TEXAS -Texas Wants To Drug a Prisoner So They Can Kill Him – Steven Staley

may 11, 2012 source : http://www.slate.com

Can the state force a person to take drugs in order to execute him? That is the grisly question raised by the case of Steven Staley, a convicted murderer who believes polygraph machines are controlling and torturing him. Even though he’s psychotic, Staley is scheduled to be executed next week, based on a judge’s order requiring him to take medication he has refused. If Texas actually goes ahead with this deeply disturbing plan, it will be the first state, as far as I can tell, to drug someone in order to carry out a death sentence. That is a distinction that no one on the planet should want to have.

Here are the facts of Staley’s crime: In September 1989, he escaped from a Denver jail and went on an armed robbery spree, hitting up nine businesses in four states. The last one was the Steak and Ale Restaurant in Tarrant County, Texas. Just before closing, Staley and two friends came in, and Staley herded the employees into a kitchen storeroom and made manager Robert Read open the cash registers and the safe. He then took Read as a hostage, forced him into the back of a car, and shot him dead during a high-speed chase by the police.

And here are the facts of Staley’s mental illness: He has a long history of paranoid schizophrenia and depression. Staley was abused as a child by his mother, who was also mentally ill; when he was 6 or 7 she tried to pound a wooden stake through his chest. His father was an alcoholic. Staley tried to kill himself as a teenager. Doctors who have examined Staley on death row have said that he talks in a robot-like monotone yet has “grandiose and paranoid” delusions, including the beliefs that he invented the first car and marketed a character from Star Trek. He has given himself black eyes and self-inflicted lacerations and has been found spreading feces and covered with urine. Medicated with the anti-psychotic drug Haldol, Staley complained of paralysis and sometimes appeared to be in a catatonic state. He has worn a bald spot on the back of his head from lying on the floor of his cell.

Staley was found competent to stand trial back in 1991. The standard is low: A defendant has to be able to understand the charges against him and consult rationally with his lawyer so he can aid in his own defense. The standard for competency at execution was set by Ford v Wainwright, a 1986 case in which the Supreme Court said that the Eighth Amendment’s bar against cruel and unusual punishment forbids execution of the “insane.” Indeed, at the time no state permitted such an execution. The court quoted British judges in the 17th century worrying about the “miserable spectacle” of “extream inhumanity and cruelty” presented by executing a “mad man.” It served no retributive purpose, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote, to execute a person “who has no comprehension of why he has been singled out.” He also noted “the natural abhorrence civilized societies feel at killing one who has no capacity to come to grips with his own conscience or deity.”

The problem with Ford is that the justices’ holding didn’t match their rhetoric. A defendant can be executed as long as he shows some rational understanding that he is about to die and why. Many people with serious mental illness can grasp those basic facts, at least on some level. Among the many examples of seriously mentally ill people who have been found competent to be tried and executed is Scott Panetti, a delusional schizophrenic who represented himself in 1995 dressed in a purple cowboy suit. Panetti tried to call Jesus Christ and John Kennedy as witnesses. Then there’s the case of Andre Thomas, which is so horrific that I’m sorry to ask you to read the next two sentences. Thomas was tried and sentenced to death, for triple murders in which he cut out the hearts of his victims, six weeks after gouging out his right eye. In 2008, on death row, he gouged out his left eye and ate it. (Both Panetti and Thomas’s executions are on appeal in the Texas courts.)

OK, deep breath. In 2006, after Staley stopped his medication, Judge Wayne Salvant, in a moment of mercy, found him incompetent to be executed. The District Attorney for Tarrant County, Joe Shannon, Jr., unmercifully asked Salvant to order Staley to be forcibly medicated. Salvant entered the order, finding that medicating Staley was the only way to ensure his competency to be executed, and that “the State has an essential interest in ensuring that the sentence of this Court is carried out.”

