[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., MO., WYO., ARIZ., UTAH, CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 7



KANSAS:

Judge To Allow Death Penalty In Kansas Quadruple Homicide Case



A judge has ruled that prosecutors may seek the death penalty against a man 
accused in the deaths of 4 people at a Kansas farm, including an 18-month-old 
girl, in 2013.

Franklin County District Judge Eric Godderz ruled during a hearing Friday the 
death penalty will be allowed in the case against 29-year-old Kyle Flack of 
Ottawa. He is charged with murder and rape after 2 men, a woman and her 
daughter were found dead near Ottawa. Flack has pleaded not guilty.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports Flack's attorney argued the death penalty 
should be banned because of "evolving standards of decency," noting that 120 
countries have rejected the punishment.

Godderz said his court is bound to follow precedent in Kansas and the U.S., 
which allow the death penalty.

(source; Associated Press)

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

Kansas introduces bill to abolish death penalty



The death penalty may be abolished in Kansas if the Kansas Legislature passes 
House Bill 2129.

According to the bill, "No person shall be sentenced to death for a crime 
committed on or after July 1, 2015." Rep. Steven Becker of Buhler, Kan., a 
member of the House of Representatives judicial committee, introduced the bill 
in committee on Jan. 27.

"What I want to accomplish with that bill is to replace that death penalty with 
life in prison without the possibility of parole, only this time, as I put it, 
this time we would really mean it," Becker told NCR Feb. 4. Becker said the 
bill was authored by the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

"Now we have, what we call a life sentence, no parole for 25 years. Sometimes 
it's 40 years. Or sometimes we impose the hard 50. You can't see a parole board 
until 50 years," he said. "In this bill, it's just ... period. You don't see a 
parole board."

The bill is not retroactive to cases where a death sentence has already been 
imposed. Instead, cases going forward will not have the option of the death 
penalty. The bill states that a person with a death sentence "for a crime 
committed prior to July 1, 2015, may be put to death pursuant to the provisions 
of article 40 of chapter 22 of the Kansas Statutes Annotated, and amendments 
thereto."

In addition, House Bill 2129 also created the crime "aggravated murder," which 
it defines as the "intentional and premeditated killing of any person" in 
commission of various crimes, including kidnapping and rape. The term 
"aggravated murder" replaces "capital murder," reflecting the proposed 
elimination of capital punishment.

Becker said the first challenge for the bill will be to get it heard in 
committee. He said that Rep. John Barker, the committee chairman, "is 
non-committal about giving it a hearing."

"My own thoughts is, I am not an opponent to the death penalty," Barker told 
NCR Feb. 3. "Kansas has not executed anyone since I think 1961. I find it's 
probably a very good negotiating tool for prosecutors. As the urgency, right 
now I don't see there is any urgency because we have not executed anybody in 
40, 50 years."

Barker said as committee chairman, he has no position on the bill. He noted 
it's possible that the committee might not get to the bill until next year.

According to the Kansas City Star, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, 
Kan., will participate in a news conference at the Kansas State Capital on Feb. 
10, calling for Kansas to repeal the death penalty.

(source: National Catholic Reporter)








MISSOURI----new execution date

Execution date set for Barry County deputy's killer



The Missouri Supreme Court issued an execution order Friday for Cecil Clayton, 
who was convicted of killing a Barry County sheriff's deputy in 1996.

Clayton, 74, of Purdy, was found guilty of fatally shooting 29-year-old Deputy 
Christopher Castetter and given the death penalty in a 1997 trial that was held 
in Joplin on a change of venue.

Clayton had been in a violent argument with a former girlfriend the day of the 
shooting. The deputy was responding to a report of the suspect's truck being 
spotted at a residence south of Cassville and was shot in the head before he 
could exit his patrol car after arriving at the address. His gun was still in 
his holster when other officers arrived on the scene.

The state's high court affirmed Clayton's conviction in 1999 and affirmed a 
lower court's overruling of his post-conviction relief motion in 2001. In 2008, 
the U.S. Supreme Court denied the condemned man's petition for a review.

The execution order calls for Clayton to be put to death within a 24-hour 
period beginning at 6 p.m. on March 17.

Missouri has executed 80 people, all by lethal injection, since the death 
penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976. Executions were suspended in 2006 
when a federal judge in Kansas City found written procedures for the 
implementation of lethal injections too vague. The Eighth Circuit Court of 
Appeals in St. Louis eventually reversed the decision and executions resumed in 
2009.

