[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., PENN., N.C., GA., ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

June 18



TEXAS:

Roberson Execution Stayed----Court of Criminal Appeals sends case back to 
Anderson County


The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay on the execution of Robert 
Roberson Thursday, sending the case back to the Anderson County court where 
Roberson was initially tried. The 49-year-old was sentenced to death for the 
2002 murder of his 2-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis.

Roberson, who is from Palestine, Texas, argued to the state's highest criminal 
court on a last ditch effort before his pending June 21 execution that the 
evidence used to convict him for his daughter's death was rooted in junk 
science. The state argued at his trial in 2003 that Nikki died after Roberson 
shook her - hard enough, prosecutors said, that she slipped into a coma. A jury 
agreed that Roberson, high on drugs the night that Nikki died, returned her to 
bed after he shook her, and left her there for hours, until she was unable to 
be saved.

Roberson always contested those claims. Since the questioning after his arrest, 
he has maintained that his daughter fell out of her bed. It wasn't until 2014, 
when a Houston case exposed new forensic theories on the phenomenon known as 
"Shaken Baby Syndrome," that Roberson was able to shift the nature of the 
effort to save his life from one dependent on his mental state to one centered 
on the actual facts of his case. A June 8 application for relief filed to the 
CCA by Office of Capital Writs attorney Gretchen Sween argued that Roberson 
should be granted a new trial due to the "prior medical understanding" that "a 
specific set of symptoms" - retinal hemorrhaging, subdural 
hematoma/hemorrhaging, and brain swelling - "could be viewed together as 
categorical proof of SBS/AHT," and because that flawed science resulted in a 
violation of Roberson's civil rights to due process.

In an order issued late on Thursday afternoon, the CCA agreed with Roberson's 
argument, offering little more than that the justices "find that his claims 
satisfy the requirements" of Article 11.071 of the Texas Code of Criminal 
Procedure - that the state relied on false, misleading, and scientifically 
invalid testimony. The CCA remanded Roberson's case to the trial court, taking 
his execution off the docket. The state now has 120 days to file an answer to 
Roberson's claims to the CCA.

Roberson's stay may not be the biggest news to come out of the CCA this week, 
however. Also on Thursday, in a concurring and dissenting opinion issued in the 
case of Julius Jerome Murphy, who was convicted in 1998 of killing stranded 
motorist Jason Erie in Texarkana, Justice Elsa Alcala argued that the remand 
hearing issued to Murphy should include not just claims that the state withheld 
evidence that could have spared Murphy, but that the court should consider 
altogether "whether the death penalty remains a constitutionally acceptable 
form of punishment under the current Texas scheme."

The 17-page opinion challenges the tenets of the death penalty on a wide 
variety of issues. Alcala questions the validity of allowing states to 
determine health standards for whether someone is too mentally ill to die, 
lists the vast number of (sometimes arbitrary) possibilities that could elevate 
a murder charge to capital murder (thus bringing the death penalty into play), 
the role race typically plays in determining death sentences, and the flaws 
present in considering whether a convicted Texan could be considered a future 
threat to society. She notes Murphy's claims that "the death-penalty scheme is 
plagued by excessive delays and that this has resulted in cruel and unusual 
punishment, partly because, throughout this delay, [Murphy] has been held in 
solitary confinement."

The opinion is notable for its contents as much as it is for its source. The 
CCA's reputation is that of a conservative court, long fundamentally unopposed 
to the death penalty as a practice. And while Alcala's opinion represents one 
solitary voice on a panel of 9 justices, it establishes a modicum of concern 
for whether the death penalty is truly moral.

"I do not decide the ultimate merits of applicant's arguments that the death 
penalty is unconstitutional, though it should be evident from my numerous 
opinions on this subject that, in my view, the Texas scheme has some serious 
deficiencies that have, in the past, caused me great concern about this form of 
punishment as it exists in Texas today," Alcala wrote. "Rather than refuse to 
afford applicant the opportunity to factually develop his complaints as this 
Court does today, I would instead permit applicant to make an evidentiary 
record of his assertions and to have the habeas court make findings of fact and 
conclusions of law."

