Month: July 2015

Oklahoma sets execution dates for inmates who lost Supreme Court case

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – An Oklahoma court on Wednesday set execution dates for three inmates who lost a battle to have the U.S. Supreme Court put their capital punishment on hold because of problems they claimed with the state’s lethal injection mix.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals set Sept. 16 for the execution of Richard Glossip, Oct. 7 for Benjamin Cole and Oct. 28 for John Grant, a court clerk said.
Glossip arranged for his employer to be beaten to death. Cole killed his 9-month-old daughter. Grant stabbed a correctional worker to death.
The attorney general had asked the court to resume executions as soon as August.
The state suspended all executions after the troubled April 2014 lethal injection of convicted murderer Clayton Lockett.
He could be seen twisting on the gurney after death chamber staff failed to place the intravenous line properly. The execution was called off but he died about 45 minutes after it started because of lethal injection chemicals that had accumulated in his tissue.
Lawyers for the three inmates facing execution argued that a drug in the state’s lethal injection mix, a sedative named midazolam, cannot achieve the level of unconsciousness required for surgery, making it unsuitable for executions.
On June 29, the Supreme Court found the drug did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, a ruling that provoked a caustic debate among the justices about the death penalty in America.
Florida, which has used the drug in 11 lethal injections, had placed a hold on executions while the case was before the court. It plans to resume executions soon.
The drug is also used in Ohio and Arizona, which do not have any executions currently planned for the rest of the year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors U.S. capital punishment.
Source: Reuters, July 8, 2015

 

How a President Hillary Clinton could help end the death penalty

Thursday, July 9, 2015

On the last day of this year’s Supreme Court term, the court handed down Glossip v. Gloss, ruling 5-4 that Oklahoma’s death penalty protocols were constitutional, despite the significant risk that the state’s experimental lethal injection procedures would result in death by torture.
Glossip is likely to be remembered for more than the specific holding of the case, however. In addition to Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent taking apart the majority’s logic on the narrow issue at stake, Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a separate dissent concluded: “I believe it highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment.” Breyer’s dissent is important, leading some to even conclude that the Supreme Court might actually rule that way in the near future. But this probably won’t happen unless a Democratic president replaces one of the Republican-appointed justices on the court, which is another reason the Supreme Court will be a top issue in the 2016 presidential race.
A majority of the Supreme Court has never held that the death penalty is categorically unconstitutional – indeed, there have never been more than 2 justices at any one time who supported this view. In the 1972 case Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court suspended executions, but 3 of the 5 justices in the majority held that the death penalty would be constitutional if applied fairly. Only 2 justices – William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall – held that the death penalty was always unconstitutional, a position they held for the rest of their tenures.
2 other justices, Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens, wrote opinions shortly before their retirement suggesting that the death penalty might be unconstitutional. But otherwise every justice has supported the compromise the court reached in 1976: The death penalty is constitutional if applied in a more fair and rational manner.
It is possible that Breyer’s opinion will be seen as a fraying of this compromise and a crucial step towards a ruling that the death penalty is unconstitutional. But if so, it is likely to be a process that plays out over a fairly long period.
At Slate, Robert J. Smith gives the most optimistic reading of Breyer’s dissent from the perspective of death penalty opponents, suggesting that there might be 5 votes on the current court to abolish the death penalty.
His argument is superficially persuasive. Justice Anthony Kennedy has been the swing vote to hold the death penalty unconstitutional for some offenses and offenders: those with mental disabilities, felons under 18, and people convicted of the sexual assault of children. It’s true, Smith acknowledges, that this collectively represents a small fraction of people sentenced to death. But on gay and lesbian rights, Kennedy started out by authoring some modest, incremental opinions – such as those striking down rarely enforced anti-sodomy laws – and proceeded to a landmark opinion creating a national right to same-sex marriage. Particularly with public opinion trending against the death penalty, why wouldn’t Kennedy write the death penalty equivalent of Obergefell v. Hodges?
The comparison, though, fails to withstand scrutiny. The crucial difference is that on LBGT rights, Kennedy batted 1.000. He never rejected an important claim that came to a vote on the merits. On the death penalty, conversely, Kennedy has hardly been a consistent friend to abolitionists. He joined, for example, a notorious opinion by former Chief Justice William Rehnquist holding that new evidence of actual innocence did not entitle someone convicted of a capital crime to federal habeas corpus relief. He has voted to uphold the constitutionality of victim impact statements, which lead to harsher punishments; death sentences where the mitigating and aggravating factors found by a jury were equally balanced; and another state’s lethal injection protocol.
Admittedly, some of these opinions are 2 decades old, and Kennedy might have changed his mind about the fundamental constitutionality of the death penalty. (Stevens, after all, was 1 of the 3 justices who authored the joint opinion announcing the 1976 compromise.) But Glossip itself provides powerful evidence against this possibility. Among other things, Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion represents a sort of obscene gesture to death penalty opponents: “If you use legal methods to prevent states from carrying out a particular form of execution, it therefore has the right to carry out less humane ones.”
This is nothing less than a justification for torture. It is very hard to imagine someone who opposes the death penalty in principle joining this opinion, which is exactly what Kennedy did.
It is thus vanishingly unlikely that this court will hold the death penalty unconstitutional. The interesting question is what might happen should a justice nominated by a Democrat become the median vote of the court. In a recent paper, the University of Maryland legal scholar Mark Graber suggests that we are about to see a much more polarized Supreme Court that, rather than hewing towards centrist opinions, swings well to the left or right depending on who has the fifth vote.
The death penalty is one area where this may be most evident. Unless popular opinion shifts strongly in favor of the death penalty, Breyer’s opinion may very well reflect the default position of Democratic nominees, even the most conservative ones. If President Hillary Clinton can replace one of the Republican nominees on the court, we could ultimately see a decision declaring that the death penalty violates the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments
But there’s a dark side to the polarized court from the perspective of death penalty opponents. If President Scott Walker or Marco Rubio replaces Justice Ginsbug and/or Breyer, states might aggressively expand the death penalty to encompass homicides committed by minors or the sexual assault of children – and these laws would likely be upheld.
Breyer’s dissent does not reflect a court that is going to rule the death penalty unconstitutional in the short term. But it does suggest that it is a medium-term possibility – and that the stakes of future presidential elections are about to get even higher, with control of the median vote of the Supreme Court accruing a greater policy impact than it’s ever had.
Source: theweek.com, July 8, 2015