Missouri carried out 10 executions in 2014 amid controversies about troubled 
executions in Oklahoma and Arizona and the lethal injection drug protocols 
states have been using. The state's high court granted a stay of execution in 
January for death row inmate Marcellus Williams in order to hear his claim that 
he should receive additional DNA testing.

In post-conviction relief motions, Clayton's attorneys contended that he had 
suffered a brain injury in a 1972 sawmill accident that contributed to his 
violent behavior. While there was evidence of the brain injury presented at 
trial, his appellate attorneys maintained that the doctor who testified had not 
correctly assessed the extent of the injury and consequently failed to convey 
its significance to jurors.

A clinical psychologist testified at a post-conviction relief hearing that he 
believed Clayton suffered from dementia as a result of the injury as well as 
social anxiety disorder and alcohol dependence. Clayton's blood-alcohol content 
the night of the shooting tested at 0.16 %, or about twice the legal limit for 
driving in Missouri.

Temper

Cecil Clayton was known to have a temper, especially when drinking, and had 
been convicted of assaulting a police officer, a high school principal and 
various family members before fatally shooting Deputy Christopher Castetter.

(source: Joplin Globe)

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

Missouri Lawmaker Pushes to Repeal Death Penalty



After careful consideration, Missouri State Representative T.J. Berry announced 
today his plans to repeal the Missouri death penalty, and one local lawmaker is 
totally against it.

"If you don't have the threat of possible death penalty, then I don't believe 
you will have individuals that will stop at a certain point," said Charlie 
Davis, Missouri State Representative, 162nd District.

Missouri State Representative Charlie Davis says the death penalty serves as a 
deterrent. However, Berry argues that several years on death row isn't scaring 
anyone.

"Yes, there is that argument. The average person stays on death row for 18 
years. So I just don't see that being a deterrent for people that are going to 
be committing a heinous act," said T.J. Berry, Missouri State Representative, 
38th District.

The 38th District representative would also tell you getting rid of the death 
penalty will save money, because the process is very expensive. He says 
sentencing a convict to life without parole is cheaper.

"It makes sense on a fiscal side and it makes sense on a life side, so why 
shouldn't we get rid of it," said Berrry.

Representative Davis disagrees. He says it costs $30,000 to $40,000 a year to 
house an inmate. If they spend 40 to 50 years behind bars, that translates into 
hundreds of thousands of tax dollars.

"I don't think it's a valid argument as far as the savings aspect, the dollar 
savings. And I don't care if it was more expensive to execute somebody. If they 
commit these hideous crimes, then I do believe we need to make sure we execute 
those individuals," said Davis.

Berry says the House Bill needs to be signed to a committee before heading to 
the floor for a debate. If the bill passes, it will go in effect August 28th, 
2015.

(source: fourstateshomepage.com)






WYOMING:

If firing squads fail, Wyoming could revive the hangin' tree



Politicians who support capital punishment likely don't pay much attention to 
the arguments of people who oppose the practice. They've heard it all before. 
The debate over the death penalty has raged in this country for years. But when 
these opponents include manufacturers of the drugs needed to carry out 
executions, they become impossible to ignore.

Pharmaceutical companies no longer want to be associated with the controversial 
practice and have stopped selling lethal-injection drugs to prisons. This has 
created a quandary in states that still sentence the convicted to death.

While officials in those states could see this as yet another message the death 
penalty is barbaric, or at least not worth the cost and the trouble, they 
don't. Instead they are clamoring to find other ways to kill inmates.

Prison officials in Texas falsified prescriptions and lied to pharmacies in an 
effort to get drugs, according to a federal civil complaint. The governor of 
Tennessee signed legislation allowing the electric chair to be used if drugs 
are not available. Some states are trying untested drug cocktails for lethal 
injections. That has led to legal challenges, including one the U.S. Supreme 
Court agreed last month to consider.

But Wyoming is really going all out. The state Senate recently passed 
legislation to authorize the use of a firing squad if needed.

Wyoming's elected officials could have taken the opportunity to bring itself 
into the 21st century by outlawing capital punishment, as many other states 
have done. After all, there is not a single person on death row there, 
according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In the past 40 years, 
Wyoming has carried out only 1 execution.

Instead of wasting its energies reviving a brutal method for murdering 
prisoners - just in case it is someday necessary - the state should let the 
firing squads remain in retirement.

