Arkansas judge criticizes secrecy in U.S. executions

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKrWGKnCqVqhI-KEAdf9q_SwmSBsVt0AdJwFaQVBgjcM78MeX08DVRDH3cAA3xpqknQPtdDxCMzLWyJ8fqBBwKqZqxAocd1EQDIwGxB3mgjGdhMU3UVX4aFzTOypxloIwPnDmJHAshyIQ/s1600/Lethal+injections.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKrWGKnCqVqhI-KEAdf9q_SwmSBsVt0AdJwFaQVBgjcM78MeX08DVRDH3cAA3xpqknQPtdDxCMzLWyJ8fqBBwKqZqxAocd1EQDIwGxB3mgjGdhMU3UVX4aFzTOypxloIwPnDmJHAshyIQ/s320/Lethal+injections.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">An Arkansas judge who last year declared unconstitutional a law that allows the state to keep confidential the source of drugs used for execution by lethal injection has lamented a 5-4 decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court reversing his ruling.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a breakout session on the death penalty at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly June 24, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen said that since the Supreme Court upheld the use of capital punishment for certain crimes, the death penalty debate has shifted to whether specific execution procedures satisfy the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"How it's being done now is we'll make sure it's nice by making sure it's secret so you don't know how barbaric it is," said Griffen, who also serves as pastor of CBF-affiliated New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Ark. Griffen said legal action surrounding capital punishment now focuses on "seeking to discover the chemicals that are being used to put people to death and discover where they are coming from."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The day before the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld a state law that allows for the type, manufacturers and sellers of drugs used for lethal injections to be kept confidential. The law is designed to ensure the state can find a place to buy the drugs in a market where pharmaceutical companies are rapidly withdrawing from the lethal injection trade.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not only are inmates on death row not entitled to know who is selling the drugs, Griffen said, they also cannot find out the qualifications of the individuals who will administer them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If you want to euthanize your dog, you know that under your state only the people who have certain credentials can put your dog down," Griffen said at the CBF workshop. "If you want to euthanize your neighbor - if you want to kill your neighbor in the name of the state - I 10-time double-dog dare you to find out the qualifications of the person who is doing it."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"As a matter of fact, there is no requirement that the state tell you, and they have an affirmative obligation to not disclose that," the judge continued. "It is amazing. One would call it irony, but it's too nice a word."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pfizer, the world's 2nd-largest drug company adopted distribution controls in March to prevent its drugs from reaching execution chambers across the United States.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve," the company said in a statement. "Consistent with these values, Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Reprieve, a New York-based human rights organization, said in May that all 25 FDA-approved manufacturers of potential execution drugs now have blocked their sale for use in capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The ruling by the Arkansas high court clears the way for the execution of 8 people on death row whose lives were extended by Griffen's temporary restraining order last Oct. 9. One of the state's execution drugs expires before the Supreme Court decision goes in effect, however, and the supplier has told officials it would not supply any more.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: baptistnews.com, June 27, 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/WebDPN/" 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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Arizona abandons use of sedative as a lethal-injection drug

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoFigrYakdS66rpfaFLQlxyWrD9DfAV4UzI6OSGga-WV4iPE5bEZJhmrV3-j7TRYHVaSQ8M66WmHyc14Q8kCaan26PyPKL0f3NMCC_BrmT4R2mOKbnxtGCqeUymvO3uzmtedR_gmAIejQ/s1600/Midazolam.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Midazolam" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoFigrYakdS66rpfaFLQlxyWrD9DfAV4UzI6OSGga-WV4iPE5bEZJhmrV3-j7TRYHVaSQ8M66WmHyc14Q8kCaan26PyPKL0f3NMCC_BrmT4R2mOKbnxtGCqeUymvO3uzmtedR_gmAIejQ/s400/Midazolam.jpeg" title="Midazolam" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state of Arizona has eliminated its use of the sedative midazolam as one of the drugs it relies on in carrying out executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lawyers for the state said in a court filing Friday that its current supply of midazolam expired on May 31 and that Arizona's sources of the drug have dried up because of pressure from opponents of the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That leaves Arizona with other lethal-drug combinations, but the state's lawyers said they can't currently carry out executions because it has no access to supplies of pentobarbital and sodium thiopental.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The status of the state's lethal-injection drug supplies were revealed Friday in a court filing in a lawsuit that challenges the way Arizona carries out the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Executions in Arizona were put on hold after the July 2014 death of convicted killer Joseph Rudolph Wood, who was given 15 doses of midazolam and a painkiller and who took nearly 2 hours to die. His attorney says the execution was botched.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Executions in Arizona remain on hold until the lawsuit is resolved.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A ruling last month by U.S. District Judge Neil Wake dismissed parts of the lawsuit, but other elements of the case remain alive.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state argued in its filing Friday that the lawsuit is moot now that midazolam is off the table.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dale Baich, one of the attorneys representing death row prisoners, said that even if the lawsuit's claims involving lethal-injection drugs are dismissed, his clients still have claims that Arizona Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan has abused his discretion in the methods and amounts of the drugs used in past executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It's our belief that the unlimited discretion that the director has during the execution process violates the Eighth Amendment," which forbids cruel and unusual punishment, Baich said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Similar challenges to the death penalty are playing out in other parts of the country that seek more transparency about where states get their execution drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">States are struggling to obtain execution drugs because European pharmaceutical companies began blocking the use of their products for lethal injections. Death penalty states refuse to disclose the sources of their drugs, though the sources are widely believed to be compounding pharmacies - organizations that make drugs tailored to the needs of a specific client. Those pharmacies do not face the same approval process or testing standards of larger pharmaceutical companies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Associated Press, June 24, 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/WebDPN/" 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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The state of Arizona has eliminated its use of the sedative midazolam as one of the drugs it relies on in carrying out executions. Lawyers f...

