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Appeals court rejects request to remove judge in Arizona death-penalty case – Kevin Miles

September 28, 2012, http://www.bellinghamherald.com

 

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court Friday rejected an Arizona death row inmate’s request that a judge recuse herself from his carjacking-murder case because her own father was murdered in a carjacking close to 40 years ago.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said Kevin Miles” request that Judge Susan Graber recuse herself was inappropriate and “especially flimsy.”

Graber wrote the opinion last month upholding Miles’ death sentence for the 1992 carjacking and murder of Patricia Baeuerlen in Tucson. Graber’s father, Julius, was carjacked in 1974 by two teens wielding a sawed-off shotgun, then driven to a Cincinnati cemetery, where he was shot in the back of the head.

Miles‘ motion said federal court procedure and U.S. law require that federal judges disqualify themselves “in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

But Judges Marsha Berzon and Richard Tallman wrote that it is up to Graber to decide whether or not to step down, and they went on to defend her impartiality at some length in their published five-page order.

“Life experiences do not disqualify us from serving as judges on cases in which the issues or the facts are in some indirect way related to our personal experiences,” they wrote.

Miles‘ public defender, Timothy Gabrielsen, had no comment on the order Friday except to say, “I stand by the motion. I think it is appropriate.”

Assistant Arizona Attorney General Jonathan Bass called the timing of the motion peculiar, since it came after the court had already ruled on Miles’ appeal. If there’s any doubt, “you don’t want the judge to rule at all,” he said.

Bass agreed with the order, saying he “had no reason to think they (the circuit judges) are not impartial.”

Miles, then 24, and two underage friends were standing on a street corner in Tucson in December 1992 when Baeuerlen pulled up. Levi Jackson, 16, pointed a gun at her and the trio got into her car.

They drove to the desert, where they took her out of the car, taunted and harassed her before Jackson shot her in the chest and they drove off, leaving Baeuerlen where she had been shot.

Miles later used Baeuerlen’s ATM card to take money out of her account. He drove her car to Phoenix where he went shopping at a mall, exchanged her children’s Christmas gifts for other items and met with friends.

Police arrested Miles two days after Baeuerlen’s slaying, and he confessed after several hours of questioning. He was later convicted and sentenced to death. Jackson, who was initially sentenced to death, had the sentence reversed on appeal and is now serving a life sentence.

The recusal motion noted similarities to Julius Graber’s murder and to the post-conviction proceedings for Willie Lee Bell, an accomplice in Graber’s killing.

Bell, who was 16 at the time of that crime, was sentenced to death, but his sentence was overturned in 1978. He is now serving a life sentence in Ohio.

A motion for a rehearing before the full 9th Circuit of the latest decision in Miles‘ case is pending. If that motion is denied, Miles could then petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a hearing.

ARIZONA – Death-row inmate’s appeal rejected by federal court-Pete Carl Rogovich

September 21, 2012 http://www.azcentral.com

A federal appeals court this week rejected multiple challenges by an Arizona death-row inmate to reduce his sentence for the 1992 murders of four people, including three who were killed in a Phoenix trailer-park “homicidal rampage.”

Pete Carl Rogovich, 46, confessed to the killings and other crimes when caught by police on March 15, 1992, after a lengthy car chase, according to court documents.

“I did it. I know it was wrong. I know I’ll burn in hell,” Rogovich reportedly told police.

 

He presented an insanity defense, but was convicted of all counts by an Arizona jury in a seven-day trial in May 1994.

In his latest round of appeals, Rogovich argued that his attorney at trial presented the insanity defense without his approval. He also claimed that his attorney failed to challenge prejudicial prosecution statements during closing arguments or to challenge the aggravating factors that led to the imposition of the death penalty.

But a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected those arguments Tuesday, saying there is no law “requiring the defendant to consent on the record to an insanity defense.” It also upheld lower-court rulings that Rogovich was adequately represented at trial.

