[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., FLA. LA., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

July 9



TEXAS----impending execution

Death Watch: Mental Illness Claims Fail; Death Awaits----After a 2005 murder, 
Clifton Williams is set to be executed


East Texan Clifton Williams heads to the gurney next Thursday, July 16, after 9 
years spent on death row for the murder of Cecelia Schneider. Williams, 31, was 
21 years old at the time of Schneider's murder, July 9, 2005. Court records 
show that he broke into the 93-year-old's Tyler home, stabbed, strangled, and 
beat her, then laid her body on her bed and set her bed on fire. He left 
Schneider's house with her car and her purse, which contained $40. He argued at 
trial that his friend, Jamarist Paxton, forced him to break into the house with 
him, and coerced him into cutting his hand so as to leave his DNA on-scene. But 
police weren't able to find any evidence that would substantiate Williams' 
claims about accomplices, and Paxton denied involvement. In Oct. 2006, Williams 
was found guilty of capital murder (in addition to a number of other offenses) 
and sentenced to death.

Williams' attorneys have argued in state and federal petitions for relief (as 
well as a petition for a Certificate of Appealability) that Williams suffers 
from a wide range of mental illnesses, including paranoid schizophrenia, with 
which he was diagnosed when he was 20. They have tried to argue that his mother 
suffered from mental illness, and that Williams had trouble functioning from an 
early age. They also claim Williams was the victim of incompetent counsel, as 
attorneys at trial failed both to establish Williams as the victim of mental 
illness and to mitigate his standing as a future danger to society. Most 
notably, his petitions for relief note, trial counsel erred by stating their 
intent to establish mental illness before Williams received a court-ordered 
psych exam, giving prosecutors the ability to refute counsel's claims without 
any established medical standing.

Last September, attorneys Seth Kretzer and James Volberding presented Williams' 
case to the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes that the Justices would hear Williams' 
mental illness claims. Specifically, records note, they wanted to prove that 
one ruling - ex parte Briseno, which lays out 3 basic conditions to determine 
competence - blocks Williams from arguing mental retardation on the basis of 
Atkins v. Virginia (which placed a categorical ban on executing the mentally 
ill, and was previously rejected by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals). The 
Supreme Court denied that petition in early April, however, without comment or 
explanation. Williams' attorneys do not plan to file any last-minute appeals.

Williams will be the 10th Texan executed this year, and 528th since the state 
reinstated the death penalty in 1976. However, his execution coincides with 
emerging reports that indicate the number of Texans being sent to death row has 
now significantly decreased. In fact, jurors around the state have yet to 
sentence anyone to death in 2015. The last person to receive such a sentence 
was former Kaufman County attorney Eric Williams (no relation), who shot and 
killed Chief Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse on Jan. 31, 2013, before 
killing County D.A. Michael McLelland and his wife Cynthia 2 months later. He 
was sentenced to death last December. It's the 1st time in more than 20 years 
that the state has made it to July without issuing a new death sentence.

(source: Austin Chronicle)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Attorney general seeks to overturn Wolf death penalty policy


Pennsylvania's attorney general asked the state Supreme Court this week to 
nullify Gov. Tom Wolf's moratorium on executing death row inmates, describing 
the policy as blatantly unconstitutional and a threat to the justice system.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane filed the request Monday in the case of Hubert 
Lester Michael Jr., on death row for killing 16-year-old Trista Eng in York 
County nearly 22 years ago.

"Never before has a member of the executive branch of government sought to 
unilaterally negate a criminal penalty across an entire class of cases," the 
state prosecutor's office wrote. "Never before has a member of the executive 
branch affirmatively interfered with the proper administration of the law on 
the grounds that the judicial branch of government has not functioned in a way 
that meets a personal standard of satisfaction."

The current situation puts at risk the integrity of the constitution, and the 
court should act to preserve it, the attorney general's office wrote.