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Arkansas death penalty drug expiring before use

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2O1EOnM_Xk5Lgh8Bvmeh4sOPdyeBt1m5Fv6ibpGBTlZ4Y_V5L1M0Q14jnXvPpkVNozrbNC6A2KZ2ZZxzaW3Q2IjZfpDBqHO6AjscZhlKSBYR2Hf0z_drJMiVgv9PbNC5ZILNkeN__Vbc/s1600/Lethal+injections.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2O1EOnM_Xk5Lgh8Bvmeh4sOPdyeBt1m5Fv6ibpGBTlZ4Y_V5L1M0Q14jnXvPpkVNozrbNC6A2KZ2ZZxzaW3Q2IjZfpDBqHO6AjscZhlKSBYR2Hf0z_drJMiVgv9PbNC5ZILNkeN__Vbc/s320/Lethal+injections.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Court OKs execution but requires wait; AG won't ask for a rush</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">1 of Arkansas' execution drugs will expire before a court decision upholding the state's execution law goes into effect, and might be impossible to replace.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A spokesman for Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said Friday that she will not ask the state's Supreme Court to expedite finalizing its Thursday ruling that upheld Arkansas' execution secrecy law and drug protocol. The executions of 8 people are waiting for that ruling.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Generally, rulings are final 18 days after opinions are issued. Without the attorney general's request, the ruling takes effect July 11 - days after the state's supply of vecuronium bromide, a paralytic the state uses in executions, expires.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"After careful consideration and analysis, the attorney general has decided not to seek an expedited mandate from the court. But once the court issues the mandate, the attorney general is fully prepared to ask the governor to set execution dates to see that justice is served," said Rutledge spokesman Judd Deere.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After the mandate is issued, the stays on the 8 executions would be lifted. But with 1 of the 3 drugs expiring June 30 and the supplier telling the state it would not provide more, it was unclear when the state could resume executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Solomon Graves, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Correction, said he would not speculate about what will happen after the supply of the paralytic expires. Deere said Thursday that the attorney general's office would not advise the Department of Correction to use expired drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The inmates' attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig, said he did not have a comment on the attorney general's decision. He said he still plans to file a petition with the court asking for a rehearing before the mandate is issued.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The court ruled Thursday in a 4-3 decision that the state's 3-drug protocol and the law that allows Arkansas to keep its source of drugs confidential are constitutional. The inmates had argued that Arkansas' execution secrecy law could lead to cruel and unusual punishment and that the state reneged on a pledge to share information.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the high court said that a lower court "erred in ruling that public access to the identity of the supplier of the 3 drugs (the Arkansas Department of Correction) has obtained would positively enhance the functioning of executions in Arkansas. As has been well documented, disclosing the information is actually detrimental to the process."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The inmates argued that without disclosure of the source and other information they had no way to determine whether the midazolam, vecuronium bromide or potassium chloride would lead to cruel and unusual punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The inmates also argued that the secrecy law violates a settlement in an earlier lawsuit that guaranteed inmates would be given the information. The court agreed with the state that the agreement is not a binding contract.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Attorneys for the state said at least 5 other courts have ruled that the three drugs used in Arkansas' protocol are acceptable, including the sedative midazolam. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Oklahoma's use of midazolam last year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Associated Press, June 24, 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/WebDPN/" 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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Death penalty case latest test for Arkansas court