“Of course we’re disappointed” by the decision, said Sarah Stone, Rogovich’s lawyer for his appeal. “He’s a seriously mentally ill person.”

She said there is no question that he committed the crimes, since he never denied his actions. “The question is whether the punishment (a death sentence) is appropriate,” she said.

“We think a life sentence is best for Mr. Rogovich, given his mental condition,” she said.

Prosecutors could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The case began on the morning of March 15, 1992, when a customer walked in to the Super Stop Market near Rogovich’s central Phoenix apartment at 8:45 and found clerk Tekleberhan Manna, 24, dead, shot once in the eye at close range. Nothing had been taken from the store, court documents said.

Rogovich, who had told an apartment maintenance worker that morning that he was angry with his girlfriend and would get even with her, left his apartment about 1 p.m. that day with a gun and began firing randomly. After shooting at two people in the parking lot and missing, he hopped the fence to a neighboring trailer park and began what courts described as a “homicidal rampage.”

Rogovich shot Phyllis Mancuso, 62, in the laundry room; Rebecca Carreon, 48, in her driveway; and Marie Pendergast, 83, in her trailer. All three women died as Rogovich ran off.

Some time later, he stole a radio station’s van at gunpoint from a promotional appearance at a restaurant. He was later seen at a convenience store in Goodyear, where he stole beer and cash before “casually” walking out and driving off in the van.

Goodyear police spotted him about 5 p.m. and caught Rogovich after a “lengthy chase at speeds ranging from 50 to over 100 miles per hour.”

Rogovich admitted to all the crimes, including all four killings, but said he was upset by the breakup with his girlfriend and the death of his stepfather six years earlier.

“Of course I’m sorry. It was wrong,” he said, according to the court. “I know it, but I just snapped. I was so angry. I just couldn’t stop.”

Despite his insanity defense he was convicted in 1994 of all charges: four murders, two aggravated assaults, two armed robberies and unlawful flight.

At his sentencing a year later, his attorneys presented evidence of an abusive childhood, mental illness and drug dependencies. But the court sentenced him to death for the trailer-park killings and life in prison for Manna’s death.

Stone said that Rogovich’s attorneys have not decided on the next step.

UPCOMING – Executions – AUGUST 2012

July 18, 2012

Dates are subject to change due to stays and appeals

Pennsylvania execution dates and stays are generally not listed because the state routinely sets execution dates before all appeals have been exhausted.

August

08.01.12

Marcus Druery

Texas

  Stayed  
08.03.12

Michael Tisius

Missouri

 Stay likely  
08.07.12

Wilson Marvin

Texas

  Executed   6:27 p.m
08.08.12

Daniel Wayne Cook

Arizona

  Executed  11:03 a.m
08/14/2012

 Michael Edward Hooper

Oklahoma

  Executed   6:14 p.m
08/15/2102

Jason Reeves

Louisania

  Stayed
08/22/2012

John Balentine

Texas

  Stayed  

ARIZONA – Samuel Villegas Lopez – Executed 10:37 a.m June 27 2012

June 27, 2012 Source :

Samuel Lopez, who stabbed a Phoenix woman to death in 1986, was executed today at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Florence, three days before his 50th birthday.

Lopez had no last words.

No members of Lopez’s family were present, witnesses said. Eight members of the family of Estefana Holmes, his victim, spoke with reporters after the execution.

Victor Arguijo, Holmes’s brother, who traveled with other family members from Fort Worth, Texas, said, “We are not here to seek vengeance nor to avenge, but to seek justice for our family. This execution today will not bring our beloved Tefo back, but hopefully will bring closure.”

Lopez’s final meal consisted of one red chili con carne, one green chili con carne, Spanish rice, a jalapeño, an avocado, cottage cheese, French fries, a Coke, vanilla ice cream and pineapple.

The execution procedure began shortly before 10 a.m., as a group of six prison medical team members inserted intravenous catheters into Lopez’s arms. Lopez chatted with them and winced slightly, as government representatives, media, attorneys and Holmes’s family members watched on closed-circuit TV. Then prison officials opened the curtains between the death chamber and the witness area. The execution began at 10:08 a.m. and ended at 10:37 a.m., taking more than twice as long as recent prior executions.

