[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., OKLA., NEB., COLO., CALIF., WASH., USA

Sat Apr 22 08:05:10 CDT 2017

April 22

ARKANSAS:

Gorsuch casts death-penalty vote in one of his 1st Supreme Court cases

Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch cast his 1st consequential vote Thursday 
night, siding with the court's other 4 conservatives in denying a stay request 
from Arkansas death row inmates facing execution.

Hours later, the state executed 1 of the men, the 1st lethal injection carried 
out there since 2005.

New justices have described being the final word on whether a death row inmate 
is executed - often during a late-night, last-chance appeal to the Supreme 
Court - as a time when the responsibility of the role crystallizes. Indeed, one 
of the court's most solid death-penalty supporters, Justice Samuel A. Alito 
Jr., flinched the 1st time he was faced with the choice. The day after his 2006 
swearing-in, Alito joined the court's liberals in upholding a stay that kept 
Missouri from going forward with an execution.

Gorsuch's reasoning for his vote in not known. Neither he nor the other 
justices who turned down the request explained the decision. But Gorsuch was 
sworn in on April 10, and he has had some time to study Arkansas' 
well-publicized attempt to execute several inmates before a drug used in their 
planned lethal injections expires.

The court's 4 liberals - Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia 
Sotomayor and Elena Kagan - said they would have stayed the executions.

Breyer wrote that the case supports his call, which Ginsburg has joined, for a 
review of whether the death penalty can be constitutionally applied.

"Why these 8? Why now? The apparent reason has nothing to do with the 
heinousness of their crimes or with the presence (or absence) of mitigating 
behavior," Breyer wrote. Instead, Breyer wrote, "apparently the reason the 
state decided to proceed with these 8 executions is that the 'use by' date of 
the state's execution drug is about to expire. In my view, that factor, when 
considered as a determining factor separating those who live from those who 
die, is close to random."

As expected, Gorsuch's decisions have been closely scrutinized. A new justice's 
role on the court is only broadly sketched during confirmation hearings, and 
each decision begins to fill in the outlines of a lifetime appointment.

Gorsuch has rejected stay-of-execution requests as a member of the U.S. Court 
of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, but he has had limited exposure to the issue 
of capital punishment.

During his Senate confirmation hearings, he was often asked about a passage in 
a book he wrote in which he criticizes euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. 
"All human beings are intrinsically valuable, and the intentional taking of 
human life by private persons is always wrong," he wrote.

It is the phrase "by private persons" that was key to Gorsuch's response.

Some online commentators have questioned what Thursday night???s action says 
about Gorsuch's "pro-life" credentials. He has a thin record on which his view 
of a constitutional right to abortion could be assessed. But if he supports the 
constitutionality of the death penalty and questions a constitutional right to 
abortion, he would simply be reflecting the various positions on the court he 
is joining.

The justice he replaced, Antonin Scalia, felt the same on capital punishment 
and abortion. Liberals such as Breyer and Ginsburg are the opposite, supporting 
abortion rights while raising doubts about the death penalty.

Gorsuch has faced an immediate immersion at the Supreme Court. He was sworn in 
on April 10. He skipped the justices' private conference that week to prepare 
for oral arguments that began last Monday.

Although he asked no questions in one oral argument, he was an active 
participant in the other 6. Some analyses showed that he asked more questions 
than many of his colleagues did in their first outings on the court, and he 
displayed a confidence borne of his decade on the bench.

On Friday, he was scheduled to meet with the rest of the court to examine a 
long list of cases that would be on the docket that begins in October. When it 
had only 8 members, the court seemed to shy away from some controversial 
topics.

But the new list is anything but neutral. They include cases involving gun 
rights, voting rights and whether businesses can for religious reasons refuse 
their wedding services to same-sex couples.

(source: Washington Post)

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

Arkansas carries out 1st of several planned executions, but what's next?

This week in Arkansas, lives came down to minutes.

