[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----GA., USA, PENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 5


GEORGIA----new execution dates

Georgia schedules another execution----2nd time this week a judge has set
date

Georgia has announced plans to move ahead with a 2nd execution this month
even though several states are holding off until the U.S. Supreme Court
decides if lethal injection is constitutional.

Just an hour after a Chatham County judge signed a warrant Wednesday for
Jack Alderman's Oct. 19 execution for the 1974 murder of his wife, a
Spalding County judge signed a warrant for Curtis Osborne to be put to
death Oct. 23 for a 1990 double murder near Griffin.

Both executions were scheduled 2 days after each inmate exhausted appeals.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to take their cases and the
appeal of a 3rd Georgia death row inmate, William Earl Lynd, whose
execution has not been scheduled. Berrien County District Attorney
Catherine Helms said she expected to ask for an execution warrant for Lynd
within the next two weeks but she also expects legal challenges to stop
his execution.

Attorney Tom Dunn  who represents Alderman, Osborne and Lynd  on Thursday
asked the Chatham County judge who signed Alderman's death warrant
Wednesday to stay the execution. Dunn cited a challenge to lethal
injection that is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Dunn pointed out
that the method Georgia uses is almost identical to the one at the center
of the case before the court.

On Sept. 25, the justices agreed to hear a case that questions the
constitutionality of the three-drug procedure used by Kentucky  and 36
other states, including Georgia  because of the possibility that the
prisoner can experience excruciating pain.

All 37 states with lethal injection begin the procedure with a sedative,
but the dosage varies from 2 grams injected in Georgia executions to 5
grams used in states like Tennessee and Florida. The sedative, sodium
pentothal, is followed by pancuronium bromide to paralyze the inmate and
then potassium chloride to stop the heart. Opponents argue that the inmate
cannot tell executioners he isn't sedated enough because the 2nd drug
paralyzes him.

Since the justices agreed to take the Kentucky lethal injection case,
holds on executions have been implemented in 3 states.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court stopped an execution in Texas and several
days later a Texas state court stopped another one. Alabama's governor
called for a moratorium last week. And Oklahoma's attorney general asked
for a moratorium Wednesday. About a dozen other states already had similar
moratoriums in place.

Russ Willard, a spokesman for Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker,
said the state was continuing to schedule executions because there have
been no stays affecting Georgia.

"There are no judicially entered stays prohibiting the executions of
either Jack Alderman or Curtis Osborne," Willard said.

Helms, the prosecutor in the Lynd case, said she is moving forward because
Georgia's death penalty laws and methods are still in place.

"It's up to the courts whether to grant a stay," Helms said. "And we're
sworn to uphold the law."

Dunn said the Supreme Court, in stopping last week's execution in Texas,
had signaled "it is not going to tolerate executions while reviewing the
constitutionality of lethal injections. ... Georgia's decision to seek
executions under the unusual circumstances is unreasonable and insulting
of the rule of law."

According to court testimony, Arthur Lee Jones needed money but he wasn't
interested in selling cocaine for Osborne. So Osborne agreed to help Jones
find a buyer for his motorcycle.

The bike sold for $400, but Osborne didn't turn over the money. Osborne
eventually told investigators he shot Jones in the head because Jones
threatened to beat him.

Jones and Linda Lisa Seaborne were found in Jones' 1978 Grand Prix in a
ditch off a dirt road in gear with it's motor running. Seaborne had been
shot in the eye and Jones was shot in the back of the head.

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

************************

Jack Edward Alderman set to die Oct. 19


Attorneys for condemned murderer Jack Edward Alderman today are expected
to ask a judge to stay his execution.

On Thursday, state Department of Corrections officials scheduled
Alderman's execution for 7 p.m. Oct. 19 for the 1974 slaying of his wife,
Barbara Jean.

Alderman, now 56, remains on death row at the Georgia Diagnostic and
Classification Prison at Jackson.

