Month: October 2022

EXECUTION CARRIED OUT 2022 – MISSOURI- CARMAN DECK MAY 4.2022

A Missouri man who killed a couple during a robbery at their rural home more than a quarter of a century ago was put to death Tuesday, becoming just the fifth person executed in the United States this year.

Carman Deck, 56, died by injection at the state prison in Bonne Terre. He was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. His fate was sealed a day earlier when neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor Republican Gov. Mike Parson stepped in to halt the execution. Deck’s death sentence was overturned three times before for procedural issues.

“Mr. Deck has received due process, and three separate juries of his peers have recommended sentences of death for the brutal murders he committed,” Parson said in a statement Monday. “The State of Missouri will carry out Mr. Deck’s sentence according to the Court’s order and deliver justice.”  

CARMAN DECK

Deck mouthed a few inaudible words as the 5 grams of pentobarbital were administered, then puffed out a couple of breaths before all movement stopped, the process lasting just a few seconds.

“My hope is that one day the world will find peace and that we all will learn to be kind and loving to one another,” Deck said in a written final statement. “We all are a part of this journey through life, connected in every way. Please give love, show love, BE LOVE!”

His final meal, which was served to him around 1pm, was a ribeye steak, shrimp, asparagus, salad with Italian dressing, cottage cheese and V-8 juice

Parson, in a statement Tuesday, said the couple killed, James and Zelma Long, “were innocent victims of Carman Deck’s heinous violence. Tonight, justice was served.”

JAMES & ZELMA LONG

Just four other people have been executed in the U.S. in 2022 — Donald Anthony Grant and Gilbert Ray Postelle in Oklahoma, Matthew Reeves in Alabama and Carl Wayne Buntion last month in Texas. Eleven people were executed in the U.S. last year, the fewest since 1988.

Court records show that Deck, of the St. Louis area, was a friend of the grandson of the Longs, who lived in De Soto, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) southwest of St. Louis. He knew the couple, in their late 60s, kept a safe in their home.

In July 1996, Deck and his sister stopped at the home under the guise of asking directions. Deck wasn’t surprised the couple let them in.

“They’re country folks,” Deck told a detective, according to court records. “They always do.”

Once inside, Deck pulled a gun from his waistband. At Deck’s command, Zelma Long opened the safe and removed jewelry, then got $200 from her purse and more money hidden in a canister.

Deck ordered the couple to lie on their stomachs on their bed. Court records said Deck stood there for 10 minutes deciding what to do, then shot James Long twice in the head before doing the same thing to Zelma Long.

A tip alerted police to Deck, and he was arrested later that night outside his sister’s apartment building in St. Louis County. The decorative tin canister from the Long home was on the floorboard of his car.

Prosecutors said Deck later gave a full account of the killings in oral, written and audiotaped statements. He was sentenced to death in 1998, but the Missouri Supreme Court tossed the sentence due to errors by Deck’s trial lawyer.

The U.S. Supreme Court threw out his second sentence in 2005, citing the prejudice caused by Deck being shackled in front of the sentencing jury.

He was sentenced to death for a third time in 2008. Nine years later, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry determined that “substantial” evidence arguing against the death penalty in Deck’s first two penalty phases was unavailable for the third because witnesses had died, couldn’t be found or declined to cooperate.

In October 2020, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restored the death penalty, ruling that Deck should have raised his concern first in state court, not federal court. Appeals of that ruling were unsuccessful.

The clemency petition on behalf of Deck cited abuse he suffered as a child, including beatings that left welts and sexual abuse. It said he and his siblings often were left alone without food. Deck’s attorney, Elizabeth Unger Carlyle, said in a statement that Deck also was raped while in prison for theft at age 19.

“This experience transformed him from a non-violent thief into the person who committed two terrible murders,” Carlyle said. She called his execution “unjust and immoral.”

The number of executions in the U.S. has declined significantly since peaking at 98 in 1998. The drop has coincided with declining support, falling from a high of 80% in 1994 to 54% in 2021, according to Gallup polls. Since the mid-1990s, opposition has risen from under 20% to around 45%.

Use of the death penalty has become concentrated mostly in a few Southern and Plains states. Last year, Texas executed three inmates, Oklahoma executed two and one each were put to death in Alabama, Mississippi and Missouri. Three federal inmates were executed in January 2021, toward the end of Donald Trump’s presidency.