What is behind Judge Salvant’s chilling decision? In two cases in the 1990s, the Supreme Court said that the government can forcibly medicate a mentally ill inmate if he is dangerous to himself or others, the treatment is in his medical interest, and there is no less intrusive alternative. In 2003, the court acknowledged concerns about side effects of the drugs, and emphasized that the treatment had to be medically appropriate. None of these cases involved pending executions, however. When death is the state’s end goal, how can anyone argue that forcible medication is in a prisoner’s medical interest? TheLouisiana and South Carolina supreme courts have both rejected that macabre contention in ruling that to drug someone in order to execute him would violate their state constitutions.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit cracked open the door to forcible medication in 2003, in ruling that the state could execute a man who’d regained competency by taking medication on death row. The constitution doesn’t preclude executing someone who is “artificially competent,” the court said. In that case, the prisoner wasn’t refusing to take his meds, so the scenario is different than Staley’s. But this is the legal precedent that Judge Salvant cited when he ruled that forcing Staley to take Haldol would be “medically appropriate”—even though the purpose of drugging him is to make him rational enough to kill him. 

I will pause in this grim tale to note, with relief, that the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association hold that it is ethically unacceptable for doctors to prescribe drugs to restore competency for the purpose of execution. This should be an easy call for the Texas courts as well. If it’s awful to imagine psychotic prisoners going without their meds, it’s more awful to force shots on them so the state can kill them. If Texas fails to grasp this, other inmates will follow Steven Staley. Mental illness is common on death row. The only reason that the issues raised in Staley’s case haven’t been decided before, defense lawyers tell me, is that humane prosecutors and judges don’t insist on executing people whose sanity is so uncertain.

There’s a larger question here, beyond the one about forcible medication. It’s about halting the execution of the seriously mentally ill in the same way, and because of similar concerns about a defendant’s impairment, that the states have stopped executing the mentally disabled. Kentucky recently considered such a law and Connecticut has one. If Texas and other states followed suit, we would be spared the miserable spectacle of executing people who commit terrible crimes, but also have terrible deficits. People like Steven Staley and Scott Panetti and Andre Thomas.

Nevada Department of Corrections lacks plan for executions due to prison closure, drug shortage

may 10, 2012 source : http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com

4 months after shutting down Nevada State Prison in Carson City, site of the state’s only death chamber, officials have no solid plan for carrying out executions and no access to a lethal injection drug.
As Nevada’s death row inmates continue to appeal their convictions and sentences, the Nevada Department of Corrections has continued to lose its ability to hold an execution.
Corrections officials shut down the Nevada State Prison in Carson City, site of the state’s only death chamber, early this year, and they have no solid plan in place for transporting and holding an inmate who is about to be executed, the Reno Gazette-Journal found.
In addition, 1 of the drugs used during a lethal injection has not been available for more than a year, and the state’s execution protocol has not been updated to address the drug shortage, the Gazette-Journal found.
The department plans to submit a bill draft request to the Legislature next year asking for $385,000 to build a new execution chamber at the Ely State Prison, said Steve Suwe, a department spokesman.
The Nevada Attorney General’s office sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder early in 2011 seeking help to deal with the lethal injection drug shortage, spokeswoman Jennifer Lopez said. But no resolution has been found.
“Should any executions be scheduled, we will do the best to help the Department of Corrections have the drugs necessary to carry out a lawful execution order,” Lopez said.
Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said the lack of a solid plan could be problematic, especially if an inmate were to suddenly stop the appeals process and ask to be killed. Eleven of the 12 inmates executed in Nevada since 1976 “volunteered” to be executed.
“When it comes time, they just can’t say, ‘Trust us,’” Dieter said of corrections officials. “They have to have a very specific protocol. Either a state or federal court would want them to produce that information. They’ll want to make sure this isn’t done in a slipshod way.”
Source: Reno Gazette-Journal, May 10, 2012

USA – Amnesty International – Know the Facts About Capital Punishment

Last Update February 2012 

Capital punishment does not work. There is a wealth of mounting evidence that proves this fact.

The death penalty, both in the U.S. and around the world, is discriminatory and is used disproportionately against the poor, minorities and members of racial, ethnic and religious communities. Since humans are fallible, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated.