(source: Austin Chronicle)






CONNECTICUT:

Waterbury Cop Killer Richard Reynolds Resentenced After Death Penalty 
Abolishment ---- He will now face a new sentence by order of the Connecticut 
Supreme Court.


The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Friday that Richard Reynolds' murder 
convictions will be upheld, though his death sentence will be overturned, 
according to media reports.

Reynolds has been previously convicted for killing a Waterbury police officer 
and was sentenced to death, according to Fox 61. The state, however, has since 
abolished capital punishment as of last year.

Reynolds attempted to appeal his sentence, claiming his public defenders failed 
to question jurors about racial biases, according to the CT Post. They 
reportedly also failed to introduce evidence that Reynolds suffers from an 
antisocial personality disorder.

Justices ruled that Reynolds be resentenced to life in prison without 
possibility of release by a lower court, according to Fox 61. The 10 men 
remaining on death row are expected to be resentenced to the same punishment 
following Reyonlds' ruling.

In 1992, Reynolds shot Officer Walter Williams in the head after the officer 
stopped him during a routine patrol, as reported by The New York Times at the 
time. Reynolds was 24 at the time and wanted in New York on drug charges.

Information at the time suggested Reynolds intended to kill Williams with the 
pistol in his pocket after refusing to show his hands to the bullet-proof 
vest-less officer, according to The New York Times. While fleeing the scene, 
Reynolds reportedly fired 4 more shots (that missed) at the officer, who left 
behind 2 children and a wife who was expecting.

(source: patch.com)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Uniontown couple charged with killing daughter could face death penalty


The former Greene County couple charged in the starvation death of their 
23-month-old daughter at their Uniontown apartment could face the death 
penalty.

Fayette County District Attorney Richard Bower filed notice in court this week 
that he will seek the death penalty against Andrea Dusha and Michael Wright Jr. 
if convicted of 1st-degree murder in their daughter's death.

Bower wrote in his filing Wednesday that he came to the decision through 
aggravating factors such as the girl's age and because her death was caused "by 
means of torture."

Lydia Wright died of severe malnourishment and dehydration Feb. 24. 
Investigators said Lydia weighed only 10 pounds and they believe she had been 
dead for several hours before Dusha brought the girl to Uniontown Hospital 
after finding her unresponsive.

Her parents, Dusha, 26, and Wright Jr., 32, were arrested March 17 and charged 
with homicide, endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment. 
They were formally arraigned on the charges Thursday morning by Fayette County 
Judge Steve Leskinen. Both are being held without bond at the Fayette County 
jail while awaiting trial.

Dusha's attorney, Wendy Williams, and Wright's public defender, Jeffrey 
Whiteko, could not be reached for comment Friday.

The couple and 3 children previously lived in Cumberland Township before being 
evicted from the apartment in February 2015. They moved to Uniontown and lived 
there until the girl's death.

(source: Observer-Reporter)

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

State Seeks Death Penalty for Parents in Child's Starvation


A prosecutor will pursue the death penalty against a western Pennsylvania 
couple in the starvation death of their 23-month-old daughter, who authorities 
say weighed just 10 pounds when she died in February.

The prosecutor's office announced its intention Friday when 32-year-old Michael 
Wright Jr. and 26-year-old Andrea Dusha were formally arraigned on charges of 
criminal homicide, child endangerment and reckless endangerment.

Authorities allege the child, Lydia Wright, was left in a car seat for more 
than 13 hours at the family's squalid Uniontown home before she died of 
malnutrition and dehydration.

? The couple's attorneys didn't return calls for comment.

Wright's former attorney says Wright thought Dusha was caring for the child. 
Dusha's former lawyer says Dusha did "everything that she was supposed to do at 
the 1st sign of distress."

