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If Henry Has Heart Attack During Execution, FL Supreme Court Says He Won’t Feel It?

Save Robert Henry's avatarStop the Execution of Robert Henry

********PRESS RELEASE*********

For Immediate Release: Mach 15, 2014

For more information: Contact the Save Robert Henry Campaign
Email: NoCruelCocktail@gmail.com

Phone: (561) 325-9317

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Petition: bit.ly/RobertHenry

Web: http://nocruelcocktail.wordpress.com/        

If Henry Has Heart Attack During Execution, FL Supreme Court Says He Wont Feel It?

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL – On March 14, the Florida Supreme Court denied Robert Henry’s all of his pending appeals, finding that even if Robert had a heart attack while strapped to a gurney, he wouldn’t feel it.  With less than 5 days remaining until the State injects a toxic chemical cocktail into Robert Henry’s veins, the battle now moves to federal court, where Robert’s defense team continues to try and stop the execution, denouncing it as unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

In denying Robert’s appeal, the Florida Supreme Court relied…

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Oklahoma: No execution drug available for Thursday night

march 17, 2014

Oklahoma’s attorney general says the state does not have all of the lethal drugs necessary to carry out an execution set for Thursday.

Two inmates, scheduled to die this month, have been fighting their executions while they seek more information about Oklahoma’s execution procedures.

Despite the drug shortage, state lawyers are still fighting their request in court.

State leaders say they are trying to get the execution drugs and will change protocols if necessary to execute Clayton Lockett this Thursday night at 6:00.

The attorney general’s office said in briefs filed with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday that a deal to obtain pentobarbital and vecuronium bromide from a pharmacy had fallen through.

Pentobarbital is a sedative; vecuronium bromide is a muscle relaxant.

(Source: KRMG)

Torture on Death Row: Court Rules Against Automatic Use of Solitary Confinement for the Condemned

March 17, 2014

The Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty itself does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment.” Yet the treatment of the condemned is nonetheless subject to Eighth Amendment protections, as well as Fourteenth Amendment guarantees of due process.

In the past few years, this ironic legal reality has been the subject of a renewed national debate centering on execution methods. The European drug companies that U.S. states have historically relied on to provide the materials for lethal injections have refused to replenish supplies. As a result, states have developed new drug protocols, often implementing them without testing or research. Last month, Dennis McGuire struggled and gasped for well over ten minutes before he finally died.

But at a recent Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing, exoneree Damon Thibodeaux called attention to a different, rarely-discussed aspect of death row that he believes also constitutes “torture, pure and simple” – the conditions of confinement that people endure prior to execution:

“I spent my years at Angola, while my lawyers fought to prove my innocence, in a cell that measured about 8 feet by 10 feet. It had three solid walls all painted white, a cell door, a sink, a toilet, a desk and seat attached to a wall, and an iron bunk with a thin mattress. These four walls are your life. Being in that environment for 23 hours a day will slowly kill you. Mentally, you have to find some way to live as if you were not there. If you cannot do that, you will die a slow mental death and may actually wish for your physical death, so that you do not have to continue that existence. More than anything, solitary confinement is an existence without hope.”

Thibodeaux was exonerated after spending fifteen years on death row at Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana. While his story may be unusual, his experience of extreme isolation is standard for people facing execution.

A recent ruling, however, suggests that the federal courts may soon mandate higher due process protections for individuals sentenced to death. Last November, U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema found in Prieto v. Clark that the state of Virginia had violated the Constitution by automatically placing individuals on death row in indefinite isolation.  In January, she rejected a request from state attorneys to delay the implementation of her ruling.

In her determination, Judge Brinkema describes what people on death row in Virginia must bear from the time of their sentencing to the time of their execution:

“Plaintiff’s conditions of confinement on death row are undeniably extreme and atypical of conditions in the general population units at [the prison]. He must remain alone in his cell for nearly 23 hours per day… The lights never go out in his cell, although they are scaled back during the overnight hours… Plaintiff is allowed just five hours of outdoor recreation per week…and that time is spent in another cell at best slightly larger than his living quarters… He otherwise has no ability to catch a glimpse of the sky because the window in his cell is a window in name only… Nor can he pass the time in the company of other inmates; plaintiff is deprived of most forms of human contact… His only real break from the monotony owes to a television and compact disc player in his cell and limited interactions with prison officials…”

As the judge outlines, those on death row are automatically and permanently placed in solitary confinement – forced to withstand particularly severe conditions purely as a consequence of their sentence.  This placement is functionally indefinite since it can take years, or even decades, before individuals exhaust their appeals and finally face execution.  (According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, those executed in 2010 had spent an average of 14.8 years on death row).  By contrast, all others incarcerated in Virginia are assigned an initial security classification based on eight factors, including several unrelated to their sentences: their history of institutional violence, escape history, current age, etc.

