[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, USA, MISS.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 6



TEXAS:

Williamson County district attorney to seek death penalty in 2010 robbery, 
killing


The Williamson County district attorney's office is seeking the death penalty 
in the capital murder case of Bobby Ray Burks Jr., set to begin after a jury is 
selected, District Attorney John Bradley said. Jury selection began Thursday.

Burks, 34, and his sisters-in-law, Veronica Evonne Ortiz, 26, and Isabel 
Michelle Gonzales, 23, are charged with capital murder and two counts of 
aggravated robbery in the death of Raul Vizveth-Torres, 19, on April 18, 2010.

The women met Vizveth-Torres and his friend Jorge Castaneda both of Austin, at 
a club near East Riverside Drive on April 17, 2010, investigators said. Ortiz 
and Gonzales asked the men for a ride home to Taylor early the next morning, 
officials said.

They asked the men to pull over about 4 a.m. just past the Travis County line 
near FM 1660 and FM 973 after 1 of the women said she was sick, investigators 
said.

When the SUV stopped, Burks, who had been waiting, stole cash from the 2 men 
and fired 2 shots, striking Vizveth-Torres, officials said. Ortiz and Gonzales 
then left in Burks' car, officials said.

Castaneda drove Vizveth-Torres to St. David's South Medical Center, where he 
was pronounced dead at 4:45 a.m., officials said.

Ortiz and Gonzales pleaded guilty in April to two counts of aggravated robbery 
in exchange for testifying in Burks' trial and getting their capital murder 
charges dropped , said Russell Hunt, Ortiz's attorney. They will be sentenced 
after the trial and face up to 40 years in prison, Hunt said.

"Both girls were very contrite and very shocked when this happened, and they 
never intended for anyone to get hurt," Hunt said. He said Burks is married to 
another sister of Ortiz and Gonzales.

Bradley said he couldn't comment on the case because of the upcoming trial.

(source: Austin American-Statesman)






USA:

US pharmaceutical firm Hospira under fire over use of its drugs in 
executions----Doctors from around the world call on Illinois firm to impose 
restrictions on sale of muscle relaxant for use in lethal injections


One of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, the Illinois-based firm 
Hospira, is coming under heavy pressure from the medical profession to tighten 
up its procedures to prevent the use of its drugs in US executions.

25 prominent doctors from the UK, Italy, India and Australia have published an 
open letter in the Lancet to Michael Ball, Hospira's chief executive. They urge 
him to take a more rigorous approach to the use of Hospira's trademarked drug 
Pancuronium in the triple cocktail of lethal injections used by many of the 34 
states that still practise the death penalty.

"No responsible pharamceutical company should have anything to do with 
executions," the doctors say. They add that it is time for the company to 
impose restrictions on its disbribution system of the drug to prevent it ending 
up in the hands of executioners.

Pancuronium is an extremely effective muscle relaxant used widely by 
anaesthetists to prevent patients moving, for instance in the event of 
abdominal surgery. In many US states it is also used as the 2nd of 3 lethal 
drugs to be administered to condemned prisoners.

First, a barbiturate is used to put prisoners to sleep; then, the muscle 
relaxant is given to stop them moving or screaming; finally, a third chemical, 
potassium, is injected to stop their heart.

The doctors who signed the open letter, led by David Nicholl, a neurologist at 
City Hospital in Birmingham, want to see Hospira following the example of 
Lundbeck, the Danish manufacturer of a barbiturate called pentobarbital that 
has been also used in US executions. Lundbeck last year introduced a strict 
end-user agreement that prevents the product finding its way into death 
chambers even via third parties.

Lundbeck recently sold pentobarbital, under the trade name Nembutal, to an 
American company called Akorn. But it did so only on the condition that Akorn 
continued the restricted distribution system.

In his response to the Lancet letter, Hospira's chief executive writes that he 
shares the doctors' concern about the improper use of its drugs in US 
executions. "We do not support the use of our products in lethal injections," 
Ball says. He adds that Hospira has written to every state to make clear the 
company's opposition.