Lopez blinked, yawned, breathed rapidly, then his mouth dropped open, witnesses said.

On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court declined without comment his appeal for a stay. One aspect of Lopez’s death marked a departure from prior recent executions in Arizona, including three earlier this year, after extended legal disputes. For the first time, the Department of Corrections allowed witnesses to watch, via close-circuit cameras, as executioners inserted the intravenous catheters that deliver the fatal drug, pentobarbital, into the condemned man.

Previously, the department only allowed the curtain between observers and the inmate to be pulled back after the catheters were in place. Where and how the catheters were inserted in earlier executions led to legal accusations that the department was engaging in cruel and unusual punishment. Corrections officials have said that problems finding suitable veins in the condemned man’s arms or legs have forced them to insert catheters into the groin area.

As in past executions, Lopez was told by officials that his microphone would be cut off if he said anything offensive. In March, as convicted murder Robert Towery was being executed, officials refused his requests to speak with his attorney as medical staff repeatedly stuck him without being able to find a vein, eventually using his groin area. Towery communicated with his attorney by code during his last words.

Defense attorneys in Arizona have repeatedly brought these issues to court; the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that no part of an execution should be shielded from media witnesses.

Lopez was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering Holmes in her apartment in central Phoenix in 1986. He stabbed the grandmother and seamstress more than 23 times and slashed her throat with her own kitchen knives after a fierce struggle. A few days later, while being interviewed by police investigating an unrelated sexual-assault incident, Lopez mentioned details of Holmes’ murder that hadn’t been released to the public, police said. His attorneys, on appeal of his 1987 conviction and death sentence, argued that those details had been common knowledge in the neighborhood.

Lopez’s attorney, Kelley Henry, an assistant federal public defender, criticized the execution and said Lopez was denied due process. “This broken process began at trial where untrained attorneys failed to raise crucial evidence about Sammy’s horrific and abusive family history. It continued up until this week as the courts refused to hear the merits of Sammy’s claims because of procedural barriers,” she said.

Lopez’s attorneys had sought stays in both state and federal courts. In state court, they argued that he couldn’t get a fair hearing before Arizona’s Board of Executive Clemency, and that a majority of the five members had been improperly appointed as political cronies of Gov. Jan Brewer. In federal court, they argued that state courts hadn’t adequately considered factors that should have mitigated against a death sentence for Lopez, such as his brutal upbringing and a mental impairment caused by his childhood abuse of inhalants and other drugs.

On May 15, Arizona’s Supreme Court stayed his execution, originally set for that day, to allow a lower court to consider the argument that new clemency board members hadn’t received all the training required by state law. But last Friday, the court turned down his attorneys’ request for a second stay of execution, after a lower court ruled that there had been enough time for the training to be completed.

Also last Friday, Arizona’s Board of Executive Clemency denied Lopez’s bid for a commutation to life without parole. More than a dozen members of Holmes’ extended family spoke at the board hearing in favor of his execution.

A small group of protesters braved the heat Wednesday to demonstrate against the death penalty, but were kept away from the prison by state troopers.

Arizona death-row inmate wants his execution delayed until state has new governor – Samuel Villegas Lopez

Update, June 22 Source : http://www.azcentral.com

Arizona’s Board of Executive Clemency voted 4-0 Friday not to recommend clemency or a reprieve for convicted murderer Samuel Lopez, who is scheduled to be executed Wednesday.

Also on Friday, Arizona’s Supreme Court denied a request by Lopez’s attorneys for a stay of execution, leaving a pending appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court as his last chance for a reprieve.

Lopez was sentenced to death for the brutal murder of Estefana Holmes in central Phoenix in 1986. After a “terrible and prolonged struggle,” Lopez raped and sodomized her, stabbed her more than 23 times in the chest and head, and slashed her throat, according to court records.