(source: Des Moines Register)








ARIZONA:

Prosecution's Key Witness Admits Arias Has a Mental Disorder in Death Penalty 
Retrial; Defense lawyers cross-examined the prosecution's star witness on day 
35 of the Jodi Arias death penalty sentencing retrial on Thursday.



While being cross-examined by attorney Kirk Nurmi, Dr. Janine DeMarte admitted 
that Arias, who has been convicted in the murder of her ex-lover Travis 
Alexander, suffers from a mental illness. As a result, several court watchers 
agreed that this will help the defense prove their case that Arias should not 
be put to death.

"It's good for the defense because maybe they can get one person on the jury 
that thinks 'I don't know if I can give somebody with mental illness the death 
penalty.' So that puts something in the jurors minds to think about," said 
court watcher Jen Wood to KHPO.

Dr. DeMarte's statements on Thursday also contradicted the testimony that she 
gave earlier in the week when she refuted claims that Arias was a victim.

While on the witness stand on Wednesday, the psychologist described Arias as an 
extremely jealous stalker with borderline personality disorder and a fixation 
on Alexander, reports Fox 10 Phoenix. She also said that Arias refused to let 
him move on and resorted to spying on him and confronting other girls that he 
dated. She went on to say that Arias was prone to manic episodes of extreme 
happiness and despair and discredited defense arguments that Arias murdered 
Alexander as a result of abuse she endured by him and her own family in the 
past.

On the day prior, prosecutors presented the jury with sexually explicit text 
messages that Arias exchanged with Alexander to show that she was enthusiastic 
about their sex life and cast the convicted killer in a negative light.

Although Arias was found guilty of first-degree murder last May in the death of 
her ex-boyfriend, in her first trial, jurors failed to reach a unanimous 
decision on her sentencing. As a result, the retrial will determine whether she 
should be sentenced to death, life in prison or life with a chance of release 
after serving 25 years.

According to medical examiners, Arias stabbed Alexander 27 times, primarily in 
the back, torso and heart in his Phoenix home. She also slit Alexander's throat 
from ear to ear, nearly decapitating him, and she shot him in the face before 
she dragged his bloodied corpse to the shower and took pictures of him.

(source: Latin Post)








UTAH:

What Utah and Virginia Are Trying to Do to Keep The Death Penalty Will Shock 
You



As the death penalty declines across the US, a small number of states are 
taking drastic measures to keep their death chambers active.

In light of last year's 3 gruesomely botched executions, Ohio and Oklahoma 
(responsible for 2 of them) are taking the precaution of putting executions on 
hold. But that's a little too cautious for Utah and Virginia, 2 states that 
appear willing to do just about anything to continue executions.

Virginia State Senator Richard Saslaw has introduced a bill that, rather than 
address the problems that have led to horrifying botched executions, simply 
sidesteps them by cloaking the entire execution process in secrecy. It even 
proposes to exempt information about executions from the Freedom of Information 
Act. After all, why clean up a mess when you can just sweep it under the rug?

In addition to its secrecy provisions, the bill also ensures the state's access 
to lethal injection drugs by allowing secret contracts with compounding 
pharmacies - pharmacies that mix their own drugs unregulated by the FDA. Ohio 
tried the same thing, resulting in the botched execution of Dennis McGuire (the 
1st of last year's 3 botched executions).

Utah has taken a different approach. State Representative Paul Ray is 
sponsoring a bill that would allow the firing squad as an option when lethal 
injection drugs aren't available. If lethal injection regulations are intended 
to find some kind of "humane" execution method, Rep. Ray's bill must be 
intended to take us back to a time when we simply didn't worry about being 
humane.

Utah last carried out an execution by firing squad in 2010 when it executed 
Ronnie Lee Gardner. The spectacle of the firing squad made international news 
and put the spotlight on Utah standing far outside the national consensus on 
capital punishment methods.

That national consensus is continuing to evolve, and it's not moving in the 
direction of Utah and Virginia. The death penalty has been declining across the 
United States for years.

2014 saw the fewest executions in the United States in the last 20 years, and 
the fewest people sentenced to death in the last 40 years, according to the 
latest report from the Death Penalty Information Center. The nation's 35 
executions were concentrated in just 7 states (with 3 states - Texas, Missouri, 
and Florida - responsible for 80%). In fact, the majority of death penalty 
cases nationwide stem from only 2% of counties, with the vast majority of 
counties abandoning the practice altogether.