(source: Associated Press)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Dying for equality: Supreme Court ruling could affect NC death row inmates


Inmates on death row in North Carolina could soon have new hearings thanks to a 
ruling in Georgia by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A ruling last week by SCOTUS could give North Carolina death row inmates new 
avenues to challenge racial bias in capital trials and will force the state to 
confront discriminatory jury selection practices.

The Court ruled 7 to 1 in a Georgia case, Foster v. Chatman, that prosecutors 
violated the Constitution by excluding African-Americans from the jury in a 
capital case, and that the Georgia courts made a huge mistake by refusing to 
consider evidence proving that discrimination, according to information from 
the Center for Death Penalty Litigation.

In the Georgia case, the prosecutor got rid of all 4 potential black jurors. 
While he gave the court "race-neutral" reasons for his strikes, the 
prosecutor's notes showed that he highlighted the names of black jurors, marked 
them with a letter "B" and put them 1st on his list of jurors to strike.

The prosecution also ranked the African-Americans in case "it comes down to 
having to pick 1 of the black jurors," according to the CDPL.

Similar evidence of discrimination in jury selection has been uncovered in 
North Carolina.

Jay H. Ferguson is a capital defense attorney in Durham and said the ruling 
could mean new hearings since many of the people on death row in the state were 
convicted of a jury not of their peers.

"There are almost 150 people on death row in North Carolina," he said in a 
taped interview. "Almost 1/2 of those people were sentenced by juries that 
consisted of no more than 1 person of color. About 20 % of people on death row 
today were sentenced by an all white jury."

There is too much diversity within the state for the lack of people of color on 
juries to be truly representational, according to Ferguson.

"In a state as great and diverse as North Carolina, that's absolutely 
unconscionable," he said.

Ken Rose is the senior attorney at The Center for Death Penalty Litigation and 
said he hopes the SCOTUS ruling means the laws against such procedures will now 
be enforced throughout the state and the country.

"The court sent a message that we must stop making excuses and start enforcing 
the law against discrimination in jury selection," he said. "The privilege and 
obligation to serve on a jury, regardless of race, is fundamental to our 
democracy. Yet, African-Americans in North Carolina are routinely denied the 
right to participate in the most important decisions our criminal justice 
system ever makes."

Lawyers like Ferguson who specialize in the death penalty say the ruling will 
give many men and women who are sentenced to death new rights to bring forward 
evidence of racial discrimination in jury selection at their own trials. Such 
evidence is usually barred if it is not introduced during the initial trial, 
according to the CDPL.

The ruling also will compel North Carolina courts to enforce laws that prohibit 
race discrimination in jury selection.

The N.C. Supreme Court has heard more than 100 cases where prosecutors were 
accused of intentionally getting rid of minority jurors, but it has never found 
a prosecutor's explanation for striking a black juror to be a cover for race 
discrimination, despite compelling evidence that the practice of excluding 
black jurors is prevalent, according to the CDPL.

"It has been illegal for 3 decades to exclude jurors based on race, but the 
reality is our courts have refused to enforce that law," Rose said. "The U.S. 
Supreme Court said that we cannot continue to ignore this blatant racism in our 
death penalty system."

North Carolina tried to fix the problem of discrimination in jury selection in 
2009 by passing the N.C. Racial Justice Act, which allowed death row inmates to 
present statistical proof that African-Americans were systematically excluded 
from their juries.

Because of the Racial Justice Act, NCDL says North Carolina death row inmates 
have uncovered even stronger evidence of discrimination in jury selection than 
in the Georgia case:

-- In a Cumberland County case, defense attorneys discovered a prosecutor's 
handwritten notes that labeled prospective jurors with terms like "blk wino" 
and "blk, high drug neighborhood."