Ledell Lee never saw Friday. Less than an hour before a midnight deadline to 
carry out the sentence, Arkansas officials learned the U.S. Supreme Court had 
rejected his last appeals. The lethal injection began and Lee was dead by 11:56 
p.m. Thursday - the 1st execution in the state since 2005.

Earlier in the week, Don Davis and Bruce Earl Ward saw the clock expire as 
courts halted their executions just before midnight Monday. Stacey Johnson got 
a reprieve Thursday as well.

Arkansas planned to execute 8 convicted murderers over 11 days this month and 
the state will try again next week, with 2 scheduled for Monday and 1 on 
Thursday. A 4th scheduled for Thursday currently has a stay in place. and 
volume of executions has troubled capital punishment opponents - though they 
took heart this week when the scheduled executions were stopped and when 
Johnson's case was stayed.

Lee's execution was a blow, however.

Nina Morrison, a lawyer with the Innocence Project, worked until the last 
moments leading up to Lee's execution and said the grim spectacle that played 
out in Arkansas was unlike anything she'd seen in her 17 years of practicing 
law and working capital punishment cases.

"Nobody can look at what happened in Arkansas and feel proud," Morrison said. 
"It was a rushed, unfair and arbitrary process and we deserve better. The 
families of the victims deserve better, the courts deserve better and the 
defendants' lives we have in our hands deserve better."

Lee was convicted in the 1993 murder of 26-year-old Debra Reese, the mother of 
a 6-year-old boy. She was robbed and strangled in her Jacksonville, Ark., home. 
Prosecutors said Lee then beat her 36 times with a bat-like tire "thumper" her 
husband had given her for protection.

Prosecutors came forward with evidence that Lee had previously committed 
violent crimes against several other women, though he maintained his innocence 
until his death.

But Morrison said the request for delaying Lee's execution centered on the need 
for DNA testing that hadn't previously been available and that justice demanded 
it to ensure an innocent man wasn't put to death.

The flurry of legal challenges was seen by Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Atty. Gen. 
Leslie Rutledge as a stalling tactic to delay justice. A spokesman for Rutledge 
said Friday that it was impossible to know if the scheduled executions of 
Marcel Williams and Jack Jones on Monday would mirror this week's frantic pace.

J.R. Davis, spokesman for Hutchinson, said the men facing execution already 
have had plenty of time to appeal and fight their cases.

"You start to worry whether or not this is a big hit on the judicial system. 
You have all these last-minute appeals that are essentially thrown up against 
the wall to see what sticks," Davis said. "These cases have been going on for 
decades - and that is part of the process. You want to make sure a person is 
guilty of the crime so you have the appeals set in place and there was time for 
that."

But some of the legal challenges to Lee's execution were focused on the 
methodology of the execution - namely the drugs used during lethal injections.

The state's supply of 1, midazolam, expires April 30. McKesson Corp. had filed 
for a temporary restraining order last week to keep Arkansas from using its 
product, vecuronium bromide, after the company said it had been misled because 
the state had never said it planned to use the drug in executions.

A temporary restraining order was put into place on April 14, but 3 days later 
the state Supreme Court removed it, agreeing with Rutledge that the judge who 
issued it was biased because he had attended an anti-death penalty protest.

McKesson filed for a new restraining order, which was approved Wednesday but 
then removed Thursday afternoon by the state Supreme Court.

"We believe we have done all we can do at this time to recover our product," 
the company said in a statement lamenting the ruling.

Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North 
Carolina, said the drug manufacturer's unwillingness to be involved with 
products used for the death penalty may be a way capital punishment becomes a 
less viable form of justice as options diminish.

He said boycotts of companies that deal in drugs related to executions can make 
supplies for the states even harder to obtain and that it's a tactic that may 
be more effective than seeking to abolish the death penalty through the 
legislative process.

The lack of supply has already hamstrung other states trying to conduct 
executions. In Nevada, an $860,000 execution chamber was built last year after 
being approved the Legislature in 2015, but it has yet to be used because the 
state can't obtain the drugs used for lethal injections.

Arkansas' rush to complete its execution schedule - April 17 through 27 - was 
set by Hutchinson in February when it was clear the drug would expire April 30.