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ3YOdSNkkeO3FBKj6SMt38gpwl17Rk9eZU6XKW4BMaXegob0UevpSzjG_R3Q-RxFLSWs-wawCJxH02sA_6F7kNvuqwyFf02UnLELQnCtTYD3RJViUJzJINM94isFQYS_W7CbIoZsdizw/s1600/Lethal+injections.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ3YOdSNkkeO3FBKj6SMt38gpwl17Rk9eZU6XKW4BMaXegob0UevpSzjG_R3Q-RxFLSWs-wawCJxH02sA_6F7kNvuqwyFf02UnLELQnCtTYD3RJViUJzJINM94isFQYS_W7CbIoZsdizw/s320/Lethal+injections.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A looming Arkansas Supreme Court decision over whether information about execution drugs should be kept secret could reveal whether the state's death penalty system is truly "broken," as Arkansas' last top attorney once claimed. It's the 1st major test for a court whose sharp divisions last year over another divisive issue - gay marriage - resulted in justices punting rather than deciding.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Unlike the gay marriage case, the state's highest court can't rely on the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and decide the issue. But the clock is still ticking, with days to go until part of Arkansas' execution drug supply expires.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roughly a month has passed since justices heard oral arguments from lawyers for the state and the inmates. A lower court struck down the secrecy law, which lets the prison system withhold information about the manufacturer, seller and other information about the lethal drugs, even from the inmates themselves. 8 death-row inmates sued to overturn the law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Arkansas has 34 inmates on death row, but hasn't executed an inmate since 2005, when Mike Huckabee, a Republican, was governor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Former Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, signed death warrants while in office but completed 8 years in office without one taking place, because of legal challenges. He also said he would have abolished the death penalty if lawmakers sent him legislation doing so.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Beebe's successor, Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, is a death penalty supporter but has gone through the first year and a half of his term without an execution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hutchinson set dates last year for the first executions since 2005, but the court granted stays until the inmates' challenge was heard. At the time, he cast it as another step in the legal process.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Had it not been set, then we would be sitting here 2 years, 3 years from now waiting for the next court challenge," Hutchinson told reporters. "Nothing moves if the governor does not set the date."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The window is closing for any of the executions to move forward, even if the state wins the case. Arkansas has until June 30 to execute the inmates with drugs it currently has on-hand. 15 doses of the paralytic vecuronium bromide expire at the end of next month, and the state's supplier has said it will not provide anymore. Sending the case back to Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen, who struck down the law, could narrow that window even further.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Complicating that timeline further is the fact that Supreme Court decisions typically take effect 18 days after they're issued - though justices can stray from that practice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If justices were to allow executions to move forward, Hutchinson and state officials will be faced with the question of how - and if - the state should put 8 men to death in a matter of days. If justices agree with Griffen and strike down the execution law, it puts the state in a familiar position of trying to revive a death penalty process that's been in limbo for more than a decade due to court challenges and drug shortages.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It would also come nearly three years after former Attorney General Dustin McDaniel bemoaned the state of the death penalty system, saying he didn't see executions resuming anytime soon.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I continue to support the death penalty, but it's time to be frank. Our death penalty system as it currently exists is completely broken," McDaniel said 3 years ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The uncertainty surrounding the case is similar to last year, when the state weighed whether to uphold a judge's decision striking down Arkansas' ban on gay marriage. That case was sidelined for months over an unusually public dispute over which justices could hear it. Justices ultimately dismissed the case hours after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This case may not provide clarity on the future of executions in Arkansas. But it could indicate whether the state's highest court is willing to, at least this time, give a definitive answer on a controversial matter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Associated Press, June 19, 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/WebDPN/" 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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A looming Arkansas Supreme Court decision over whether information about execution drugs should be kept secret could reveal whether the stat...

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Judge wants update on Arizona's supply of execution drugs

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKrWGKnCqVqhI-KEAdf9q_SwmSBsVt0AdJwFaQVBgjcM78MeX08DVRDH3cAA3xpqknQPtdDxCMzLWyJ8fqBBwKqZqxAocd1EQDIwGxB3mgjGdhMU3UVX4aFzTOypxloIwPnDmJHAshyIQ/s1600/Lethal+injections.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKrWGKnCqVqhI-KEAdf9q_SwmSBsVt0AdJwFaQVBgjcM78MeX08DVRDH3cAA3xpqknQPtdDxCMzLWyJ8fqBBwKqZqxAocd1EQDIwGxB3mgjGdhMU3UVX4aFzTOypxloIwPnDmJHAshyIQ/s320/Lethal+injections.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A judge presiding over a lawsuit that protests the way Arizona carries out the death penalty has told lawyers to be prepared later this month to reveal the status of the state's supplies of lethal-injection drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">U.S. District Judge Neil Wake says attorneys in the case also should be prepared at the June 29 hearing to discuss whether there are any issues to litigate in the lawsuit if execution drugs aren't currently available in Arizona.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nearly a month ago, the judge ruled that condemned prisoners could press forward with the lawsuit.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The suit comes as the state has faced difficulties in obtaining drugs for executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Executions in Arizona are on hold until the lawsuit is resolved.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The lawsuit seeks more transparency in the state's execution process.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Source: Associated Press, June 15, 2016<br /><br /><div><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>

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7th Oklahoma death row inmate now eligible for execution date

