[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENN., IND., OKLA., IDAHO, NEV.

[Rick Halperin]

July 18




TENNESSEE----impending execution

As Irick execution draws near, death penalty opponents to gather in 
Knoxville----The challenge is led by 33 inmates on Tennessee's death row, who 
sued the state in Davidson County Chancery Court.



As the state of Tennessee prepares to put to death Knoxville's Billy Ray Irick, 
those opposed to executing mentally ill inmates are gathering here Wednesday.

"Join other concerned Tennesseans to hear from a panel of experts who will 
share their perspectives about the continued execution of individuals with 
severe mental illness in our state," says the website for the Tennessee 
Alliance for the Severe Mental Illness Exclusion (TASMIE), which is sponsoring 
the gathering.

The group has pushed for an exception for capital defendants suffering from 
severe mental illnesses to spare them from the death penalty.

Irick, 59, was convicted of raping and murdering 7-year-old Paula Dyer in 1985. 
He is scheduled to be executed Aug. 9.

'Too Ill to Execute' Entitled, "Too Ill to Execute: A Conversation about Severe 
Mental Illness and the Death Penalty," the event is scheduled for noon-1:15 
p.m. Wednesday at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, at 2931 
Kingston Pike.

Irick's defense said he was suffering a psychotic break when he raped and 
murdered the child, and has no memory of doing it. His childhood, fraught with 
behavioral issues, came to light years after his conviction.

"Irick has experienced a lifelong, severe, well-documented mental illness that 
included a 10-month in-patient stay at a psychiatric hospital when he was just 
8 years old," wrote TASMIE in a news release

. Panelists at Wednesday's discussion will include: Vanderbilt psychiatrist 
Jeff Stovall; Susanne Bales, a public defender; and Ben Harrington, CEO of the 
Mental Health Association of East Tennessee.

The panel is one of a series of events planned to take place before the 
scheduled execution, including 1 set for July 25 in Brentwood, Tennessee. That 
event, at Otter Creek Church, 409 Franklin Road, will begin with a 6 p.m. 
reception.

Stovall is also scheduled to speak in Brentwood along with these panelists: 
Christopher Slobogin, a law professor from Vanderbilt Law School; and Tom 
Starling, CEO of the Mental Health America of Middle Tennessee.

What is TASMIE?

TASMIE consists of mental health advocacy groups, criminal justice reform 
organizations, and others including Tennessee Mental Health Consumers' 
Association, Mental Health America of Middle Tennessee, NAMI Tennessee, 
Tennessee Psychiatric Association, and Tennessee Disability Coalition.

TASMIE defines severe mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association 
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which identifies 5 diagnoses: 
"schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, major depression 
with psychosis and/or delusional disorder."

Tennessee has carried out 6 executions since the death penalty was reinstated 
44 years ago in 1974.

The last execution took place almost 9 years ago, in 2009. Tennessee has 
sentenced 1 person to death in the last 5 years.

(source: Knoxville News Sentinel)

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

Bishops Exhort Tennessee's Governor To Stop Executions----With Billy Ray Irick 
scheduled to die August 9, Tennessee's Roman Catholic bishops wrote Gov. Bill 
Haslam, asking him to halt executions.



With the state scheduled to carry out the death penalty for the 1st time in 9 
years next month, Tennessee's 3 Roman Catholic bishops urged Gov. Bill Haslam 
to stop executions.

Bishops J. Mark Spalding of Nashville, Martin Holley of Memphis and Richard 
Stika of Knoxville wrote Haslam a letter, saying they "urge you to use your 
authority as governor to put an end to the fast-track executions planned for 
later this year."

"It is within your power to establish your legacy as a governor of Tennessee 
who did not preside over an execution on your watch," the trio wrote.

Billy Ray Irick, who was convicted in 1986 for the rape and murder of 
7-year-old Paula Dyer, is scheduled to die August 9. More than 30 death-row 
inmates filed a lawsuit earlier this year challenging the state's method of 
execution, a three-drug cocktail that begins with midazolam, a sedative experts 
say may not be strong enough to counter the pain caused by the paralytic 
vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride, which stops the heart. Experts liken 
the pain of those drugs to being burned or buried alive. The case is currently 
at trial.