The board’s vote followed impassioned pleas both for and against his execution.

“He didn’t just murder Essie, he murdered our family,” said Denise Evans, Holmes’s daughter-in-law, saying that her devastated husband drank himself to death after her killing.

More than a dozen members of Holmes’s family testified, most describing how the murders continue to affect them, and saying the execution would bring them closure.

“Why should he be allowed more time on this earth than our sister?” asked Sarah Arguijo Bryant.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry expressed her condolences, but told the board that because of poor lawyering, no court had heard the full story of Lopez’s poor and brutal upbringing, or of how his childhood abuse of various substances, as an escape, had left him mentally impaired. Neuropsychiatrist George Wood, describing that upbringing in clinical detail, said Lopez and his siblings essentially were brought up as “feral children.” He noted that two of Lopez’s brothers also faced the death penalty for their own crimes.

That background and impairment should have mitigated his sentence to life without parole, Henry said. Inevitably, when the death penalty is imposed “it’s not for the worst crime, it’s for the worst lawyer,” she said.

State prosecutors had provided the board members with color photos of Holmes and the murder scene. Board member Mel Thomas said he reviewed them closely before the hearing. “I tell you now, when I did this at home, I cried,” he said.

Lopez, who is being held at the Eyman state prison, did not take part in the hearing. He previously had been scheduled for execution May 15, but won a delay after the Arizona Supreme Court agreed that three new members of the clemency board hadn’t had adequate training when they first considered his bid for clemency last month. When Gov. Jan Brewer replaced three of the five board members, including the chairman, in April, the departing members said they had been ousted because she was unhappy with their votes to recommend clemency in certain cases.

Henry had sought another stay, arguing that the new members couldn’t give Lopez a fair hearing because they were improperly appointed and biased against him; but Friday the state supreme court denied her motion without comment. The U.S. Supreme Court had not acted Friday on a separate request for a stay filed by Lopez’s attorneys

June 20, 2012 Source :

PHOENIX — Attorneys for a death-row inmate set to be put to death in Arizona next week want the execution delayed until the state has a new governor, arguing in a Tuesday filing that Gov. Jan Brewer appointed “political cronies” to a clemency board in an unconstitutional, closed-door process.

In their filing in the Arizona Supreme Court, defense attorneys for death-row inmate Samuel Villegas Lopez argue that he can’t receive a fair hearing with the state’s clemency board, often an inmate’s last chance for mercy before an execution.

Brewer overhauled the board in April, a move that her spokesman Matt Benson said at the time was designed to “bring fresh insight and fresh blood” to the board.“The Arizona Supreme Court has already found these allegations to be without merit. The latest filing is more of the same,” Benson said in statement Tuesday evening. “Governor Brewer appropriately nominated qualified individuals to the Board of Executive Clemency, including a Democrat, and they were properly confirmed by the Arizona Senate. The governor and the Board of Executive Clemency have the right to defend themselves when named in a lawsuit in which spurious and sanctionable allegations are asserted.”

In their filing, Lopez’s attorneys argued that the new board members are “political cronies” appointed to ensure that they never vote for executions to be delayed or overturned.

The attorneys also argue that the selection committee for the new board members questioned potential members about how they would vote on controversial or high-profile cases in interviews that were closed to the public in violation of open-meetings laws.

“While the Governor may be free to appoint her political cronies to Arizona boards and commissions, and while political patronage may be an accepted part of Arizona government, the law at least requires that those actions be known to the public,” the filing said.

“Offensive to any reasonable notion of fairness, this denial of access to the clemency process would not have occurred in the sunlight of public scrutiny,” they wrote. “Mr. Lopez must now plead for mercy before a board constituted of a majority of members selected by that process.”

Lopez’s clemency hearing is set for Friday.

His attorneys also argue that statements made by Benson and newly appointed board Chairman Jesse Hernandez to reporters display clear bias against Lopez and a prejudgment of his request for mercy.