<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/AVvXsEh_Ft0ztXGrsuu5sUplIO9Xf1Ueo6opr-mKL_OgKIUpEkx9UlltAQ6Yx2XMmA8FoUxFaBIz7olFyoAUnYMFhPyXtSDux2EJlg83yFhwj_8HHpsgyExAleuSDMkLa4fO7YX5imJeJcUq_Bc/s1600/The+Oklahoma+State+Penitentiary+in+McAlester.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Oklahoma State Penitentiary" border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Ft0ztXGrsuu5sUplIO9Xf1Ueo6opr-mKL_OgKIUpEkx9UlltAQ6Yx2XMmA8FoUxFaBIz7olFyoAUnYMFhPyXtSDux2EJlg83yFhwj_8HHpsgyExAleuSDMkLa4fO7YX5imJeJcUq_Bc/s400/The+Oklahoma+State+Penitentiary+in+McAlester.jpg" title="Oklahoma State Penitentiary" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oklahoma State Penitentiary</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the final appeal on Monday of Oklahoma death row inmate Scott Eizember, whose 2003 crime spree resulted in the deaths of an elderly couple.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since Eizember has exhausted his appeals, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt would normally ask the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to set an execution date.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, Pruitt has asked that all executions be delayed until the Oklahoma Department of Corrections finishes a report on the state's lethal injection process. Pruitt told the state appeals court in January that it would be inappropriate to move forward with executions while the protocol is being investigated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pruitt said he would not request an execution date until at least 150 days after the corrections department has issued its report.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state has not executed an inmate since January 2015.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are now 7 Oklahoma death row inmates who have exhausted their appeals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The investigation of the state's lethal injection protocol was prompted by the discovery that a pharmacy had delivered the wrong drugs for the Sept. 30 execution of Richard Glossip.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Before that, the constitutionality of the state's lethal injection protocol had gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and was narrowly upheld. The challenge stemmed from the trouble-plagued execution in 2013 of Clayton Lockett.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Eizember, who is now 55, was given the death penalty for killing A.J. Cantrell in the Creek County town of Depew.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Eizember had taken Cantrell and his wife, Patsy, hostage in their home; A.J. Cantrell grabbed his shotgun and shot at Eizember, but his shot killed his own wife. Eizember then beat Cantrell to death with the gun.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Eizember was convicted of 2nd-degree felony murder for Patsy Cantrell's death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After killing Cantrell, he shot a man and beat a woman who were related to his ex-girlfriend and lived across the street from the Cantrells. After days in hiding, he forced a couple to drive him to Texas, then beat the husband and tried to shoot the wife before he was captured.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his arguments last year that 2 jurors in his trial should have been excused because they were improperly biased in favor of the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined without comment to review the appeals court decision.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: The Oklahoman, June 14, 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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Oklahoma State Penitentiary The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the final appeal on Monday of Oklahoma death row inmate Scott Eizember, whose 20...

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Sentenced to death: A waiting game for 'the worst of the worst'