Most counties have seen the death penalty as a drain on resources with no 
benefit. Contrary to popular belief, studies have consistently shown that the 
death penalty costs far more public resources than alternative punishments, 
even life in prison without parole. 80% of US counties have not employed the 
death penalty in decades, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

While more and more states abolish the death penalty or abandon its use, those 
that continue to cling to it do so in increasingly gruesome circumstances.

Whether it's botched executions that essentially torture prisoners to death, 
shrouds of secrecy, or even the executions of people with intellectual 
disabilities (as Georgia and Texas both demonstrated last week), the way the 
death penalty is employed in a small number of states is deeply shocking the 
conscience of the rest of the country and the world.

The time has come to admit the death penalty is broken beyond repair and 
abandon it once and for all.

(source: Amnesty International USA)








CALIFORNIA:

Garden Grove killer sentenced to death for second time in 1983 rape, murder



For the family of a young woman killed in 1983, the 3rd murder trial was 
hopefully the last.

An Orange County Superior Court judge on Friday sentenced convicted killer 
Richard Raymond Ramirez to death for the 2nd time for the murder of 22-year-old 
Kimberly Gonzalez, who was raped and stabbed behind a Garden Grove bar more 
than 3 decades ago.

Ramirez originally was convicted and sentenced to death in 1985, but the 
conviction was overturned in 2008 after it was discovered that the jury foreman 
failed to disclose his status as an FBI candidate - a position for which he 
later was hired.

Prosecutors retried the case, and Ramirez was convicted for a 2nd time in 2013. 
However, the jury that year deadlocked on whether he should receive the death 
penalty, leading the judge to declare a mistrial.

After a 3rd trial, a jury in November decided Ramirez should return to San 
Quentin's death row.

More than a dozen of Gonzalez's family members flooded the courtroom for the 
sentencing, each holding a single pink rose. They described the pain of sitting 
through 3 trials, reliving the horror of her final moments.

"It has been an emotional roller coaster for us," said her sister Yvette Mejia. 
"Hopefully this is the last chapter."

"I'm thankful to God that he has let me live to see this day," said her mother, 
Mary Helen Hernandez, 79.

Judge Gregg L. Pickett denied the defense's request for a life sentence over 
death, noting the egregiousness of the crime and a previous conviction for 
rape. In that case, Ramirez assaulted the victim and threatened to cut off her 
baby's legs.

Prosecutors said Ramirez was a savage killer who met and befriended Gonzalez at 
a bar and then lured her into an alleyway, where he raped her and stabbed her 
more than 20 times.

The defense argued for a life sentence over the death penalty. Attorneys told 
the jury about Ramirez's dysfunctional childhood in a household dominated by a 
violent and alcoholic father, and his drug abuse beginning in his teen years.

The jury foreman, who returned to court for the sentencing, said jurors weren't 
swayed by Ramirez's tough childhood.

"A lot of people have had a bad upbringing and went on to do good things. It 
isn't an excuse," said the foreman, who identified himself as Larry K. "He 
still had a choice."

(source: Orange County Register)

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

Tentative ruling: Calif. must adopt execution process----Judge found that the 
CDCR has a duty to adopt execution procedures, but has the sole discretion to 
decide how the state will carry out the death penalty



A suit filed by crime victims seeks to force state correctional officials to 
adopt procedures for a single-drug, barbiturate-only method of execution.

KCRA reports that Sacramento Superior Court Judge Shellyanne Chang ruled that 
while the state is not ordered to resume executions, which have been on hold 
since 2006, officials can't wait any longer to find a new way to conduct 
executions if they are reinstituted.

Chang found that the CDCR has a duty to adopt execution procedures, but has the 
sole discretion to decide how the state will carry out the death penalty.

The CDCR said it's been drafting new lethal injection requirements without 
putting them into effect since Gov. Jerry Brown said in April 2012 that the 
state would switch to a single-drug lethal injection.

No executions can occur until the new rules are adopted by the department.

(source: Correctionsone.com)

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

Trial date finally set in 'Grim Sleeper' serial killings after victims' 
families are kept waiting for more than 4 years----Lonnie Franklin Jr., 62, is 
charged with ten counts of murder in killings that spanned from 1985 to 2007 in 
Los Angeles, California



A judge has set a trial date for a man charged in the case of the 'Grim 
Sleeper' serial killings that spanned 2 decades in Los Angeles.

Lonnie Franklin Jr., who has pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of murder and 1 
count of attempted murder, will stand trial on June 29, it was announced today.

