Capital punishment

MISSOURI : Missouri finds a drug option for executions: Propofol

May 18, source : http://www.pennlive.com

KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ The state of Missouri is back in the execution business with a drug that’s never been used to put prisoners to death in the United States.

Stymied by a chemical shortage affecting every death-penalty state, the Missouri Department of Corrections said this week that it now will carry out death sentences with propofol, a widely used surgical anesthetic that also played a factor in singer Michael Jackson’s death.

Attorneys representing some of the state’s death row inmates learned of the plan Thursday, after corrections officials met with some inmates and informed them of the new protocol.

Defense attorneys said it’s too early to say what, if any, legal challenges might be mounted in regard to the new one-drug execution protocol that replaces Missouri’s previous three-drug cocktail.

“It’s something we will have to look at very carefully,” said Joseph Luby, an attorney with the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic in Kansas City. “Propofol has no track record in executions.”

Missouri is the first state to formally adopt the use of propofol, also known by the brand name Diprivan, for use in lethal injections, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

“No one has used it yet,” Dieter said. “Other states may have considered it.”

Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University in New York and nationally known expert on lethal injection issues, called it a “pretty extraordinary development” that raises many questions.

“I would anticipate legal challenges,” she said.

Missouri’s last execution took place in February 2011. Since shortly after that, the state has been unable to obtain the anesthetic that put inmates to sleep before they are injected with two other chemicals that stop the lungs and heart. Officials also had been unable to obtain an alternative drug that some states had adopted to take its place.

With news that the corrections department had obtained a different drug, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster on Thursday asked the state Supreme Court to set execution dates for 19 inmates. They include Michael Taylor, one of the killers of Ann Harrison, a Kansas City teenager kidnapped in 1989 while waiting for the school bus in front of her house, and Allen Nicklasson, convicted of kidnapping and killing Excelsior Springs businessman Richard Drummond in 1994 after Drummond stopped to help Nicklasson and a co-defendant when their car broke down.

Koster said in his motion that there are no legal impediments or stays now in place to stop the executions.

“Unless this court sets an execution date after a capital murder defendant’s legal process is exhausted, the people of Missouri are without legal remedy,” Koster said in his motion.

According to Supreme Court procedures, lawyers for the inmates must be given the opportunity to file responses before the Supreme Court sets execution dates.

“There is no timetable as far as when the court would rule (on dates),” said spokeswoman Beth Riggert. “The court rules when it deems it appropriate.”

Missouri and every other state using lethal injection once used the same three-drug mixture that employed sodium thiopental to anesthetize prisoners. The drug has been employed in all 68 executions Missouri has carried out since 1989.

Inmates in Missouri and across the country had filed numerous legal challenges to the method, alleging that it created the risk of inflicting cruel and unusual punishment if not administered properly. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the method was not unconstitutional.

In early 2010, shortages of sodium thiopental began cropping up, and in early 2011 the only domestic supplier announced it would no longer manufacture the drug.

States also had difficulty obtaining it from foreign sources, and on March 27, a federal court in Washington, D.C., banned any importation of sodium thiopental and ordered the Food and Drug Administration to contact every state that it believed had any foreign-manufactured thiopental and instruct them to surrender it to the FDA. It also permanently prohibited importation of the drug.

With thiopental in short supply, some states began to substitute another anesthetic, pentobarbital, for use in the three-drug method.

In February 2011, Ohio began using pentobarbital by itself to execute prisoners. Earlier this year, Arizona became the second state to switch to one-drug executions using pentobarbital.

Dieter, with the death penalty information center, said pentobarbital has been used, either by itself or in combination with other drugs, in the last 45 executions in the United States.

But last July, its Danish manufacturer announced that it was imposing restrictions on how pentobarbital was distributed to prevent its use in executions.

Since its on-hand supply of thiopental expired in March 2011, Missouri had been unsuccessful in finding it or pentobarbital.