 

U.S. appeals court stays Ohio death row inmate’s potential execution

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday granted an Ohio death row inmate’s request to stay his potential execution, saying lower courts failed to properly weigh his intellectual abilities.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati said in its opinion that Ohio state courts incorrectly applied the law with regard to whether Andre Williams was intellectually disabled. It sent the case back to the district court to reconsider Williams’ argument that he was ineligible for the death penalty because of his low mental capabilities.
“We note that clearly established federal law … requires courts to consider all relevant evidence bearing on an individual’s intellectual functioning,” Judge Karen Nelson Moore wrote in the ruling.
In 1989, Williams, now 48, was convicted and given the death penalty for the aggravated murder of George Melnick, 65, and the attempted rape and attempted murder of Katherine Melnick, also 65.
Williams appealed his death sentence, but an Ohio county court and the state’s 11th District Court of Appeals ruled against Williams’ right to an evidentiary hearing in the matter.
His attorneys argued that records showed Williams at the age of 15 had a “social age of 9” and an IQ of 67, which met the criteria for the U.S. Supreme Court’s standard of intellectual disability.
State attorneys countered Williams’ adult IQ was 75, based on a test administered in prison. That was within a five-point margin of error of the lowest score possible for allowing the death penalty.
Moore admonished the lower court for relying on intelligence tests that are imprecise and said the childhood IQ score “was directly relevant to the obviously extremely important issue of whether Williams should live or die based on his intellectual functioning.”
There is no date scheduled for Williams’ execution and a district judge has stayed all executions in the state until 2016 so Ohio can procure the drugs needed in the lethal injection.
Source: Reuters, July 7, 2015

 