Davis, the governor's spokesman, said the dates were important for the families 
of the murder victims to see the will of juries carried out.

Lee's execution, he said, was justice.

Lee had a last meal. He took Holy Communion and did not have any last words.

The 2 scheduled to die Monday are Marcel Williams and Jones. Williams, 46, was 
convicted of the 1994 rape and murder of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson. Jones, 
52, was convicted of the murder of a bookkeeper, Mary Phillips, in 1995.

1 of the men scheduled to die Thursday, Jason McGehee, 40, currently has a stay 
in place and is unlikely to face execution because the legal process would 
extend beyond the April 30 deadline.

Public support for capital punishment, which peaked in the mid-1990s, when 80% 
of Americans favored the death penalty, is now at its lowest level since 1972, 
according to the Pew Research Center. Its poll in September showed 49% of 
Americans supported executions for convicted murderers.

The debate is expected to continue as Arkansas begins the process again Monday. 
And like last week, vigils are planned outside the governor's mansion in Little 
Rock on Monday and Thursday.

The Rev. Steve Copley, chairman of the Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, 
said he will be praying Sunday in church and will be attending the protests 
Monday.

"I'll be remembering the victims and family of the victims, but also 
remembering those on death row and the attorneys trying to make sure life isn't 
taken from them," Copley said. "I'll be praying to ask God to be in the midst 
of this situation as it happens."

(source: Los Angeles Times)

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

Decency demands we take no chances with the death penalty: Opinion

The chance a terrorist will hijack my next flight to Atlanta is infinitesimal, 
but I will submit to a virtual strip search when I board that plane. And I'll 
do it every time to gain the assurance I've dodged one of the rarest 
transportation calamities.

Many of us take similar precautions every day to prevent other unlikely 
occurrences. We pay a premium for safety features on new cars. We gobble 
multivitamins and dietary supplements to ward off diseases we have little 
chance of contracting. We part with thousands for alarm systems and even more 
for car and home insurance.

Our predilection to limiting the risk of rare misfortune extends to almost 
every aspect of life. Except in our criminal justice system, which sometimes 
seems designed to eliminate the risk that a defendant might be acquitted.

Which brings me to the death penalty and why we should abolish it, as state 
Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, and Rep. Terry Landry, D-New Iberia, propose. 
I'm not sure what chance their bill has in the current legislative session, but 
it's probably less than the likelihood that an innocent person sits today on 
Louisiana's death row.

The chance that Louisiana -- or any of the 30 other states with the death 
penalty -- might put an innocent person on death row is 4 times greater than 
your chance of being killed in an auto accident. It's almost 50 times greater 
than your chance of drowning.

How do we know this? In an impressive, comprehensive study published in the 
"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" (PNAS) in 2014, 4 researchers 
concluded 4.1 % of those in death row prison cells in the United States are 
innocent. And, they added, "it is likely that we have an undercount."

We also know this because, since 1973, 157 death-row inmates have been 
exonerated. The most recent was a Louisiana man, Rodricus Crawford, finally 
exonerated on April 17 when the state Supreme Court dismissed all charges 
against him.

The study's authors said that because of intense scrutiny in capital cases, 
wrongful executions (versus wrongful sentencing) are rare but probable. "With 
an error rate at trial over 4%," they caution, "it is all but certain that 
several of the 1,320 defendants executed since 1977 [that number is now 1,448] 
were innocent."

This suggests that about 116 of the approximately 2,900 people serving on death 
row in the United States could be innocent.

If you had a 4 % (1 in 25) probability of dying in a plane crash (it's actually 
1 in 9,821), you'd be a fool to fly anywhere. If you had a 4 % probability of 
dying in a car wreck (it's 1 in 645), you would never leave your house.

Too many judges and prosecutors, however, are satisfied with a 4 percent error 
rate in handing down death sentences.

Argue all you want about the immorality of the government killing people. 
Protest the death penalty because of the cost of trying and housing death-row 
inmates versus those sentenced to life without parole. Those and other 
arguments resonate with me and others but are secondary to the near certainty 
that we have condemned dozens of innocent people to death row.

