[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., KAN., NEB., NEV., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 24



MISSOURI----impending execution

Remnants of brain tumor could stop Ernest Johnson execution


The remains of a brain tumor may halt the execution of a convicted Columbia 
killer.

Attorneys for Ernest Lee Johnson filed the complaint Thursday in Missouri's 
federal Western District Court to stop the state's lethal injection scheduled 
for November 3. A jury convicted Johnson of killing 3 people - Fred Jones, Mary 
Bratcher and Mable Scruggs - at the old Casey's at the corner of Rice Road and 
Ballenger Lane in 1994. Johnson's case went back to the penalty phase three 
times since, with each jury upholding the death penalty.

The new complaint, filed by Kansas City attorney Jeremy Weis, cites the risk 
posed by the remnants of a "parasaggital meningioma brain tumor" during lethal 
injection. The slow-growing tumor was found in 2008, and doctors removed the 
meningioma in August of that year. However, they did not remove the whole 
tumor, and the "significant" portion of the brain removed in surgery could 
cause seizures during lethal injection.

Missouri uses a combination of midazolam and pentobaribital for executions. 
Weis said the 2 drugs "could trigger violent and uncontrollable seizures during 
the execution due to the existence of the meningioma, scarring and brain 
defect. Such violent and uncontrollable seizures will likely result in a 
severely painful execution."

Johnson killed 3 Casey's employees in February 1994.

Assistant Attorney General Gregory Goodwin filed the state's response late 
Friday afternoon. Goodwin leaned on Missouri's 18 "rapid and painless 
execution" since November 2013, calling Johnson's claim "implausible." Cecil 
Clayton, put to death for killing a Barry County sheriff's deputy in 1996, also 
asked the federal court to stop his execution in March based on a missing piece 
of his brain. The U.S. Supreme Court denied that request.

"The execution of Clayton was rapid and painless, like the other 17 executions 
Missouri has carried out using Pentobarbital," Goodwin wrote.

Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist from Atlanta's Emory University, reviewed 
Johnson's medical records in August of this year, the complaint said. Johnson 
told Dr. Zivot of "recurring throbbing pain" in his head, rating the pain a "7 
out of 10." Dr. Zivot also conducted the medical review for Russell Bucklew, 
whose Missouri execution was halted by the U.S. Supreme Court hours before it 
was scheduled to happen in May 2014.

"Dr. Zivot opines that the administration of Midazolam and Pentobarbital have 
the real and significant potential of promoting a seizure," Weis' wrote. 
"According to Dr. Zivot, there is a significant possibility of a drug-induced 
seizure."

(source: KMIZ news)






KANSAS:

Man freed from death row to speak Monday at ESU


Joe D'Ambrosio is 1 of 155 innocent individuals freed from death rows 
nationwide since 1973. D'Ambrosio was wrongfully convicted of murder and 
sentenced to death in Ohio, where he spent 20 years on death row before his 
exoneration in 2012.

Since being exonerated, D'Ambrosio has spoken out against the death penalty 
because of the risk of executing an innocent person. He is a member of Witness 
to Innocence, which is an organization "dedicated to empowering exonerated 
death row survivors to be the most powerful and effective voice in the struggle 
to end the death penalty in the United States." (www.witnesstoinnocence.org)

Monday from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., D'Ambrosio will share his story with students at 
the United Methodist Campus Ministry of Emporia State University, 1305 Merchant 
St. His talk will be followed by a Question and Answer session.

(source: Emporia Gazette)






NEBRASKA:

There's a meanness in this world, and the death penalty won't save you from it


I bet most of you know who Charlie Starkweather is, yes? For those who don't 
know, Starkweather murdered 10 people in a rampage that spanned the length of 
the state of Nebraska on into Wyoming.

He was mass-murderer, a child-killer, a rapist (or at least an attempted one), 
and a coward. He was also the 4th-most recently executed inmate in the State of 
Nebraska. That was in 1959.

No matter what any death penalty proponent tries to tell you, the death penalty 
has never really played much of a role in law-and-order in Nebraska, at least 
not by the numbers. I'm sure most of you are aware that nobody has been 
executed in the state since Robert E. Williams in 1997. You may also be aware 
than only 3 inmates have been executed in Nebraska since the Supreme Court 
reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

But do you appreciate just how infrequently the death penalty has been applied 
in Nebraska over the course of the lifetime of just about anybody who is 
reading this? 3 men have been executed in my lifetime (born in 1982). 5 men 
have been executed in my father's lifetime (born in 1950). And 7 men have been 
executed in my grandmother's lifetime (born in 1931).