-- In a Forsyth County case, prosecutors struck all but a single black juror. 
According to a handwritten note attached to that juror's questionnaire, he was 
accepted because he attended a "multiracial" church, rather than a black one, 
and went to "predominantly white schools."

-- Several N.C. prosecutors attended training, sponsored by the N.C. 
Conference of District Attorneys, where they were given a cheat sheet of 
"race-neutral" excuses that they could use to justify their illegal strikes of 
black jurors.

-- A comprehensive statewide study of capital cases from 1990-2010 found that 
prosecutors removed qualified black jurors from jury pools at more than twice 
the rate of white jurors. The disparity was even more pronounced when the 
defendant was black.

The Racial Justice Act was repealed in 2013. More than 100 death row inmates 
who filed motions under the law are still pursuing their claims in court, but 
most have so far gone unheard.

"The Supreme Court today reaffirmed the importance of the evidence those 
defendants uncovered," said Rose. "North Carolina courts must finally begin to 
take this critical issue seriously. The illegal practice of excluding 
African-Americans from jury service must end."

(source: Morgantown Hews Herald)






GEORGIA:

Georgia executions rise, while death sentences plummet


It's Georgia's new death penalty paradox: the state is executing inmates at a 
record clip, but prosecutors almost never seek the death penalty anymore, and 
juries refuse to impose it when they do.

During each of the past 2 years, Georgia executed 5 inmates. If, as expected, 
the state carries out another execution later this year, it will have put more 
people to death - 6 - in 2016 than in any single year since the U.S. Supreme 
Court reinstated capital punishment 4 decades ago.

But the last time a Georgia jury imposed a death sentence was in March 2014. 
And district attorneys have been turning away from death as a sentencing 
option, more often allowing killers to receive sentences of life in prison 
without the possibility of parole.

A decade ago, state prosecutors filed notices of intent to seek the death 
penalty against 34 accused killers. That number dropped to 26 in 2011 and to 13 
last year.

How many times have Georgia DAs sought the death penalty so far this year? 
Once. And this was against a man accused of killing a priest - a clergyman who 
had signed a document saying if he died a violent death he did not want his 
killer to face the death penalty.

The incongruity of the increasing numbers of executions and the plummeting 
numbers of death sentences took both prosecutors and defense attorneys by 
surprise.

"Wow," Atlanta criminal defense attorney Akil Secret said. "Maybe the times are 
changing."

The precipitous declines raise the question of whether prior capital sentences 
were justified, Secret said. "If a life-without-parole sentence is sufficient 
for today's worst crimes, why isn't it sufficient for those crimes from the 
past where death was imposed?"

In March, Secret represented 1 of the only 2 defendants to face death-penalty 
trials in Georgia this year. In both cases, juries in Fulton and Newton 
counties unanimously voted for sentences of life without parole.

Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter also expressed surprise at the 
ongoing trends.

"It's certainly one of those odd occurrences," said Porter, who has three 
pending capital cases. "But part of me says these (current) executions were 
cases where the sentences should have been carried out long ago. Also, the 
option of life without parole was never an option for them. It's almost apples 
and oranges."

Asked whether he thought cases that received death sentences in the past should 
now be reconsidered for life without parole, Porter quoted a passage from the 
"Dune" science fiction series, "If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets."

Is the death penalty no longer necessary?

Brian Kammer, head of a nonprofit agency that represents condemned killers 
through their final appeals, said many inmates would not have been sent to 
death row had they been represented by competent lawyers. Today, he said, the 
state has a dedicated office with highly trained public defenders with the 
resources to thoroughly investigate their clients' backgrounds.

"Had such legal teams with adequate resources been available to these recently 
executed prisoners at the time they were tried originally, I am confident they 
would be alive today," Kammer said.

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court used a Georgia case to abolish capital 
punishment. In 1976, in another Georgia case, the high court reinstated the 
death penalty. Since that ruling, Georgia has executed 65 condemned killers. 
There are now 63 inmates on death row.