Jury selection will begin the following day, according to Superior Court Judge 
Kathleen Kennedy.

During the court hearing today, frustrated families urged the judge to move the 
case forward after years of delays, and cited Marsy's Law - a voter approved 
bill of rights that allows families of victims the right to a speedy trial.

Franklin, 62, could face the death penalty if convicted of the killings that 
occurred between 1985 and 2007.

The nickname 'Grim Sleeper' was coined because of the gap between slayings in 
1988 and 2002.

Police arrested Franklin in July 2010 after his DNA was connected to more than 
a dozen crime scenes.

They had linked the crimes, but did not have a suspect until a crime lab 
computer traced the sample to one of Franklin's family members.

An officer posing as a busboy at a pizza parlor got DNA samples from dishes and 
utensils Franklin had been eating with at a birthday party.

2010) urged the Los Angeles Superior Court judge to set a trial date citing 
Marsy's Law, a voter-approved victim's bill of right allowing family members of 
the victims to testify As news of the trial date has been announced, attorney 
Nina Salarno Ashford, a board member of Crime Victims United, said it is not 
unusual for capital cases to take years to complete.

However Marsy's Law, which was passed in 2008 and cited by prosecutors during 
the court hearing, gives victims some leverage in speeding things up though it 
is still not widely used, she said.

--

VICTIMS OF THE 'GRIM SLEEPER'

August 10, 1985: Debra Jackson - A 29-year-old cocktail waitress who went to 
take a bus home after visiting her friend's house. Her body was found 3 days 
later with three gunshot wounds to the chest.

August 12, 1986: Henrietta Wright - The 35-year-old was found dead in an alley 
near West Vernon Avenue. She was shot twice and wrapped in a blanket and 
covered in a mattress.

August 14, 1986: Thomas Steele - The only known male victim of the serial 
killer. The 36-year-old was found with a single gunshot wound to the head in 
the middle of a street intersection.

January 10, 1987: Barbara Ware - The 23-year-old had been shot once in the 
chest and her body had been dumped under a pile of rubbish.

April 15, 1987: Bernita Sparks - 26-year-old went out to the shops but never 
returned. Her body was found in a bin, covered in rubbish. She had been shot, 
strangled and beaten.

October 31, 1987: Mary Lowe - 26-year-old left home to go to a party, but never 
returned. Her body was found in an alley of Western Avenue.

January 30, 1988: Lachrica Jefferson - Officers found the 22-year-old's body 
with a napkin over the face with the word 'AIDS' written on it.

September 11, 1988: Alicia Alexander - Another victim killed while going to the 
shops. The 18-year-old's body was also found in an alley near Western Avenue.

December 21, 2001: Princess Berthomieux - The end of the 14-year hiatus. DNA on 
the 14-year-old's body matched those of previous killings.

July 11, 2003: Valerie McCorvey - 35-year-old had been strangled and sexually 
assaulted.

January 1, 2007: Janecia Peters - 25-year-old was shot in the back and her body 
was dumped in a rubbish bag.

--

Marsy's Law, guaranteed for defendants, can be extended to family members of 
victims. It also allows victims to address the court, and Porter Alexander, who 
spent more than 20 years wondering if his daughter's killer would ever be 
caught, was among those who addressed the court.

Attorney Salarno Ashford has used the law to represent victims throughout the 
process, including cross-examining witnesses at trial.

She has also successfully argued three times to have trial dates set so the 
victims could have their day in court.

'It's always been a fault in our system that defendants were able to play a 
shell game and delay things,' she said.

Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman said the case has been plagued by 
delays with no end in sight and that the judge has failed to hold the defense 
to strict deadlines to complete their investigation.

However, defense lawyer Seymour Amster blamed the prosecution, and said his 
expert found DNA from another man at 3 of the crime scenes and is seeking to 
test more material because the evidence could help his client.

Amster said the prosecution has opposed releasing the items for testing and 
have asked for more time to prepare their response.M

'There are rumors that I'm trying to delay this thing,' he said. 'I'm really 
not. I'm a strong proponent of do it once, do it right.'

Silverman said that she recognizes the need to balance Franklin's right to 
prepare for trial, but that the court must balance that with the rights of the 
victims and the community.

She said those rights have already been compromised.

A firearms expert who tested guns retired last year, so the testing needed to 
be done again.

Medical examiners and a supervising criminalist at the coroner's office have 
retired and will need to be replaced.