In their letter, the bishops recall the role played by the late Pope John Paul 
II - since canonized - in commuting the sentence of Missouri's Darrell Mease 
during a papal visit to St. Louis in 1999.

"At that time, the pope called for the end to the death penalty as cruel and 
unnecessary," they wrote. "He said that it is simply not necessary as the only 
means to protect society while still providing a just punishment for those who 
break civil laws. Rather than serving as a path to justice, the death penalty 
contributes to the growing disrespect for human life."

Though the Catholic Church is widely considered abolitionist on the death 
penalty, the church's position is more nuanced, despite the strong 
pronouncements by both John Paul II and current Pope Francis against capital 
punishment. In his 1995 encyclical "Evangelium Vitae," John Paul re-affirmed 
long-standing Catholic teaching that "execution is only appropriate in cases of 
absolute necessity, in other words when it would not be possible otherwise to 
defend society," but he then wrote that improvements to the penal system makes 
such instances extraordinarily rare.

In the catechism, the church teaches "if bloodless means are sufficient to 
defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the 
safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means."

In any event, the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops campaigns for the end of 
the death penalty and the Holy See's delegation to the United Nations gave its 
"full support" to the U.N.'s efforts to end executions.

Tennessee has executed 6 people since the Supreme Court re-instated the death 
penalty in Gregg v. Georgia in 1976. There are currently 62 men and 1 woman on 
death row.

(source: patch.com)








INDIANA:

April's mother to ask prosecutors to seek death penalty



Janet Tinsley, the mother of slain 8-year-old April Tinsley, said Tuesday she 
will push prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the man accused of killing 
her daughter.

"If he does get the electric chair or the gas chamber or whatever, I'm going to 
be there and I'm going to be pushing the button," Tinsley said.

John D. Miller, 59, was arrested Sunday at his home in Grabill and charged with 
the girl's 1988 murder. Police said they used DNA evidence and genealogy data 
to track him down.

Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards held a news conference Tuesday to thank 
investigators for work on the case. She would not say whether she will seek the 
death penalty for Miller.

(source: The Journal Gazette)








OKLAHOMA:

Puzzle of Nitrogen Execution Could Present Issues for State



A tank filled with liquid nitrogen is seen outside of an Oklahoma City business 
that sells nitrogen for various commercial uses.

The condemned man enters the room where he will draw his last breath.

He will be restrained in some way, perhaps strapped to the T-shaped platform 
where other offenders have been executed by injection.

He may have taken a sedative or will be given one in the room. But he likely 
won't be too groggy.

The prisoner may then have a mask or a plastic hood or bag strapped to his 
face. Colorless, odorless nitrogen gas will stream into the mask from a tank 
similar to those used to inflate helium balloons. The gas could come from any 
one of thousands of distributors or manufacturers nationwide.

If all goes according to plan, the man will be dead within minutes, oblivious 
to the fact that his blood-oxygen level is plummeting and he will soon pass 
out.

The above steps are an approximation, based on research, of how the state of 
Oklahoma could use nitrogen inhalation to carry out future executions, becoming 
the 1st state to do so.

Yet uncertainty surrounds how the state will obtain the gas, how it will force 
inmates to inhale it, what will happen should they hold their breath or resist, 
and how to ensure guards and visitors are safe from its toxic fumes, all of 
which could open up legal and public-perception challenges.

State officials insist that executions using nitrogen hypoxia will be humane, 
although details have been scarce about how the 1st nitrogen execution would 
look. At a March press conference in which they announced the change of method, 
Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Joe Allbaugh and Attorney General 
Mike Hunter contended it would be free of the problems that have plagued the 
state's use of lethal injection.

Allbaugh declined an interview about his agency's ongoing work on an execution 
protocol, which will spell out in detail the policies and procedures for 
carrying out a nitrogen execution. Allbaugh said in March he hoped to have a 
preliminary protocol in 90 to 120 days, but recently told StateImpact Oklahoma 
that the effort will take longer than expected.

"We are continuing to develop the protocol in collaboration with the Attorney 
General's office," Corrections Department spokesman Matt Elliott said in a 
statement to Oklahoma Watch. "We feel confident that we will develop a protocol 
that provides an effective and humane execution method for the state of 
Oklahoma."