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXedosnEnVevuCSuR7FGA0a05RqQxdGHO51jX3RE4m572xRFlpLP4tCHfgfA0m-mgdcd_wMOMu2NdmdHZwSrXhzy8KFzy3OceZ9n1muRQd0gcon4RrwgMqhvjYsk_0AwvVGWeG7BaY780/s1600/Solitary+Confinement.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXedosnEnVevuCSuR7FGA0a05RqQxdGHO51jX3RE4m572xRFlpLP4tCHfgfA0m-mgdcd_wMOMu2NdmdHZwSrXhzy8KFzy3OceZ9n1muRQd0gcon4RrwgMqhvjYsk_0AwvVGWeG7BaY780/s400/Solitary+Confinement.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When Antwan Andre Anthony was sentenced to death in April for the 2012 killings of 3 convenience store workers in Farmville, it marked the end of a long wait for justice and the start of another.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Anthony, 33, became the fourth man since the early 1990s to be sentenced to death for a conviction of murder in Pitt County. He is one of 150 death row inmates in North Carolina. Before Anthony, the last inmate to be received on death row was in 2014.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Most of North Carolina's death row inmates - 111 of the 151 - have been there for 15 years or longer, with much of that time spent in the appeals process. The state also has had a de facto moratorium on the death penalty, and the last execution was 10 years ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Will Anthony ever meet the fate assigned to him by a jury and judge in Pitt County? It's not likely, according to Frank Baumgartner, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has spent nearly 20 years studying the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"65 % of the time, death sentences are overturned on appeal, and those reversals might come 3 years later, 5 years later, 10 years later, but that's an especially shocking number," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Across the country, more than 8,000 death sentences have been handed down, but many of those sentences are overturned, with the defendant then receiving a sentence of life without parole, Baumgartner said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The 2nd-largest number of people who have been sentenced to death have simply languished on death row for 20 or 30 years," he said. And the least likely outcome is that the person will be executed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Nationally, it's not uncommon that the few executions that do take place, the crimes took place in the '80s," Baumgartner said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The average delay is about 20 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For Anthony, Baumgartner said, "what happens now is going to be a very long waiting game."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Automatic appeals</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Anthony and other defendants sentenced to death automatically are entitled to 2 rounds of appeals, 1 on the state level and another on the federal level, Baumgartner said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is not uncommon for the process to take 10 to 20 years, said Jeff Welty, associate professor of public law and government at the School of Government at UNC.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Generally, there are 4 steps to the appeals process, he said. In the initial step, called the direct appeal, the inmate and his defense team identify what they believe to be legal errors during trial and appeal to the N.C. Supreme Court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If that's not successful, we go to step 2, which is sometimes called the state collateral review, and at that point, the defendant files something called motion for appropriate relief and they file it with the superior court in the jurisdiction where they were tried," Welty said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That already has happened in the Anthony case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Anthony's attorneys filed a motion for appropriate relief about a week after he was sentenced on grounds that a sheriff's office employee reportedly made improper comments within earshot of jurors during the trial. The comments allegedly included the employee's opinion on what should happen to Anthony.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A hearing to determine if that occurred and if it is cause for a new trial or sentencing hearing is scheduled for Aug. 1.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The grounds for reversal have to be very serious findings from appellate court," Baumgartner said. "It would have to be some very serious flaw that could have changed the outcome, either in the trial for guilt or more likely in the penalty phase."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If the superior court does not rule in favor of the defendant on a motion for appropriate relief, the defendant can appeal that decision to the state Supreme Court, Welty said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If that step doesn't bear fruit, then the case moves on to step 3, which is federal habeas review," he said. "... The idea there is to allow federal courts to take a look and make sure that state courts are carrying out their constitutional responsibilities."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That process begins in federal district court and can be appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia and ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If all of those avenues of appeal fail, the defendant's last opportunity is to make a request for clemency to the governor, Welty said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Sticking points</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">North Carolina is 1 of 31 states where the death penalty is legal. It has been abolished in 19 states. While North Carolina has not declared any official moratorium on the death penalty, there have been no executions since 2006.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"There's been a whole bunch of litigation about different aspects of the death penalty that has had the effect of creating a de facto moratorium," Welty said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 3 sticking points have been the requirement that a licensed physician be present during an execution, concerns about the lethal injection procedure and uncertainty surrounding claims filed under the now-repealed Racial Justice Act.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The Medical Board took the position that doctors couldn't participate in executions, and that caused litigation between the state and the Medical Board," Welty said. A bill that became law last year removed that requirement and allows for other medical professionals, a nurse practitioner for example, to be present instead of a doctor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One of the next hurdles is the contention about lethal injection.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Around the country, there's been so many controversies about lethal injections that have gone wrong," Baumgartner said, "so you can bet your bottom dollar that when they schedule the 1st execution, there will be litigation about what drug will be used and how can we guarantee the safety of the drug supply and where do they get the drugs, and all those complicated wranglings will start happening about the lethal injection process."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6fUKet9Z3xSW14vetEBoUiVqQ0uqhmT3q7jepKCdbhSlY9rUKLrOCO-tvOmIoGfQgCDaFcHweHXzwNW_9CLXJEm2CJ97Q_VQsuJOLTt9NH65AUiHBSCijEAup3WkXBB3N8WVIJh-QZ0/s1600/pfizer-world-headquarters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6fUKet9Z3xSW14vetEBoUiVqQ0uqhmT3q7jepKCdbhSlY9rUKLrOCO-tvOmIoGfQgCDaFcHweHXzwNW_9CLXJEm2CJ97Q_VQsuJOLTt9NH65AUiHBSCijEAup3WkXBB3N8WVIJh-QZ0/s320/pfizer-world-headquarters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last month, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer took steps to prevent distribution of its products for use in lethal injections. Pfizer limited the sale of seven of its products to wholesalers, distributors and direct purchasers under the condition that the products would not be resold to correctional institutions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pfizer's move further complicates the lethal injection process in states that used its products for that purpose.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There already is ongoing litigation over the Racial Justice Act, which was enacted in 2009 and allowed inmates to challenge their death sentences based on racial disparity statistics, related mostly to jury selection, Baumgartner said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nearly all death row inmates filed claims under the act, and 4 cases were heard in court, with each defendant seeing success. But the act was repealed last year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A Cumberland County judge assigned to hear the 4 inmates' appeals on Thursday volunteered to remove himself, following months of arguments by defense attorneys that he had conflicts of interest. Another judge will be assigned to hear the appeals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Lawyers will be arguing probably for more than another year about whether the inmates who filed have a right to have their case heard under a law that no longer exists," Baumgartner said. "You have to be a lawyer to figure that one out, but it's still part of the landscape here in North Carolina, so I don't think we're going to be looking at the resumption of executions anytime soon."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>'Worst of the worst'</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Experts say there has been a sharp decline in the number of death sentences. In the last 5 years, 7 men have been sentenced to death in North Carolina.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Between 1993 and 1999, the number of defendants to receive the death penalty statewide generally was in double-digits. Now, the number of death sentences each year ranges from 0 to 3.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The main reason is prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty as much, and juries are loathe to hand it out anymore," Baumgartner said. That may be because a high number of the accused have had their convictions overturned after it was determined they were innocent, he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"There's been about 1,400 executions nationally since 1976 and 158 exonerations," he said. "In North Carolina, there have been 42 (executions) and 5 or 6 exonerations. So it's almost like 1 in 10. That's a pretty scary, pretty low batting average of getting it right."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some might ask why the state even goes to bat for the death penalty if so many sentences are overturned and there have been no executions in the last 10 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The death penalty is still on the books," Pitt County Assistant District Attorney Clark Everett said. "I think you have to have the death penalty there for the worst of the worst. It's got to be there.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"You have to do it because who knows what's coming next week," he said. "If you don't follow the law and have some threshold where you say, 'Alright, this is a death penalty case,' then it pretty much puts you in a situation where you're never going to be able to."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The threshold includes 3 components: The murder must be particularly horrible, a double or triple homicide, for example; overwhelming evidence of guilt; and a defendant with significant criminal or violent history.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Juries who have found a defendant guilty in a capital trial face the task of determining if he should receive a sentence of life in prison without parole or death, but for now, Baumgartner says there isn't much of a difference.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The odds are that the person won't be executed, even though the state may try its best to make it happen," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nationally, there is only a 13 % chance it will be carried out, he said. Among those, the executions come decades later, after several appeals, which serve as a routine reminder of the crime. But defendants sentenced to life without parole are not guaranteed the same automatic appeals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"LWOP is a death penalty by another name because you don't leave prison alive, and there's nothing light about that penalty," Baumgartner said. "It's like 2 forms of a death penalty we're talking about: one where you get automatic appeals and the most likely outcome is you end up on LWOP eventually, just after many years of appeals, and the other is you just go straight to LWOP, and that's the end of the story."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For Anthony, the process is just beginning.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"What will happen now is he'll get automatic appeals, and there will be a lot of money spent and, most likely, he'll never be executed," Baumgartner said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It's just a tragedy all the way around," he said, "because it's not helpful to anybody in the system to have a death penalty in name only."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Reflector.com, June 12, 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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When Antwan Andre Anthony was sentenced to death in April for the 2012 killings of 3 convenience store workers in Farmville, it marked the e...