And the mother of victim Mary Lowe died more than two years ago, depriving her 
of the chance Alexander and other victims' families will have to address the 
court.

'It's a waiting game,' said Alexander, whose 18-year-old daughter, Monique, was 
killed in 1988. 'I need to keep up my strength. I hope I'm here for the 
ending.'

(source: Daily Mail)








USA:

U.S. judge rejects third request to move Boston bombing trial



A U.S. judge on Friday rejected a 3rd request by lawyers for the accused Boston 
Marathon bomber to move his trial out of the city, saying the jury selection 
process had been successful so far in identifying potential impartial jurors.

Attorneys for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21, who is accused of carrying out the largest 
mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, have 
repeatedly sought to move the trial out of Boston. They have contended that too 
many potential jurors had a personal connection to the April 15, 2013 attack 
that killed t3 people and injured 264.

The jury selection process, which wrapped up its fifth week on Friday, has 
shown a number of candidates with direct ties to the event, including a man 
married to a nurse who tended to the wounded, as well as others who were locked 
down in their homes during a manhunt for Tsarnaev three days after the attack.

Still, of the more than 150 potential jurors so far brought in for questioning 
at U.S. District Court in Boston, a process known as "voir dire," some have 
been suitable, the judge said.

"The voir dire process is successfully identifying potential jurors who are 
capable of serving as fair and impartial jurors in this case," U.S. District 
Judge George O'Toole wrote in his ruling on Friday.

"That the voir dire process has been time-consuming is not an indication that a 
proper jury cannot be selected for this case," O'Toole added. "It is rather in 
the main a consequence of the careful inquiry that the court and counsel are 
making into the suitability of prospective jurors.

Of the 1,350 people who were brought in early last month to fill out 
questionnaires, a minimum of 64 need to qualify for the final pool from which a 
panel of 12 jurors and 6 alternates will be selected.

Adding to the challenge is the fact that Tsarnaev could face the death penalty 
if convicted by a federal jury. Massachusetts state law does not allow for 
capital punishment and it remains unpopular in the state, a fact that has also 
been made clear by the jury selection process.

Prosecutors contend that Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, placed bombs 
at the race's crowded finish line and three days later shot dead a police 
officer as they prepared to flee the city. Tamerlan died that night, following 
a gun battle with police.

(source: Reuters)

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

Week of jury selection for Aurora theater shooting trial ends with 125 
dismissals----After running through a list of 62 potential jurors released this 
morning, Judge Carlos Samour Jr. added another 63 prospective jurors that 
attorneys agreed to dismiss this afternoon.



More than 120 jurors were dismissed Feb. 6 from jury duty in the case against 
James Holmes, who is accused of murdering 12 and injuring dozens in a crowded 
Aurora movie theater. Multiple jurors were released because they couldn't speak 
English, including 1 who was released for medical problems and another who 
wasn't a U.S. citizen.

After running through a list of 62 potential jurors released this morning, 
Judge Carlos Samour Jr. added another 63 prospective jurors that attorneys 
agreed to dismiss this afternoon.

Jury selection will continue next week. On Wednesday, individual questioning of 
jurors will begin.

Holmes is accused of killing 12 people and the attempted murder of 70 others 
inside the Century Aurora 16 movie theatre on July 20, 2012. Prosecutors are 
seeking the death penalty. Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

(source: Aurora Sentinel)

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

In praise of the firing squad



This term, the Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of how the 
lethal injection is administered in Oklahoma. The court's decision to revisit 
this issue comes as debate over the procedure and drugs used in lethal 
injections is boiling over. In the past year alone, we've seen horribly botched 
executions in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona. After anti-death penalty groups 
successfully shamed some European pharmaceutical companies into refusing to 
export lethal injection drugs to death penalty states, some corrections 
departments bought the drugs off the black market (triggering surreal Drug 
Enforcement Administration raids on prison facilities) or switched to other 
drug protocols that are untested for the purposes of killing a human being. 
Some of the same corrections departments, sometimes with the aid of state 
legislatures, have also become increasingly secretive about what drugs they're 
using and in what doses. (For a more thorough history of the lethal injection, 
see Liliana Segura's guest post for The Watch last year.)

In response to all of this, at least 2 state legislatures (Utah and Wyoming) 
have recently considered bills to bring back the firing squad. Some death 
penalty opponents have castigated the move as ghastly and reactionary. And 
indeed, judging by statements by some of the bills' supporters, they seem more 
about provocation than finding a solution to the dispute.