Lest you conclude the answer to this outrage is to sentence more people to 
prison for life, consider what National Geographic blogger Virginia Hughes 
observed in 2014 about the aforementioned study: "Of all of the people found 
guilty of capital murder, less than 1/2 actually get a death-penalty sentence. 
And when juries are determining whether to send a defendant to death row or to 
life in prison, surveys show that they tend to choose life sentences when they 
have 'residual doubt' about the defendant's guilt. That means, then, that the 
rate of innocent defendants serving life in prison is higher than those on 
death row. 'They are sentenced,' the [PNAS] authors write, 'and then 
forgotten.'"

The truth is that the almost weekly release of some inmate, jailed for decades 
for a crime he did not commit, doesn't spur us to action or even indignation. 
And the knowledge that 4 % of those on death row are likely innocent causes us 
little shame.

In other words, society is apathetic about the appalling injustices of the 
criminal justice system because many of don't see inmates as humans and we see 
little personal risk of being railroaded into prison, much less on death row.

If we want to continue killing inmates, we should do everything possible to 
eliminate the risk of wrongful conviction. We should fully fund indigent 
defense. Judges should insist on the highest standards of evidence before 
convicting anyone. No one should be sent to prison on the testimony of 1 
witness. And courts must rein in the abuse of plea bargains.

As Edmund Burke wrote in 1777, "A conscientious man would be cautious how he 
dealt in blood." Put another way, a wise and humane society would take no 
chances when killing its citizens.

(source: Opinion; Robert Mann, an author and former U.S. Senate and 
gubernatorial staffer, holds the Manship Chair in Journalism at the Manship 
School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University----New Orleans 
Times-Picayune)

OKLAHOMA:

Death Penalty Sought In Deputy's Death

A man suspected of fatally shooting an Oklahoma deputy was charged Thursday 
with murder, and the district attorney later vowed she'll seek the death 
penalty against him because of the "particularly heinous, atrocious and cruel" 
nature of the crime.

Nathan LeForce, 45, was charged Thursday in Logan County with 1st-degree 
murder, larceny of a vehicle and armed robbery, court records show. Those 
records don't list an attorney for him, and he remains jailed.

Logan County Deputy David Wade, 40, died Tuesday after he was shot while 
serving an eviction notice at a home near Mulhall, about 50 miles north of 
Oklahoma City. Wade was shot several times, including in the face, and returned 
fire before radioing in for help.

Video from Wade's body-worn camera captured LeForce approaching Wade with a 
raised handgun and firing at the deputy, according to charging documents filed 
in court Thursday. After the 1st shot, as "Wade goes down and is obviously 
suffering from a gunshot wound," several more gunshots could be heard in rapid 
succession, the documents said.

Authorities said LeForce then took Wade's patrol vehicle and drove at a high 
speed to a convenience store, where he stole another car at gunpoint, according 
to the affidavit. That car was found abandoned near Guthrie, where LeForce was 
later found hiding in an outbuilding and surrendered to police.

After LeForce appeared before a judge, Logan County District Attorney Laura 
Thomas said in a statement to The Associated Press that she'll prepare a death 
penalty case because of the brutality of the crime.

"Not all 1st degree murder cases qualify for the death penalty in Oklahoma. 
This is one that does," Thomas said in a statement. "I'm angry our deputy was 
murdered. I'm angered at that portion of society that is already looking for a 
way to justify the unjustifiable and finding excuses for the inexcusable."

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said earlier Thursday that the gun 
used in the shooting has not been found. Agency spokeswoman Jessica Brown said 
law enforcement agencies are still searching for the gun to find out if it had 
been used in other crimes and to prevent a child from finding it first.

(source: Associated Press)

NEBRASKA:

Legislature debates confidentiality of lethal drug producers

A bill to protect the confidentiality of individuals or companies involved in 
the distribution or manufacture of lethal injection drugs on death row went 
through hours of debate Thursday.