But Nicholl said that words were not enough. "I don't think that stating their 
opposition is satisfactory. There's more that they can do – they can follow 
Lundbeck's example and impose an end-user agreement that will put a stop to 
this."

Lundbeck confirmed to the Guardian that it has offered to provide advice to all 
other pharmaceutical companies, including Hospira, on how to set up an end-user 
agreement that will effectively block use of medical drugs in killing 
prisoners. "Hospira is, of course, welcome to contact us," a Lundbeck spokesman 
said.

This is the 2nd time that Hospira has come under fire for the use of its drugs 
in judicial killings. A year ago it suspended all production in America of 
sodium thiopental, a barbiturate widely used as the 1st stage of the lethal 
cocktail, after it became clear that it could face penalties in Italy, where it 
was also manufacturing the sedative.

Supplies of the key ingredients of the lethal injection are already running low 
in several states, raising hopes among opponents of the death penalty that this 
might lead to de facto abolition. Last month the European Commission imposed 
Europe-wide restrictions on exports of key anaesthetics used to kill prisoners 
in the US.

Nicholl said that the aim was to debunk the myth that the method of execution 
was medically approved. "The myth has spread that lethal injections have the 
involvement of doctors and are therefore kinder and more humane. There is no 
evidence for that."

He added that Pancuronium is a powerful drug that should only be used by 
practised anaethetists. "The idea that it is being safely used by some muppet 
with 2 days' training is another myth," he said.

(source: The Guardian)

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

Death Of The Death Penalty?


Is America losing its thirst for the ultimate revenge?

Figures from the Death Penalty Information Centre show that the number of new 
death sentences dropped dramatically in 2011, falling below 100 for the 1st 
time in the modern era.

The group said developments “in a variety of states illustrated the growing 
discomfort that many Americans have with the death penalty”.

It points to Illinois, which abolished the death penalty in 2011, Oregon, where 
a moratorium on all executions was declared, and the national outcry around the 
execution of Troy Davis in Georgia because of doubts about his guilt.

It has been noted, mostly recently in a Time magazine piece, that death penalty 
is slowly being picked apart by local elected officials across the United 
States.

And the reason seems to be as much a matter or dollars and cents as any great 
philosophical debate on the rights and wrongs of judicial killing.

California's top judge, who supports the death penalty, said recently it is 
‘not effective’ and needs an overhaul that the state cannot afford.

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye told the Los Angeles Times: "I don't think it 
is working. It's not effective. We know that."

She said whether one supports capital punishment is not the issue: “I think the 
greater question is its effectiveness and given the choices we face in 
California, should we have a merit-based discussion on its effectiveness and 
costs?”

Cantil-Sakauye's comments come as signatures are being collected by the 
coalition SAFE California for a proposed ballot measure to abolish the death 
penalty.

California has not executed anyone in nearly six years because of problems with 
its old death chamber and then a shortage of one of the execution drugs.

The state has 720 inmates on its death row, the largest in the nation, and the 
cost of keeping them there is a concern in the financially crippled state..

One recent study found that California had spent $4 billion dollars since 1978 
to execute 13 prisoners. That works out at $308 million per execution.

Opinion polls show Americans are split pretty much down the middle on the death 
penalty.

The question is: can they afford it any more.

(source: Sky News)






MISSISSIPPI:

Judges orders new sentence for death row inmate


The Mississippi Supreme Court has ordered the Carroll County Circuit Court to 
resentence Lawrence Branch to life without parole.

The justices acted Thursday after a federal judge threw out Branch's death 
sentence in December. U.S. District Judge Michael Mills found Branch had met 
each test of the clinical criteria for a diagnosis of mental retardation.

Branch was sentenced to death in 2002 in the beating and robbery of Dorothy 
Broome Jorden of Coila. Jorden was found on her living room floor on Jan. 21, 
2001. Authorities say she had been struck in the head at least 8 times.

The Supreme Court ordered Branch to be resentenced within 30 days.

(source: Associated Press)