Florida: Executions Back on Track after High Court Ruling

The US Supreme Court has ruled that the drug midazolam is acceptable for use in lethal injections. 4 Oklahoma convicts had challenged the drugs use, and Florida courts stopped executions here pending the outcome. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the ruling is now likely to open the door to dozens of executions in Florida.
The High Court ruling is 127 pages long, but its essence can be found in the 1st sentence. “Because Capital punishment is constitutional, there must be a constitutional means of carrying it out” wrote the majority.
The ruling is a set back for anti death penalty advocates in Florida. Sheila Meenan represents Citizens Against the Death Penalty and while disappointed, remains hopeful.
“I do’t think there’s going to be an end to the death penalty anytime soon, but I do believe and am extremely hopeful, and it won’t be too long from now when the US Supreme Court is going to say that the death penalty is against the constitution” says Meehan.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote one of two blistering dissents.
“She really talked about how this drug, midazolam, could even be the equivalent of the chemical of burning at the stake. She used very strong language along those lines and as I say, 3 others concurred with her in that dissent” says Meehan.
Quadruple murderer Jerry Correll’s execution was stopped in February. It could soon be back on. Jerry Correll’s execution would set a record of 22 for one governor in modern times. A list prepared by the Florida Supreme court identified more than 100 inmates who have exhausted their appeals. Meehan says the decision opens the door to multiple warrants.
“Now that this decision is out, there is really nothing to stop Governor Scott from signing lots of death warrants. We’ve got lots of people, more than 400 people on Florida’s death row” says Meehan.
The Florida Department of Corrections did not respond to requests for an interview
This afternoon’s death row count was actually 396. And late this afternoon, Attorney General Pam Bondi asked the Florida Supreme Court to lift the Stay of Execution for Jerry Correll. Once lifted, the door is open for Governor Rick Scott to sign his and other death warrants.

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:

We ask the Federal Government of the United States to abolish the federal death penalty. While we recognize the rights of states to determine within their borders the limits of punishment, the United States remains one of increasingly few nations who endorse this archaic practice AS a nation. Recently botched lethal injections caused torturous, cruel and unusual deaths for a number of those so sentenced. This sort of problem is not the first in the history of the DP’s institution. Public support for the sentence is currently at an all time low. Fewer states are allowing this sentence than ever in the his. Innocent people have been killed and such situations are cruel and blatantly unconstitutional. This would be an admirable first step to correctional reform.Please set this needed example.

Published Date: Jul 02, 2015
petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/abolish-federal-death-penalty

Missouri: July 14, scheduled execution of David Zink EXECUTED 7:41 PM

Zinks last meal was a cheeseburger, french fries, cheesecake and a soft drink, official said.

In a final statement, Zink said:

“I can’t imagine the pain and anguish one experiences when they learn that someone has killed a loved one, and I offer my sincerest apology to Amanda Morton’s family and friends for my actions. I hope my execution brings them the peace and satisfaction they seek.

I also have to apologize to the second set of victims, my family and friends, that had the unfortunate circumstance of developing emotions which will now cause them pain and suffering upon my execution. I kept my promise to fight this case for their benefit, and although unsuccessful to prevent the execution, we have been successful in exposing some serious flaws that offend the basic concept of the American Justice System.

For those who remain on death row, understand that everyone is going to die. Statistically speaking, we have a much easier death than most, so I encourage you to embrace it and celebrate our true liberation before society figures it out and condemns us to life without parole and we too will die a lingering death.”

7:50 p.m.

A Missouri inmate who killed a 19-year-old woman after sexually attacking her and tying her to a cemetery tree has been executed.

Fifty-five-year-old David Zink was put to death by injection Tuesday at a state prison south of St. Louis after the U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Jay Nixon declined to intervene.

Zink was a paroled sex offender in 2001 when he abducted Amanda Morton after hitting her car on an Interstate 44 exit ramp a mile from her home. He told investigators he feared his drunken fender-bender could violate his parole and send him back to prison.

Jurors convicted Zink in 2004 and recommended a death sentence.

Corrections Department spokesman Mike O’Connell said Zink was pronounced dead at 7:41 p.m.

———

7 p.m.

The U.S. Supreme Court is refusing to block the scheduled execution of a Missouri inmate who killed a 19-year-old woman in 2001 after sexually attacking her and tying her to a cemetery tree.

The nation’s high court on Tuesday declined 55-year-old David Zink’s request to intervene. His lethal injection is set for later Tuesday. Gov. Jay Nixon also denied Zink’s request for clemency.

Zink was a paroled sex offender in 2001 when he abducted Amanda Morton after hitting her car on an Interstate 44 exit ramp a mile from her home. He told investigators he feared his drunken fender-bender could violate his parole and send him back to prison.

Jurors convicted Zink in 2004 and recommended a death sentence.

———

6:50 p.m.