Between 1920 and 1929, 8 Nebraska inmates rode the lightning on to whatever 
awaits us, including back-to-back executions on Dec. 20, 1920 (can you imagine 
what that room must have smelled like after that?) Since the May 31, 1929 
execution of Henry Sherman for 3 murders, a grand total of seven inmates have 
been put to death in 86 years.

Texas, on the other hand, has likely executed 7 people in the time between when 
I wrote this and when you are reading it. The death penalty is a way of life in 
Texas. They execute men, women, citizens of other countries, mentally 
handicapped people, it doesn't matter.

Now don't get me wrong. Obviously, a ton of people live in Texas. It stands to 
reason they'd execute more people than a little state like Nebraska. But less 
than 9 % of the U.S. population lives in Texas, according to 2014 data, yet the 
state accounts for more than 1/3 of the country's executions since 1976. Texas 
executed more people just during George W. Bush's time as governor than any 
other state has in the past 40 years. They are nutty for the death penalty down 
in Texas. Oklahoma and Virginia also warrant mention for their fervent devotion 
to executing inmates.

It's not like that here, and it never really has been.

This brings me to the current hullabaloo over reinstating the death penalty in 
Nebraska.

Count me among the people who were genuinely shocked when the legislature voted 
to abolish the death penalty over the veto of Govnuh Pete Ricketts earlier this 
year. I'm on the record as personally opposing capital punishment, and that 
remains true, but ultimately, it just doesn't matter.

The death penalty is a moot point in Nebraska because the state does not 
currently possess a means to execute anyone. The state Supreme Court declared 
the electric chair to be unconstitutional in 2008 (Nebraska had been the last 
state in the Union to still use ol' Sparky).

So, we had to switch to lethal injection but have thus far been unable to 
secure the drugs needed to execute a condemned inmate. And Nebraska is probably 
never going to get the drugs they need because the company that makes them no 
longer sells them for the purpose of executions, citing moral objections.

Ricketts went ahead and purchased a bunch (and I mean a bunch, more on that in 
a minute) of lethal injection drugs from a supplier in India, but there is 
pretty much no chance the feds are ever going to let him get his hands on them. 
The DEA has vowed to seize the drugs should Nebraska try to import them.

Ricketts bought enough vials of sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide to 
execute 300 inmates. 300! In a state that has executed less than 40 people in 
its history dating back to hangings in the 1870s.

I guess the good news is if Ricketts is successful, at least Nebraska won't 
have to worry about getting more sodium thiopental for the next 4,000 years or 
so.

Technically, the death penalty remains the law of the land because a petition 
movement to put the issue on the 2016 ballot was successful. Ricketts said this 
week he is continuing to work with the DEA to allow the injection drugs to be 
imported.

: But just to reiterate: Nebraska can't execute anyone, and probably won't be 
able to execute anyone at any point in the future.

Now, if people want to waste their time and money on reinstating the death 
penalty by all means please go ahead. If Ricketts wants to throw the $200,000 
of his own money that he donated to the petition drive down the toilet, that's 
swell. He can certainly afford it.

I have to wonder, however, if Nebraska can afford having a governor whose top 
priority is a quixotic quest to reinstate a death penalty he has no hope of 
actually enforcing. The $50,000 of taxpayer money he spent on centuries-worth 
of illegal lethal injection drugs may be a small matter, but ignoring real 
issues like deteriorating rural infrastructure in favor of pointless populist 
schtick is not.

In the song "Nebraska," Bruce Springsteen sings:

"They wanted to know why I did what I did

Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world."

The song was inspired by the Starkweather killings. Make no mistake, execution 
is a moot point in Nebraska. But the meanness in this world is very real. We 
see it on almost a daily basis. And I can't help but think that if the death 
penalty could get rid of it, or protect us from it, Texas would have gotten it 
done by now.