The Court’s finding in Prieto v. Clark is that the automatic placement of death row prisoners in solitary confinement violates their Fourteenth Amendment rights, since they endure “uniquely severe” conditions without any kind of procedural protections or stopgap measures.

Judge Brinkeama concludes that the Virginia prison authorities have two options: either providing an individualized classification procedure for each person sentenced to execution, or altering conditions on death row “such that confinement there would no longer impose an atypical and significant hardship.”

The court’s ruling comes several months after the publication of an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report that examined the conditions of confinement endured by those on death row. As the ACLU notes, this extreme isolation constitutes a “punishment on top of punishment”:

  • Cell size: Most common cell size is 8×10 feet (27% of prisoners), just a bit bigger than the size on an average bathroom.
  • Basic comfort: Beds provide in death row cells are made out of: Steel 60%; Concrete 13%; Steel with mattress 9%; Concrete with pad 6%; Metal 6%.
  • “Enforced idleness”: States that allow death inmates to exercise for one hour or less: 81%.
  • Social isolation: States with mandated no-contact visits for death row inmates: 67%.
  • Religious services: States that fail to offer religious services to death row prisoners: 62%.

At the Senate hearing on solitary confinement last month, Thibodeux told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee that he had contemplated ending the appeals process – despite his innocence – in order to escape his extreme isolation:

“Fairly early during my confinement at Angola, I very seriously considered giving up my legal rights and letting the State execute me. I was at the point where I did not want to live like an animal in a cage for years on end, only to lose my case and then have the State kill me anyway. I thought it would be better to end my life as soon as I could and avoid the agony of life in solitary. Fortunately, my lawyer and friend, Denise LeBoeuf, convinced me that I would be exonerated and released someday, and she gave me hope to keep fighting and living.”

According to the NAACP’s most recent quarterly report on the death penalty, published last week, since the death penalty was reinstated 140 individuals – about 10% of those placed on death row – were executed after giving up their appeals.

Judge Brinkema’s ruling is significant since it accords at least minimal due process protections to those placed in solitary confinement, even the so-called “worst of the worst.” But calls to change the blanket use of isolation on death row have also emerged from outside the courts and the Senate subcommittee hearing. Last month, Texas’s largest correctional officers’ union called for low-risk individuals on death row to be housed with others, and recommended that state prison officials introduce privileges to those on death row, including work assignments and streaming television.

(solitarywatch.com)

SOUTH CAROLINA – Ricky Blackwell sentenced to death

march 17, 2014

SPARTANBURG, S.C. —After hours of deliberation a Spartanburg County jury issued the death sentence for Ricky Blackwell.

A short time later the judge confirmed the death sentence for the murder of 8-year-old Brooke Center.

The judge said the sentence is to be carried out on June 14, 2014.

Blackwell was also found guilty of kidnapping Brooke Center, he was sentenced to 30 years in jail on that charge.

Prosecutors called the fatal shooting revenge because Blackwell’s now ex-wife was dating the girl’s father.

The jury’s options were life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.

The seven men and five women seated on the jury found him guilty as charged in just 20 minutes of deliberations earlier in the week.

At 3 p.m. Sunday, the jurors began deliberating Blackwell’s punishment, they returned the sentence just after 8:30 p.m. Sunday.

Before they were released to discuss a possible sentence, a judge told them they must decide whether Blackwell suffers from an intellectual disability, or as stated in court, a mental retardation.

If jurors had found him not to be mentally competent at the time of the crime, they would not have been able to proceed with the death penalty, according to South Carolina law.

The judge told the jurors to come to a death sentence, they had find aggravated circumstances were present when Blackwell committed the crime.  The judge said the two things they could consider aggravators in this case were the age of the victim and the fact it happened during a kidnapping.

The death sentence recommendation had to be a unanimous vote.

Closing arguments began in this sentencing phase began Sunday at 11 a.m., when Blackwell asserted his right to remain silent when the judge asked him if he’d like to make remarks.

Blackwell did not address the jury at any point during the case.

“What a wonderful individual Brooke was,” said solicitor Barry Barnette in his closing arguments.

He told jurors to look at the case closely.

Barnett expressed his disgust with the defense’s assertion that Blackwell suffers from an intellectual disability.

“I got mad,” said Barnette.  “You look at the evidence and no other doctor has ever diagnosed him as such until they paid a doctor from North Carolina to come down and testify that he was. He is not mentally retarded. It’s an insult to people who have this disability. They only did it to spare his life.”