Missouri’s governor has cleared the way for the scheduled execution of an inmate who killed a 19-year-old woman in 2001 after sexually attacking her and tying her to a cemetery tree.

Gov. Jay Nixon on Tuesday denied 55-year-old David Zink’s request for clemency and refused to block the execution scheduled for later Tuesday at a prison south of St. Louis.

Zink was a paroled sex offender in 2001 when he abducted Amanda Morton after hitting her car on an Interstate 44 exit ramp a mile from her home. He told investigators he feared his drunken fender-bender could violate his parole and send him back to prison.

Jurors convicted Zink in 2004 and recommended a death sentence. Nixon called the acts “brutal and horrifying” and said his denial of clemency upholds the jury’s decision.

———

11:30 a.m.

A Missouri inmate’s hopes of avoiding a scheduled execution for a 2001 killing are now in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court and the governor.

A three-judge panel with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday declined without comment David Zink’s claims that the death penalty is unconstitutional.

The St. Louis-based court on Monday rejected Zink’s challenge of the drug process used in lethal injections.

The nation’s high court is still weighing Zink’s case, and Gov. Jay Nixon is reviewing Zink’s clemency request.

Zink is scheduled to be put to death at 6 p.m. Tuesday for the killing of a 19-year-old Amanda Morton.

12:01 a.m.

A Missouri inmate is hoping federal appellate courts or the state’s governor spare him from his scheduled execution for the 2001 killing of a 19-year-old woman he abducted.

Fifty-five-year-old David Zink has 11th-hour appeals with the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, and a clemency request also was in Gov. Jay Nixon’s hands.

The Missouri Supreme Court declined to intervene Monday.

Zink was out on parole after serving 20 years in Texas on rape, abduction and escape charges when he abducted Amanda Morton after hitting her car from behind on a freeway ramp a mile from her Strafford home.

Zink later tied her to a cemetery tree in western Missouri, then snapped her neck before severing her spinal cord.

“The horror and fear 19-year-old Amanda Morton must have felt after being kidnapped by David Zink that July night is truly unimaginable,” Attorney General Chris Koster made the following statement following the execution. “David Zink callously took a young woman’s life, and it is fitting he pay by losing his own.”

Jurors in western Missouri’s St. Clair County deliberated 90 minutes in 2004 before convicting Zink and recommending a death sentence for the killing of Amanda Morton. Authorities said Zink abducted her after hitting her car from behind on an Interstate 44 exit ramp a mile from her Strafford home. Morton was driving home after visiting a friend.

Police found Morton’s Chevrolet Cavalier abandoned on the ramp with the keys in the ignition, the engine running and the headlights and hazard lights on. Her purse, credit card and medication were found inside the vehicle.

Just months before the slaying, Zink had been released from a Texas prison after serving 20 years on rape, abduction and escape charges. Fearing that his drunken fender-bender with Morton could violate his parole and send him back to prison, Zink initially abducted Morton, taking her to a motel. That site’s manager later saw a televised news report about Morton’s disappearance, recognized her as the woman who had checked in with Zink, and gave investigators Zink’s name and license plate number from motel registration.

Zink, after being arrested at his parents’ home, led authorities to Morton’s buried body in a cemetery, confessing matter-of-factly and at times laughing on videotape that he had tied her to a tree there and told her to look up. When the bewildered Morton begrudgingly glanced skyward, Zink said, he snapped her neck.

Worried that Morton might regain consciousness, Zink admitted, he used a knife to sever her spinal cord at the neck and covered her body with leaves before retrieving from his home a shovel he used to bury her.

“If I think that you’re going to pose a threat to my freedom, it is set in my mind I want to eliminate you,” Zink says in his videotaped confession.

An autopsy later showed that Morton had eight broken ribs and 50 to 100 blunt-force injuries. Morton also had been sexually assaulted, with DNA evidence linked to Zink found on her body.

Missouri has executed five men this year and 16 since November 2013. Only Texas has executed more inmates over that span

Florida Supreme Court rejects appeal by Jacksonville Death Row inmate Pinkney ‘Chip’ Carter

The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence of a Jacksonville man who killed his ex-girlfriend, her new boyfriend and her daughter.