Furthermore, the astronomical costs associated with putting a person on death row – including criminal investigations, lengthy trials and appeals – are leading many states to re-evaluate and re-consider having this flawed and unjust system on the books.

Learn more about death penalty statistics and key arguments:

click on the differents categories for read the pdf file from Amnesty International

 

WASHINGTON – Man on death row 18 years will get new trial – Darold Stenson

May 10, 2012 Source : http://seattletimes.nwsource.com

Eighteen years after Darold Stenson was sentenced to die for the killings of his wife and business partner in Clallam County, the Washington Supreme Court has overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial.

In an 8-1 ruling, the court said Stenson’s rights were violated because prosecutors “wrongfully suppressed” favorable evidence. At the crux of the reversal was possibly tainted gunshot residue found on the jeans Stenson wore on the night in March 1993 when his wife, Denise, and business partner, Frank Hoerner, were killed at the Stensons’ exotic-bird farm, said his attorney Sheryl Gordon McCloud.

McCloud said she was “gratified” by the ruling, which was announced Thursday morning. She said she spoke with Stenson by phone.

“He was crying,” she said.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said two crucial pieces of evidence linked Stenson to the shootings — the gunshot residue on the front pocket of his jeans and blood spatter on the jeans. The spatter was found to be “consistent” with Hoerner’s blood, according to court filings.

McCloud said the defense argued that a Clallam County sheriff’s investigator handled the jeans after the slayings, possibly getting residue from his own handgun on them. When the defense discovered this possible evidence tainting, more than 15 years after the murders, they had what McCloud describes as an “Oh, my God moment.”

“We’re gratified that the court agrees that you cannot execute a man based on evidence this unreliable,” McCloud said.

Justice Pro Tem Gerry Alexander, who authored the majority decision, wrote that Stenson claimed his due-process rights were violated because evidence, consisting of photographs and an FBI investigative file, did not end up in the hands of the defense until 2009.

The justices were asked to review the photographs, which showed Detective Monty Martin wearing Stenson’s jeans with the right pocket turned out and showing Martin’s ungloved hands. They also reviewed an FBI file indicating an agent who testified during the trial actually did not perform a gunshot residue test, something that had been implied during Stenson’s 1994 trial.

Stenson had claimed that he knelt next to Hoerner’s body, accounting for the blood on the jeans.

But an expert witness called by the prosecution had testified that was not possible.

“Had the FBI file and photographs been properly disclosed here, Stenson’s counsel would have been able to demonstrate to the jury that a key exhibit in the case — Stenson’s jeans — had been seriously mishandled and compromised by law-enforcement investigators,” Alexander wrote.

Stenson argued that his due-process rights were violated under Brady v. Maryland, in which the U.S. Supreme Court determined that prosecutors violate a defendant’s constitutional rights by not turning over evidence that could prove a person’s innocence. The state Supreme Court on Thursday said that those rights were violated.

Speaking by phone Thursday morning, Clallam County Prosecutor Deborah Kelly said, “I don’t think anyone was prepared for this.”

Kelly defended the actions of investigators and said she’s “deeply disappointed in the decision to force a retrial.”

Kelly said it will be a few weeks before Stenson returns to Clallam County. She plans to prosecute him herself, again for murder. But, Kelly said, she is undecided on whether she will seek the death penalty.

Kelly said she will consult the victims’ families, try to track down the witnesses and put the case back together.

“It’s a very complicated decision. Does cost figure into the calculus? I don’t think it should, but certainly any prosecutor knows it will cost a great deal,” Kelly said. “To retry it is not as simple as people might think it is.”

Kelly added that staff from her office discussed the Supreme Court decision with relatives of the two victims who were “upset and disappointed.”

“It’s an utter tragedy for the victims’ families that this is the outcome,” she said.