For instance, Benson told The Associated Press last month that defense attorneys were “attempting to further delay justice for the heinous crimes committed by their client 25 years ago.”

“Throwing together a host of trumped-up charges against a citizen board does not change that fact,” he said.

Hernandez has told the AP that the attorneys were “grandstanding” in filing a lawsuit against Brewer and the board in Maricopa County Superior Court over the new board members.

Hernandez did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The Arizona Supreme Court already delayed Lopez’s execution once, on May 15, to give the new clemency board members time to undergo four weeks of training before they held a hearing about Lopez’s fate.

The court granted the delay on the grounds that Lopez was denied a fair chance for clemency because a majority of the board members had not undergone the training. The court rescheduled the May 16 execution for June 27.

Lopez faces a lethal injection at a state prison in Florence for the 1986 murder of Estefana Holmes. The Phoenix woman was raped, robbed and stabbed in what authorities described as a “terrible and prolonged struggle.

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ARIZONA – Arizona court approves fifth execution this year

June 12, 2012 Source : http://www.chron.com

Tuesday approved the execution of a death-row inmate who was spared from the death penalty last year after winning a last-minute delay from the nation’s highest court.

Daniel Wayne Cook, 50, is now scheduled for execution on Aug. 8 at the state prison in Florence.

Cook was sentenced to death for killing a 26-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, Carlos Cruz-Ramos, and a 16-year-old boy, Kevin Swaney, in 1987, after police say he tortured and raped them for hours in his apartment in Lake Havasu City in far western Arizona.

Cook had been scheduled for execution on April 5 of last year, but the U.S. Supreme Court granted him a last-minute stay to consider whether he had ineffective counsel during his post-conviction proceedings. They since have turned him down.

ARIZONA – Samuel Villegas Lopez – Execution June 27, 2012 – 10:00 a.m

June 27, 2012 Source : http://tucsoncitizen.com

The U.S. Supreme Court late Thursday denied death-row inmate Samuel Lopez’s final appeal, clearing the way for his execution at 10 a.m. today in Florence.

Lopez’s attorney, assistant federal public defender Kelley Henry, said there will be no other efforts to block his execution. Lopez, 49, was convicted in 1987 of raping and murdering Estefana Holmes in her Phoenix apartment. On Friday, the Arizona Supreme Court also denied a stay, and Arizona’s Board of Executive Clemency denied a commutation bid.

His execution will be the first in which witnesses will watch, via closed-circuit TV, the insertion of the catheters that deliver the fatal drug pentobarbital. Attorneys for inmates in prior executions condemned the practice of inserting catheters into the prisoners’ groins. Officials said the executioners had found it difficult to find suitable veins in the arms and legs.

In earlier executions, witnesses only saw the prisoner after the catheters had been inserted.

June 26, 2012 Source : http://www.azcentral.com

A death-row inmate set to be executed in Arizona on Wednesday has lost his last appeal, clearing the way for the lethal injection to proceed.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a request from Samuel Villegas Lopez to delay his execution to consider arguments that his trial attorneys were incompetent.

June 6, 2012 Source : http://www.azcentral.com

ll executions carried out in Arizona are witnessed by members of the public and the media. But the witnesses only see the condemned prisoner as he says his last words and lapses into unconsciousness.

During the next execution, scheduled for June 27, the witnesses also will be able to watch as executioners insert the intravenous catheters that deliver the deadly drug into the prisoner’s veins.

Just last week, a federal judge in Phoenix denied requests by defense attorneys and the media to witness those preparations. A federal judge in Idaho denied a similar request from the media Tuesday.

But in a letter Wednesday to death-row prisoner Samuel Lopez, who faces execution June 27, Arizona Corrections Director Charles Ryan said that witnesses to the execution –– who generally include five members of the media — will be allowed to watch his catheter insertion via closed-circuit television.