The filing was made without fanfare, and Kane had not previously criticized 
Wolf's stance in public. Wolf and Kane are both Democrats.

A Wolf spokesman said Wednesday that the governor is aware of the filing and 
plans to respond.

"It essentially makes the same arguments as the arguments currently pending 
before the court," said Wolf press secretary Jeff Sheridan.

Telephone messages left for Michael's lawyers were not immediately returned 
Wednesday evening.

Kane's office attacked Wolf's policy of issuing a series of reprieves in death 
row cases, at least until he can review the findings of an overdue study of 
capital punishment.

If the Supreme Court agrees, it could clear the way for the state's 1st 
execution since 1999, although the Department of Corrections has struggled to 
obtain the specific drugs required for executions under state law.

The attorney general's office said Wolf's series of reprieves - he has issued 3 
so far - "falls well outside the realm of his constitutional authority."

Eng disappeared July 20, 1993, as she was walking to a job at a fast food 
restaurant in Dillsburg. Her body was found concealed in some weeds, shot 3 
times with a .44-caliber handgun. Michael was arrested in Utah a week later for 
jumping bail on a rape charge, and he later confessed to killing her.

Michael subsequently walked out of Lancaster County Prison in November 1993 
under the assumed identity of a weekend cellmate serving a drunken-driving 
sentence. He was arrested about 4 months later in New Orleans, pleaded guilty 
to murder and kidnapping in 1994 and was sentenced to death in 1995.

"The governor is required by the constitution to respect the co-equal 
judiciary's determinations in criminal cases," state prosecutors wrote this 
week. "His faux 'reprieve' of Hubert Michael subverts that obligation."

Shortly after he took office earlier this year, Wolf announced the new policy, 
saying the state's system is "error-prone, expensive and anything but 
infallible."

He argued there was data suggesting defendants might be more likely to be 
charged with capital murder and sentenced to death if they are poor or a racial 
minority and the victim is white.

He has also issued a reprieve for convicted murderers Terrance Williams of 
Philadelphia and Robert Diamond of Bucks County. The high court is considering 
a challenge to Williams' reprieve filed by the Philadelphia district attorney. 
In the Williams case, Wolf is represented by the governor's general counsel. 
There are 180 men and 2 women on Pennsylvania's death row. The state has 
executed just 3 people since capital punishment was made legal in the 1970s, 
and all three had voluntarily relinquished their appeals.

(source: WTAE news)

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

Kane blasts 'blatantly unconstitutional' death penalty moratorium


Pennsylvania's attorney general says Gov. Tom Wolf's death penalty moratorium 
is blatantly unconstitutional and wants the state Supreme Court to clear the 
way for the state's 1st execution since 1999.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane filed a request Monday for extraordinary relief 
in the case of Hubert Lester Michael Jr., on death row for killing 16-year-old 
Trista Eng in York County nearly 22 years ago.

The filing attacks Wolf's policy of issuing a series of reprieves in death row 
cases, at least until he can review the findings of an overdue study of capital 
punishment.

The attorney general's office says that practice "falls well outside the realm 
of his constitutional authority" and the justices should "reinstate the proper 
operation of the criminal justice system."

Wolf and Kane are both Democrats.

(source: Associated Press)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Death row costing millions, but no one put to death


The warden of Central Prison in Raleigh showed Channel 9's Dave Faherty into 
the area where dozens of people have been put to death.

He showed the gurney that they use to restrain the inmates and the death 
chamber where people can view the execution from an adjacent room.

The executions stopped in August 2006.

That's because of court challenges alleging lethal injection constitutes cruel 
and unusual punishment.

High-profile capital murder trials haven't stopped.

For instance, the 2008 case of Lisa Greene cost taxpayers $750,000 in defense 
costs. The Cabarrus County mother was accused of murdering her children and 
setting her home on fire.

"The lawyers who are doing it certainly are not getting rich. I can promise 
you," attorney Lisa Dubs said.