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A sane approach to dealing with mentally ill death row inmates

<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/AVvXsEjd6T7Wrv-JmT6gLhuIBC8jNKy99J5jFlpnwzNDYc_gqqgRqMmuEIR1slDOVw2-NpW7BHwgC6wRA57gtVuGGsLfDtBlk-A0biXMUpFaPfwuRuHyjxUiaLMy9h0LPDXP3n_0etecIyID9WI/s1600/California+Death+Row_+A+guard+stands+watch+over+the+condemned+prisoners+housed+in+East+Block+during+a+media+tour+of+death+row+a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="San Quentin's death row" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd6T7Wrv-JmT6gLhuIBC8jNKy99J5jFlpnwzNDYc_gqqgRqMmuEIR1slDOVw2-NpW7BHwgC6wRA57gtVuGGsLfDtBlk-A0biXMUpFaPfwuRuHyjxUiaLMy9h0LPDXP3n_0etecIyID9WI/s400/California+Death+Row_+A+guard+stands+watch+over+the+condemned+prisoners+housed+in+East+Block+during+a+media+tour+of+death+row+a.jpg" title="San Quentin's death row" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">San Quentin's death row</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">California's death penalty system has been broken for so long, you could forgive people for thinking that it no longer exists. The last person executed at San Quentin was Clarence Ray Allen, who arranged the murders of 3 people in Fresno - 1 who revealed details of a burglary Allen had planned, and 2 others who testified against him. His January 2006 execution came 23 years after his conviction.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since then, legal challenges have left California without a constitutional method of executing prisoners. The state has proposed a new lethal-injection protocol, but more lawsuits will likely stall the resumption of executions for the foreseeable future, and an initiative headed for the fall ballot would ban it outright. It's unclear how many executions have been forestalled by the freeze. Of 747 people on California's death row - most of them men held at San Quentin - only 18 have exhausted their appeals and could be slated for execution should the "machinery of death," as Justice Harry A. Blackmun once described it, ever be turned back on.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We hope it won't be. The result of a too-easily manipulated system, the practice is barbaric, immoral and applied disproportionately to people of color. As Paige St. John reported recently in our news pages, there also are many condemned prisoners in California who can't legally be put to death. The Supreme Court has held that the state can't execute someone who doesn't have a "rational understanding" of why he or she is about to be executed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state historically has argued that it could not acquiesce in removing a convicted killer from death row unless it believed there was a miscarriage of justice. And the mental state of a condemned person does not become a legal issue until execution is near, in part because many forms of mental illness come and go.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But now, under an agreement worked out with the state-funded office that coordinates death sentence appeals, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris has taken the unusual step of joining the defense in asking the state Supreme Court to invalidate the death sentence of Ronnie McPeters. McPeters, a panhandler convicted of the 1984 murder of Linda Pasnick in Fresno, converses with a nonexistent wife and children, hoards his feces and says he's tormented by the voices of his victim's relatives.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One inmate continually bangs his head against the wall, believes he is controlled by computer chips and says he dies every night only to be reborn [every day].</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Though we wish that Harris, who personally opposes the death penalty, would use this opportunity to make a broader call for its abolition, we welcome her efforts to move inmates such as McPeters off death row. Working with defense lawyers to identify those ineligible for the death penalty earlier in the appeals process keeps the state from wasting time and resources pursuing executions that are constitutionally barred from occurring. No public interest is served by the state doggedly fighting a battle it knows it can't win, and we hope the state Supreme Court affirms this new process.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What depths of insanity are involved here? One inmate continually bangs his head against the wall, believes he is controlled by computer chips and says he dies every night only to be reborn the next morning. Another seesaws between delusions and catatonia, spending days at a time naked and smeared with his own feces on the floor of his cell. Several have had their appeals indefinitely delayed because they are too incapacitated to assist in their own counsel, yet they remain on death row ostensibly awaiting execution. If they're too crazy for court, they're certainly too crazy for the death chamber.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Victims' families have legitimate grievances, and a right to want the guilty punished. But executions do not achieve justice; they are revenge killings conducted by the state on behalf of the victims, and serve no broader societal or judicial purpose. And fighting to push the insane closer to the needle moves the practice into the realm of the absurd.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If a condemned person doesn't understand why he or she is to be killed by the state, the state must recognize that and place the convicted in circumstances that will ensure basic constitutional rights are protected. Even the guilty are human beings, and must be treated as such.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Editorial, Los Angeles Times, June 12, 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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San Quentin's death row California's death penalty system has been broken for so long, you could forgive people for thinking that it...

