Death penalty chaos around the country

<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimYBP1BQaJwUCowTHuxQQorJRyiEcc6q7eX0TUJ5lX96FIQnguLq0khhNt3iMnMeazKt88AopltRg1vzEKFVywVEU6Mo_MSYp2OksGSjgLRUookvEU7xLU-b3cOwTFUuAO5F3ef2KECjY/s1600/death+penalty+eliminated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimYBP1BQaJwUCowTHuxQQorJRyiEcc6q7eX0TUJ5lX96FIQnguLq0khhNt3iMnMeazKt88AopltRg1vzEKFVywVEU6Mo_MSYp2OksGSjgLRUookvEU7xLU-b3cOwTFUuAO5F3ef2KECjY/s400/death+penalty+eliminated.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Nevada just became the ninth death penalty state to go a decade or more without an execution. Add those nine to the 19 states without capital punishment, and you have 28 states that have abandoned executions in either law or practice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And in the remaining states? The death penalty is in complete chaos.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Florida’s death penalty law has already been thrown out twice in 2016. The first ruling came from the U.S. Supreme Court in January. The Florida legislature then passed a “fix” to the law, and last month a Miami judge threw it out again. Alabama’s death penalty law is similar to Florida’s, and the Supreme Court sent a death sentence back for review for the third time this week because of those similarities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Meanwhile, prosecutors in Georgia have come under fire for illegally keeping African Americans off the jury in a death penalty case. The Supreme Court overturned the sentence with a vote of 7-1. The defendant is one of many black men sentenced to die by an all-white jury across the south.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lethal injection debacles continue as states struggle to find drugs, hide their processes in secrecy, or carry out executions with outright “systemic ineptitude.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Oklahoma is back at the heart of the lethal injection controversy. A grand jury released 106 pages of scathing critiques last month, citing “inexcusable failures” in the state’s execution process. According to the Washington Post, the grand jury:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“…paints these officials as careless and, in some cases, reckless. The missteps described by the grand jury include a pharmacist ordering the wrong drug for executions, multiple state employees failing to notice or tell anyone about the mixup and a high-ranking official in the governor’s office urging others to carry out an execution even with the incorrect drug.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The same secrecy and lack of oversight found in Oklahoma is common in other states, too, and has contributed to execution problems in Missouri, Georgia, and Ohio.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And now Pfizer, the last remaining, FDA-approved supplier of lethal injection drugs, declared it no longer wants to be in the execution business. Pfizer announced sweeping new restrictions on the distribution of some if its drugs, preventing them from being used in executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The last death penalty holdouts show that the only way to have a death penalty is to accept bias, ineptitude, and arbitrariness. It’s only a matter of time before the death penalty is gone for good.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: <a href="http://ejusa.org/death-penalty-chaos-around-the-country/" target="_blank">Equal Justice USA</a>, Sarah Craft, June 7, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

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Nevada just became the ninth death penalty state to go a decade or more without an execution. Add those nine to the 19 states without capita...

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Prison chaplains share reasons for their opposition to the death penalty

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFM2WM6TRimibTTcaXrCzJ7xvwKND-EA_sGD_NLiJ73JJySOpDFmKG08tJeK_kmjCjSTFpEi1c0UYVyc9yDPb0c_LlLDB7akwHGFEk9q8FcgdlK-AZ9OWPqxMtlkZOnqsjAY1rnxKzbzk/s1600/Missouri+Death+Chamber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Missouri death chamber" border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFM2WM6TRimibTTcaXrCzJ7xvwKND-EA_sGD_NLiJ73JJySOpDFmKG08tJeK_kmjCjSTFpEi1c0UYVyc9yDPb0c_LlLDB7akwHGFEk9q8FcgdlK-AZ9OWPqxMtlkZOnqsjAY1rnxKzbzk/s400/Missouri+Death+Chamber.jpg" title="Missouri death chamber" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Missouri death chamber</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The Rev. Sam Duckworth said his opposition to the death penalty began at age 6 when he saw a man beaten to death by a plantation owner in Mississippi.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The plantation owner would administrate the justice. He was the judge, the arrestor, accuser, prosecutor and executor," Duckworth said. "I opposed the death penalty from that day on, watching someone get whooped to death."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">His wife, Patricia, made the same decision after seeing the man who murdered her niece in the courtroom.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I had some very mixed emotions sitting there in that courtroom not knowing," said Patricia Duckworth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I had this pull on me where I thought, 'This man deserves to die for what he did,' and then my heart is saying, 'No, maybe he shouldn't.'"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Duckworths and a 3rd chaplain discussed the death penalty and their experiences with death row inmates on Saturday at the Unitarian-Universalist Church. The panel discussion was organized by Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 3 panelists have been affiliated with the Potosi Correctional Center, a maximum security facility in Washington County.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They all agreed that inmates can change during long prison sentences, so the individual facing execution may not be the same as the one who committed the crime.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Sometimes executions might take 20 to 25 years," Patricia Duckworth said. "In that time, sometimes you see a person that's become a new creature."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The panel also noted that executions contradict the purpose of the restorative justice programs underaken by inmates.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since Missouri allows death row inmates to take part in the restorative justice system, they shouldn't be suddenly cut off from it, said the Rev. Herb Conley.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If you are going to give a man a chance to restore himself, and he does, then why shouldn't he have the right to continue to be a part of that community?" he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Conley said he didn't have an abrupt awakening to an opposition to the death penalty, but his advocacy is no less strong.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In an unprecedented move for a chaplain, he said he submitted affidavits to Gov. Jay Nixon in unsuccessful attempts to stop 2 executions during his time in Potosi.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Patricia Duckworth cited the case of a death row inmate in Potosi named Leon Taylorwho was able to transform himself during his time in prison through religion, she said. He was playing guitar in the worship band when his execution date was set.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I saw the effects that he had on the other inmates," she said. "He modeled before them just what the Lord had placed in his spirit and how he was going to carry on."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Taylor asked both Duckworths to witness his execution. Patricia Duckworth credited God and Taylor's transformation for their ability to watch his death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Some of those hearts in the prison are actually changed," she said. "Leon Taylor was one of those people."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The death penalty no longer serves its intended purpose as a deterrent to violent crime, Conley said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If we want to do it as a deterrent, we need to do it like we used to - put them out there in a hanging or a guillotine and let the whole world see," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Columbia Missourian, June 5, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

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Missouri death chamber The Rev. Sam Duckworth said his opposition to the death penalty began at age 6 when he saw a man beaten to death by a...

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