The location of the catheters has been an ongoing court issue in the past several executions. The Department of Corrections frequently claims that its medical staff for executions are unable to find suitable veins in the arms or legs of the condemned prisoners, prompting them to surgically insert a line into prisoners’ groin areas.

During a March execution, a condemned man asked to speak to his attorney before the execution as the medical staff repeatedly stuck him without finding a vein, eventually putting the line into the femoral vein in his groin. He was not allowed to speak to the attorney and instead communicated with him by code during his last words.

Ryan has previously refused to allow anyone to view the process.

In May, judges at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals questioned why Arizona media had not expressed its First Amendment right to witness the procedure.

A 2009 decision by the 9th Circuit ruled that the public has a right to witness all aspects of an execution. Only California and Ohio have allowed it until now.

Nonetheless, the Arizona Department of Corrections fought the motion to allow attorneys into the room to see the catheters inserted. The First Amendment Coalition of Arizona also asked to witness, but a U.S. District Court judge in Phoenix denied their motions.

The attorneys filed an appeal in the 9th Circuit on Wednesday morning asking that a prisoner’s attorneys be allowed to watch the procedure in order to gather evidence, regardless of whether he or she is invited as a witness by the prisoner.

But also Wednesday, Lopez received a note from Ryan informing him that the executioners will be using a single drug, pentobarbital, to carry out his execution, and that he could make a final statement to the witnesses. However, he was told that his microphone would be cut off if he made offensive statements.

A Department of Corrections spokesman said the note to Lopez speaks for itself.

In the last paragraph, Ryan told Lopez that the closed-circuit monitors in the execution chamber will be turned on as the IVs are inserted before the execution, and that there will be a live microphone in the room so that the witnesses can hear what is said during the procedure.

“Over the past two years, ADC stopped illegally importing the execution drugs, switched to a one-drug protocol and now is making the execution process more transparent. These are steps in the right direction,” said Assistant Federal Public Defender Dale Baich, who will witness Lopez’s execution as his guest. “ADC now recognizes that the entire execution process can be transparent and, at the same time, the anonymity of the medical personnel who carry out the executions can be protected.”

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FLORIDA – UCI and FSP Death Row Raiford – New Housing rules

June 8, 2012 Source : http://www.dc.state.fl.us/

New Housing Rules

In addition to Florida Administrative Code (FAC) Chapter 33 and FDC Procedures you will be expected to comply with these instructions. Failure to comply may result in the loss/suspension of privileges and/or disciplinary action. Your acknowledgement and compliance with these instructions will be an indication of positive adjustment and a benefit to you. Should you have any questions: contact a staff member within your unit for clarification. FAC Chapter 33 and FDC Procedures are available for checkout in each unit. Items checked out must be returned on the same shift as issued. Inmates will be responsible for lost or damaged items they have checked out.

1) Inmates will follow all orders given by an employee at any given time.

2) Inmates are to conduct themselves in a quiet and orderly manner at all times. There will be no yelling or loud talking from cell to cell, out of windows to inmates or staff. Additionally there will be no talking during counts of after lights out. Inmates are not permitted to yell to staff members to gain their attention unless there is true emergency.

3) Inmates are not permitted to talk or in any way attempt to communicate with other inmates while being escorted outside of their cells. This includes, but not limited to – showers/haircut, recreation, hearings, callouts/appointments and work/education assignments.

4) Inmates are not permitted to communicate or attempt to communicate to anyone outside of the housing unit to include those times when inmates are escorted outside the unit to participate in outdoor recreation, work details or call-outs/appointments. Any form of unauthorized communication to others (staff, visitors, or inmates) outside the unit in any manner is strictly prohibited.

5) You are required to wear a Class B uniform from 8:00am – 5:00pm Monday to Friday. The class B uniform consists of a tee shirt, blue pants or personal shorts (if you currently possess them). Anytime an inmate departs their cell they are to be dressed in Class A uniform, including approved footwear, unless directed otherwise by staff.