Dubs was not only Greene's court-appointed attorney, she also represented a 
dozen other capital murder defendants.

She lost only once.

She said all of that money goes to run the public defender's office and to pay 
for expert witnesses.

Every person tried for capital murder is appointed two lawyers who make $85 an 
hour. She said many people mistakenly believe it's less expensive to put 
someone to death.

"Study after study has shown that that's not the case. It is more expensive to 
try a case capitally and execute someone than it is to house them for the rest 
of their life without the possibility of parole," Dubs said.

"On down here. Straight down this path," daughter Chardae Wilson said.

Wilson lives feet away from where her father was shot and killed 24 years ago 
in Hickory. 2 men were convicted of his murder and another murder and have been 
on death row since 1993.

Wilson was just one when her father died. She favors capital punishment.

"They took my daddy out of this world. They snatched him out of my life at a 
young age. I don't remember what he looks like or nothing. I truly believe the 
same should happen to them," Chardae Wilson said.

Prosecutors said the decision on which cases should be capital is difficult.

They cost on average 4 times as much as other murder cases and the state spends 
more than $10 million each year to defend them.

In Catawba County, nearly $50,000 has been spent on Sharman Odom even though 
he's only been to court once since his arrest for the murder and sexual assault 
of Maggie Daniels last summer.

District attorney David Learner has that case along with 2 others in his 
district. He strongly supports the death penalty but says it's hard to carry 
out, because of the appeals process.

"These cases are hard to try the 1st time. They are extraordinarily difficult 
years later into the appeals process to try a 2nd time," Learner said.

Appeals have allowed some to sit on death row for decades.

Wilson said she is willing to wait hoping the men that kept her from having a 
father will be executed.

"I want people to feel what I feel. I want their family to feel what I feel. It 
is hard growing up without a daddy," Wilson said.

Attorneys say beyond the cost it's hard to find a jury willing to make the 
decision for death.

"People want to be a lot more sure. Anybody who pays attention to the news 
knows that there are people on death row and who were facing execution who were 
in fact innocent," Dubs said.

(source: WSOC TV news)






FLORIDA:

After Supreme Court ruling on controversial drug midazolam, officials are 
already petitioning to resume executions in Florida


The drab curtains rose slowly over the unfolding scene, where behind thick 
glass, Darius Kimbrough was already strapped to a gurney with IV needles stuck 
into his arms. His face was peeking out from underneath a white sheet. After 
spending 19 years on Florida's death row, Kimbrough still had the same boyish 
face he had when he was sentenced to death in 1994 for the murder and rape of 
Orange County woman Denise Collins.

Official witnesses and Collins' family sat silently in the first two rows of 
seats behind the glass while media witnesses, including myself, jotted details 
in the back rows. I was the newly hired crime reporter at the The Gainesville 
Sun in late 2013, and we were close enough to the Florida State Prison in 
Raiford to cover all the executions. This would be the first out of many.

At 6 p.m., a chaplain turned off the noisy window air conditioner so the room 
could hear Kimbrough's final monologue.

"Any last words?" an official asked him.

"No, sir," he said.

As the lethal injection cocktail of three drugs, including midazolam 
hydrochloride, flowed through his veins, an intense wave of eerie calmness and 
tension filled the room. The reporter in me continued to observe any subtleties 
in Kimbrough's breathing and the movement of his lips, but the rest of me 
disassociated. After 17 long minutes, a doctor proclaimed Kimbrough dead. His 
body, now still beneath the white sheet, was the last thing we saw as the 
curtain went down again.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of midazolam, the same 
drug used to sedate Kimbrough. The justices ruled 5-to-4 in Glossip v. Gross 
against death row inmates who argued that the use of the midazolam in the 
lethal-injection procedure could violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel 
and unusual punishment because it does not reliably leave inmates unconscious. 
While the decision opens the door for states to continue using the sedative, 
some states, like Ohio, have said they will not. In Florida, the state still 
hasn't commented on what it plans to do regarding midazolam, but officials are 
already petitioning for executions to resume.