Furthermore, Barnette said Blackwell was a certified employee of several companies where his mental competence would have been questioned.

Barnette got on his knees to illustrate how tall Brooke was and said Blackwell “meant to kill Brooke Center.”

The solicitor said Brooke was shot four times – once in the leg, neck, head and a final shot in her back after she fell to the ground.

“It was no accident,” Barnette shouted in the courtroom.

The solicitor put a Nelson Mandela quote on a projector for the jury to see – which read, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children.”

Barnette then showed a picture of a memorial already set up in Brooke’s honor in her community.

“This will affect people for the rest of their lives,” said Barnette.

Barnett began to tear up as he showed the final images to the jury.  It was a side by side comparison of Brooke playing baseball and her lying dead by a swing set after the shooting.

Several jurors were observed wiping tears from their eyes.

The defense presented its closing arguments after a short recess.

Blackwell’s attorney, Bill McGuire, opened up saying he wished photos like they’d just seen not be shown in court.

“He is 55 years old, in poor health and will not last long, but I’m asking you to send him to prison,” McGuire told the jury.  “If the death penalty can do some good, if it could bring Brooke Center back, I’d be the first to say do it, but it won’t.”

McGuire said the jury should let Brooke’s legacy be celebrated by the memorials and ceremonies in her honor instead of sentencing Blackwell to death.

“Imagine if a sign said, “In honor of Brooke we killed a man,” said McGuire.

The public defender portrayed Blackwell as a distraught individual whose marriage was ending.   McGuire said Blackwell was suicidal and tried to kill himself by overdosing on prescription pills before the deadly shooting.

“(If) he’s not a danger to us, then don’t use lethal force,” said McGuire.  “Ricky is mentally retarded. He scored in the bottom 2 percent on IQ tests. Those were reliable tests,” said McGuire.

McGuire stated a person with an intellectual disability like Blackwell could learn skills to perform the jobs he held in the past, referring to the prosecution’s attack on why he was not diagnosed with a disability before this point.

“He has a relationship with God,” said McGuire.  “Everybody he has touched in his life says he is caring, gentle, a good man. See him through the eyes of the people who knew him.”

“He is sorry for what he has done,” said McGuire. “Do you, as a human being, have to kill him? The answer is no. You don’t have to kill Ricky Blackwell.’”

Swearingen requests hearing on DNA testing; DA’s office focused on execution date

march 15,2014

Attorneys for convicted killer Larry Ray Swearingen filed opposition to the state’s motion to set an execution date, arguing the Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the case for further proceedings.

A motion was filed in early March with the state of Texas for a tentative execution date of April 24. However, Swearingen “respectfully” requested a hearing in the 9th state District Court of Judge Kelly Case the week of May 12.

That hearing, if approved, would consider the effect of the appeals court’s remand on DNA testing, as well as the state’s request for an execution date, said James Rytting, Swearingen’s attorney.

“If they (the CCA) wanted to issue an execution date they could have established one by themselves,” Rytting said.

Swearingen was convicted for the murder of 19-year-old Melissa Trotter. She was last seen leaving the Montgomery College campus with Swearingen on Dec. 8, 1998. Her body was found by hunters in the Sam Houston National Forest Jan. 2, 1999, north of Lake Conroe.

Trotter’s death was determined to be a homicide, and that she was sexually assaulted then strangled by piece of pantyhose.

Bill Delmore, appellate attorney with the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, said Swearingen’s attorneys have started “grasping at straws.”

In their opposition to the state’s request for an execution date, Swearingen’s attorneys contend where the Court of Criminal Appeals has remanded the case for additional proceedings, it “would be an abuse of discretion” to ignore the “plain language” of the opinion issued by the appellate court in this case and instead set an execution date.

However, Delmore said Swearingen’s case was remanded back to the district court in Montgomery County to deny future requests for DNA testing, and to set an execution date.

A briefing schedule for both parties regarding the effect of the appeals court’s remand was suggested by Rytting on or before May 2.

(yourhoustonnews)

CONNECTICUT – Killer sought sympathy Death row inmate complained of ‘psychological torture’ – Steven Hayes

March 14, 2014
NEW HAVEN — One of two convicts sentenced to death in a Connecticut home invasion sent suicidal letters before he was found unresponsive in his cell Monday, his attorney said Thursday.Steven Hayes remained in stable condition Thursday at a hospital, a correction department spokesman said. Hayes implied in the letters he would be dead by the time they were received, said his attorney, Tom Ullmann.”I don’t think there’s any question that it was an attempted suicide,” Ullmann said.Asked why Hayes tried to kill himself, Ullmann said, “The conditions of confinement are oppressive.” He accused rogue correctional officers of harassing Hayes, declining to discuss details except to cite the removal of items from Hayes’ cell such as an extra blanket.