(source: Editorial, Lexington Clipper Herald)






NEVADA:

Court denies appeal of death row inmate


The Nevada Supreme Court has denied the appeal of death row inmate William B. 
Leonard, convicted in the fatal stabbing of a fellow inmate at the Nevada State 
Prison in Carson City in 1987.

The court rejected the appeal in a 5-2 decision posted Thursday.

According to court records, Leonard argued he did not deserve the death penalty 
because new evidence shows he suffered mental health problems at the time he 
stabbed Joseph Wright with a prison-made shank.

The new mental health evidence indicates Leonard has poor impulse control and 
may react violently and uncontrollably when he feels threatened or if 
intoxicated or frightened, according to court records.

At the time, Leonard was in prison for killing 2 people in Mineral County. 
Wright was also serving a term for murder, according to court records.

The court, in the majority decision written by Chief Justice James Hardesty, 
said the new claims by Leonard lacked merit and he was not entitled to a new 
sentencing hearing. The court said there wasn't enough evidence to show a 
miscarriage of justice.

Justices Michael Cherry and Nancy Saitta dissented.

(source: Las Vegas Sun)

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

Jury deliberates case of couple charged in 2009 beating death


With the help of his brother, Will Sitton viciously beat a 68-year-old man at 
his Las Vegas home, rendering him unconscious at least twice.

Sitton then stomped on Brian Haskell's back "and knocked him out for the last 
time," prosecutor Jacqueline Bluth told jurors as Sitton's capital murder trial 
came to a close Friday.

Sitton's younger brother, Robert, admitted to beating Brian Haskell and became 
the prosecution's star witness. Will Sitton's girlfriend, Jacquie Schafer, is 
also on trial in the killing.

Jurors began deliberating the case late Friday afternoon and are expected to 
resume Monday morning.

In addition to murder charges, Will Sitton and Jacquie Schafer face several 
counts including robbery, burglary, conspiracy and forgery.

Prosecutors said that after the Oct. 29, 2009, beating, the couple stole 
Haskell's laptop and television, cashed several checks from his account, 
accessed his bank information and used his cellphone.

Schafer had been living with Haskell before he asked her to move out. She 
accused him of groping her in front of her daughter and physically attacked 
Haskell before the brothers beat him, prosecutors said.

Robert Sitton testified that Haskell was unconscious but still breathing when 
the trio left the northwest valley apartment.

Haskell's bedroom was the scene of the "bloodbath," the prosecutor said. A 
medical examiner said he could have lived for at least 3 days longer. His body 
was found Nov. 14, 2009, with at least 2 different types of shoe prints on his 
back. Bones were broken in his nose, ribs and spine.

Police found Haskell's black Cadillac less than 2 miles from Schafer's mother's 
home.

Defense lawyers tried to pin the slaying on Robert Sitton, saying he acted 
alone in the beating. Haskell became upset after seeing Robert Sitton drink 
alcohol from the apartment and the 2 started to quarrel, the attorneys said. 
After the beating, the younger Sitton changed out of his bloody shoes and 
stepped into Haskell's.

"Robert Sitton committed this crime alone in an unconsidered, rash, drunken 
impulse," said Christopher Oram, who represents Will Sutton. "It's really quite 
simple."

Prosecutor Lisa Luzaich tried to discredit that theory.

"How can alcohol be a motive?" she said. "Brian never left his room. Brian had 
no idea that anybody was drinking his alcohol that day."

Robert Sitton pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and could be eligible for 
parole in about 5 years. District Judge Douglas Smith, who is presiding over 
the trial, is slated to determine his sentence.

Oram called the younger brother "a habitual liar" and a "miserable human 
being."

Josh Tomsheck, who represents Schafer, said there was no evidence that tied his 
client to Haskell's death.

"This case is fraught with mistakes and oversights based on assumptions by the 
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department," Tomsheck said. "And it's filled with 
lies out of the mouth of Robert Sitton. ... How many brothers are going to say 
that my brother did this? Who's going to do that, unless they're trying to 
minimize their involvement."

If Will Sitton and Schafer are convicted of 1st-degree murder, the same jury 
will decide their sentences. Sitton faces the death penalty, in part for his 
violent past. He has a history of sex-related convictions in Clark County. 
Schafer faces life in prison without parole.

(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)






CALIFORNIA:

Art show depicts life on death row


Ndume Olatushani jokes that he "couldn't even draw a crooked line straight" 
when he arrived on death row almost 30 years ago.