The Glossip case arose after several botched executions across the country, 
most notably one in Oklahoma, where the state executed Clayton Lockett using 
midazolam for the first time. Lockett thrashed, moaned and tried to get up 
several times, before ultimately dying 43 minutes later. Months later using the 
same lethal cocktail, Oklahoma executed Charles Warner, who reportedly said as 
the first drug was being administered, "My body is on fire."

Oklahoma's expert witness in the case, Dr. Roswell Lee Evans, testified that 
with a high dosage of midazolam, inmates would not feel pain during the 
execution. Evans, the dean of the Harrison School of Pharmacy at Auburn 
University, also told the district court that he has never used midazolam on a 
patient or induced anesthesia.

Dr. David Lubarsky, chairman of anesthesiology at the University of Miami, 
testified for petitioners in the case and says in an email that the drug is 
commonly used as a pre-procedural drug to calm patients and block their memory, 
but is not approved as a sole anesthetic under which one can perform a 
procedure such as surgery.

The anesthesiologist also said that there are several issues with the drug, 
including the fact that some patients do not become sedated, and that there can 
be a ceiling effect, which Lubarsky compares to adding too much sugar to iced 
tea - regardless of how much you add, no additional effect is achieved.

These complications can cause inmates who may not be sufficiently anesthetized 
to experience air hunger, a sensation that feels like being buried alive, or a 
painful chemical burning from the injection that stops the heart, he said. Both 
situations can wake inmates who can't signal that they are conscious because 
they have already been paralyzed.

"The use of paralytics as a second drug following both drugs does nothing but 
mask potential problems with the lethal injection," he writes. "Paralytics are 
banned by animal euthanasia protocols for this reason, and their use should 
definitely be banned in lethal injection."

The Supreme Court found that the inmates had failed to prove midazolam is 
ineffective, and they did not identify an alternative, less painful method of 
execution, said Justice Samuel Alito Jr., writing for the majority. Robert 
Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that 
because the court did not decide on the constitutionality of midazolam, 
challenges to the drug can and probably will continue as long as states keep 
using it.

"I think most states will not go forward with midazolam because a state 
concerned with the integrity of the execution process would certainly be 
extraordinarily reluctant to use a chemical that America has seen was 
responsible for three botched executions," Dunham says.

Florida was the 1st state to use midazolam as part of the lethal injection mix, 
during the 2013 execution of William Happ, who, according to reporters, moved 
and remained conscious longer than previously executed inmates. Just hours 
after the Supreme Court's June 29 decision in Glossip, Attorney General Pam 
Bondi filed a motion to vacate the stay the Florida Supreme Court had imposed 
on executions until the ruling by the higher court in the case. The stay 
delayed Florida's execution of Jerry Correll, who was sentenced to die for 
murdering his ex-wife, her mother, her sister and her daughter. His execution 
was scheduled to take place last February.

Correll's attorneys filed a response last week asking the Florida Supreme Court 
to continue the stay until the lawyers in the Glossip case had a chance to file 
a motion for a rehearing, says Maria DeLiberato, an attorney with Capital 
Collateral Regional Counsel - Middle Region, the firm defending Correll. 
DeLiberato said the defense also asked the court to hold the stay until after 
the Supreme Court considers Hurst v. Florida, a case that argues whether 
Florida's death sentencing scheme violates constitutional amendments.

"His team is working very hard on this case," she says. "Mr. Correll has many 
other issues pending in his appeal, including the constitutionality of 
Florida's death penalty statute."

Gov. Rick Scott's deputy communications director John Tupps said in a statement 
Wednesday, "Our office respects the court's decision and will continue to 
follow the law. The governor's foremost concern is for the victims of these 
heinous crimes and their families."