On Monday, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee paused executions in his state for the rest of the year to enable a review of lethal injection procedures after a testing oversight forced the state to call off the execution of Oscar Smith an hour before he was to die on April 21.

EXECUTION CARRIED OUT 2022 – TEXAS – CARL WAYNE BUNTION – APRIL 21, 2022

Huntsville, Texas — Texas’ oldest death row inmate was executed Thursday for killing a Houston police officer during a traffic stop nearly 32 years ago.

Carl Wayne Buntion, 78, was put to death at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the June 1990 fatal shooting of Houston police officer James Irby, a nearly 20-year member of the force.

The U.S. Supreme Court had declined a request by Buntion’s attorneys to stop his execution.

“I wanted the Irby family to know one thing: I do have remorse for what I did,” Buntion said while strapped to the Texas death chamber gurney. “I pray to God that they get the closure for me killing their father and Ms. Irby’s husband.

“I hope to see you in heaven some day and when you show up I will give you a big hug.”

Buntion, joined by his spiritual adviser, began praying Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd…” as the lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital began. He took a deep breath, coughed once, then took three less pronounced breaths before all movement stopped.

He was pronounced dead at 6:39 p.m., 13 minutes later.

Several dozen motorcyclists, showing support for the slain motorcycle officer, loudly revved their engines as the execution took place, the roar clearly audible in the death chamber.

Buntion had been on parole for just six weeks when he shot the 37-year-old Irby. Buntion, who had an extensive criminal record, was a passenger in the car that Irby pulled over. In 2009, an appeals court vacated Buntion’s sentence, but another jury resentenced him to death three years later.

“I feel joy,” the officer’s widow, Maura Irby, said after watching Buntion’s execution. “I’m sorry someone died. But I didn’t think of him as a person. I just thought of him as a thing, as a cancer on the face of my family.”

Before his slaying, James Irby had talked of retirement and spending more time with his two children, who at the time were 1 and 3 years old, Maura Irby, 60, said earlier.

“He was ready to fill out the paperwork and stay home and open a feed store,” she said. “He wanted to be the dad that was there to go to all the ballgames and the father daughter dances. He was a super guy, the love of my life.”

Leading up to his execution, various state and federal courts had also turned down appeals by Buntion’s lawyers to stop his death sentence. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday had rejected his clemency request.

Buntion’s attorneys said he was responsible for Irby’s death and “deserved to be punished severely for that crime.”

But they argued his execution was unconstitutional because the jury’s finding he would be a future danger to society – one of the reasons he was given a death sentence- has proven incorrect, and also his execution would serve no legitimate purpose because so much time has passed since his conviction. His attorneys described Buntion as a geriatric inmate who posed no threat as he suffered from arthritis, vertigo and needed a wheelchair.

“This delay of three decades undermines the rationale for the death penalty. … Whatever deterrent effect there is diminished by delay,” his attorneys David Dow and Jeffrey Newberry, wrote in court documents.

With his execution, Buntion became the oldest person Texas has put to death since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976. The oldest inmate executed in the U.S. in modern times was Walter Moody Jr., who was 83 years old when he was put to death in Alabama in 2018.

Buntion was also the first inmate executed in Texas in 2022. Although Texas has been the nation’s busiest capital punishment state, it had been nearly seven months since it carried out an execution. There have been only three executions in each of the last two years, due in part to the coronavirus pandemic and delays over legal questions about Texas’ refusal to allow spiritual advisers to touch inmates and pray aloud in the death chamber.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court said states must accommodate requests to have faith leaders pray and touch inmates during executions.

As Texas prepared to execute Buntion, officials in Tennessee canceled the execution of an inmate Thursday in what would have been the state’s first execution since the start of the pandemic. Oscar Smith, 72, was scheduled to die for the 1989 killings of his estranged wife and her teenage sons. Republican Gov. Bill Lee didn’t elaborate on what issue forced the surprise 11th-hour stop to the planned execution.

Texas prison officials agreed to Buntion’s request to allow his spiritual adviser to pray aloud and touch him while he was put to death.

The adviser, Barry Brown, placed his right hand on Buntion’s right ankle in the moments before the drugs began flowing and prayed for about five minutes. He said Buntion no longer was a “hard-headed young man” but had been “humbled by the walls and cold steel of prison.”

While the execution stirred up painful memories for her, Irby said it also reminded her of her advocacy work in public safety after her husband’s death, including helping put together legislation that allowed victim impact statements at trials.