In announcing its new protocol this week, Missouri Department of Corrections officials did not comment on when they obtained the new drug or where it was obtained.

According to Missouri’s new written protocol, inmates will be injected with 2 grams of propofol. A Kansas City anesthesiologist said that amount is 10 times the dosage that would be used in a surgical setting for a 220-pound patient.

According to Missouri’s new protocol, the chemical will be prepared by a doctor, nurse or pharmacist. An intravenous line will be inserted and monitored by a doctor, nurse or emergency medical technician. Department employees will inject the chemicals.

Doctors say the drug is used widely in medical settings and does not have some of the side effects, like post-operative nausea and vomiting, of previously used anesthetics. It was developed in England in the late 1970s.

Currently, only one execution date is pending in Missouri. Michael Tisius, convicted of killing two jailers in Randolph County, is scheduled to be put to death Aug. 3.

An attorney representing Tisius could not be reached for comment Friday.

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TEXAS – Texas prison system has drugs for 23 executions

May 19, 2012  source : AP

After prodding from Texas AG, prison system says it has enough drugs to execute 23 inmates
Texas prison officials disclosed Friday they have enough lethal drugs to execute as many as 23 people.
In response to this week’s opinion from the state attorney general’s office that said the Texas Department of Criminal Justice could not withhold information about the drug supply, the department said it currently has 46 2.5-gram vials of pentobarbital. A 5-gram dose — about 3.4 ounces — is the 1st lethal drug used during each execution in Huntsville, according to Texas execution procedures.
The prison agency said it had similar supplies of 2 other drugs also administered to condemned inmates. It did not, though, identify suppliers of the lethal drugs, which the opinion also had addressed.
Executions also involve 100 milligrams of pancuronium bromide and 140 milliequivalents of potassium chloride. Texas has 290 10-milligram vials of the pancuronium bromide — 10 are required per execution — and 737 20-milliequivalent vials of potassium chloride — 7 per punishment.
The department’s written procedures call for a matching set of drugs and syringes “in case unforeseen events make their use necessary.” But in a brief statement emailed to reporters late Friday, the agency said a backup set of lethal drugs for executions “is not actually prepared, but an additional dose is available if needed.”
The attorney general’s opinion, dated Monday, was an answer to public information requests filed earlier this year by the Austin American-Statesman and British newspaper The Guardian.
Prison officials had argued that releasing the information could be harmful to employees and provide death penalty opponents a way to harass the drug suppliers with the hope firms would refuse to do business with the state.
“We find your arguments as to how disclosure of the requested drug quantities would result in the disruption of the execution process or otherwise interfere with law enforcement to be too speculative,” Sean Opperman, an assistant attorney general, wrote in the opinion.
The prison agency had 30 days to comply with the opinion or to challenge it in court. The status of the supplier question was not immediately clear.
Opperman said that, while the attorney general’s office “acknowledge(s) the department’s concerns,” the corrections department didn’t show how disclosure of the information “would create a substantial threat of physical harm to any individual.”
Department officials previously had indicated they had a sufficient supply to handle upcoming executions. At least five are scheduled for this summer, including one early next month.
Last year, one of the drugs Texas had used in the process, sodium thiopental, became unavailable when its European supplier bowed to pressure from death penalty opponents and stopped making it. No other vendor could be found, so the drug was replaced by pentobarbital.
The physical effects of pentobarbital on condemned inmates have not been noticeable during the executions, but the financial cost to the state has risen considerably. Prison officials put the cost of the previous mixture at $83.35. It’s now $1286.86, with the higher cost primarily due to pentobarbital.

IDAHO – Duncan now wants to appeal his death sentence

May 18, 2012 Source : http://www.spokesman.com

BOISE – Notorious multiple murderer Joseph Duncan was back in a Boise courtroom on Friday morning, as lawyers and a federal judge wrangled over setting a date for a new hearing into whether Duncan was mentally competent when he waived appeals of his triple death sentence for torturing and murdering a 9-year-old North Idaho boy.