There is a consensus among state prosecutors and defense attorneys as to why 
the death penalty is not being sought as frequently as it was in the past and 
why juries are reluctant to impose it. 7 years ago, state lawmakers unanimously 
voted to allow prosecutors to obtain a life-without-parole sentence without 
having to file a notice to seek the death penalty.

"It has made an enormous difference," said Chuck Spahos, head of the 
Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia. "When you start talking about the 
expense, the years of appeals and the length of the process that goes on and on 
and having to put victims' families through that with no closure, the 
availability of life without parole with a guilty plea has become an attractive 
option."

Years ago, some state prosecutors sought the death penalty because all they 
really wanted to do was send a defendant to prison for the rest of his or her 
life, said Jerry Word, head of Georgia's Capital Defender Office. "Now they no 
longer have to seek death to get what they really want. And the polls show that 
the public is becoming much more comfortable with life without parole."

'We've lost our sense of outrage'

Doug Pullen, who made a name for himself obtaining death sentences as a 
Columbus district attorney in the early 1990s, said he believes society has 
become desensitized to violence.

"We've lost our sense of outrage at such things," said Pullen, who later served 
as a judge until he resigned amid an ethics probe. "For me personally, and I 
think for a large portion of my age group, it's just absolutely appalling."

A defense attorney once told him that the death penalty would become so 
expensive and time-consuming it would die a natural death, Pullen said. "I 
guess I knew it was coming, but that it got here this fast kind of surprises 
me."

Not only are death sentences rare, death sentences once routinely imposed for 
certain types of murders have become nonexistent.

Lawyers representing Brandon Astor Jones tried unsuccessfully to stop his 
execution in February. In 1979, Jones was sentenced to death for killing the 
manager of a Cobb County convenience store during an armed robbery. But death 
sentences for these kinds of armed robbery cases have not been imposed in 
Georgia in the past 20 years, an appeal filed on Jones' behalf said.

Layla Zon, the district attorney for Newton and Walton counties, said after she 
took office in 2010 she reviewed cases in which death sentences were obtained 
by her predecessors more than a decade ago. "You'd never get the death penalty 
in most of those cases today," she said.

"To me, it seems like a gunshot killing of a single victim is not going to rise 
to the level in jurors' minds of what it takes to impose a death sentence," Zon 
said. "Torture, depravity of mind, the killing of a child. That's what it 
takes."

Zon leads state in death cases

A recent motion filed on behalf of Rodney Young, sentenced to death in Newton 
County in 2012 for killing his ex-fiancee's son, accused Zon of being 
"pathologically enthralled" with the death penalty. It said she has sought 
death at a rate unmatched by any other district attorney in Georgia and noted 
she had a battery-powered toy electric chair, called "Death-Row Marv," in her 
office.

Zon, who said the toy was in her office when she became DA and that she has 
since removed it, said she seeks death in cases that warrant it. Since 2011, 
there have been 13 death-penalty trials in Georgia, with 4 taking place in 
Newton. Zon's office also obtained 2 of the state's 5 death sentences during 
that time.

Last month, Ashley Wright, district attorney of the Augusta Judicial Circuit, 
filed the first and only notice to seek death so far this year. She is seeking 
it against Steven James Murray, who is accused of kidnapping Catholic priest 
Rene Robert, forcing him into the trunk of his car and then driving him to 
Burke County, where he shot and killed him.

After the notice was filed, Wright said, Robert's Catholic diocese in St. 
Augustine, Fla., sent her a document that Robert had signed years ago. The 
document said that in the event he died a violent death, Robert, who had 
protested against executions, did not want his killer to get the death penalty 
no matter how heinous the crime or how much Robert had suffered.

Wright said she is proceeding with the capital prosecution.

"We make our decisions based on the facts and the law, not public opinion," she 
said.