LB 661, introduced by Sen. John Kuehn of Heartwell, is also known as a "shield 
law" to protect anyone involved in the manufacturing of lethal injection drugs 
from threats or persecution.

"Keeping the identity of manufacturers confidential to ensure access of these 
drugs, to prevent further drugs from being removed from the market, to ensure 
safe medication to all citizens, is the greater good," Kuehn said.

Other states with similar shield laws include Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, 
Georgia and Ohio. Many others, such as Oklahoma and South Carolina, have also 
tried to implement this type of shield law.

According to the bill's proponents, states with the death penalty have 
difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs from domestic suppliers.

Suppliers don't want the bad publicity of being associated with manufacturing 
and distributing these drugs. This results in states having to shop other 
countries for the drugs.

Nebraska bought a lethal injection drug in 2015 called sodium thiopental, from 
Harris Pharma, a distributor in India. The Food and Drug Administration said 
Nebraska could not legally import the drug and the shipment never made it to 
the state.

Opponents of the bill said confidentiality would inhibit accountability for 
companies who make the drugs.

Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha was particularly against full anonymity for such 
companies.

Chambers, a well-known opponent of the death penalty, used his time to speak 
against the death penalty. However, he also spoke against hiding the identity 
of lethal injection drug manufacturers.

"We all know good and well why it's important to know the source of something," 
Chambers said. "If these bad drugs continue to show up, you need to trace it 
back and find the compounding pharmacy that's responsible."

Chambers was referring to the possibility the drug might be proven cruel or 
ineffective. People would need to know where it came from to hold that person 
or company responsible.

Nebraska voters decided last year to reinstate the death penalty, after the 
Legislature narrowly repealed it the year before. Legislators in support of LB 
661, like Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte, said the proposed shield 
legislation would let capital punishment work for the Nebraskans who voted it 
back in.

"I believe in justice," Groene said. "I believe in punishing evil that exists 
in this world."

Groene said anonymity would allow the state to be able to obtain, and if 
necessary, use the death penalty drugs again.

Nebraska has not used capital punishment since 1997.

There was no vote or action taken on the bill.

(source: The North Platte Bulletin)

COLORADO:

Hearings start Monday in death-penalty case of ex-Fort Carson soldier

A marathon week of hearings is set to begin Monday in El Paso County's 1st 
death penalty case in a decade.

5 consecutive days have been cleared in a 4th Judicial District courtroom for 
attorneys to argue motions in the case against double-murder suspect Glen Law 
Galloway, who's accused in the back-to-back fatal shootings last year of his 
ex-girlfriend and a homeless man.

Fourth Judicial District Judge Gregory Werner set aside the week in 
anticipation of dozens of legal filings in what will be a hard-fought courtroom 
contest. It's unclear whether all that court time will actually be filled.

El Paso County prosecutors will be joined by Dan Edwards of the Colorado 
Attorney General's Office, who helped prosecute the death penalty case against 
Aurora theater shooter James Holmes. Galloway's public defenders will be joined 
by Dan King of the public defender's death penalty team.

King was Holmes' lead attorney and also helps represent admitted Planned 
Parenthood shooter Robert Lewis Dear Jr., whose prosecution on suspicion of 
killing three people and wounding nine on Nov. 27, 2015, remains on indefinite 
hold while Dear receives treatment at the Colorado State Mental Health 
Institute at Pueblo.

Galloway, 45, an ex-Fort Carson soldier, faces multiple counts of 1st-degree 
murder in the slayings of his ex-girlfriend Janice Nam and a homeless man named 
Marcus Anderson, records show.

The 2 were fatally shot on consecutive days in May, several months after 
Galloway cut off an ankle monitor and went into hiding in the wake of a 
conviction for stalking Nam, court records show.

Police and prosecutors haven't disclosed whether they have discovered a motive 
that links the deaths.

The last time El Paso County prosecutors pursued the death penalty was 2007, 
when the office sought the death of cop killer Marco Lee. He pleaded guilty in 
exchange for a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole.

2 other death penalty prosecutions are pending in the 18th Judicial District, 
comprising Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties, but recent efforts 
suggest prosecutors face an uphill battle.

