Cruel and unusual punishment

BREAKING: U.S. Supreme Court Rules that Midazolam Can be Used in Executions

June 29, 2015

The Supreme Court ruled today in Glossip v. Gross that the use of midazolam as part of lethal injection protocols is constitutional.

Midazolam is a sedative that—according to the petitioners—“cannot reliably ensure the ‘deep, comalike unconsciousness’ required where a State intends to cause death with painful drugs.’” A paralytic is then injected, making it impossible to tell if the prisoner is experiencing extreme pain upon administration of the final drug that stops the heart. This is where the argument of cruel and unusual punishment enters the debate.

Diann Rust-Tierney, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty issued the following statement on today’s ruling:

“Today, the Supreme Court ruled that using a cocktail of illegal drugs, which has been proven to cause torture in the prisoners to whom it’s been administered, as a form of execution, is not ‘cruel or unusual’ punishment.

“It’s hard to imagine what could be crueler than a prolonged, torturous death, or more unusual, given that 80% of the executions in the United States last year took place in just 3 states.

“The death penalty is on the outs, with even conservative states like Nebraska outlawing the policy. Yet that message clearly hasn’t risen up to the highest Court in the land. That means our work is far from done.

“Death penalty opponents from all walks of life must recommit ourselves to ensuring that policymakers, attorneys and, yes, the Supreme Court understand America doesn’t want or need the death penalty any more. That’s exactly the goal of the 90 Million Strong campaign, and the reason we feel confident that one day, not one more American will be put to death by the government.”

The fact remains that the death penalty does not enhance public safety; every day it exists it risks executing the innocent and it perpetuates racial bias and unfairness in a way that takes our country backwards.

We must continue to join together to speak up and do the work necessary to make sure that this archaic, barbaric, wasteful and unfair practice is abolished.

Read the full decision at: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf

The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has created the 90 Million Strong Campaign to unite the voices of those who believe the death penalty is wrong. We need to demonstrate that the broad public support to end this practice is already here in America, and 90 million people speaking up can make a difference.

How hot is death row?

A federal judge Tuesday ordered temperature data be collected for 21 straight days in advance of an Aug. 5 trial of a lawsuit by three condemned killers who claim extreme heat indexes at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

The suit, filed last month, alleges heat indexes on death row at the prison reached 172 degrees Fahrenheit (172 °F is equal to about 77.8 °C) last year and 195 degrees (90.5) in 2011. The suit contends the heat index on all six death-row tiers was above 103 degrees every day last August, and that inmates on one tier endured heat indexes of more than 126 degrees “on 85 days between May and August.”

Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson’s order Tuesday came at the conclusion of a court hearing during which an attorney for the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections and the prison called the inmates’ data “greatly exaggerated,” “faulty” and “generally incompetent.”

A lawyer representing death-row inmates Elzie Ball, James Magee and Nathaniel Code countered that the men, each of whom suffers from hypertension, face the very real possibility of heat-related illness — including heat stroke, paralysis and heart disease — and even death.

The suit asked Jackson to issue an order compelling prison officials to maintain a heat index on death row of no more than 88 degrees.

“The court will not grant the injunction today. That is the fair and appropriate thing to do,” the judge told both sides Tuesday while noting that even death-row inmates are entitled to constitutional protections. He said more evidence on the suit’s claims needs to be gathered.

Jackson ordered the two sides to meet and file a joint plan by July 9 concerning what evidence will be collected and shared. If a plan is submitted, the judge said, he will approve it July 10. Otherwise, Jackson said he will issue his own plan on that date.

The judge specified that he wants temperature data collected for three straight weeks beginning July 15. He scheduled an evidentiary hearing, or trial, for Aug. 5. Jackson also urged the parties to try to settle the case.

Nilay Vora, an attorney for Ball, Magee and Code, argued to the judge that the air temperature at Angola’s death row is “consistently” above 90 degrees, with heat indexes even higher.

Jacqueline Wilson, an attorney for state Department of Public Safety and Corrections and the state penitentiary, noted that the death-row tiers offer industrial-sized fans — one for every two cells, ice in coolers and inmates are allowed to take one shower per day.

“There is moving air,” she said of the cross-ventilation system.

“That can be hot air,” the judge shot back.

Vora argued that blowing hot air can increase the likelihood of heat-related illness. He also alleged that the water temperature of the showers is 106 to 117 degrees, and added that the temperature range for a “cold” shower should be in the 70s.

Each death-row inmates’ cell has running hot and cold water, Wilson added.

Vora noted that 10 heat-related deaths in Texas prisons have been reported over the years.

“How about in Louisiana? How about at Angola?” Jackson asked.

Vora, who did not cite any heat-related prison deaths in the state, said the plaintiffs’ attorneys would be happy to work with the state defendants to come up with a plan to ease the heat issue at the prison’s death row.

“The department takes its job very seriously,” Wilson argued during the hearing, stressing that corrections officials want inmates to serve their sentences “in a humane way.”

Ball, 60, has been on death row since August 1997 for the May 15, 1996, shooting death of beer deliveryman Ben Scorsone during the armed robbery of a lounge in Gretna. Witnesses said Ball knocked Scorsone to the floor before firing three shots.

Magee, 35, was convicted for the April 2007 shotgun murders of his estranged wife, 28-year-old Adrienne Magee, and their 5-year-old son, Zach, on a street in the Tall Timbers subdivision north of Mandeville.

Code, 57, is on death row for the 1985 murders of four people at a house in Shreveport. A jury convicted Code for the bathtub drowning of Vivian Chaney, 34; the stabbing and slashing death of Chaney’s 17-year-old daughter, Carlitha; and the shooting deaths of Chaney’s brother, Jerry Culbert, and Chaney’s boyfriend, Billy Joe Harris.

Medical records for Ball, Magee and Code show none of the men lodged heat-related complaints over the past several years, according to documents filed by the state in response to the suit.

Records filed by the state also indicate there are 82 men on death row at Angola. Those inmates are allowed out of their cells one hour every day and are allowed to go outside for one hour three times a week. (The Advocate)

Kentucky changing its execution method

June 1, 2012 Source : http://www.wkyt.com

Executions in Kentucky could resume later this year after a move Thursday by the state’s Justice Cabinet. The death penalty has been on hold for nearly two years because of questions in part over the injection method used to execute inmates.

Dennis Briscoe has waited a long time for justice since Ralph Baze murdered his father and uncle. The convicted killer has lived on death row for nearly two decades. He’s one of several inmates who has exhausted his appeals and challenged the three-drug injection method as cruel and unusual punishment.

Claims that Kentucky’s three-drug cocktail violates the Eighth Amendment are not new. In 2007 the United States Supreme Court ruled the method constitutional. However that was before other states began using a single-drug system some consider more humane because of problems with the ingredients in the three-drug cocktail.

Debate over the competing methods was a critical factor that led a Franklin Circuit judge to temporarily halt executions across the state. Last month that judge ordered the Department of Corrections to consider a change. Now state officials say they will propose a new system by the end of July. “I’m glad to see a proactive move by the Department of Corrections in order to help fix this situation we have with the death penalty currently,” Briscoe said.

If that new system proposed allows for a single-drug execution, the judge in the case has ruled that any claims of cruel and unusual punishment by inmates will be dismissed. “I’m optimistic now that there’s going to be this recent move, this recent change,” Briscoe said, “However, I’m cautious as well because there could be a whole nother line of arguments.”

Today’s developments could lead to a new system as early as late summer.