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)






ALABAMA:

Alabama appeals court: Death sentence law constitutional


An Alabama appeals court on Friday ordered a Jefferson County judge to vacate 
her rulings earlier this year that declared the state's capital punishment 
sentencing scheme unconstitutional.

In its order the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals says the state's capital 
sentencing scheme is constitutional and told Jefferson County Circuit Court 
Judge Tracie Todd to vacate her March 3 order in the pending capital murder 
cases of four men that says otherwise.

The Alabama Attorney General's Office had filed four petitions for a writ of 
mandamus asking the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to direct Todd to vacate 
her orders and allow the state to decide whether to seek imposition of the 
death penalty in those cases if it decides.

The cases involve Kenneth Eugene Billups, Stanley Brent Chapman, Terrell Corey 
McMullin, and Benjamin Todd Acton who were all indicted for various counts of 
capital murder. Chapman and McMullin are charged in the same case and the 
others in separate cases.

Before their trials, the men each filed a motion to bar imposition of the death 
penalty in their cases and to hold Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme 
unconstitutional based on the United States Supreme Court's decision in January 
declaring Florida's death sentencing system unconstitutional.

Todd had heard arguments from lawyers for capital murder defendants Benjamin 
Acton, Terrell McMullin, Stanley Chatman, and Kenneth Billups.

Todd agreed and declared the capital murder sentencing law unconstitutional in 
a 28-page order.

"The Alabama capital sentencing scheme fails to provide special procedural 
safeguards to minimize the obvious influence of partisan politics or the 
potential for unlawful bias in the judiciary," Todd stated in her ruling. "As a 
result, the death penalty in Alabama is being imposed in a "wholly arbitrary 
and capricious" manner."

The Court of Criminal Appeals, however, said Friday that it the state's capital 
sentencing law is constitutional.

"Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme is constitutional under (U.S. Supreme 
Court rulings) Apprendi, Ring, and Hurst, and the circuit court (Todd) erred in 
holding otherwise and prohibiting the State from seeking the death penalty in 
capital-murder prosecutions," the appeals court opinion on Friday states.

The Alabama Attorney General's Office established the prerequisites for the 
appeals court to issue an order to Todd telling her to vacate her opinion, the 
appeals court stated in its order. "Therefore, the circuit court (Todd) is 
directed to set aside its order holding Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme 
unconstitutional and to allow the State to seek the death penalty in 
capital-murder prosecutions if it chooses to do so.

The appeals court ruled that under Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme a 
capital murder defendant "is not eligible for the death penalty unless the jury 
unanimously finds beyond a reasonable doubt, either during the guilt phase or 
during the penalty phase of the trial, that at least 1 of the aggravating 
circumstances ... exists."

The court noted that Florida's law, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme 
Court in January as unconstitutional, was conditioned a first-degree-murder 
defendant's eligibility for the death penalty on a finding by the trial judge, 
rather than the jury, that an aggravating circumstance existed.

Judges Mike Joiner and Liles Burke concurred with the majority although they 
differed on some points in separate opinions.

Both Joiner and Burke criticized Todd's order.

Todd's order "contains sparse analysis on the application of Hurst to Alabama's 
capital-sentencing scheme," Burke wrote.

"The majority of the order is devoted to the trial court's opinions regarding 
partisan politics, the effects of an elected judiciary, court funding, and the 
propriety of the death penalty in general," Burke states. "Additionally, the 
trial court extensively cites secondary sources, including materials from 
"Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty" as well as from the Web site of the 
Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization whose attorneys are 
representing the defendants in this very proceeding."

"In reviewing the materials that were filed with this Court, I find no mention 
of these issues," Burke writes. "Thus, I question whether the trial court's 
(Todd's) ultimate conclusion is based on its analysis of Hurst or on the trial 
judge's personal opinions regarding Alabama's death penalty."

(source: al.om)

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

Opioid addicts overpopulate our nation's prisons and death rows


Addicts hooked on pain pills or "opioids" overpopulate our country's prisons 
and death rows - particularly in Alabama.