Duncan, brought to Boise from federal Death Row in Terre Haute, Ind., his hair close-cropped and graying and wearing a baggy white T-shirt, left all the talking to his attorneys on Friday morning. But in December of 2010, he submitted a hand-written, two-page letter to the court saying he now wants to appeal after all.

Duncan in the past has strongly opposed contentions that he wasn’t mentally competent to make that decision in 2008. He underwent two lengthy mental evaluations before U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge ruled him competent and allowed him to dismiss his lawyers in that sentencing trial and represent himself; he already had pleaded guilty to all charges. The lawyers filed an appeal to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals against Duncan’s wishes, arguing he was mentally incompetent.

“I have been very stubborn about not appealing my death sentence,” the condemned killer wrote. “My belief is that if I appeal, then I am acknowledging the system’s authority to commit murder.”

But he wrote that more recently, his younger brother had died, making Duncan his mother’s only surviving son. “It would be utterly cruel, and indeed, inhuman, for me not to consider my mother’s love when deciding what to do in regard to my own life,” Duncan wrote. “So I hereby inform you, and any others concerned, that I withdraw my waiver of appeal, and consent fully to all efforts and advice given by my attorneys to appeal.”

He added, “I love my mother, and if I could only regret one thing, it would be how I have hurt her. I am the biggest fool that I know.”

In 2008, a federal jury sentenced Duncan to death for the kidnap, torture and murder of 9-year-old Dylan Groene. He also received nine life sentences for a murderous rampage in 2005, in which he killed three members of Dylan’s family in order to kidnap and molest the family’s two youngest children; only Dylan’s then-8-year-old sister, Shasta, survived.

Since then, Duncan also has been convicted of kidnapping and murdering a 10-year-old California boy, drawing two more life sentences; in that case, after weeks of expert testimony, the court ruled him mentally competent.

In the Idaho case, however, the judge never held a competency hearing in open court, meaning all the information on Duncan’s mental competency remained secret. The 9th Circuit ruled that without such a hearing, there was “reasonable doubt” about Duncan’s competency, and ordered Lodge to hold a “retrospective” competency hearing on Duncan’s mental state in 2008.

If, after the hearing, Lodge rules that Duncan was competent when he waived his right to appeal, the death sentence stands. But if not, Lodge would then have to hold another hearing to determine if Duncan was mentally competent when he waived his right to an attorney in his 2008 sentencing trial and instead represented himself. That could force a replay of the whole sentencing trial.

In his closing statement in that trial in 2008, Duncan told the jury, “You people really don’t have any clue yet of the true heinousness of what I’ve done.” While on the run from a child-molesting charge in Minnesota in 2005, Duncan said he’d plotted terrible crimes targeting random children, from invading day-care centers to kidnappings at campgrounds. “I was not searching for a child but rather I was on a rampage,” he said. “My intention was to kidnap and rape and kill until I was killed, preferring death easily over capture.”

He traveled across eight states looking for child victims before attacking the Groene family in their home along I-90 at Wolf Lodge, just east of Coeur d’Alene.

On Friday, federal defender Dick Rubin told the court that Duncan now wants to be represented by an attorney for the competency hearing, and said Duncan shouldn’t answer any questions until his new attorney is appointed. He asked the court to appoint Michael Burt of San Francisco, a death penalty defense attorney who specializes in cases involving mental health.

However, Burt told the court Friday that he has another trial in the fall, and wouldn’t be available for Duncan’s competency hearing until December. Lodge had asked the attorneys to be ready for the hearing by this July, but prosecutors said they had other cases and wouldn’t be ready until October.

“The court’s not going to agree to that,” Lodge said. “This … has drug on. Memories get faulty.” He told the attorneys for both sides, “October-November is the latest. How you work that out is up to you.”

Calling a two-week recess, Lodge said, “We’re going to get the matter resolved.”