Stenson, 59, was an exotic-bird dealer living near Sequim when he allegedly shot his wife at their home in what prosecutors called an effort to collect $800,000 in insurance. He allegedly shot and killed Hoerner to get out from a debt he owed the man, and to make it look like Hoerner killed Denise Stenson as part of a love-triangle murder-suicide.

Stenson’s three children were asleep nearby when the slayings occurred.

Stenson and Hoerner had been embroiled in a dispute over the cost of ostriches, which Stenson handled on his 5-acre Dakota Farms, prosecutors claimed.

Hoerner’s widow testified that Stenson persuaded the couple to invest their life savings of $48,000 in ostriches, but the big birds never materialized.

In his dissent, Justice James M. Johnson said the majority opinion failed to take into account the “totality of evidence” against Stenson and “exaggerates the potential prejudice of a late-discovered photo of Stenson’s pants.”

Denise Hoerner, the slain man’s wife, could not be reached Thursday, but she has been in support of Stenson’s execution.

“He needs to freaking die,” she said during a 2010 interview with the Peninsula Daily News.

“Witness to Homicide” is a haunting report of the execution of Michael Selsor by the only journalist to ever interview him.

May 10, 2012 Source : http://www.aljazeera.com

In 2010, while making an episode of Fault Lines on the death penalty in the US, Josh Rushing interviewed death row inmate Michael Selsor. It was the only interview Selsor ever granted.

Two years later, Rushing returned to watch Selsor die.

In this special report, he takes an unflinching look at an American execution.

Read the full article and Selsor’s interview : click here 

FLORIDA – Death row inmate’s fate now up to Judge Berger- James Daniel Turner

May 10, 2012 Source : http://staugustine.com

A death row inmate convicted in a brutal stabbing death in a motel room in 2005 now must do what probably is familiar to him: wait.

James Daniel Turner was in court Wednesday for the second day of an evidentiary hearing in which his attorneys asked for a new trial. They said Turner’s former attorneys didn’t make the jury aware of significant mental health illnesses he had when Renee Boling Howard, 37, a mother of five, was stabbed to death at a Comfort Inn.

The hearing concluded before noon, and now Circuit Judge Wendy Berger will think over the matter before making a decision.

No date has been set for a decision.

On Tuesday, an expert witness for the defense said Turner suffers from bipolar and borderline personality disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and that the jury was not made aware of those diagnoses.

On Wednesday, an expert witness for the state said he does not believe Turner suffers from bipolar or borderline personality disorders.

Dr. Jeffrey Danziger, a Maitland-based psychiatrist and medical doctor, said the symptoms that led to those diagnoses were induced by Turner’s dependence on powdered methamphetamine, cocaine and alcohol and did not appear in the seven years he was in prison.

Danziger said Turner “does not suffer from bipolar disorder because he hasn’t had a manic episode that I am aware of.”

He said accounts of manic activities such as Turner’s spending of a $25,000 settlement in one week and unstable romantic relationships, including three failed marriages, could be attributed to the effects of the substances.

Rather, “he has some situational unhappiness, and that’s to be expected” because he is in prison and sentenced to death, Danziger said.

He said Turner had not exhibited borderline behavior while in prison, such as cutting himself, banging his head against a wall or attempting suicide.

And the ADHD?

“Maybe,” Danziger said. But even if he does suffer from that disorder, “it has little to do with (the murder) in 2005.”

Danziger agreed with several previous diagnoses that found that Turner has frontal lobe damage.

He said those findings were “not surprising for someone who has a history of heavy substance abuse and maybe suffered some knocks to the head,” including head trauma in substance-induced car accidents.

A jury in 2007 found Turner, then of Silverstreet, S.C., guilty of stabbing Howard on Sept. 30, 2005, at the St. Augustine motel off State Road 207 and Interstate 95 after escaping from a South Carolina prison and stealing a police car.

Prosecutors said he stabbed Howard several times before turning to see her crawling toward the door and stabbing her again.

Two of Howard’s children, a 10-month-old and a 2-year-old, were in the room, as was her 10-month-old grandchild. They weren’t injured, but Howard’s friend Stacia Raybon was attacked twice before locking herself in the bathroom.