6) Bunks will be made each morning at 8:00am, excluding weekends and holidays, with a 6 (six) inch white collar and will remain in this fashion until 5:00pm. Anytime an inmate departs his/her cell on weekends or holidays the bunk will be made before departing the cell.

7) Inmates are to remain quiet when any staff member enters the wing. When a staff member passes by your cell, you may address staff at that time.

8) Inmates are not permitted to stand on toilets, bunks or sinks.

9) Mattresses, sheets, blankets, pillows/pillow cases and towels will not be placed on the floor at any time.

10) Inmates will perform scheduled cleaning of their cells as directed by staff and will be responsible for keeping cells clean and orderly at all times. Inmates will not write on, or in any manner deface cell walls, windows, floors, ceilings, doors/bars or any fixtures. No items are to be attached or affixed to any area within the cells. Towels and washcloths may be hung to dry on the wall hooks, provided for that purpose in each cell.

11) Inmates are not permitted to throw any trash out of their cells. Trash will be collected during scheduled cell cleaning and after the completion of each meal.

12) All state property will be returned in the same condition as when issued.

13) Inmates are not to pass any item from cell to cell or to any other inmate to include personal/or state property. The manufacture, possession or use of a rope or “fishing line” is prohibited.

14) All property will be stored in your locker or other approved storage location. All personal property in excess of what can be kept in the locker must be disposed of according to proper regulations.

15) All inmates are to come to the cell door and receive their food tray at meal times. The trays are to remain inside the cell until collected at the completion of each meal. Food items or trays will not be passed between cells. No food items, food trays, utensils, containers or condiments (except those items purchased from the canteen) will be stored in the cells at any time. Any issue with the meal being served will be addressed to the officer supervising the feeding of the meal and not inmate orderlies.

16) Death Row inmates will be allowed to possess and use “smokeless tobacco” products. They will not be allowed to possess any other type of tobacco.

17) All inmates are required to comply with Chapter 33-602-101, FAC to include maintaining hair and fingernails as outlined. Inmates will also shower and shave three times a week (unless exempt by medical pass) Showers are limited to ten (10) minutes maximum. Clippers will be used for shaving.

18) Inmates will proceed directly to the showers from their cells and return directly to their cell upon completion unless directed otherwise. You are permitted to take the following items to the shower: clean clothing, shower slides, towel, washcloth, and hygiene products.

19) Issuance and exchange of health and comfort items will be on a predetermined schedule within each unit.

20) You are not permitted to take anything (i.e. towels, books, papers, canteen items, etc) to the outdoor recreation yards. Inmates are permitted to talk to other inmates in the outdoor recreation areas if conversation can be conducted without loud talking or yelling. Inmates participating in outdoor recreation are not permitted to talk to inmates inside the housing unit or areas outside of the recreation area. Inmates will be permitted to remove outer shirt once inside the recreation yard, but t-shirts must be worn. Shorts may be worn while on the recreation yards.

21) Inmates are required to respond to health care staff during daily rounds, sick call, and weekly mental health rounds. Prior to health care staff entering the individual housing unit an officer will announce “Health care staff is now conducting rounds” If these rounds are after 5:00pm inmates will dress in at least Class “B” uniform until health care staff departs the housing unit.

22) Inmates with medical, mental health or dental non-emergencies will notify medical staff while making daily rounds; mental health staff during weekly rounds or submit an “inmate request” DC6-236. Over the counter medication may be requested from Close Management staff as needed.

23) Cells will be inspected for damage prior to your placement. Any noted deficiency will be listed on the “Cell Inspection” DC6-221 form and you will sign the form acknowledging your agreement with the inspection. Inmates will be held accountable for any deficiencies not previously noted on the DC6-221 during routine inspections or upon release.

24) In the event it becomes necessary to evacuate the housing unit inmates will follow all directions issued by staff and move from their assigned cells to the pre-designated assembly area in a quiet and orderly manner. Inmates will not attempt to retrieve any personal property prior to departure unless directed by staff.