The execution date was set after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused
to review Alderman's conviction. He had claimed his trial lawyers were
ineffective.

On Wednesday, Chatham County Superior Court Judge Michael Karpf signed a
death warrant directing the execution to be carried out between noon Oct.
19 and noon, 7 days later, on Oct. 26.

The assignment of a date might be a formality, however.

Thursday afternoon, Alderman's attorneys faxed from Atlanta a copy of a
motion to Karpf, marked urgent, to stay the execution. Superior Court
clerks refused to file the copy, but an original is expected to arrive
today for official filing.

Savannah attorney G. Terry Jackson, a member of Alderman's defense team,
said Thursday the anticipated motion for stay will require a hearing if
Karpf does not grant the request.

Also anticipated are additional defense challenges, including an
extraordinary motion for a new trial, also before Karpf.

Alderman also has a lawsuit pending in U.S. District Court in Atlanta to
challenge the three-drug cocktail method of lethal injection used for
executions in Georgia.

Similar challenges are being made in each of 37 states that use lethal
injection.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider 2 Kentucky death-row
inmates' challenges to lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment
barred by the Constitution.

It was unclear Thursday what impact that would have on pending executions
in Georgia and other states.

"Executions in Georgia have not been stayed at this point," said Chatham
County Chief Assistant District Attorney David Lock, who obtained the
Karpf order.

He said the method used in Georgia differs in part from that used in
Kentucky.

A Chatham County Superior Court jury convicted Alderman on June 15, 1975,
in the slaying of his wife, Barbara Jean Alderman.

Evidence showed Alderman and a co-defendant, John Arthur Brown, beat
Barbara Jean Alderman, 20, with a wrench, tried to strangle her, then
drowned her in a bathtub in the couple's Chatham City apartment on Sept.
21, 1974.

She was then taken to Dasher's Creek near Rincon and left in the trunk of
her partially submerged car.

Alderman's initial death sentence was reversed on appeal, but a 2nd jury
re-instated it on April 1, 1984.

The jurors found, in part, that Alderman murdered his wife to obtain
insurance money.

Brown, who also was convicted and sentenced to die in a separate trial,
subsequently had his sentence commuted to life and was paroled from
prison.

(source: Savannah Now)






USA:

Death penalty in USA becomes brutal torture for prisoners


The use of lethal injections in the US has led to at least 9 bungled
executions, including one in which the prisoner took 69 minutes to die and
another in which the condemned man complained 5 times: "It don't work," a
report by Amnesty International says today.

The report contains a catalogue of botched executions dating from 2000,
when lethal injection was adopted by 37 of the 38 US states with the death
penalty.

In an execution in Ohio in May last year it took technicians 22 minutes to
find a suitable vein in which to inject the lethal combination of 3 drugs.
When the condemned man, Joseph Clark, raised his head to complain that the
process was not working, the technicians closed the curtains around his
trolley and spent an additional 30 minutes looking for a suitable vein.

An autopsy discovered 19 puncture marks on Clark's corpse.

In a celebrated case in Florida in December last year the condemned man,
Angel Nieves Dias, suffered chemical burns along his arms after
technicians struggled to find a vein. Reports at the time described Diaz
as grimacing in pain, the Guardian reports.

Amnesty International's report also charts the growth of lethal injections
around the world. Since the world's first lethal injection was carried out
in the state of Texas, USA in 1982, over 900 such executions have occurred
in the US alone. In China, where executions numbers are an official
secret, it is possible that thousands of people have been executed this
way since 1997. Lethal injections now account for 85% of US executions in
the United States and a growing proportion of judicial killings carried
out in China (the world's biggest user of the death penalty).

In recent years China has introduced 'mobile execution chambers' -
converted 24-seater buses with windowless execution chambers at their
rear. Prisoners are strapped down to metal beds in these bus chambers, a
needle is then attached to the prisoner by a doctor before a police
officer presses a button activating an automatic syringe which inserts the
lethal drug into the prisoner's vein. Executions are watched on a monitor
next to the driver's seat and can be videotaped.