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KENTUCKY – Serial killer on death row fights to get a hip replacement

May 19, 2012 Source : http://www.independent.co.uk

A condemned killer’s fight to receive surgery for agonising hip pain has pushed Kentucky officials into an uncomfortable debate over security and politics.

Emails and memos show corrections officials struggling to reconcile their duty to provide medical care with the political ramifications of spending thousands of dollars for surgery on a man they plan to execute. A key problem was security issues that led several hospitals to balk at treating inmate Robert Foley.

Foley, 55, was convicted of killing six people in Kentucky in 1989 and 1991, making him the most prolific killer on that’s state’s death row.

His attorney, James Drake, said the state must care for condemned inmates. Foley, who has been on death row since 1993, can’t get around without help because he’s at risk of falling and hurting himself. “If you’re on death row, it’s just like anybody else,” Mr Drake said. “If you need a new hip, you need a new hip. It hurts.”

MISSOURI – Attorney General requests execution dates for 9 men on death row

May 19, 2012  Source : http://www.kctv5.com

JEFFERSON CITY, MO

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster has requested the Missouri Supreme Court set execution dates for nine men on death row.

Koster has requested the dates, saying there are no legal obstacles remaining to carrying out the men’s sentence.

“Missouri does not know the cost of executions yet we now have 19-plus men waiting execution. We can’t find the money in the budget for education, public safety, roads etc. and yet are willing to stay with a public policy that is likely costing the state millions. Missouri would do well to end the death penalty and to focus resources instead on solving more cases of violent crime, taking violent offenders off the streets and providing meaningful support for victims and their families,” Kathleen Holmes, state coordinator of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said in a release.

One of the nine men included in the list is Leon Taylor.

Astrid Martin does her best to keep herself busy, still trying to forget what happened to her family nearly two decades ago. 1994 was a very difficult year for her – she lost a mother to cancer and, just a few weeks later, a husband to a bullet at the hands of Taylor. All these years later, Martin still struggles with the grief.

“If you have a tragedy it’s not like a push button where you are OK the next day. You are very emotionally sick. I lost my mother and my husband and almost my little girl. That’s a big chunk to take away at once,” Martin said.

It was April 1994 at a gas station in Independence, MO. Taylor and two others held up Robert Newton, Martin’s husband. Even though Newton turned over the cash, Taylor killed him right in front of his step-daughter.

“He said, ‘Listen pal, don’t shoot. I got my little girl here and I don’t want to see her dead,'” Martin’s daughter said while on the stand during Taylor’s trial as she recounted what happened.

At Taylor’s murder trial, then 8-year-old Sara took the stand and captured the hearts of the entire city.

“I turned around and saw my dad on the floor,” Sarah said when an attorney asked what she saw after she heard the big bang.

Taylor then turned the gun on the girl, but the weapon jammed. All these years later, Martin is convinced God was watching over her daughter.

Sarah is now happily married with four kids and her mother wants to thank everyone for the outpouring of support she and her daughter received all those years ago.

“They were so supportive, they were so supportive and, to me they wrote letters for years and I want to thank you all for being so wonderful to us,” Martin said.

Martin said Taylor wrote a letter of apology to her and she now forgives what he did, but she said she’ll never forget.

There are 46 inmates currently on Missouri’s death row.

Dave Dormire, director of the Division of Adult Institutions for the Missouri Department of Corrections, announced a new one-drug protocol (propofol) for lethal injection. This one-drug protocol replaces the three-drug protocol previously used by the state.

This change was necessary, according to Dormire. Sodium thiopental, one of the three drugs previously used in executions, is no longer available.

