[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, UTAH, ARIZ., USA

[Rick Halperin]

March 26


TEXAS----new execution date

Execution date set for convicted killer Lester Bower



Another execution date has been set for convicted killer Lester Bower.

Grayson County District Attorney Joe Brown says Bower is now scheduled to die 
on June 3, 2015.

Monday, the Supreme Court denied an appeal from Bower. He was scheduled to be 
executed on February 10 but it was put on hold 5 days earlier.

Bower was convicted in 1984 of murdering 4 men in a Sherman plane hangar.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----4

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----522

Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #

5------------Apr. 9--------------------Kent Sprouse---------523

6------------Apr. 15-------------------Manual Garza---------524

7-----------Apr. 23-------------------Richard Vasquez------525

8-----------Apr. 28-------------------Robert Pruett--------526

9-----------May 12--------------------Derrick Charles------527

10----------June 3--------------------Les Bower------------528

11-----------June 18-------------------Gregory Russeau------529

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)








UTAH:

Why people volunteer to take part in firing squads



There's a funny fact about firing squads: People volunteer for them. When it 
comes to lethal injection though, it can be difficult to find an expert to with 
the right expertise to oversee the procedure. In 2006, Missouri state officials 
told a judge that they sent letters to 298 anesthesiologists, asking if they 
would help with the state's executions. All refused.

Now, as Utah considers a bill that would allow the state to use firing squads 
in the case that it runs out of lethal-injection drugs, we thought we would 
take a look at those who participate in both. The mindsets of firing-squad 
volunteers and lethal-injection team members are the polar opposite with how 
most of those not involved in the process feel. After all, lethal injection is 
the first choice among all states that have the death penalty; other methods, 
including firing squads, can seem barbaric in comparison. A look at the 
psychology may also help inform a small part of the debate about whether 
American states should use firing squads at all.

There's not much academic study comparing the psychology of shooting versus 
injecting, but participants in both have talked with journalists and social 
scientists.

In 2010, when Utah wanted to execute death-row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner, it 
used five anonymous police officers who all volunteered for the job. 2 other 
volunteer police officers stood by, in case anyone in the original five wanted 
to back out at the last minute. (None of the five officers got cold feet.)

About a week before Gardner's execution, CNN talked with another officer who 
had volunteered for the firing squad that executed convicted murderer John 
Albert Taylor in 1996. The officer considered the job a rare chance to effect 
"100 % justice." "There's just some people we need to kick off the planet," he 
said. He described the process as instantaneous, professional, and not unduly 
gruesome.

In contrast, getting medical professionals - the equivalent of trained marksmen 
for lethal injections - to join death penalty teams can be difficult. Doctors, 
after all, take an oath to "first, do no harm." Doctors' groups, including the 
American Medical Association and the American Board of Anesthesiology, say 
physicians shouldn't participate in capital punishment. "The ABA has not taken 
this action because of any position regarding the appropriateness of the death 
penalty. Anesthesiologists, like all physicians and all citizens, have 
different personal opinions about capital punishment," the American Board of 
Anesthesiology's statement reads. Instead, it's about being "members of a 
profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so."

Although some had hoped that including medical professionals in chemical 
executions would reduce the number of botched procedures, "there are simply not 
enough doctors or nurses willing to perform the job," ABC News reported in 
2007.

The workers who end up on lethal-injection teams may have no medical training 
and, perhaps because they're hired to perform executions more than one time, 
seem to deal with more negative psychological effects. A 2005 survey of more 
than 200 members of execution teams - often states will include many people on 
such teams, so no one person feels responsible - found they deal with stress 
and cope by distancing themselves from the moral aspects of their work. ABC 
News talked with one man who executed 62 people by electrocution and lethal 
injection over his career. "To make that transformation from corrections 
officer to executioner ... it was hard,'' he said. "You have to get away from 
yourself. You have to eliminate yourself."

The psychological effect of being part of an execution team is just one piece 
of the debate about firing squads. Opponents to Utah's firing-squad bill 
consider it backwards and cruel. Richard Dieter, executive director of the 
Death Penalty Information Center, thinks using firing squads would send the 
wrong message about the United States' values to other nations. "The world is 
watching what we're doing, just as we watch when terrorist groups execute 
people," he says. Dieter's center collects data about the death penalty in the 
U.S. and opposes capital punishment.