But the motivations of the bills' supporters are irrelevant to whether there 
are any actual merits to the firing squad as a method of execution. And 
frankly, if we insist on executing people, the firing squad may be the best 
option.

Before I explain why, I'll first disclose that I'm opposed to the death 
penalty, and I have no doubt that my opposition to state-sanctioned killing 
influences my opinions on which method of execution we ought to use. So read 
the rest of this post with that in mind.

If you support the death penalty, the most obvious benefit of the firing squad 
is that unlike lethal injection drugs, correctional institutions are never 
going to run out of bullets. And if they do, more bullets won't be very 
difficult to find. Ammunition companies aren't susceptible to pressure from 
anti-death penalty activists, at least not to the degree a pharmaceutical 
company might be. This would actually remove a barrier to more efficient 
executions. As someone who would like to see executions eliminated entirely, I 
don't personally see this as a benefit. But death penalty supporters might. And 
there are other benefits to the firing squad, benefits that I think people on 
both sides of the issue can appreciate.

First, let's talk about humaneness. When we talk about the humanity of a 
particular form of execution, we like to think we're trying to find the most 
civilized way to put someone to death. We recoil at methods such as the 
guillotine, hanging and the firing squad as barbaric anachronisms of a 
different era, when crowds gathered to witness and revel in the event. The 
lethal injection, most of us think, simply puts the condemned to sleep. There's 
no pain, no violence, no spectacle. It's how civilized countries carry out 
executions.

The problem is that we really don't know what happens when the lethal injection 
drugs go to work. I wrote about this in a 2011 piece for the Huffington Post.

In 2008, the Supreme Court heard arguments against the 3-drug cocktail used in 
nearly every state that performs lethal injections. At issue was the drug 
pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the condemned, giving them a placid, 
peaceful appearance even if they might be suffering immense pain from an 
improper dose of anesthesia.

And there's reason to suspect they might: A 2005 study in the Lancet found that 
as many as 4 in 10 of those executed may have been given inadequate anesthesia.

A large dose of a single barbiturate would kill just as effectively and 
painlessly. Opponents say pancuronium bromide isn't necessary, and it masks any 
indications a prisoner may be experiencing pain. But as The New York Times' 
Adam Liptak reported in 2008, defenders of the 3-drug procedure offer an 
interesting argument in response. "[L]awyers for John D. Rees, the Kentucky 
corrections commissioner, said the 3-chemical combination was safe and painless 
and produced a dignified death," Liptak wrote. "Using only a single 
barbiturate, they said, was untested, could result in distressing and 
disruptive muscle contractions, and might take a long time."

Liptak went on to write about how the state of Texas came to adopt the 3-drug 
protocol. "[T]he medical director of Texas' corrections department, Dr. Ralph 
Gray, consulted a veterinarian in Huntsville, Tex., Dr. Gerry Etheredge," 
Liptak wrote. Etheredge says he told Gray that in veterinary medicine, they 
used a single barbiturate, and that, "we overdosed it and everything went 
smoothly. It was very safe, very effective and very cheap." The problem, 
Etheredge said, is that Gray feared "people would think we are treating people 
the same way that we're treating animals. He was afraid of a hue and cry."

These anecdotes are telling. Rather than subject witnesses to unnerving 
post-mortem twitching by prisoners who are experiencing no pain, prison 
officials instead use a procedure that leaves open the possibility of immense, 
unimaginable pain, but also ensures that witnesses will see no signs of it. 
We've shunned the effective, painless procedure regularly used in veterinary 
medicine because we don't want to give the appearance that they're treating 
prisoners like animals. But in the process, we may be treating them worse.

Jonathan Groner, the trauma medical director of Children's Hospital in 
Columbus, Ohio and a death penalty opponent, told ABC News in 2008, "1 of the 
great ironies about capital punishment when you look at it historically is that 
when executions appear to be more humane, the application of the death penalty 
becomes less humane."

Groner is right, but his observation may also be beside the point. Traditional 
lethal injection is more humane if you consider the humanity of the procedure 
from the perspective of everyone except the person being executed. There is now 
a storm of controversy about the procedure because those botched executions 
last year produced some really gruesome images, which were then relayed to the 
public by witnesses. Had the condemned men in Oklahoma, Ohio and Arizona 
suffered the same pain and agony, but under the cloak of a more thorough 
paralytic, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. We consider a method 
of execution humane if it doesn't make us uncomfortable to hear or read about 
it. What the condemned actually experience during the procedure is largely 
irrelevant. The lethal injection likely became the most common form of 
execution in the United States because it makes a state killing resemble a 
medical procedure. Not only doesn't it weird us out, it's almost comforting.