As Amnesty International's report shows, besides the USA and China lethal
injection killings have also taken place in Guatemala, the Philippines and
Thailand, while legal systems in Taiwan and Papua New Guinea allow for
lethal injection, and India and Vietnam have discussed its introduction.

According to even minimum figures, 1,591 people were executed in 25
countries in 2006 and Amnesty International is calling on the current
session of the United Nations General Assembly to vote for an
international moratorium on the death penalty.

Amnesty International has long campaigned for total global abolition of
the death penalty and the organisation points out that claims about the
relative 'efficiency' of lethal injections compared to other methods of
killing fail to even consider other vital issues regarding the death
penalty, amnesty.org.uk reports.

(source: Pravda)

***********************

Amnesty calls on doctors to stop lethal injections for executions


Human rights organisation Amnesty International called on doctors and
nurses around the world Thursday to refuse to execute prisoners by lethal
injection, saying it breaches their ethical oath.

In a new report, Amnesty said some doctors have expressed concern that
prisoners can experience "excruciating" pain as they die if an anaesthetic
administered at the same time wears off before their hearts stop. "There
is a global consensus within the medical profession that the involvement
of health professionals in carrying out an execution, particularly by a
method using the technology and knowledge of medicine, is a breach of
medical ethics, yet health professionals are participating in such
executions," said Jim Welsh, Amnesty's health and human rights
coordinator.

The organisation also reiterated its call for the death penalty to be
abolished. Since 1982, hundreds of people have been killed by lethal
injection worldwide, including 919 in the United States and "hundreds,
perhaps thousands" in China, where the government does not release
figures, Amnesty said. The report on the use of lethal injection comes
after the US Supreme Court last week said it would hear a case brought by
2 men on death row who argue that the procedure is unconstitutional.
Amnesty cited the case of double murderer Joseph Clark, executed in Ohio
in the US last year, whose execution took nearly 90 minutes. He cried out
"it don't work, it don't work" as technicians struggled to find a vein.

(source: Agence France-Presse)

***********************

Turn off the Violence Month: Violence is a learned behavior that can be
unlearned


For too many people, violence is becoming an ordinary way of resolving
conflict, releasing emotions, and responding to everything from boredom to
social injustice to sexual frustration. Fear of violence has sparked a
public outcry for tougher criminal penalties, but long prison sentences or
the death penalty offer little consolation to survivors after the tragedy
of a violent crime. They also hold no promise that the violence will
decline.

The Polk County Child Abuse Prevention Council (CAPC) has identified
October as Turn Off the Violence Month. People throughout the county are
encouraged to turn off violent television shows, violent movies, violent
video and computer games, and violent music, and begin to choose
non-violent ways to solve conflicts and deal with anger.

The "Turn Off the Violence" campaign was born in 1991 from the desperation
of a group of Minnesota teachers, police officers, clergy, and social
service providers to do something constructive to prevent violence.

The 2007 campaign will include many activities including weekly articles
in our local papers, a month long calendar of non-violent activities for
families sent home with area students, a week long challenge for area
students in grades 3-6, information will be sent to area churches, a
display at the library, and information to be delivered to local video
stores on video game and movie ratings.

Imagine what it would be like to live in a world without violence.

Violence is a learned behavior. It can be unlearned.

(source: Crookston (Minn.) Times)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Death penalty sought in porn producer's slaying


Luzerne County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against 2 men
accused of murdering a porn producer.

Bryan Charles Kocis was repeatedly stabbed in his Dallas, Pa., home in
January and the house was then set on fire. Prosecutors say 26-year-old
Harlow Cuadra and 33-year-old Joseph Kerekes killed Kocis in January
because he was a business rival. Both defendants are from Virginia Beach,
Va.

At Thursday's court appearance both defendants denied the allegations
against them. Cuadra says 2 other men involved in the gay porn industry
actually killed Kocis.

(source: Associated Press)