Yet lethal injection has its own problems. In recent years, several cases of 
botched executions have come to light. Improperly performed chemical executions 
can leave the condemned conscious, yet unable to move or speak, while they die. 
In 2013, journalist Vince Beiser argued in Pacific Standard that if the U.S. is 
going to use capital punishment, it should in fact just do it by firing squad. 
"A bullet to the head is a quick and painless way to die, far quicker and more 
certain than lethal injection, or any of our other historically favored 
methods," he wrote.

Research may actually back Beiser up. Executioners botch lethal injections 
about 7 % of the time, compared to 3 % for other death-penalty methods, Amherst 
College political scientist Austin Sarat argues in his book Gruesome 
Spectacles. Of course, firing squads can go badly, too, for example, if the 
prisoner moves before the squad fires and doesn't get hit in the heart. Then he 
must bleed to death over a longer period of time.

"I think eventually we'll get out of this whole business," Dieter adds. "This 
controversy might hasten that because it underscores the harshness of the 
taking of human life. There's no easy, pretty way of doing so."

(source: The Week)

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

Utah bishop decries governor???s decision to sign firing squad measure



By reinstating the use of a firing squad as a method of execution in Utah, "it 
seems as if our government leaders have substituted state legislation for the 
law of God," said the state's Catholic bishop.

"They argue that, because executions are lawful, they are then moral. This is 
not so. No human law can trump God's law," Salt Lake City Bishop John C. Wester 
said in a March 24 statement. "Taking a human life is wrong; a slap in the face 
of hope and a blasphemous attempt to assume divine attributes that we humble 
human beings do not have."

"The real issue here is the death penalty itself," he said.

A day earlier, Republican Gov. Gary Herbert signed into law a bill that 
reinstates execution by firing squad for those convicted of capital crimes. It 
was passed by the state Senate March 10 and by the state House in February.

Utah's lawmakers argued they needed a backup method of capital punishment if 
the drugs used in lethal injection are not available. There is a shortage of 
lethal drugs for executions and their use in carrying out the death penalty has 
become more controversial after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in 
Oklahoma; he writhed in pain for 40 minutes before dying of apparent heart 
failure.

Bishop Wester said he was "very disappointed" that Herbert signed the measure 
on firing squads.

The death penalty itself is the issue, because "only God can give and take 
life," he said. "By taking a life, in whatever form the death penalty is 
carried out, the state is usurping the role of God. Execution does violence to 
God's time, eliminating the opportunity for God's redemptive and forgiving 
grace to work in the life of a prisoner."

Utah is now the only state that has the firing squad as a method of execution.

"The death penalty in any form is abhorrent," Bishop Wester said in an earlier 
statement, but with regard to the firing squad method, he noted that "strapping 
a person to a chair with a hood over his head and a bull's eye on his heart 
creates a disturbing image of the individual as little more than a target at a 
shooting range."

The Associated Press quoted Herbert's spokesman as saying that enforcement of 
capital punishment is "the obligation of the executive branch. We regret anyone 
ever commits the heinous crime of aggravated murder to merit the death penalty, 
and we prefer to use our primary method of lethal injection when such a 
sentence is issued," spokesman Marty Carpenter said.

Bishop Wester March 24 noted that the next scheduled execution in Utah will not 
take place for several years, so "our legislators and governor might still 
repair the damage caused by the death penalty."

He urged Herbert and the Utah Legislature "to place a moratorium on further 
death sentences and pass legislation to abolish state-sanctioned destruction of 
human life."

(source: Catholi cNews Service)








ARIZONA:

Jodi Arias Trial Update: Mistrial, Pains of a Hung Jury Revolve on Justice 
System; Is Death Penalty to Happen?



For a crime that was committed 7 years ago in 2008 and for all the media circus 
that it has spawned - not to mention death threats thrown, it seemed rightful 
that the Jodi Arias trial reach a well-deserved conclusion a few days back, and 
be put to rest. However, 1 female juror decided otherwise and with 1 dissenting 
opinion in a vote of 11-1, swept the death sentence out urging the judge to 
declare a mistrial and sending the whole process back to square one.

To a large extent, all this has pulled the intense debate and speculation a 
notch higher, prompting many to ask the merits of the US justice system in 
general. All told, $3,000,000 has been spent by the prosecutor and Arias' 
public defense team on the case, according to Associated Press.

The Power of One

Never has the power of 1 dissenting vote been so deafening and heart-wrenching.

As reported on ABC News 1 juror detailed, "Eleven of us strived for justice for 
Travis, but to no avail."