Hayes, who has a history of suicide attempts, also sent a suicide note to The Hartford Courant in which he called Northern a “psychological torture chamber,” the newspaper reported.

The Courant, citing a state official familiar with the incident, reported Hayes had saved up prescribed medication, including antidepressants, and took it all at once.

Hayes, 50, is on death row for the 2007 killings of a woman and her two daughters after a night of torment inside their home in Cheshire. Another man, Joshua Komisarjevsky, also was convicted and sentenced to death for the home invasion killings.

A federal judge in November denied Hayes’ lawsuit seeking to change his conditions at Northern Correctional Institution, ruling that he did not provide any evidence that his mental health treatment was inadequate or to back up his request for changes to his diet.

Hayes also said his legal papers were confiscated as a form of harassment or retaliation. The judge said the failure of prison staff to provide a full response to that claim “gives the court pause,” but he said Hayes had not shown irreparable harm.

Hayes more recently filed an emergency motion seeking relief, saying his prison cell was too cold and that he was misdiagnosed by staff who claimed his suicidal tendencies, depression and other issues stemmed from his crime rather than his conditions.

“I would rather die than endure these conditions any longer,” Hayes wrote last month.

Hayes did acknowledge that he should be in prison.

“I do not deserve to be psychologically tormented or refused proper treatment,” Hayes wrote. “To date I still suffer from deep emotional periods when I reflect on the pain I caused due to my crime and past actions.”

In court papers, prison staff members deny harassing Hayes or violating his rights. Hayes was subject to discipline after he violated rules by sitting on the floor in protest of a search of his cell and refusing to return his handcuffs upon returning to his cell, officials said.

A Department of Correction spokesman declined to comment.

The attorney general’s office, representing prison staff, said Hayes’ cell is kept at 74 degrees, not 55 degrees as he claimed, and that mental health treatment was available to Hayes but he refused it.

The Courant reported in 2012 that Hayes, who is deathly allergic to oysters, had concocted an elaborate suicide plan while on death row. He had promised to give information about unsolved killings that he lied about committing in exchange for being served oysters, hoping to die from an allergic reaction.

For some on death row, vindication comes too late By OSCAR EASON JR.

March 14, 2014

Immediately following Gov. Jay Inslee’s announcement of his moratorium on the death penalty, cheers could be heard in certain African-American communities throughout the state and elsewhere.

That should have surprised few, considering the statistics on who is being sentenced to occupy space on death rows these days. Nationally, 470 African Americans have been executed since 1976 compared to 767 whites — although African Americans are only 13 percent of the nation’s population. Sixty-six whites and seven African Americans have been executed in Washington; the African-American population in this state reached 3.9 percent only in recent decades.

 

Racial discrimination remains a dominant feature of criminal justice in the United States. The process of having biased death sentences handed down in the criminal justice system may not always be the fault of sentencing officials; the outcome involves arresting officers, the compiling and arranging of factual evidence by prosecuting attorneys, and jury selection, all of which are required before a judgment is reached.

 

People of color continue to be excluded from jury service in our state because of their race, especially in serious criminal trials and death penalty cases. The jury-selection process has been a major concern in Washington’s African-American community for decades owing to how jurors are selected and the fact that race in trials is often a factor — consciously or unconsciously.

 

Most juries hearing capital cases where African Americans are involved have few or no African Americans. As the case moves along a path toward the judge, there are unlimited opportunities for biases. Mandatory sentencing may also enter into the equation in some states.

 

Regardless of whether Inslee’s moratorium was a wise political decision, claims that the death penalty is an effective crime deterrent have not been proven. This experiment is flawed, inhuman and costly.

 

An increasing number of states have already legally ended executions, with others likely to follow this year. Human lives are at stake, and one would think that any process holding such high risks and vulnerabilities would be completely abolished in modern society.

 

Too many people found guilty of capital crimes and placed on death row in the last decade were later found to have been wrongly convicted. Others have been exonerated posthumously. Some were sentenced to death and had their sentences overturned by acquittal or pardon.

 

Just this week, Louisiana freed Glenn Ford, a man who had spent nearly 26 years on death row. An all-white jury convicted him for a murder the state now says he did not commit.