2 recent attempts to obtain the death penalty - including against Holmes - 
failed after juries instead imposed life terms, raising questions about the 
millions spent in the pursuit.

Convicted murderer and rapist Gary Lee Davis was the last death row inmate to 
be executed in Colorado, in 1997. He is the only Colorado inmate to be executed 
since the death penalty was reinstated in 1975.

(source: The Gazette)

CALIFORNIA:

Judge in Dekraai Case Says He May Consider Dropping Death Penalty

The judge handling the sentencing trial for mass murderer Scott Evans Dekraai 
said Friday that misuse of jailhouse informants by Orange County prosecutors 
and Sheriff's deputies may cause him to consider "the nuclear option," throwing 
out the death penalty in the case.

"What has previously been an almost unthinkable option is no longer 
unthinkable," said Judge Thomas Goethals at a hearing Friday morning.

The hearing was part of the penalty phase of the trial, which will determine 
whether Dekraai, who shot 8 people at a Seal Beach hair salon in 2011 and pled 
guilty to the murders in 2014, will receive a life sentence or the death 
penalty.

Although it began as a murder trial, Dekraai's case has since grown into a 
years-long "jailhouse snitch scandal" that has sparked U.S. Department of 
Justice, state Attorney General and Orange County Grand Jury investigations. 
They're looking into how the Sheriff's Department and District Attorney's 
office used jailhouse informants to elicit confessions from criminal 
defendants, without the knowledge of the defendants or their attorneys.

Sanders has argued the violation of his client's rights is so egregious he 
should be spared the death sentence and be sentence to life in prison.

For months, Goethals has expressed frustration with the pace at which Sheriff 
Sandra Hutchens' department has produced discovery documents related to the 
jailhouse informants program. At one point he threatened to hold her in 
contempt of court.

Now Goethals wants attorneys to establish at a May 23 evidentiary hearing, 
whether or not the Sheriff's Department has, over the course of the Dekraai 
case, attempted to cover up the informant program by intentionally destroying 
or withholding key documents.

Specifically, Goethals wants to know why there are months-long gaps in entries 
from the Special Handling log, records which could show how informants were 
moved from cell to cell and which inmates they were put near and later provided 
information about.

Sanders, in his latest motion filed in March, points to the fact that 
prosecutors have only "been able to locate Special Handling logs for a period 
of a mere 7 months of Dekraai's 65 months of incarceration" and to a 2-year gap 
in entries in records tracking 2 informants who lived in the same module as 
Dekraai.

"It's hard for me to imagine that a staff full of competent investigators can't 
get to the bottom of what happened to the Special Handling logs," Goethals said 
at Friday's hearing.

In the motion, Sanders outlined his argument for why he believes Orange County 
Sheriff's deputies not only were openly and actively encouraged to cultivate 
jailhouse informants to aid prosecutors, but the department also tried to cover 
its tracks as revelations about the informant program unfolded in court.

The judge also wants attorneys to establish whether or not, as Sanders has 
alleged in court briefs, Hutchens asked the county Board of Supervisors to 
change a policy for document retention that would allow the department to 
destroy documents that included records about jailhouse informants.

Sanders argues the fact that the department sought approval from the 
supervisors is evidence of "a broader effort to align policies with misleading 
statements about the use of informants...and to eliminate inconsistent evidence 
that could further embarrass the agency," according to a motion he filed Feb. 
9.

In early 2016, the supervisors suspended the policy in order to preserve the 
informant records although it is unknown whether any records were destroyed 
while the policy was in effect. The county's attorneys say the board's action 
didn't alter its past records retention policy and insist nothing improper 
occurred.

Attorneys will also discuss Sanders' claim that former Assistant District 
Attorney Dan Wagner intentionally delayed releasing records from the special 
handling log at Theo Lacy Jail to avoid tipping off Sanders to contradictions 
in testimony by 2 deputies that would help him in another case.

The last evidentiary hearing Goethals ordered lasted more than 4 months.