Further she added, "We absolutely thought [the punishment] should be death."

Reportedly, the group didn't buy the whole death sentencing for Arias from the 
onset. Rather they were split down the middle. But they were able to make up 
their minds in the end - all except one.

1 male juror expressed disgust about the holdout saying he felt that "the one 
holdout had her mind made up from the beginning."

Further he detailed that "the biggest thing that angered me was that she 
alluded that the death penalty would be a form of revenge."

Changing Hands

Jurors who appeared before the media did not bother showing their emotions and 
many broke to tears in the middle of the news conference.

Many were vocal about getting justice served for the Alexander family saying 
"like they put Travis on trial, [and] focused on that rather than the reason we 
were there."

It's understandable what immense pressure - and emotional distress - the jurors 
has been undergoing lately.

The trial has dragged on and on with 1 female juror pointing out, "We've had 
nightmares," adding "I think every single one of us has had nightmares and I 
hope they go away."

For now, the nightmares, may have to stay for a little bit longer than 
expected.

Now, the ball is in Judge Sherry Stephens' hands. However, she decides death 
sentencing may never be part of the option. All because of 1.

(source: vcpost.com)








USA:

No method of execution is humane enough to be legal



Executions are not, and never will be, humane. Disguising executioners in white 
lab coats and allowing them to shoot prisoners with chemicals instead of 
bullets does not constitute humanity. Rather, it allows us as a society to 
sleep soundly at night, free from the guilt we might feel if the government 
killed people using gas chambers or electric chairs.

Yet despite the inherent barbarity of putting someone to death, lawmakers have 
historically employed the concept of "humaneness" as justification for the 
currently available methods of execution.

Until the late 1800s, nearly every state carried out executions by hanging, a 
punishment utilized worldwide for thousands of years. Eventually, however, a 
series of botched hangings caused most legislatures to forgo the practice in 
favor of electrocution. By 1915, 12 states had adopted electrocution statutes 
under the theory that the electric chair was less painful and more humane than 
the noose.

When Oklahoma became the first state to legalize lethal injection in 1977, 
death penalty proponents hailed the practice as a superior alternative to 
electrocution. Many states followed suit, praising death by lethal injection as 
quick and painless.

Today, the state of Oklahoma continues to be a pioneer in the field of 
execution technology. On March 3, Oklahoma's House of Representatives voted 
overwhelmingly in favor of HB 1879, a bill that would allow the state to 
conduct executions via nitrogen hypoxia if the proper lethal injection drugs 
are unavailable. Republicans Mike Christian and Anthony Sykes, the bill's 
sponsors, claim that nitrogen hypoxia might ultimately prove more humane than 
lethal injection.

What exactly is nitrogen hypoxia?

It is a type of asphyxiation that is induced by breathing nitrogen instead of 
oxygen. Nitrogen, an inert gas, is not actually toxic, and therefore does not 
directly affect bodily functions. However, breathing nitrogen in an 
oxygen-deficient environment prevents cells from obtaining oxygen and 
ultimately leads to death. The procedure has not been thoroughly researched as 
a mode of execution.

Ultimately, regardless of whether a prisoner is hung from a tree or deprived of 
oxygen, all forms of execution yield the same result: death. And death is a 
painful process. Lawmakers who propose new, "better" forms of execution are not 
acting out of compassion for the condemned, but out of a desire to mask the 
sheer brutality of capital punishment.

Nobody wants to accept responsibility for an execution that sets a man's skin 
on fire or breaks his neck; nobody wants to witness the death of a man who 
spends his final minutes writhing and screaming in pain. But when death seems 
quick and painless, as though it is simply a form of prolonged sleep, it is 
easy to pretend that executions are not acts of cruelty.

Despite Oklahoma's push for an improved execution method, most state laws make 
it clear that "humaneness" is nothing more than a superficial pretense used to 
justify capital punishment. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 
several states allow electrocution, gas chambers or firing squads to be 
employed if lethal injection is ever declared unconstitutional. The continued 
existence of alternative methods in state statutes reveals stunning hypocrisy; 
if lawmakers genuinely cared about treating death row inmates humanely, they 
would abolish such methods altogether.

Pretending that executions can be humane effectively prevents us from engaging 
in meaningful dialogue about the death penalty. Until we accept the reality 
that all forms of execution amount to simple revenge killing, capital 
punishment will continue to negatively impact criminal justice in the U.S.

(source: The Daily Wildcat; Elizabeth Hannah is biochemistry sophomore)