Journalist Ron Word covered about 60 executions as a reporter for the 
Associated Press bureau in Jacksonville before it was closed in 2009. After so 
long, the names and faces of the inmates mesh together, but Word can still 
remember the jarring details: flames coming out of prisoners' heads as they 
were executed on the electric chair, blood running down an inmate's shirt and a 
serial killer who sang.

"It's a surreal experience," he said. "When I was covering them, I found myself 
working so hard to get as many details that I concentrated on what I was doing 
and not what was happening."

The last one he remembers clearly was the botched execution of Angel Nieves 
Diaz in 2006. Diaz took 34 minutes to die after executioners improperly 
inserted the IV needles into his flesh and not his veins, causing the lethal 
injection chemicals to seep into his skin, Word said. Diaz shuddered, grimaced 
and gasped for air during the procedure, and an investigation later found Diaz 
had received chemical burns on his arms. After the execution, Florida 
Department of Corrections officials told reporters it took longer for Diaz to 
die because of a liver problem, which later turned out to be false.

"I think many of the victims' families supported the death penalty," he said. 
"They wanted closure, but I don't know whether they got it or not. It would be 
interesting to know if they found that comfort and peace they were looking 
for."

After Kimbrough's execution, Collins' family was in tears at the media staging 
area. Kimbrough's relatives were not allowed to attend the execution, which is 
the norm for family members of the executed, said Alberto Moscoso, press 
secretary for the Florida Department of Corrections.

Diane Stewart, Collins' mother, said the execution was peaceful, forgiving and 
not something Kimbrough deserved after killing her daughter.

"He went out a lot neater than she did," she said.

But did he? In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the 
Supreme Court had absolved Oklahoma from its duty against cruel and unusual 
punishment by "misconstruing" and "ignoring" proof about the constitutional 
insufficiency of midazolam.

"As a result, it leaves petitioners exposed to what may well be the chemical 
equivalent of being burned at the stake," she wrote. "The contortions necessary 
to save this particular lethal injection protocol are not worth the price."

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

6 of Florida's most notorious botched executions in modern history


Florida has had its share of botched executions since the death penalty was 
reinstated in 1976. Prisoners were executed by the state using the electric 
chair until 2000, when the Florida Legislature gave inmates the option of a 
lethal injection, which included the sedative pentobarbital, a paralyzing drug 
called vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride, the final drug that causes 
cardiac arrest. Florida's supply of pentobarbital fell short when the drug's 
makers refused to ship it, so in 2013, the state became the 1st in the nation 
to use the sedative midazolam hydrochloride in the lethal cocktail. Below are 
some of Florida's most notorious botched executions in modern history.

Jesse Joseph Tafero, 1990: During his execution via the electric chair, 
Tafero's head erupted into flames, and it took 3 shocks for him to stop 
breathing. Tafero, who was accused of shooting and killing 2 law enforcement 
officers, was later found to be innocent.

Pedro Medina, 1997: Medina, who was convicted for the murder of a 52-year-old 
Orlando woman, was executed using the electric chair. Witness reportedly saw 
the chair malfunction and flames shoot out near the mask Medina was wearing.

Allen Lee Davis, 1999: The last Florida inmate executed using the electric 
chair, Davis was convicted of killing a woman and her 2 children. During his 
execution, blood poured from his face onto his shirt, and he was alive for 
about 10 minutes after executioners pulled the plug.

Bennie Demps, 2000: Demps, who was accused of shooting 2 people during a 
robbery and later stabbing a man to death in prison, was one of the first 
Florida inmates to be executed using the new lethal injection procedure. The 
execution team took 33 minutes to find his veins, and in his final words, Demps 
told witnesses that he was in pain and had been "butchered."

Angel Nieves Diaz, 2006: Diaz, who was executed via lethal injection, took 34 
minutes to die. Executioners inserted the IV needles improperly into Diaz's 
flesh, and later gave him a 2nd dosage as Diaz gasped and grimaced. An 
investigation later concluded that the lethal injection cocktail had seeped 
into his skin and chemically burned both his arms. Diaz was accused of killing 
a strip club manager in Miami.