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Duterte eyeing 50 executions every month - lawmaker

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiSaVdAYljJgek6IgLWvmN3kVJVXDvf_Mv5K086HeVwV32GVWFwVM36OF-JUtTP_r6TcxrvX3E1Bobh3fFR7dHMKmupY8RJXGaWAT9sFAVU057uk1d1jDTnBfopjuwrDsdt1V3AOLsv8A/s1600/Rodrigo+Duterte_+tarpaulins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiSaVdAYljJgek6IgLWvmN3kVJVXDvf_Mv5K086HeVwV32GVWFwVM36OF-JUtTP_r6TcxrvX3E1Bobh3fFR7dHMKmupY8RJXGaWAT9sFAVU057uk1d1jDTnBfopjuwrDsdt1V3AOLsv8A/s400/Rodrigo+Duterte_+tarpaulins.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Incoming president Rodrigo Duterte wants 50 convicts executed every month by hanging once Congress re-imposes the death penalty, representative-elect Danilo Suarez of Quezon said yesterday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"He feels that if at least 50 drug lords and other convicts are hanged every month, their execution will deter crime," he told the Usaping Balita forum at the Serye Cafe in Quezon City.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said Duterte revealed his plans during a meeting with 19 members of the House of Representatives led by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. on Tuesday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said the nation's next leader told them that he would like Congress to restore the death penalty within 6 months or before year end.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said Duterte intends to certify a <a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/2016/06/philippines-pro-death-penalty-bill.html" target="_blank">capital punishment re-imposition bill as urgent</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Suarez recalled that in the course of Tuesday's meeting, reelected Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., who is being groomed to chair the House appropriations committee, suggested that funds could be set aside for the rehabilitation of the death chamber at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa, where execution through lethal injection could be carried out.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"But the president-elect declared there was no need for it as he preferred hanging as mode of execution," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said if Congress enacts a bill lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 15, youth convicted of heinous crimes such as drug trafficking would be covered by the planned re-imposition of the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kabataan Rep. Terry Ridon, another guest at the forum, said Duterte would not see the execution of convicted drug lords and other offenders in the early part of his administration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"They have to go through the legal process. The offenders have to be convicted. Then there is the mandatory review of their conviction. Knowing our justice system, it will take time, maybe years," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said the death penalty, if Congress restores it, would be applied on future offenders, not on convicts serving time at Bilibid.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Suarez agreed with Ridon, but said if suspected drug lords choose to fight law enforcers, they would suffer death just the same.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"In our province, if there is a drug lord in a community and he is arrested, he is freed and is back to his illegal activities in a few days because he has bribed the judge and the prosecutor. This does not happen in Davao City (where Duterte is mayor)," Suarez said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said the incoming leader asked him, Belmonte and Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Farinas, who is being eyed as the next majority leader, to help incoming speaker Pantaleon Alvarez push for the return of capital punishment and other legislative priorities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They said they promised to support Duterte's priority legislative measures.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ridon, who belongs to the Makabayan bloc, said their group would oppose the re-imposition of the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I predict a showdown on this issue inside and outside Congress, what with the Catholic Church against the death penalty," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said there are also party-list representatives, including Lito Atienza of Buhay, who are opposed to capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I think it will face rough sailing," he added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Pro-death penalty</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Returning senator Panfilo Lacson yesterday said he supports the reimposition of the death penalty for heinous crimes but not by hanging as proposed by Duterte.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lacson said he finds the penalty "too medieval."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Senate President Franklin Drilon, for his part, said he is open to a discussion on the proposal to restore the death penalty in the country.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, he said that this is not a decision that should be rushed because it carries with it very serious implications.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>'Uphold rule of law'</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Acting Justice Secretary Emmanuel Caparas is hopeful that the administration of Duterte will respect and uphold the rule of law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a press conference yesterday, he urged critics to give Duterte a chance to perform his duties amid criticisms on his manner of speaking and perceived inhuman anti-criminality policies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Let's give the incoming president a chance. If after several months or years we see something wrong, then that's the time we speak. For now, let's allow him to do his job," Caparas stressed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The outgoing Department of Justice (DOJ) chief revealed that he already met with his successor, Vitaliano Aguirre II, for the transition of administration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We had 2 productive sessions. He strikes me as a man who wants to get to the bottom of things immediately. As what he said in the media, he would like to prioritize cases on drugs and graft and corruption," he bared.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Caparas also dispelled fears of the DOJ dropping from its witnesses protection program (WPP) the witness on alleged anomalies in the administration of detained former president and re-elected Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a known ally of Duterte.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: PhilippineStar, June 10, 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>