If Berger grants a new trial, it would be the third for Turner.

Berger declared a mistrial during Turner’s first trial in July 2007 when a juror had a seizure during consideration of the fifth and final charge against the defendant.

Jurors found him guilty Nov. 29, 2007, during his retrial and later recommended the death penalty.

Dr. Miguel Mandoki, a Jacksonville psychiatrist, said during the first trial that he believed Turner was insane when Howard was killed in St. Augustine.

In addition to the death sentence, Berger sentenced Turner to life in prison for home invasion robbery with a deadly weapon, five years for the grand theft of Howard’s Ford F-150 pickup truck and 15 years for aggravated assault on a police officer.

St. Johns County Deputy Graham Harris had testified that he chased Turner south on State Road 207 at speeds between 90 and 100 mph. He said Turner put the pickup truck in reverse and rammed his patrol car before jumping off the Deep Creek bridge.

South Texas DA charged in widening extortion, fraud scheme

May 7, 2012 Source : http://www.statesman.com

BROWNSVILLE — A South Texas prosecutor running for U.S. Congress was charged Monday with taking more than $100,000 in bribes to settle and minimize criminal cases, including one deal that allegedly netted $80,000 while a convicted murderer fled a prison sentence.

Armando Villalobos, the district attorney in Cameron County, was charged with racketeering, extortion and honest services fraud, prosecutors said. His former law partner, Eduardo Lucio, faces similar charges.

The two men were the latest to be roped into in a multiyear federal investigation of corruption in the county’s criminal justice system, which has ensnared a judge, a bailiff, lawyers and former state Rep. Jim Solis. Former state District Judge Abel Limas and other local attorneys have pleaded guilty to charges.

After being released on bail, Villalobos stood outside the courthouse Monday in front of supporters and denied the charges.

“Have faith in the system, and have faith in me,” Villalobos said.

In its most explosive allegation, the indictment claims Villalobos agreed to a deal that gave a man who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder 60 days of freedom before reporting to prison. Amit Livingston was convicted in 2007 of killing 32-year-old substitute teacher Hermila Hernandez, whose body was found on South Padre Island two years earlier.

Livingston was sentenced to 23 years in prison but given time to get his “affairs in order” by presiding judge Limas, the Brownsville Herald reported. Instead, Livingston fled and remains at large.

Meanwhile, Villalobos allegedly had Lucio file a wrongful death lawsuit against Livingston on behalf of Hernandez’s family. The $500,000 bond Livingston posted was used to settle the lawsuit, the indictment said. Hernandez’s family collected $300,000, while Lucio took $200,000 and paid Villalobos $80,000, the indictment said.

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US – US hospitals face medicine shortages as crucial supplies diverted to executions

May 8, 2012 Source : http://www.reprieve.org.uk

US hospitals are facing shortages of a key medicine used in surgical anaesthesia as death rows stockpile the same drug for use in executions, new figures have shown.

Prisons across the USA are holding large stockpiles of pancuronium bromide, a paralysing agent designed to relax muscles during surgery, in order to use it as part of a three-drug execution ‘cocktail.’

The US Food and Drug administration (FDA) has repeatedly warned that the country is facing shortages of the medicine, which date back as far as 2010. Yet various Departments of Corrections, which don’t use the drug for medicinal purposes, but only in executions, are hoarding large quantities. Virginia alone, for example, holds 60 vials of the drug, enough to treat roughly 50-60 patients in emergency medical operations.

The executing states’ behaviour is particularly controversial as the use of pancuronium – which slowly suffocates the prisoner – is not even necessary in executions, as a third drug is employed to stop the heart. The second stage is purely cosmetic, paralysing the prisoner so that onlookers can’t see any signs that they might be in distress. Worse still, by paralysing the prisoner, the use of pancuronium creates a serious risk that they will be left unable to signal that the first drug, an anaesthetic, has failed to work – and therefore will die in excruciating pain, unable to move or even to speak.