“I still miss him, 32 years later,” she said Thursday night.

EXECUTION CARRIED OUT 2022 – OKLAHOMA GILBERT POSTELLE 02.18.2022

GILBERT POSTELLE

Gilbert Ray Postelle was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 10:14 a.m. Thursday morning. He’s the fourth death row inmate to be killed since the state resumed capital punishment in October after a six-year moratorium. He was 35.

Five media members were selected by a random draw to witness the execution: Sean Murphy (Associated Press), Nolan Clay (The Oklahoman), Wayne Stafford (KOKH), Storme Jones (KWTV) and Dylan Goforth (The Frontier).

The witnesses said the execution appeared to happen without any complications. Their accounts were largely in line with the December execution of Bigler Stouffer and the January execution of Donald Grant, but drastically different from the October execution of John Marion Grant, who convulsed two dozen times and vomited multiple times during his execution.

Postelle did not have any last words.

Swindle’s sister, Shelli Milner, made a statement following the execution.

“It’s never over for the families of the victims. Today is not a joyous day for anyone. Today did not end anyone’s suffering. Today did not put closure on anything,” Milner said. “To know that [Postelle] will never walk this earth again does give me a little more peace than I had yesterday, but I will never have peace knowing what he did to my brother Donnie, to Amy, to James and to Terry.”

There are no more executions scheduled in the state at this point. Pending the results of the upcoming trial over the constitutionality of the current lethal injection protocol later this month, the state may schedule more executions.

Death row inmate Gilbert Ray Postelle’s request for clemency was denied by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board in a 4-1 vote in December 2021.

Postelle, then 19, shot and killed four people — 57-year-old James D. Alderson, 56-year-old Terry L. Smith, 49-year-old James “Donnie” Swindle Jr., and 26-year-old Amy J. Wright — in southeast Oklahoma City on Memorial Day in 2005. The assault included nearly 100 shots fired from two assault rifles.

He was convicted of the four murders and given the death sentence for two.

Three others were charged with conspiracy and four counts of first-degree murder in the slayings. His brother, David Bradford Postelle, was sentenced to life in prison and their father, Earl Bradford Postelle, was ruled incompetent to stand trial in 2006. Another man, Randal Wade Byus, agreed to cooperate with authorities and pleaded guilty to reduced charges in 2008.

Postelle and his family believed one of the victims were responsible for a 2004 motorcycle accident, which left the elder Postelle physically and mentally disabled.

Gilbert Postelle’s attorney said he suffered from years of methamphetamine abuse that began around the age of 12. In 2021, he testified that he had been using meth for days leading up to the killings and doesn’t remember much about the crimes.

Last month, attorneys for Donald Grant and Postelle argued that the state’s lethal injection protocol exposed the two men to a constitutionally unacceptable risk of severe pain, citing the October 2021 execution of John Grant, who convulsed and vomited before he died.

Oklahoma’s method of execution — lethal injection — has been criticized as painful and terrifying, with claims it induces a sense of drowning comparable to the torture tactic of waterboarding.

Oklahoma held off on lethal injections for nearly six years after two botched executions. The state resumed the practice last fall, killing John Grant in October, Bigler Stouffer in December and Donald Grant in January.

The three-drug cocktail is being reviewed for constitutionality in district court in a trial that begins on Feb. 28.

Postelle’s last meal included 20 chicken nuggets, three large fries, one crispy chicken sandwich, one large cola, and one caramel frappe.

EXECUTION CARRIED OUT 2022-ALABAMA MATTHEW REEVES 01.27.2022

Matthew Reeves

Matthew Reeves offered no final words and only few movements as his execution was carried out Thursday evening at Holman Prison in Atmore.

Reeves was pronounced dead around 9:24 p.m., according to Commissioner John Hamm. His execution began around 9:03 p.m., after a stay was lifted at 7:25 p.m. from the nation’s highest court.

Reeves had no final words, no final meal and no spiritual advisor present for his execution, which took place despite claims that he was intellectually disabled.

As the execution began, Reeves grimaced and rose his head slightly to look at the IV in his arm, before he laid his head back down. Around 9:09 p.m., he closed his eyes, though his abdomen continued moving.

Shortly after that time, a prison official performed a consciousness test which consisted of a hand wave over his face and an arm pinch.

Before 9:15 p.m., Reeves stopped moving.