He had plenty of time to learn, though, being locked in a cell up to 22 hours a 
day for 28 years.

Now, one of the paintings by Olatushani, who was freed in 2012 after a judge 
overturned his murder conviction, is the centerpiece of a Los Angeles 
exhibition titled "Windows on Death Row: Art From Inside and Outside the Prison 
Walls."

Featuring dozens of pieces from more than 20 artists in styles ranging from oil 
on canvas to pencil on paper, the show seeks to depict the lives, thoughts and 
emotions of those preparing to be executed.

The exhibition's organizers, political cartoonist Patrick Chappatte and his 
wife, Swiss broadcast journalist Anne-Frederique Widmann, hope it will help 
advance international discussion about the death penalty.

The show opened Thursday at the University of Southern California and will 
remain on the second-floor mezzanine of the Annenberg School for Communication 
and Journalism building until Dec. 18. After that, it will travel next year to 
Switzerland's International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights and then to 
Ohio State University.

Olatushani, whose dark, emotionally riveting oil on canvas depicts African 
women and their children searching for food, hopes the show also will help 
change the perception of death row inmates. Not all are innocent as he was, he 
says, but not all are monsters either.

"The truth is they're really not," he said as he surveyed the works earlier 
this week. "Most people sitting on death row now are there because, in an 
instant, they murdered somebody in the heat of passion."

Or in the case of Kenneth Reams, for taking part in a robbery that ended with 
his partner shooting the victim.

Confident he wouldn't be sentenced to even life in prison because he didn't 
kill anybody, Reams said he rejected a plea bargain 22 years ago and took his 
chances at trial. At age 18, he ended up the youngest person on Arkansas' death 
row.

It was there he began to draw and paint, and he uses those skills to educate 
others about death row and its consequences, Reams said in a brief phone 
interview from prison.

"I think my art already has had an effect on young people to not make the same 
mistakes," said Reams, whose pencil-and-paper work "The Last Mile" depicts the 
path to his prison's death chamber.

Chappatte and Widmann say the show doesn't try to take a side in the debate 
over capital punishment, although it's clear they don't believe it is fairly 
administered.

"A lot of inmates have been telling us you can find black, yellow and white 
people on death row," Widmann says, "but you can't find any rich people."

Still, the organizers don't shy away from describing what each artist did to 
reach death row. The often brutal crimes are listed in the biographical notes 
placed alongside their artworks.

The show also includes dozens of drawings expressing opinions on capital 
punishment from Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonists such as David 
Horsey, Pat Oliphant and Signe Wilkinson.

But the most powerful pieces come from those condemned to die.

One of the darkest is a pencil-on-paper drawing by Karl Roberts, who was 
convicted of raping and killing his 12-year-old niece. It shows the artist on 
his knees in solitary confinement as the ghostly image of a young girl hovers 
over him.

"It portrays the shame, remorse and guilt of having done wrong," he says in 
notes written for the show.

On the other end of the spectrum is a lighthearted series of comic-strip 
drawings by George Ivan Lopez, who is on Pennsylvania's death row for 2 
killings. One, titled "This is What We Think of on Death Row," depicts a couple 
of cartoon characters in prison garb tunneling their way to freedom.

The show features a self-portrait from Arnold Prieto, who stabbed three people 
to death with 2 accomplices during a 1993 robbery in Texas.

Prieto, the only one to receive a death sentence, said he took up art to earn a 
little money through the sale of his work. One of his last pieces, done in 
graphite on board, shows the artist, his head buried in his hands as a clock 
ticks down to his final minutes.

Prieto was executed in January.

"I guess my drawings speak for themselves," he said in notes written for the 
show. "They'll be here when I'm no more."

(source: Associated Press)






USA:

Attorneys fight to keep Cairo man from the death sentence


Attorneys for a Cairo man accused of killing 2 women and injuring another 
person during a bank robbery gone wrong want to keep him off death row.

Authorities arrested James Watts in May of last year. Now he awaits a trial 
that will decide his future.

Motion after motion, nearly all ask to keep prosecutors from getting the death 
penalty against Watts, who allegedly attempted to rob Cairo's First National 
Bank last May, torturing 2 employees in the process, and eventually killing 
Anita Grace and Nita Smith.