(source for both: Orlando Weekly)






LOUISIANA:

Entire Louisiana death row doesn't need air-conditioning, 5th Circuit Court of 
Appeals panel decides


Louisiana's death row doesn't need to be air-conditioned, but 3 condemned 
killers with medical ailments who claim the extremely hot conditions there make 
them more susceptible to heat-related injury are entitled to some relief, a 
federal appellate court ruled Wednesday.

That relief could involve diverting cool air from the guards' pod on death row 
into the death row tiers; allowing inmates access to cool showers at least once 
a day; providing an ample supply of cold drinking water and ice at all times; 
supplying personal ice containers and individual fans; and installing more ice 
machines, a 3-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New 
Orleans said.

The panel agreed with Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson, of Baton Rouge, 
that Louisiana is in violation of the 3 prisoners' Eighth Amendment protection 
against cruel and unusual punishment. The panel also said Jackson did not abuse 
his discretion in issuing an injunction against the state.

"The scope of the injunction is another matter," Circuit Judge Edith Jones 
wrote for the panel, which vacated the injunction and sent it back to Jackson 
for reconsideration.

Jackson had ordered the state to develop a plan to reduce and maintain the heat 
index - how hot it actually feels - at or below 88 degrees from April through 
October in the death row tiers at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

The 5th Circuit panel said Jackson effectively required the state to install 
air conditioning throughout the death row housing.

Air conditioning, the panel stated, is "unnecessary to correct the Eighth 
Amendment violation." The 3 inmates are entitled to a remedy that reduces the 
risk of harm to a "socially acceptable level," the panel said, adding that some 
risk is "permissible and perhaps unavoidable."

"Even assuming that air conditioning is an acceptable remedy here - and it is 
not - it is possible to provide air conditioning solely to these three 
inmates," Jones wrote.

Elzie Ball, Nathaniel Code and James Magee, the 3 inmates who sued the state 
for improved conditions, could be placed in cells next to the guards' pod, she 
said. Jones noted that those cells are cooler than the ones farther down the 
death row tiers. The state also could air-condition 1 of the 4 death row tiers 
for the benefit of prisoners susceptible to heat-related illness.

The 5th Circuit panel sent the case back to Jackson to consider the possible 
remedies.

The inmates' attorneys have the option of asking the three-judge panel or the 
entire 5th Circuit to rehear the case. Several of those attorneys did not 
respond Wednesday to requests for comment.

The state Department of Corrections said in a written statement that the 5th 
Circuit ruling means Louisiana residents "will not have to bear the expense of 
providing air conditioning while providing constitutionally appropriate 
accommodations to DOC offenders." "The Department has maintained from the 
beginning that providing air conditioning to offenders on death row goes far 
beyond constitutional mandates and established case law," the statement read.

Prior to a summer 2013 trial of the inmates' lawsuit against the state, the 
department offered to provide many of the remedies mentioned in the 5th Circuit 
ruling, but the inmates' attorneys declined the offer, the statement pointed 
out.

The department said it intends to review the ruling in greater detail in the 
next several days.

In addition to finding the state in violation of the 3 prisoners' 
constitutional rights, the appeals court panel - as Jackson did - found that 
state corrections officials were deliberately indifferent to the risk facing 
those inmates.

"Most strikingly, after this suit was filed, and during the court-ordered 
monitoring period the Defendants surreptitiously installed awnings and began 
soaking some of the tiers' exterior walls with water in an attempt to reduce 
the interior temperature," Jones wrote. "Their trick backfired."

Jackson gave a stern lecture to several attorneys for the state in March 2014 
but chose not to sanction them for what he termed their "lack of candor" about 
the awnings and soaker hoses installed in summer 2013 while death row heat 
indexes were being measured for the court.