By contrast, the firing squad is violent and archaic, and judging by the 
reaction to the bills in Utah and Wyoming, it most certainly does weird a lot 
of people out. And yet in only the way that should matter, the firing squad is 
likely more humane than the lethal injection. Slate published a good primer on 
firing quads back in 2010, as Utah was preparing to execute Ronnie Lee Gardner. 
(Utah ended the firing squad in 2004, but left it as an option for inmates 
convicted and sentenced prior to the law.)

According to the Utah Department of Corrections, Gardner will be strapped to a 
chair for his execution wearing a jumpsuit with a target pinned to his heart. 
After offering last words, his face will be hooded, and 5 pre-selected law 
enforcement officers will aim for that target with .30-caliber rifles from less 
than 25 feet away. As in traditional military firing squads, 1 of those 
shooters' guns will be loaded with blanks, to keep each one uncertain about 
whether he fired a fatal shot . . .

This may sound gory, but the limited body of research on death penalty methods 
suggests that the firing squad is actually a pretty good way to go. A Utah 
inmate who in 1938 agreed to be gunned to death while hooked up to an 
electrocardiogram showed complete heart death within 1 minute of the firing 
squad's shots. By contrast, a typical, complication-free lethal injection takes 
about 9 minutes to kill an inmate.

Death penalty lawyers and human rights groups argued that mix-ups in the drug 
cocktail administered in most states could result in a long, painful death, 
tantamount to torture. The Supreme Court rejected that argument. But 
corrections officials who insert needles and administer the lethal injection 
drugs have no medical training, since the professional associations of both 
doctors and nurses have barred their members from participating in executions. 
The Oklahoma medical examiner who 1st designed the most common lethal injection 
protocol critiqued his own method in 2007, after learning about problems with 
its administration . . .

By contrast, shooting is simple and deadly. It's easy to find psychologically 
stable, trained professionals with experience shooting to kill. Assuming that 
the executioners aim with that purpose, the 4-bullet protocol provides a 
measure of certainty that 1 bullet will strike the heart, leading to a near 
instantaneous death.

There is also some evidence that fatal gunshot wounds of the kind sought by 
executioners are not only relatively swift, but also not terribly painful. 
According to a 1993 study of the relative pain associated with different 
execution methods, gunshot gets the highest rank when compared with lethal gas, 
electrocution, hanging, stoning, and other popular methods. (The paper assumes 
that the executions go off without a hitch, and gives lethal injection similar 
high marks.)

Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School who has studied execution 
methods for nearly 2 decades, said she'd pick the firing squad if offered 
Gardner's choice between the 2 methods. "To me, it seems like the more humane 
choice," she said.

This sets up a final argument in favor of the firing squad: There is no 
mistaking what it is. There are no IVs, needles, cotton swabs or other 
accoutrements more commonly associated with healing. When we hear about an 
execution on the news, we won't hear about an inmate slowly drifting off to 
sleep. We'll hear about guns and bullets. Killing is an act of violence. That's 
what witnesses will see, and that's what the reports will tell us has happened. 
If we're going to permit the government to kill on our behalf, we should own 
what we're doing.

This is where a critic might argue that as a death penalty opponent, I'm merely 
arguing for the method of execution that I think is most likely to turn people 
off to the death penalty. I'll be honest: I hope that's what will happen. I 
hope that when confronted with a method of execution that's less opaque about 
what's actually transpiring, more of us will come to realize that we no longer 
need capital punishment. But I'm not particularly optimistic that will happen. 
I suspect that there's a strong segment of the public (and probably a majority) 
that will support the death penalty no matter how we carry out executions.

Regardless of its impact on the death penalty debate, if we must continue to 
execute people, the firing squad has a lot to offer. It isn't just the most 
humane form of execution now realistically under consideration, it is the most 
humane from the correct perspective - the experience of the condemned. It 
brings no concerns about the supply of execution materials. It raises no issues 
about medical ethics - it doesn't blur the lines between healing and hurting. 
It's honest. It's transparent. And it is appropriately violent.

(source: Radley Balko blogs about criminal justice, the drug war and civil 
liberties for The Washington Post.)