Legal action charity Reprieve is calling on manufacturers to put in place procedures to ensure that the drug reaches only legitimate, medical users, and is not diverted to execution chambers – which will also help to reduce the shortages hospitals currently face.

Pancuronium bromide is manufactured by Hospira, a company which has repeatedly stated its opposition to the use of its medicines in executions. Thus far, however, it has taken no active steps to prevent this use. The result is that Hospira’s pancuronium bromide is currently unavailable for the doctors who have legitimate medical need for it, while executioners apparently have ample supplies.  

Reprieve investigator, Maya Foa said: “Regardless of your views on the death penalty, it cannot be right that hospitals are facing shortages of medicines while executing chambers sit on huge stockpiles. These drugs are being diverted from their legitimate, medical use in order to kill. Manufacturers like Hospira must put in place controls to ensure this is not allowed to happen.”

CALIFORNIA – California Supreme Court upholds 1999 death sentence

May 7, 2012 Source : http://blog.pe.com

The California Supreme Court Monday, May 7, upheld a death penalty sentence for a Mead Valley man sentenced in 1999 for his conviction of first-degree murder during a sexual assault on an 81-year-old woman who was a neighbor and long-time family friend.

The state high court voted 7-0 to uphold the death penalty for William Alfred Jones Jr, now 55, who was convicted by jurors for the attack that left Ruth Vernice Eddings dead.

Her nude body was found June 19, 1996, on the living room floor of her mobile home along Cajalco Road. Jones had torched the building to cover up the murder, and arson investigators discovered the body.

Jones admitted to sheriff’s investigators he had been drinking heavily when he went to Eddings’ mobile home to sexually attack her.

At the time, Jones was a parolee and registered sex offender living with his parents and working as a carpenter. He had been released from prison about 1 1/2 years earlier and had befriended Eddings, who had been his parents’ neighbor for many years.

Jones’ criminal past included several attacks on women and children, starting at age 15 when he stabbed a teacher. In 1990, he raped a 16-year-old girl, went to prison and was paroled.

Among the appeal items rejected Monday by the state Supreme Court was that the trial judge erred during the penalty phase by allowing the victim impact statement of the teacher, who was attacked in 1972.

NEVADA – Nevada court reviews death penalty sentence of convicted killer

May 7, 2012 Source : http://www.lasvegassun.com

A convicted killer does not have to show by a preponderance of the evidence that he does not deserve a death sentence, a defense lawyer says.

John R. Petty of the Washoe County public defender’s office told the Nevada Supreme Court that it should nullify the death penalty given murderer James Biela because a wrong instruction was given to the jury during the penalty phase of the trial in Reno.

But Terry McCarthy of the Washoe County district attorney’s office said each juror makes his or her own decision. And the death penalty should be upheld.

But Justice Kristina Pickering said there could be confusion in the jury instruction.

On Jan. 20, 2008, 19-year-old Brianna Dennison disappeared while sleeping on the couch of the home of a friend in Reno. Her body was found Feb. 15 in a field. She had been raped and strangled with a pair of thong panties.

Petty, the chief appeal deputy in the public defender’s office, said the jury was wrongly instructed that the mitigating circumstances must outweigh the aggravating circumstances to eliminate the possibility of the death penalty.

But Justice Michael Douglas noted the defense at the trial never objected to the jury instruction. Nor did the defense attorney argue against it in his closing argument.

But Petty said the court should either grant a new penalty hearing or reduce the death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Deputy District Attorney McCarthy told the court there was no requirement at trial that the death penalty be imposed. He said it was a moral judgment by the juror.

In his brief to the court, McCarthy quoted the instruction as saying, “If you find unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt that at least one aggravating circumstance exists and each of you determines beyond a reasonable doubt that any mitigating circumstance do not outweigh the aggravating, the defendant is eligible for a death sentence.”

The court took the arguments under submission.

Biela is one of 82 men on death row in the state prison in Ely.

There has not been an execution by lethal injection in Nevada since Daryl Mack was put to death on April 26, 2006.