In one motion, defense attorneys claim bias over who faces the death penalty.

They cite studies that find "the race of both the defendant and victim play a 
significant role in the death penalty process".

Defense lawyers also claim gender bias, saying "evidence also suggests the 
gender of both the offenders and victims play a significant role in the 
outcome".

Aside from all that, they claim too many innocent people put are sentenced to 
die, making capital punishment unconstitutional.

They explain, "one out of every 25 capital punishment cases ends with someone 
put to death for a crime they did not commit".

Watts' attorneys also want an opportunity to submit an alibi, and present 
witnesses, if they so choose, before the court's December 1 deadline.

Still, they believe that none of the charges against Watts appear "more 
egregious or more heinous than other murder cases in southern Illinois".

They argue most defendants get plea deals, or the government chooses not to 
pursue the death penalty.

Watt's trial won't start until January of 2017.

(source: WSIL TV news)

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

Arizona, Texas Found Illegally Importing Drug for Lethal Injection - As Many 
States Delay Executions


The latest potential blow to lethal injection as the de facto means of 
administering the death penalty in America? The findings, uncovered by BuzzFeed 
News, that both Arizona and Texas attempted to illegally import sodium 
thiopental from India for use in executions. The shipments were seized in the 
U.S. at the airport by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before they could 
reach their intended destinations.

A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice told BuzzFeed News 
on Thursday evening that the department is seeking to important sodium 
thiopental after having obtained a license from the Drug Enforcement Agency 
(DEA) to import drugs. The representative for the Texas Department of Criminal 
Justice said that the source of the drugs ordered is confidential.

Sodium thiopental is an anesthetic that's no longer used - or manufactured by 
FDA-approved companies - in the United States, though it's still in use in the 
developing world. Presumably, the states trying to import it intended to use it 
as the 1st drug - the sedative step - in their 3-drug protocol for 
administering lethal injection.

[The standard 3 drug protocol includes a sedative to first render the person 
unconscious, then, a paralytic to prevent movement and cease a person's 
breathing, and finally, a drug to cause cardiac arrest.]

Earlier this year, Nebraska was also found to have been attempting to illegally 
import sodium thiopental for use in lethal injection executions.

Sodium thiopental used to be the drug of choice for the sedative step in the 
three drug cocktail. But the American manufacturer of sodium thiopental, 
Hospira, stopped producing the drug in 2011, stating that "Hospira manufactures 
this product because it improves or saves lives, and the company markets it 
solely for use as indicated on the product labeling. The drug is not indicated 
for capital punishment, and Hospira does not support its use in this procedure" 
- and manufacturers in Europe do not want to supply the drug to states if it 
will be used in executions.

So death penalty states have been left to scramble for drugs that can act as an 
sedative in its place. Some states have swapped in highly controversial drugs 
such as midazolam - the topic of a Supreme Court decision earlier this year - 
which is the drug behind a number of highly publicized botched executions, in 
which the sedative may have been ineffective and prisoners have flailed, 
panted, and screamed things like "I feel my whole body burning" as they died 
over periods as long as 40 minutes.

The seeming inability of states to follow their respective, regulated lethal 
injection protocols has been a topic of great discussion of late.

On Tuesday, Ohio announced it would be delaying executions the of 11 inmates 
scheduled to die next year until at least 2017, while prison officials try to 
secure supplies of lethal injection drugs. The Associated Press reports that 
Ohio has run out of supplies of its previous drugs and has unsuccessfully 
sought new amounts, including so-far failed attempts to import chemicals from 
overseas. Ohio obtained a federal import license to seek supplies overseas, but 
had been told by the FDA that such a move is illegal.

Earlier this month, an Arkansas judge halted the upcoming executions of eight 
death row inmates who are challenging a new law that allows the state to 
withhold any information that could publicly identify the manufacturers or 
sellers of its execution drugs.

Last month, the governor of Oklahoma granted a last-minute stay of execution 
for Richard Glossip, the man whose name appeared before the Supreme Court 
earlier this year in a case to determine the constitutionality of the use of 
the drug midazolam, after it was revealed that final drug of the state's 3 drug 
protocol, potassium chloride - which is injected to stop the heart and cause 
death - had not been procured by the state.

(source: Yahoo News)