ARIZONA – Arizona prison system sees high number of deaths

June 2, 2012 Source : http://tucsoncitizen.com

Arizona’s prison system has two death rows.

One is made up of the 126 inmates officially sentenced to death — 123 men at the Eyman state prison in Florence and three women at Perryville. Seven convicted killers from that group have been executed over the last two years.

slideshow Arizona prison inmate deaths

The other death row, the unofficial one, reaches into every prison in Arizona’s sprawling correctional system. No judge or jury condemned anyone in this group to death. They die as victims of prison violence, neglect and mistreatment.

Over the past two years, this death row has claimed the lives of at least 37 inmates, more than five times the number executed from the official death row. Among them are mentally ill prisoners locked in solitary confinement who committed suicide, inmates who overdosed on drugs smuggled into prison, those with untreated medical conditions and inmates murdered by other inmates.

Unlike state executions, these deaths rarely draw much notice. Each receives a terse announcement by the Department of Corrections and then is largely forgotten.

But correctional officers and other staff who work with inmates say many of these deaths are needless and preventable.

Arizona will spend $1.1 billion this year to lock up its 40,000 prisoners.

But there is another cost, one measured not in dollars but in human lives.

Over four days, an Arizona Republic investigation will reveal a prison system that houses inmates under brutal conditions that can foster self-harm, allows deadly drugs to flow in from the outside, leaves inmates to die from treatable medical conditions and fails to protect inmates from prison predators.

Today, The Republic focuses on suicides in the prison system, where there have been at least 19 in the past two years. Arizona’s official prison-suicide rate during that period was 60 percent higher than the national average. But suicides in prison are likely underreported, according to critics.

More than half of the suicides involved inmates in solitary confinement, including some with serious mental illnesses.

ARIZONA – Motion denied to watch executions by injection

May 31, 2012 Source : http://www.azcentral.com

Despite strong language from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and a 2002 appeals-court ruling, a federal judge in Phoenix on Wednesday denied motions to allow attorneys and reporters to watch as executioners insert the catheters that carry the drugs used in lethal injections for condemned prisoners.

The Federal Public Defender’s Office in Phoenix and other defense attorneys have complained about the practices of the Arizona Department of Corrections in carrying out executions by lethal injection. Among the concerns are the qualifications of those who insert IV lines into the condemned prisoners and why they repeatedly fail to find suitable veins in the prisoner’s arms and must resort to a surgically installed catheter in the groin area.

On May 15, the day before death-row prisoner Samuel Lopez was to be executed for the 1986 murder of a Phoenix woman, his attorneys filed a motion with U.S. District Judge Neil Wake, asking to be allowed to witness the catheterization. Wake did not rule on the motion. But the subject had come up in oral arguments on May 14 in a last-ditch appeal to the 9th Circuit.

Of concern in that appeal was a March execution in which the condemned man was not allowed to speak to his attorney when prison staff was unable to find a suitable vein in his arm and instead inserted the catheter in his groin.

The appeals court refused to stop Lopez’s execution, but one of the judges questioned why the media had not insisted on being present when the lines were inserted. The state of Ohio and California allow such witnessing, and a 2002 9th Circuit opinion ruled that the public has a First Amendment right to witness all aspects of an execution.

Lopez subsequently received a reprieve from the Arizona Supreme Court until June 27 because of problems with the state clemency board.

A coalition of Arizona journalism groups took up the challenge and asked to become part of the lawsuit over the Corrections Department policies.

That same day, another group of journalists in Idaho filed its own lawsuit asking to witness the preparation process on First Amendment grounds.

But Wake denied the Arizona motions Wednesday, citing technicalities in the timing of the motion and saying that a First Amendment violation had not been properly claimed.

Dale Baich of the Federal Public Defender’s Office said his office had not yet decided how to proceed.

Dan Barr, an attorney who represents the Arizona journalists, said his options would be to wait for Baich to amend his motion or file a separate lawsuit to assert the journalists’ claims.

“The whole trick is bringing up the issue in the right form and the right time,” Barr said.

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