Catholics Death Penalty Restoration Drug trafficking lethal injections Philippines Public hanging Rodrigo Duterte Duterte eyeing 50 executions every month - lawmaker

Incoming president Rodrigo Duterte wants 50 convicts executed every month by hanging once Congress re-imposes the death penalty, representat...

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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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Federal Judge OKs Louisiana’s Request For No Executions Until At Least 2018

<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/AVvXsEihD2tQsvwW9xWMK3kcI9uRu0X_x7vUN75i8k7jzUNg64yRv3AibgHVHqropsIaHJvipBU8-WEIfrJvC3oh2HEKWO9Y9lO6pMxg-ecqK4eQKhutIu6TioINS_nx-A7qzAL3jtXKCcnHmmE/s1600/Louisiana+Death+Chamber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Louisiana's death chamber" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihD2tQsvwW9xWMK3kcI9uRu0X_x7vUN75i8k7jzUNg64yRv3AibgHVHqropsIaHJvipBU8-WEIfrJvC3oh2HEKWO9Y9lO6pMxg-ecqK4eQKhutIu6TioINS_nx-A7qzAL3jtXKCcnHmmE/s320/Louisiana+Death+Chamber.jpg" title="Louisiana's death chamber" width="301" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Louisiana's death chamber</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Tuesday approved Louisiana officials’ request that a stay on executions in the state be extended into 2018.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The delay was approved by U.S. District Court Judge James J. Brady in ongoing litigation brought by two death row inmates, Jessie Hoffman and Christopher Sepulvado.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state had filed <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2850524/LA-Stay-Request.pdf" target="_blank">the unopposed request</a> earlier in the day on Tuesday. Although Brady’s approval of the order is dated Tuesday, it was not posted on the court’s docket until Wednesday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Prior to this week’s order, all proceedings in the case had been on hold through July 11, 2016.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Counsel were in agreement that a continuance of the stay for another year was appropriate,” attorneys for the state wrote. However, “given that a twelve month stay would put all parties back in the position of dealing with a legislative session and possible conflicts resulting from same, it would be prudent to extend the stay for eighteen months or until approximately January 8, 2018.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Brady granted the request, extending the stay through Jan. 8, 2018, on which date he scheduled a status conference in the case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The lawsuit, initially brought in 2012, has been on hold since early 2014, with the stay of the case having been extended several times. In January 2014, Brady had <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2850574/LA-Deny-MtD-2014.pdf" target="_blank">denied</a> the state’s motion to dismiss the case, holding that Hoffman and Sepulvado stated several claims in their complaint that, while they might not ultimately succeed, are “plausible on its face.” Brady allowed Eighth Amendment and equal protection claims brought by the inmates regarding the state’s lethal injection protocol and a claim seeking protections giving them access to the courts to proceed to trial.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Louisiana has only held two executions in the past 15 years, the most recent in 2010. As of Jan. 1, however, the state had more than 80 people on death row.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While the case currently only includes two of those people, others could join the challenge if the state attempted to set an execution date for them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/judge-approves-state-request-for-no-executions-in-louisiana" target="_blank">Buzzfeed</a>, June 2, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><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>

lethal injections Louisiana Stay of execution USA Federal Judge OKs Louisiana’s Request For No Executions Until At Least 2018

Louisiana's death chamber WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Tuesday approved Louisiana officials’ request that a stay on executions in the...

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