FILE - Pinkney "Chip" Carter is seen in court for his arraignment on the triple murder of his former girlfriend, Elizabeth Smith Reed, 35, Reed's 16-year-old daughter, Courtney Smith, and Reed's new boyfriend, Glenn Carter Pafford, 49, on July 24, 2002. Times-Union staff

Pinkney “Chip” Carter, now 60, was convicted of three counts of murder in 2005. The jury found he drove to his ex-girlfriend’s Arlington home and shot and killed the victims. Liz Reed, his ex-girlfriend, was 35; her boyfriend, Glenn Pafford, was 49; and her daughter, Courtney Smith, was 16.

The murders occurred in 2002. All were shot with a .22-caliber rifle Carter said he took to the home to get answers from Reed about their break-up. Reed and Pafford died instantly, and Smith died later in a hospital.

The jury voted 9-3 for death for killing Pafford and 8-4 for death for killing Reed. Circuit Judge Lance Day sentenced Carter to two death sentences for those murders and gave him a life sentence for killing Smith.

Attorney Frank Tassone argued that Carter’s trial attorneys didn’t do a good enough job defending him, saying attorneys should’ve brought in mental-health experts to testify that Carter was experiencing a mental or emotional disturbance.

Carter was defended at trial by Bill White, who was then the elected public defender in Jacksonville, and former Assistant Public Defender Alan Chipperfield.

But the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the death sentence, finding that Carter’s trial counsel did investigate his mental health, retain experts and had full psychological evaluations done.

The defense team had previously said it did not call these mental-health experts during Carter’s penalty phase because the conclusion reached by them would not have helped. Attorneys instead attempted to argue that Carter was a good guy who deserved life in prison over death.

Introducing the experts also would have allowed prosecutors to produce more evidence of Carter’s violent past. For example, Carter once held a knife to an ex-wife’s throat and was declared a sexual deviant.

After the murders, Carter fled Jacksonville, traveling through several states before ditching the murder weapon in the Rio Grande and swimming to Mexico, where he was arrested for entering the country illegally. He was released by Mexican authorities after paying a fine and then disappeared.

Carter was finally arrested Jan. 6, 2004, near Paducah, Ky., where he was working as a roofer under the alias of Rodney Vonthun. He had been picked up earlier for being drunk in public and was released the next day. But an alert Kentucky state trooper later recognized his photo on an FBI wanted poster in another police station.

This was Carter’s second appeal, the Florida Supreme Court rejected a previous appeal in 2008.

Lawyers for Carter will likely begin appealing the decision in federal court.

 

CONNECTICUT ABOLISHES JUVENILE LIFE-WITHOUT-PAROLE SENTENCES

Last week, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy signed SB 796, which abolished life-without-parole sentences for all children.

The new law requires judges to consider both the hallmark features of adolescence as well as the scientific differences between child and adult offenders whenever children are sentenced in adult court for serious crimes. Furthermore, the law establishes special parole eligibility for children, ensuring review after serving no more than 30 years, and specifying youth-related factors for the parole board to consider.

The bill provides earlier parole eligibility for more than 200 individuals who are currently serving sentences for offenses committed while they were children.

Connecticut joins a growing number of states that have abolished the practice of sentencing children to die in prison. Nevada,Vermont, Hawaii, West Virginia, Delaware, Wyoming, and Texas also recently eliminated death-in-prison sentences for children.

Florida – Court Upholds Death Row Inmate’s Sentence

Jul 01, 2015

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court has rejected a Virginia death row inmate’s claim that he can’t be executed because he is intellectually disabled.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday unanimously upheld Alfredo Prieto’s death sentence for the 2005 slayings of two George Washington University students.

At issue in Prieto’s appeal was last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Florida case that a rigid cutoff on IQ test scores cannot be used to determine whether someone is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution. Virginia’s law on determining whether a defendant is intellectually disabled was virtually identical to Florida’s.

The appeals court said it could not conclude that no reasonable juror would find Prieto eligible for the death penalty.

Life on Alabama Death Row? 45 convicted killers have served 20 or more years

It has been nearly 37 years since Willene and Carl Nelson were shot and stabbed to death in a robbery at their Blount County home in 1978. Their three children, then ages 10, 13 and 21, were critically wounded but survived, as did the children’s 85-year-old grandmother.

Arthur Lee Giles — who will turn 56 on July 15 — went to Alabama Death Row for the crime in 1979.