After Reeves was pronounced dead, Hamm read a statement from the family of Willie Johnson to gathered media witnesses.

“After 26 years, justice has finally been served,” Hamm read from the family’s statement. “Our family can now have some closure.”

Reeves was executed for the murder of Willie Johnson, a man who picked up Reeves and other individuals on the side of the highway in Selma in November of 1996.

Execution carried out 2022- OKLAHOMA Donald Grant – JANV. 27.2022

McALESTER, Okla. — An Oklahoma man who had offered to be executed by firing squad was put to death by lethal injection Thursday morning, officials said.

Donald Anthony Grant, 46, was pronounced dead at 10:16 a.m. CT at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, a state corrections spokesman announced.

The execution began at 10:03 a.m., and Grant was declared unconscious at 10:08 a.m. before his death at 10:16 a.m., Corrections Department Director Scott Crow said.

There were 18 witnesses, including news reporters, prosecutors, a police chief and loved ones of Grant and his victims.

Grant’s disjointed final words lasted two minutes before a prison staff member in the execution chamber stopped him and cut off the microphone.

“Grant’s last words were “yo God I got this, I got this, it’s nothing” before saying “I’ve got things to handle, no doubt, no doubt.” He also said “Brooklyn for life” among his other chants. Grant reportedly grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in and out of various foster homes.

Grant kept speaking after the microphone was turned off, looking toward his family members sitting in the front row of the witness room.

At one point, tears appeared to be rolling down his face.

Grant killed Brenda McElyea, 29, and Felicia Suzette Smith, 43, so there would be no witnesses to his robbery at the La Quinta Inn in Del City in July 2001.

LAST MEAL – Grant, the first person to be given the death penalty in 2022.

After requesting a very large meal, the inmate was given a lethal injection, currently the only approved method in Oklahoma. Grant’s menu included sesame chicken, six egg rolls, shrimp fried rice and a large apple fritter. If there was no dessert, Grant asked for three pints of strawberry ice cream. 

Texas claims it’s ‘too late’ for DNA testing which could get inmate off death row

October 10, 2022

Featured Image Credit: AP/Shutterstock/Paul Weber

The state of Texas is fighting to dismiss a civil rights suit arguing for DNA testing which could prove the innocence of a death row inmate.

Rodney Reed was sentenced to death in 1998 for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites in Bastrop, Texas, and remains on death row as he continues to maintain his innocence.

Stites was just 19 at the the time of her death, and was found dead along a country road. She had been engaged to a man named Jimmy Fennell, a police officer in the neighbouring town, and had allegedly introduced Reed to her co-worker, Suzen Hugan, as a friend.

Hugan told The Intercept Stites was ‘flirty’ with Reed, saying “it seemed like more than a friendship,” however Texas claims Reed was actually a stranger to Stites. 

After Stites was killed, sperm evidence recovered from her body was matched to Reed. An investigation by law enforcement uncovered no evidence that the pair knew each other, though Reed claims he and Stites were having an affair and that the DNA was from a consensual encounter.

Meanwhile, Fennell has been accused by some as having known about the alleged affair. He has denied the claims.

Over his years on death row, Reed has argued for the testing of crime scene evidence, including the alleged murder weapon, however reluctance on post-conviction DNA testing in the state has made things tough for the inmate.

In 2019, Reed took the case to federal court with the argument that Texas violated his due process rights by denying his bid for forensic testing, but the state is trying to get the suit dismissed with the argument that Reed waited too long to file his federal claim.

Texas is using the statute of limitations to argue its side, claiming Reed had a two-year window to file his federal claim after he was first denied DNA testing in 2014.

However, Reed has argued that filing earlier would have meant filing before the Court of Criminal Appeals had considered his case, meaning he would not have a final decision in the matter on which to base his suit.

It wasn’t until 2017 that the CCA issued its final ruling, and Reed’s suit was filed less than two years later.

Texas, meanwhile, argues Reed should have brought the case in the two years after 2014 because there is ‘no provision of Texas law’ that required him to appeal to the CCA.

As the battle continues, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the state, meaning the Supreme Court is now set to hear the case on 11 October.

Advocates fight for Oklahoma inmate weeks before scheduled execution

October 10, 2022

Advocates continue to fight for the life of Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Fairchild.

Fairchild is scheduled to be executed on Nov. 17. He has a clemency hearing with the Oklahoma State Pardon and Parole Board Wednesday morning.

