expected to
resume executions, which imperils Richard Glossip.
The case of Richard Glossip
Glossip gained national notoriety because he was the plaintiff in a highly
anticipated US Supreme Court decision regarding execution methods, but he is
also known for nearly being executed three times despite a dearth of physical
evidence. In 1997, Barry Van Treese, the owner of the motel where Glossip
worked, was brutally murdered. Within days, one of Glossip's employees, Justin
Sneed, was apprehended by law enforcement officials, and he promptly confessed
to killing Van Treese. Sneed had a documented history of criminal activity and
drug use, and upon his admission of guilt, the case should have been closed.
However, Sneed's interrogators pressured him to identify Glossip as the crime's
mastermind. Glossip had no prior record of felony violence, and there was zero
physical evidence linking him to the crime. Nevertheless, under intense
pressure from the police, Sneed claimed that Glossip asked him to murder Van
Treese in exchange for compensation. Consequently, Sneed received a sentence of
life without parole, and Glossip was found guilty and condemned to die.
If nothing else, Glossip's case exemplifies how easy it can be to receive a
death sentence even with an astonishing paucity of evidence. In fact, the
prosecution's case against Glossip centered on circumstantial evidence and
Sneed's highly questionable testimony, which has changed no fewer than eight
times. Last year, as Glossip's execution loomed, his pro bono defense team
discovered 3 witnesses who came forward to cast serious doubt on Sneed's
allegations. Considering that Sneed's suspicious testimony is the only evidence
linking Glossip to the murder, his case certainly merits another look.
A cautionary tale
Glossip's case should serve as a cautionary tale, but unfortunately it isn't
the exception. Questionable and even wrongful convictions have indelibly marred
the death penalty program. Nationally, 156 individuals have been wrongly
sentenced to die, and 10 have been released from Oklahoma's death row because
of erroneous convictions. This is, in part, why conservative icons like Jay
Sekulow, Dr. Ron Paul and Richard Viguerie have been outspoken supporters of
repealing capital punishment. The stakes are simply too high - and our faith in
the government too low - to continue supporting the death penalty. Given that
capital punishment costs far more than life without parole, doesn't keep the
public safer, and can prolong the legal process for murder victims' families,
it really is a failed government program - just the kind the conservatives
despise.
(source: Commentary; Marc Hyden is a national advocacy coordinator with
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. Previously, Hyden was a
campaign field representative with the National Rifle Association in Florida, a
Republican congressional campaign manager in North Carolina, and a legislative
aide in the state of Georgia----nondoc.com)
**********************
America's Place in the Executioners' Club
What do Texas, Missouri, Georgia and Florida have in common with China, Iran,
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? All are outliers in their continued use of the death
penalty, which is being abandoned in most of the rest of the United States and
the world.
Those 4 states were responsible for all but 2 of America's 28 executions last
year. Likewise, those 4 countries account for the overwhelming majority of
global executions, according to a new report by Amnesty International. The
report documented 1,634 executions globally in 2015, not counting China, which
executes more people than all other countries combined, but provides little
reliable information.
There are many more executions that are not included in Amnesty's global count,
which is restricted to "judicial" executions - those that result from a formal
trial process, whether or not that process meets international standards of
fairness - and excludes some secret executions and those where no trial took
place.
The 1,634 state killings - almost 9 in 10 occurred in Iran, Pakistan and Saudi
Arabia - represent a 50 % increase over 2014. Explanations for the spike
differ: Pakistan had not executed anyone since 2008, but reinstated the death
penalty after the December 2014 terror attack on a military school in Peshawar
that killed 132 children. Many of Pakistan's 326 executions were for crimes
other than terrorism.
Most of Iran's 977 executions were for drug-related offenses, including
trafficking more than 30 grams of heroin or cocaine. In Saudi Arabia,
foreigners, including migrant workers, accounted for about 1/2 of the country's
documented executions, often for minor offenses like drug dealing. As in the
United States, there is no evidence that the death penalty has reduced the
incidence of capital crimes in these countries.
The good news is that outside of these few places, the death penalty is on the
decline. In the United States, 18 states and the District of Columbia have
abolished the death penalty, and 12 more have not executed anyone in 9 years or
longer. Last year the numbers of executions and death sentences nationwide were
their lowest in decades.
Globally, 4 more countries abolished the death penalty in 2015, for a total of
102 countries - up from just 16 in 1977, when record-keeping began - while 38
more countries have not used the death penalty in at least 10 years. Amnesty
considers these countries to have effectively abandoned the practice.
The consensus that the death penalty is both ineffective and barbaric is
growing, but that consensus is fragile. In Hungary, which abolished the death
penalty in 1990, Prime Minister Viktor Orban responded last April to his
country's immigration crisis by saying that capital punishment "should be put
on the agenda."
Even though Mr. Orban was swiftly rebuked across Europe, his comments are a
reminder that the temptation among opportunistic politicians to bring back the
death penalty is always there.
(source: Editorial Board, New York Times)
***************
Media 'hue and cry' helps expose US death row errors----Lawyer tells Irish
conference American system 'riddled with error, corruption'
The media has helped expose "egregious" mistakes in the US death penalty system
which have caused innocent people to be put to death, a US criminal defence
attorney has told a conference of lawyers here.
Pennsylvania-based lawyer Cristi Charpentier, representing mainly death row
inmates, said the process was "riddled with error, corruption and deference to
those in power". Some inmates suffered "inadequate lawyering" and deals between
prosecution and informers were kept hidden from defence lawyers.
The media could play a vital role in exposing defects and publicising appeals
for clemency and reprieve, she said, though some were only interested in making
sensationalist programmes. Some death row inmates did not want clemency and
told her: "Free me or fry me but don't beg for my life or tell my story."
Thousands on death row
Ms Charpentier was addressing a conference of the Bar Council in Kilkenny on
the theme: "Miscarriages of Justice: The Role of Lawyers and the Media".
Noting a 2001 law here prevents enactment of legislation allowing the death
penalty, she hoped the US would also move in that direction. The numbers being
executed were falling though thousands remained on death row.
Senior counsel Michael McDowell said he was Attorney General when the 2001 law
was passed and received a note asking: "Why should we kill people who kill
people to show that killing people is wrong?"
Ms Charpentier said profiles of the last 100 people executed in the US showed
many were young, mentally ill, intellectually disabled or suffered chronic drug
addiction. The childhoods of many of her clients had stripped them of empathy
at an early age, and many cases arose from a child "very traumatised and rarely
treated".
Sean Guerin SC, prosecuting barrister in the Graham Dwyer murder trial, said
the role of the media in relation to miscarriages of justice was as a necessary
part of the "hue and cry".
Shane Murphy SC, who represented the Birmingham 6 and Guildford 4 in libel
actions, said the danger of interaction between media and law was that a
climate of "outrage" could be created which "can fuel injustice and error".
(source: irishtimes.com)
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