Goethals said he hopes this hearing won't last that long and said he wants to 
avoid any more debate over whether a jailhouse informant program exists, as the 
Sheriff's Department has repeatedly denied.

"The debate about what is going on in the Orange County jails is over," 
Goethals said. "We are not going to spend a lot of time going down that rabbit 
hole."

(source: voiceofoc.org)

WASHINGTON:

It's time to abolish the death penalty

The time is right. The time is now. This issue has been discussed for more than 
20 years yet this inhumane, barbaric action still exists.

The issue came before the state Legislature this session but, disappointingly, 
never passed the committee despite encouragement by Gov. Jay Inslee and 
Attorney General Bob Ferguson. The death penalty dehumanizes us, encourages 
violence and is arbitrarily unjust. Do we want to stand with China, Saudi 
Arabia and other rogue nations in condoning the murder of human beings? We are 
just as bad as the criminal in this instance.

Capital punishment does not deter crime nor does it lower recidivism. It drains 
our resources and wastes tax dollars as well as wastes lives. Innocent people 
have been put to death. When Gov. Inslee placed a moratorium on executions in 
2014, he asked for public conversation. Let's keep the conversation going. 
Let's join other civilized nations who have abolished the death penalty. Let's 
do it now. The time is right. For more information visit the Fellowship of 
Reconciliation web site: olympiafor.org.

Sandra Ware, Olympia

(source: Letter to the Editor, The Olympian)

USA:

Here's Why The Feds Banned 2 States' Death Penalty Drugs----The FDA banned 
shipments of execution drugs states have been trying to get for months. 
BuzzFeed News obtained the letter that shows why.

On Thursday, the federal government formally blocked 2 shipments of a massive 
amount of execution drugs on their way to Texas and Arizona.

The decision to block the shipments came after months of legal arguments 
back-and-forth between the states and the Food and Drug Administration. In 
announcing the conclusion, the FDA did not include its full decision or the 
reasons it came to its conclusion that the drugs can't enter the United States.

But the full decision shows the FDA said its hands were tied. BuzzFeed News 
obtained a redacted copy on Friday through an open records request.

In the decision, the FDA pointed to a 2012 court decision that requires the 
government block shipments of sodium thiopental, an outdated anesthetic, when 
the shipments appear to violate the law.

The states argued "that [the case] was 'wrongly decided,'" FDA importer 
Alexander Lopez wrote to Texas. "But FDA is bound by the terms of the order 
issued by the District Court in that case."

"We interpret the order to mean what it says: namely, that FDA is required to 
refuse entry to thiopental produced abroad when it appears that the thiopental 
is misbranded or an unapproved new drug."

There are no longer any FDA-approved manufacturers of sodium thiopental. Years 
ago, the sole supplier stopped making the drug because states were using it in 
lethal injections.

So in 2015, the states turned to a man in India who has made more than $100,000 
selling execution drugs to states that have never been able to use his 
products. He placed a label on the vials that carries the disclaimer that they 
are "For law enforcement purpose only." Texas and Arizona argued the drugs 
should be allowed in due to a law enforcement exception.

The FDA responded that a law enforcement exception can't apply, because the 
drugs will still be used on humans.

"The law enforcement exemption could not have been intended to apply to lethal 
injection, because FDA issued the regulation ... in 1956, well before any state 
used lethal injection as a method of execution," Lopez wrote.

If states want to import the drug, they could attempt to have the drug approved 
- a process that could take years. They argued approving a drug for lethal 
injection would be absurd, as the approval process requires clinical trials and 
testing - something that has not been done for lethal injection.

"Here, it is not absurd to suggest that the [law] requires a drug to be shown 
to be safe and effective for use under the conditions suggested in its 
labeling," Lopez wrote.

"There are numerous situations where it is difficult to design appropriate 
clinical trials, such as testing a treatment for anthrax infection or plague. 
In such cases, FDA regulations may allow flexibility, or trials may differ from 
what scientists generally envision, but FDA's statutory authority remains the 
same."

If the states wanted to import the drugs, the FDA said they either needed to 
get the drug approved, or go to court to lift the 2012 order.