Fairchild has sat on death row for nearly 30 years. He was convicted of killing his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son in Del City in 1993.

According to his legal team, Fairchild suffers from multiple mental illnesses and is unfit to be executed.

Rev. Don Heath works with the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. He spoke at a press conference Friday discussing the fight to save Fairchild’s life.

“Richie Fairchild has been a model prisoner and has repeatedly expressed remorse for killing Adam Broomhall,” Heath said. “He is 62 years old and suffers from brain damage. He already has served 25 years in prison for his crime and is asking to be allowed to die in prison of natural causes instead of by poisoning by the state. This case cries out for mercy and forgiveness.”

Additional petitions are scheduled to be delivered to Gov. Kevin Stitt a few days before Fairchild’s scheduled execution. If the Pardon and Parole Board recommends clemency, Gov. Stitt will have the final say.

October 10 is the World Day Against the Death Penalty.

Which countries still have the death penalty?

Source AlJazeera & Amnesty international

The theme of this year’s World Day Against the Death Penalty is safeguarding the health and rights of women and girls.

According to Amnesty International, more than two-thirds of the world’s countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

By the end of last year, 108 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes, eight countries had abolished the death penalty for crimes not committed during times of war and 28 countries still retained the death penalty but had not executed anyone over the past 10 years.

Fifty-five countries still retain and implement the death penalty.

On September 20, Equatorial Guinea became the latest country to abolish the death penalty when its president signed a new penal code into law. It will come into force in three months.

Executions and sentences in 2021

At least 579 people, including 24 women, are known to have been executed by 18 nations in 2021 – up by 20 percent from 2020.

Three countries accounted for 80 percent of all known executions in 2021: Iran (at least 314), Egypt (at least 83) and Saudi Arabia (65).

The recorded global totals do not include the thousands of executions that Amnesty International believes were carried out in China, where data on the death penalty are classified as a state secret.

The number of known death sentences also increased from 1,477 in 2020 to at least 2,052 in 2021 – an increase of nearly 40 percent.

source alJazeera & Amnesty international

Texas: Woman convicted of killing 21-year-old mother-to-be and cutting baby from her womb

Texas, 10.04.2022

Prosecutors told the court that Reagan Michelle Simmons-Hancock was beaten in the head at least five times with such force that the blows compressed her skull.

Taylor Rene Parker 

A woman is facing the death penalty after being found guilty of killing a 21-year-old and cutting her unborn baby from her womb.

Taylor Rene Parker has been convicted of the October 2020 murder of Reagan Michelle Simmons–Hancock in Texas and the kidnapping of her daughter, who later died.

The 29-year-old was found to have beaten the young expectant mother in the head at least five times, before “cutting her abdomen, hip to hip” to remove her baby.

The guilty verdict came after three weeks of testimony at Bowie County in northeast Texas, where Parker’s attorneys moved to dismiss the kidnapping charge in a bid to have a capital murder charge lowered to murder.

They argued that the baby was never alive and therefore could not be abducted, but prosecutors said several medical professionals testified that she had a heartbeat when she was born.

“We have methodically laid out what she (Parker) did, why she did it, all the moving parts, and all the collateral damage,” said prosecutor Kelley Crisp.

The court heard how Parker faked being pregnant in the lead up to the killing, with the assistant district attorney Lauren Richards describing her as a “liar” and a “manipulator”.

It was no quick death’

In gruesome detail, Ms Richards recounted Parker’s attack on Ms Simmons-Hancock, saying the young woman was still alive after having her baby cut from her womb.

“She can’t leave her alive. It was no quick death. She just kept cutting her. I guess Reagan would not die fast enough for Taylor to get out of there and get on with her plans,” she said.

Parker’s sentencing, known in the US as the punishment phase, is set to begin on 12 October.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, but jurors may opt for a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

Outcomes of Death Warrants in 2022

September 30.2022 Update

Executions and Stays 2022

48 execution dates have been scheduled by 9 states for 2022.
To date, there have been 10 executions by 5 states.
10 executions have been stayed.*
No executions have been halted by commutation.
16 executions have been halted by reprieve.
1 warrant has been withdrawn/removed/vacated/rescheduled.
1 failed execution was halted when execution personnel were unable to set an IV line.
1 prisoner has died on death row while his warrant was pending.
9 death warrants are pending.^