———————————————————–

17 mai, source : http://missourideathrow.com/

Attorney General Chris Koster submitted for filing similar versions of the attached motion in the Missouri Supreme Court today regarding the following capital murder cases:

State v. David Barnett
State v. Cecil Clayton
State v. Andre Cole
State v. Paul Goodwin
State v. Herbert Smulls
State v. Walter Storey
State v. Leon Taylor
State v. Michael Worthington
State v. David Zink

lethal injection protocol : pdf file 

IDAHO – Idaho Opts For 1 Drug Only In Execution Policy

May 18, source : AP 

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho’s corrections chief says the agency is switching to a one-drug lethal injection for future executions of death row inmates.
Idaho Department of Corrections Director Brent Reinke said Friday execution teams will administer a single, lethal dose of the surgical sedative pentobarbital.
That’s a change from the execution carried out by the agency last fall, when the condemned inmate was injected with three-drug mixture, which included pentobarbital.
Reinke says the change was driven by difficulties in obtaining the other two chemicals used to kill Paul Ezra Rhoades in November.
The decision makes Idaho the latest death penalty state to switch to using only pentobarbital in its lethal injection.
Reinke says the one-drug protocol will be used in the June 12 execution of convicted murderer Richard Leavitt.

 

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LOUISIANA – Todd Wessinger wins 3rd hearing on death sentence

May 18, 2012 Source : http://theadvocate.com

Todd Wessinger must receive a third federal court hearing on his push to overturn his death sentence after being convicted of murdering two workers at a Baton Rouge restaurant in 1995.

U.S. District Judge James J. Brady scheduled the hearing for Dec. 13, according to court documents filed Wednesday.

In February, Brady denied Wessinger, 44, a new trial. The judge ruled that “overwhelming” state court evidence supported Wessinger’s conviction on charges that he murdered 27-year-old Stephanie Guzzardo and 46-year-old David Breakwell at the since-closed Calendar’s restaurant on Perkins Road.

In April, however, Brady took additional defense motions under consideration and indefinitely blocked Wessinger’s scheduled May 9 execution.

On Wednesday, Brady rejected four of Wessinger’s latest five claims of state court errors.

But the judge ruled that Wessinger’s claim of “ineffective assistance of counsel at the penalty phase of the trial” is “deserving of further proceedings.”

By limiting his latest ruling to the penalty phase of Wessinger’s trial, Brady signaled his future decision would either support or overturn the jury’s imposition of the death penalty. The murder conviction stands.

Brady noted that an on-point ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — which governs federal court decisions in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi — shows new claims of mental illness, low intelligence and childhood abuse can be raised at sentencing and on appeal.

The judge noted the 5th Circuit’s decision only applies to defense evidence on federal appeal that is “significantly different and stronger” than defense evidence presented to state courts.

But Brady added Wessinger cannot win a new sentencing hearing unless he can show his defense attorney’s failure to present new evidence of his claimed mental problems at sentencing was so significant that “he might not have received the death penalty.”

In April, defense attorneys argued Wessinger suffered childhood seizures and physical and emotional abuse, developed substance addictions and was traumatized by the deaths of his children prior to the murders of Guzzardo and Breakwell.

Those arguments were presented by appellate attorneys Danalynn Recer, of The Gulf Region Advocacy Center in Houston; Soren Gisleson, of New Orleans; and Federal Public Defender Rebecca Hudsmith, of Lafayette.

Assistant District Attorneys Dale R. Lee and J. Christine Chapman argued against Wessinger’s stay of execution.

Chapman and Lee told Brady the families of Guzzardo and Breakwell “have endured years of uncertainty and appeals. They undoubtedly endure harm each day that the lawful sentence of the court is not carried out, and they are clearly entitled to finality and closure.”

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Is the Death Penalty Ever Justified?

May 18, 2012 Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Yemen, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, China, Sudan.

No, this is not a list of countries with records of human rights abuses; nor is it a list of countries with ruthless dictators; nor is it a list of countries the United States has condemned at some point within the past few months.

Actually, it’s an incomplete list. Add the U.S., and you are one step closer to completing a list of countries that kill their own people.

Every country mentioned currently allows its citizens to be sentenced to death. Only China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia execute more people than the U.S. does, and they are all on a list of only 20 nations who performed executions in 2009.