Giles is Alabama’s second longest serving death row inmate and one of 45 Alabama inmates who have faced execution for 20 or more years. There have been nine presidential elections since Giles first arrived on death row.

Only William Bush, sentenced in the 1981 shooting death of Montgomery convenience store clerk Larry Dominguez, has served more time on death row than Giles. According to the Alabama Department of Corrections, Bush has served 33 years, 10 months, and eight days.

Nearly two years have passed since Alabama executed an inmate, but a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week might pave the way for more executions.

In a 5-4 decision Monday, the court ruled that one of the drugs used in lethal injections does not violate the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment.

What does that mean for Alabama?

“The U.S. Supreme Court has spoken on the constitutionality of states’ use of lethal injections and death penalty opponents cannot continue to indefinitely delay lawful executions,” Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange stated in a press release issued Monday morning.

“Opponents of lethal injections have repeatedly used court challenges of certain lethal injection drugs as ways to delay or avoid lawful executions,” Strange stated. “The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed our belief that executions using these lethal injection drugs are not cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore are not prohibited under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”

There are 189 inmates on Alabama’s death row — all but three are men, according to ADOC. The average age is 39. (The oldest inmate, 80-year-old Walter Leroy Moody, has been on death row since 1997 in the 1989 pipe bomb murder of Judge Robert Vance.)

Forty-five inmates — 24 percent of death row’s population — have faced execution since at least 1995.

That includes:

  • James Edmond McWilliams: Sentenced to death in the 1984 rape, robbery and murder of Patricia Vallery Reynolds, a 22-year-old convenience store clerk shot to death at the store where she worked in Tuscaloosa County.
  • Larry Donald George: Convicted in the 1988 killings of two former next-door neighbors. Authorities say George killed Janice Morris, 29, of Talladega, and Ralph Swann, 24, of Alpine. George’s wife, Geraldine, was shot and paralyzed.
  • Anthony Boyd and Robert Shawn Ingram: Convicted for helping take Gregory Huguley to a baseball park in Munford  in 1993, where he was taped to a bench, soaked with gasoline and burned to death because Huguley owed $200 for cocaine.
  • Steven Wayne Hall and Wayne Holleman Travis: Sentenced to death for the murder of retired school teacher Clarene Haskew, 69, in 1991. She was beaten, strangled and shot twice in the head. A pentagram had been spray painted on a cabinet and the words ”thunder struck” were painted on the floor beside her body.
  • Alonzo Burgess: Sentenced to die for the murders of Sheila Nnodimele and her two daughters, Latoria Long, 14, and Alexis Nnodimele, 8. Burgess also was convicted of attempting to murder 2-year-old Larice Long, Ms. Nnodimele’s son  in Colbert County in 1993. They were fatally beaten and strangled in their home.

How much does it cost to house — and execute — those inmates?

Since 1983, when another U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed Alabama to execute an inmate for the first time since 1965, the average time an inmate has served on death row in Alabama is approximately 16 years, according to ADOC spokesman Bob Horton.

The cost to incarcerate a death row inmate in Alabama is $53 per day. Over the course of 16 years, that comes to roughly $309,732.

That means Alabama has spent approximately $640,742 caring for William Bush.

For Giles, who has served 32 years, five months, and 28 days, that is approximately $628,898. Giles would have been Alabama’s longest serving death row inmate, but his 1979 conviction was overturned and he was again sentenced to death upon his second conviction in the 1990s.

It’s estimated lethal injection drugs run about $100 — the Texas Department of Criminal Justice put the cost of their drug cocktails at $83 in 2011, Forbes.com reported in 2014.

A Seattle University study found that each death penalty prosecution cost an average of $1 million more than a case where the death penalty was not sought, an anti-death penalty organization reported.

Whatever the cost, opponents of the death penalty found some signs of hope in Monday’s ruling that maybe the court will one day find the death penalty cruel and unusual.

“For me what was more significant was the affirmative suggestion by some members of the Court that the constitutionality of the death penalty itself be reconsidered,” Bryan Stevenson, executive director and founder of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative stated in an email to AL.com.

“It’s unfortunate this decision won’t resolve issues surrounding lethal injection we are still litigating in Alabama, but I’m encouraged to see members of the Court warming up to the idea that we may be on the brink of a new era where capital punishment is prohibited.”

AL.com reporters Kent Faulk and Izzy Gould contributed to this report.

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