Angola Warden Burl Cain admitted in federal court testimony in August 2013 that 
he "messed up" by ordering awnings over death row windows and walls soaked with 
water while the litigation was ongoing. Cain also said he did not intend to 
violate Jackson's order to preserve evidence of prison temperatures that could 
endanger the health of inmates.

Jones was joined in the 5th Circuit decision by Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker 
Elrod. In a 1-paragraph dissenting opinion, Circuit Judge Thomas Reavley said 
he agreed with almost all of the majority opinion but would affirm Jackson's 
injunction, "which in principal only orders the heat index in the Angola death 
row tiers to be maintained below 88 degrees."

Jackson personally toured Angola in summer 2013 and issued his ruling in 
December of that year following a trial.

The judge approved the state's court-ordered remediation plan in May 2014, 
which included adding air conditioning, providing ice chests filled with ice 
and allowing death row inmates once-daily cold showers. The 5th Circuit halted 
the plan's implementation in June 2014 during the appeal process.

Ball, Code and Magee claim in their suit that heat indexes on death row reached 
172 degrees in 2012 and 195 degrees in 2011, but the state disputes those 
figures. The inmates contend their medical conditions are exacerbated by 
extreme heat.

Ball has diabetes and is obese, Code is obese and has hepatitis, and Magee is 
depressed and has high cholesterol, the 5th Circuit panel said in its ruling 
Wednesday. All 3 also have hypertension.

Death row inmates have access to ice, but they can only personally access the 
lone ice chest on each tier during the one hour a day they are allowed to walk 
the tiers. The rest of the time, inmates depend on guards or other prisoners 
for ice, the panel said. There is only 1 ice machine.

Windows that can be opened line the exterior wall of each death row housing 
tier, and 30-inch fans next to the windows serve 2 adjoining cells, the appeals 
court judges said. Each cell contains a 6-by-8-inch vent that draws air into 
the cell. Sinks in each cell provide unlimited access to potable water, the 
judges added.

Ball is on death row for shooting a beer delivery man to death during a 1996 
armed robbery of a Gretna lounge. Magee was condemned to die for the 2007 
shotgun killings of his estranged wife and their 5-year-old son in Mandeville. 
Code was given the death penalty for the 1985 murders of 4 people at a house in 
Shreveport.

(source: The New Orleans Advocate)




OHIO:

Ohio is having trouble finding execution drugs, state official says


Executions are set to resume in Ohio next year, but state officials are still 
having trouble finding someone willing to sell them lethal-injection drugs, 
according to the state's prisons director.

"We have had difficulty finding and acquiring drugs, period," said Gary Mohr, 
director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Mohr, speaking Wednesday with Plain Dealer and Northeast Ohio Media Group 
editors and reporters, declined to give specifics about where the state is 
looking to buy supplies of sodium thiopental or pentobarbital, the 2 
lethal-injection drugs allowed under Ohio's new execution protocol.

But Mohr confirmed that his agency has obtained an import license from the U.S. 
Drug Enforcement Administration to buy execution drugs from overseas.

State legislators passed an execution secrecy law late last year in hopes that 
it would persuade small-scale drug manufacturers called compounding pharmacies 
to sell Ohio sodium thiopental or pentobarbital. But the American Pharmacists 
Association, as well as many compounding pharmacists in Ohio, have voiced 
reluctance to make and sell execution drugs.

Like other death-penalty states, Ohio has struggled in recent years to find 
reliable sources of lethal-injection drugs, as European pharmaceutical 
companies have stopped sales on moral and legal grounds.

Ohio hasn't executed anyone since January 2014, when murderer Dennis McGuire 
took an unexpectedly long 25 minutes to die from a controversial 2-drug 
cocktail of midazolam and hydromorphone. Ohio subsequently dropped further use 
of those drugs.

Executions in the state are set to resume next January, starting with Akron 
killer Ronald Phillips, convicted of the 1993 rape and beating death of a 
3-year-old girl.

(source: cleveland.com)