But, to be fair, executions are handed out with a somewhat honorable intention: to deter, and ultimately reduce, crime. It is reasonable, then, to question whether or not that works.


2012-05-17-ExecutionsVsCrimes.png
Indeed, the numbers do not add up. There is no evidence suggesting that increasing executions leads to a reduction in crime. In fact, as executions increased in the late ’80s, the number of crime rose along with them. Similarly, both the number of crimes and the number of executions have fallen in the past decade. If anything, the evidence concludes that increasing executions might actually correlate with higher crime.

Regardless, the only thing being accomplished by the death penalty is death itself. A country that brutally murders its citizens seems as far from developed or democratic as it can possibly be. If the United States is the beacon of freedom and justice that it claims to be, it would abolish the death penalty tomorrow.

Not to mention the unintended consequences that come with any policy, and are not easy to undo when it comes to the death penalty. A recent New York Times editorial tells the tale of Carlos DeLuna, an alleged murderer executed by the state of Texas in 1989. According to studies involving the case, DeLuna was likely innocent. It would be foolish to believe that DeLuna’s case is isolated.

At the very least, our system needs to start holding people accountable. The prosecutors in DeLuna’s case reportedly withheld crucial exculpatory evidence that led to his conviction and ultimate death — an unfortunate tactic that is widespread and goes unpunished. Prosecutors who act in such a way are, unquestionably, more guilty of murder than the innocent people they target.

Last August, Governor Rick Perry of Texas lambasted the Syrian government for threatening the safety of its own people. The next month, he received a roaring ovation after bragging about his authorization of 234 executions, the most in history.

Well, Mr. Perry, what’s the difference?

Upcoming – Executions – June 2012

Update : June 20, 2012

Dates are subject to change due to stays and appeals

JUNE
05/06/2012

Henry Curtis Jackson

 Mississippi EXECUTED 6:13 P.M
06.06.12

Bobby Hines

 Texas STAYED
06/06/2012 Abdul Awkal Ohio Reprieve 2 weeks
12/06/2012 Jan Michael Brawner Mississippi  Executed  6:18 P.M.
12.06.12  Richard Leavitt Idaho Executed  10:25 A.M
20.06.12 Gary Carl Simmons Mississippi  Executed   6:16 p.m
27/6/2012 Samuel Villegas Lopez Arizona  


IDAHO – Out of appeals; death row inmate learns of execution date-Richard Leavitt

May 17, 2012 Source : http://www.ktvb.com

BOISE — On Thursday at around 4:00 p.m., Idaho death row inmate Richard Leavitt was served his official death warrant. He is set to be executed by lethal injection, June 12th. 

In just seven months, Idaho will have two executions. 

53-year-old, Richard Leavitt has been behind bars since 1985 for the murder of an eastern Idaho woman.  Leavitt was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder and mutilation of 31-year-old Danette Elg of Blackfoot. 

A 7th District Court judge signed the death warrant early Thursday; Leavitt was moved to an isolation cell at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, which is policy.

Years of appeals followed the murder conviction. Attorneys claimed Leavitt suffered a brain injury which made him unstable at the time of the murder.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his final appeal. The Idaho Attorney General’s office says Leavitt came to the end of his road of appeals.

“It takes a long time for justice to be done in a capital case,” said LaMont Anderson with the Idaho Attorney General’s office. “But at the same time we can’t be too speedy because we do want to make sure that it is justice that is done and that we are doing the right thing in these cases.”

In July of 1984, Elg was found stabbed 15 times and her body was sexually mutilated. Police said the two were acquainted and even days before her murder, Elg reported Leavitt was prowling around her Blackfoot home.

Upon her disappearance, Leavitt expressed concern to police, so much concern; police records indicated he was allowed to enter Elg’s home with police where her body was found.

14 people are now on Idaho’s death row, including Leavitt.

Paul Rhoades was put to death in November of last year, for the 1987 murders of two women. Until that execution, Idaho had not carried out the death penalty since 1994.