 

One who was not so fortunate was Troy Anthony Davis, an African-American man convicted of and executed for the murder of a police officer Savannah, Ga., though there was ample evidence presented to prove his innocence. The NAACP’s struggle to save him failed. We must work to ensure that this tragedy is not repeated here in Washington. Inslee’s moratorium provides that guarantee.

Oscar Eason Jr. is chairman of the Washington State Commission on African American Affairs.

Court to rehear appeal for Ariz. death row inmate – James Erin McKinney

March 14, 2014
PHOENIX (AP) — A federal appeals court is reconsidering an appeal filed on behalf of an Arizona Death Row inmate convicted of two killings during burglaries.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last September upheld a trial judge’s denial of James Erin McKinney’s challenges to his murder convictions and death sentences.

However, the San Francisco-based appellate court now says a larger panel of its judges will consider McKinney’s appeal.

The three-judge panel’s ruling said it didn’t matter much that McKinney was seated so he faced the jury while on trial with a co-defendant before separate juries. And it rejected his other challenges in the appeal.

McKinney was convicted in the 1991 killings of Christene Mertens and Jim McClain during separate burglaries in Maricopa County.

Fresno’s most notorious mass murder remembered

march 12, 2014

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — On this day ten years ago Fresno was rocked by an unthinkable crime. Nine people were shot and killed inside their home. Marcus Wesson would be convicted of murdering his own kids and grandkids.

The Marcus Wesson case serves as Fresno’s most notorious mass murder. The crime scene was so disturbing it brought veteran officers to tears and drew worldwide attention.

People drive by a barely noticeable vacant lot near Roeding Park every day. Many of them unaware what took place here ten years ago. Cameron Caskey lived across the street. He said, “We actually ended up hearing two gun shots.”

Neighbors had no idea what police officers would discover inside 761 Hammond Avenue. Nine of Wesson’s children and grandchildren were shot dead and stacked in a back bedroom of the home.

Fresno police chief Jerry Dyer recalled, “The officers and the crime scene investigators that had to process that, as well as the investigators, it took a toll on them. It was one of the most horrific things this city has seen.”

Today Marcus Wesson sits on death row at San Quentin. He was convicted of nine counts of first degree murder and several counts of rape and molestation. Wesson fathered children with his underage daughters.

Fresno County Assistant DA Lisa Gamoan was chief prosecutor in the case. Gamoian said, “When you see the manipulation, the psychological methods he was using to control all the these girls, he even financially exploited them. It made sense he would be directing the ultimate act.”

Fresno County District Attorney Elizabeth Egan said, “It was astounding how deprived this defendant was.”

Gamoian set out to bring the victims to life for the jury. “How much of life we take for granted that they never got to experience.”

After the murders crowds disrupted the quiet neighborhood. Caskey said, “Even for years after that people would drive by Marcus Wesson’s property and slowly pass by. That got a little tiring.”

That is, until a local real estate group bought the home and tore it down. The property was later sold to the city of Fresno.

Marcus Wesson’s surviving children have talked about how it felt like living in a prison. Lisa Gamoian refers to family survivors as the walking wounded.

abclocal.go

Suspect Found Guilty In Boy’s Fatal Beating Sentenced To Death Penalty – Patrick Haney

march 14, 2014

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – The man found guilty in the fatal beating of a boy in Fayette County has now been sentenced to the death penalty.

 

The jury recommended that Patrick Haney should face the death penalty one day after finding him guilty.

(Photo Credit: Pennsylvania State Police/KDKA)

(Photo Credit: Pennsylvania State Police/KDKA)

 

 

On Tuesday, Haney was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of 4-year-old Trenton St. Clair. It only took the jury 90 minutes to reach a guilty verdict.

 

Today, Haney showed no emotion as the jury’s decision was announced. The judge then imposed the sentence.

 

Prosecutors claimed Haney regularly beat the child and had an excuse for every bruise.

 

On Monday, the child’s mother, Heather Forsythe, testified against Haney after reaching a plea bargain. There will be no homicide charges for her after pleading guilty to reckless endangerment charges and she will face two-and-a-half to five years in jail.

 

Three days before he died, Forsythe described seeing Haney abusing the child.

 

“He was standing over my child,” she said. “I saw him hitting and slapping my child and he kicked him with the side of his foot. Trenton was crying.”

 

She testified she told authorities he fell at the urging of Haney.

 

“I told police he fell down the steps in hopes I’d be taken somewhere else. I told them I wanted to be separated from Patrick.”

 

But the 4-year-old was pronounced dead at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown. Later Forsythe told police Haney abused the boy.

RELATED LINKS
Haney Found Guilty In 4-Year-Old Fayette Co. Boy’s Beating Death (3/11/14)
More Reports About This Case