As Anne Hull's revealing article for The Washington Post ("The lonely road of 
staying clean: In a town where pills are currency opioid addicts have few 
options," June 11) describes, "[d]octors in Alabama prescribe more opioid 
painkillers than physicians in any other state in the nation."

Saucily noting that Walker County, Alabama, "is usually nowhere to be found in 
the pages of The Washington Post," Ryan Ray of Alabama Today reported, "the 
rural county one hour away from Birmingham was front and center in a long-form 
story about a family torn asunder by pill mills and opioid addiction."

Ray writes that The Washington Post story, "details in depth the suffering of 
thousands of mostly white, low-income Alabamians resigned to life that revolves 
around the cycle of drug abuse, poverty, and recovery." The pills that these 
profiteering quack-M.D.s in rural Alabama have over-prescribed, Hull writes, 
"are so enmeshed in the local economy that they're traded for lawn mowers and 
school clothes."

In poor, agrarian areas of Alabama, where manual labor and minimum wage mete 
out subsistence - where the best paying jobs are at a plant or a prison, and 
where pills are interchangeable with money - it's not hard to see how opioid 
addiction-related crime seeps into (or is directly implicated) in death penalty 
cases.

Hull's article, though it does not mention capital punishment, does note: "2 
generations of prescription painkillers have changed the way people die here. 
Even more they have changed the way people live. Great-grandparents are now 
raising the children of addicted parents and grandparents. 4 out of 5 arrests 
in the county are drug-related."

When I worked in Alabama between 2012 and 2015 representing poor folks 
sentenced to die (as an assistant federal public defender), a recurring 
commonality among my cases and those of my colleagues - as well as other 
lawyers representing clients on the state's death row - was opioid addiction. 
Nothing has changed.

Indeed, in the office where I worked in Montgomery, we had 
psychopharmacologists and neuropsychopharmacologists (try saying those tongue 
twisters 3 times in a row) on speed dial. We'd hire these specialized experts 
all the time to help illuminate how opioid addiction, often generational in 
Alabama as Hull's article poignantly notes, should mitigate a client's sentence 
- usually, to LWOP, an overly-benign acronym for life without the possibility 
of parole.

Off of the top of my head I can think of a panoply of people facing execution - 
right now in Alabama - where opioid addiction either directly, or indirectly, 
played a part in the crime that put them on death row.

In the story of Jessica Kilpatrick's struggle with opioid addiction that Hull's 
article zones in on, Kirkpatrick's addiction began when she was over-prescribed 
pain pills (330 pills a month) for a volleyball injury.

Similarly, I worked on a death penalty case in Alabama where my client grew up 
in a county no different than the one where Kirkpatrick lives; the hardscrabble 
downtown area where my client went to school and where all local commerce took 
place was literally awash in prescription pain pills. The richest man in town 
was the pharmacist. His pharmacy was immediately adjacent to a "pain management 
clinic" that dispensed hydrocodone (an opioid) by the armful to my client, and 
before that, to my client's grandmother, aunts, uncles, and parents. This 
particular pharmacist, apart from owning one of the biggest, most expensive 
houses in town, had his last name carved into the local high school football 
stadium; that's a big-deal-statement of power in small-town Alabama.

It was in that very high school football stadium, during practice and in a 
game, that my client was knocked unconscious, developing back and other health 
problems as a result. Guess where he went for help to manage the pain?

In February, I wrote "why Flint's water crisis should give death penalty 
supporters pause," and how "unacceptable racial bias persists in capital 
punishment." This time, though, the reason I humbly beseech the United States 
to stop "tinkering with the machinery of death": Massive, long-standing 
societal addiction to opioids - a problem that is especially nefarious and 
pervasive in the hills, hamlets and countryside of Alabama - and in the stories 
of its death row population.

(source: Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. and federal public 
defender----themoderatevoice.com)