Litigation seems likely. Over the past year and a half, both states have 
indicated publicly that they would sue if the drugs were denied. Texas has 
requested the FDA give them time to seek a court order before the drugs are 
destroyed or returned to India. The FDA said the states have 90 days to export 
or destroy the drugs.

(source: buzzfeed.com)

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

The Fight for Disability Rights Must Extend to Death Row----Why didn't more 
disability rights groups work to stop the execution of Ledell Lee in Arkansas?

Thursday night the state of Arkansas executed Ledell Lee. Lee was sentenced in 
1995 for the murder of Debra Reese in a trial marked by numerous examples of 
the unequal treatment that the most vulnerable defendants routinely experience 
in the legal system.

During the trial, Lee's lawyer was so drunk he literally started babbling the 
words "blah blah blah." The judge and prosecutor were having a sexual affair at 
the time, and would later marry. Microscopic analysis of hair found at the 
scene seemed to match Lee's, but the American Civil Liberties Union says that 
the "unsophisticated" method of analysis used in the case has been determined 
to be scientifically unsound. Both the ACLU and the Innocence Project sought 
stays of execution until a DNA test could be performed. Lee has always 
maintained his innocence. They have no evidence one way or another as to what 
that DNA test would have shown. The point is: neither did the state of 
Arkansas.

Like DNA testing, science only helps if states choose to apply it.

Lee was also disabled. He had fetal alcohol syndrome, a condition that can lead 
to significant intellectual disability. The extent of this incapacity, like his 
DNA, was never tested. It is possible, according again to the ACLU, that his 
disability exempted him from the death penalty under the Supreme Court decision 
in Atkins v. Virginia, a decision that excluded people with intellectual 
disabilities from execution. Furthermore, as I wrote for Pacific Standard a few 
weeks ago, in Moore v. Texas, the Court had explicitly endorsed the principle 
that determination of disability should be held to the best practices of the 
scientific community, rather than relying on guesswork or bias. Moore v. Texas 
is a good ruling, but, like DNA testing, science only helps if states choose to 
apply it.

Was Lee sufficiently disabled - a terrible framing, but that's what the law 
requires - to have his life spared? We don't know. His lawyer did not pursue 
that angle of defense. Courts from Arkansas to Washington, D.C., ultimately 
refused requests from the ACLU and the Innocence Project to make such a 
determination before the execution.

Arkansas is in a rush to kill people. The state's lethal injection drugs are 
expiring. Some of the condemned will be guilty, but not all. Some of the 
condemned will be disabled, but not all. The violence of the state always falls 
hardest on those multiply marginalized by otherness, whether race, class, 
gender identity, disability, religion, or other categories of difference.

The Supreme Court Sets a New Precedent on the Death Penalty and Disability

I cover the disability rights community. Well-resourced organizations need to 
get more involved in fighting for the Ledell Lees of America. The Arc, an 
organization that promotes and protects the human rights of people with 
intellectual and developmental disabilities, sent a clemency letter to Governor 
Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas. More groups should emulate the Arc's commitment to 
serving the most marginalized disabled Americans. Most other well-funded and 
-connected disability rights organizations and leaders, though, said nothing. 
They aren't focused on the death penalty. Lee is not the most telegenic figure 
around which to galvanize sympathetic fundraising. You can't have a telethon - 
not that telethons are so great - for the Ledell Lees of this world. The 
silence of the movement, focused on sympathy for cute kids, not protection for 
convicted men, reveals their priorities.

It is precisely at the margins of society, in case of violence and abuse at 
both state and private hands, where our movement must concentrate our efforts. 
The fight for disability rights goes on. But not for Ledell Lee.

(source: David Perry, Pacific Standard Magazine)

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

Gorsuch casts death-penalty vote in one of his first Supreme Court cases

Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch cast his first consequential vote 
Thursday night, siding with the court's other 4 conservatives in denying a stay 
request from Arkansas death row inmates facing execution.

Hours later, the state executed one of the men, the 1st lethal injection 
carried out there since 2005.