Only 2 other states, Mississippi and Alabama, have passed laws allowing 
nitrogen executions, but neither is developing a protocol yet.

Meanwhile, attorneys for death row inmates are poised to scrutinize the 
protocol and challenge any uncertainty or hint of cruelty in its procedures or 
science. That could delay the state's next execution by months as attorneys 
take the matter to court, reminding judges that Oklahoma botched 1 execution in 
2014 and used the wrong drug in another one in 2015.

If there are complications in using nitrogen, they will likely arise at crucial 
steps in the protocol, which will be written to avoid violating the Eighth 
Amendment's ban against cruel and unusual punishment or creating a spectacle 
that the public and elected leaders would not accept. The entire nation - much 
of the world, in fact - will be watching.

At the March news conference, Hunter said the state will forge ahead because 
Oklahomans favor capital punishment and families of murder victims deserve 
justice.

"This is the safest, the best and the most effective method available, and 
we're moving forward," he said.

Acquiring Nitrogen

Nitrogen is everywhere in more ways than one.

The chemical element makes up 78 % of the earth's atmosphere. Discovered in the 
late 18th century, nitrogen is non-reactive, meaning, unlike oxygen, it usually 
won't lead to combustion.

Nitrogen has many uses. It is in fertilizer, ammonia, nitric acid, nylon and 
dyes, and is used to preserve food, cool semiconductors, make ice cream and 
fill tires.

At compressed gas supply stores, it's common to find dozens of canisters of 
nitrogen on the grounds, waiting to be delivered to restaurants, spas and other 
businesses.

Obtaining nitrogen for executions would appear easy for the state, which, like 
others, has run into problems finding companies willing to provide the drugs 
for lethal injection.

But public and legal pressure could complicate acquiring the gas. While many 
states, including Oklahoma, have laws protecting the confidentiality of 
providers of prescription drugs and supplies used in executions, lawyers and 
death-penalty opponents have pressed to get and publicize suppliers' names. 
More companies now refuse to sell drugs for use in executions.

Preparing the Inmate

The Corrections Department's former protocol for lethal injection, from 2014, 
outlines a process involving more than 10 teams made up of at least 50 people. 
Those include the command team, the restraint team, the special operations 
team, the intravenous team and the traffic control, witness escort and victim 
services teams.

Most of those could easily fit into a nitrogen protocol, as procedures before 
and after the execution would likely remain the same. Among those are receipt 
of an execution date order; invitations to witnesses; the offender's 35-day 
notification packet; the last meal; the final statement, and the post-death 
monitoring of staff's psychological responses.

But some procedures could change in subtle or even dramatic ways.

One area is restraint.

In the previous protocol, restraint team members secured the person to the 
execution table with straps. To deliver the drugs, primary and backup catheters 
were to be inserted. In the bungled execution of Clayton Lockett, 3 drugs were 
injected: midazolam, a sedative; vecuronium bromide, a paralyzing drug, and 
potassium chloride, which stops the heart. Lockett writhed and moaned, and 
investigators later determined an IV had been improperly placed, causing drugs 
to enter surrounding tissue rather than the bloodstream.

In theory, use of nitrogen would not involve medical professionals or IV 
insertions.

That's what Hunter said in March and what a study on nitrogen execution - 
prepared by Michael Copeland, a professor at East Central University in Ada, 
and his colleagues - found in 2014.

"The administration of a death sentence via nitrogen hypoxia does not require 
the use of a complex medical procedure or pharmaceutical products," said the 
study, prepared for a legislative hearing. Only a hood and a tank of the inert 
gas would be needed, the study said.

But a key question is whether offenders would need a sedative to reduce the 
chances that they thrash about and disrupt the process. The 2014 protocol 
stipulated that offenders be offered a mild sedative no less than 4 hours 
before the execution, ensuring they arrive in the execution chamber fully 
conscious. After being strapped down, the person was allowed to make a final 
statement for witnesses to hear.

Could a mask or hood for nitrogen delivery be installed firmly over the face or 
head without sedation? Would the person's head instead need to be secured? Or 
would medical personnel have to insert an IV to inject a sedative, which could 
create similar risks as before?

The Execution

Conducting an execution is neither simple nor easy, particularly with a new 
method that has no track record, say capital punishment attorneys and others 
who track death penalty issues.

Death from nitrogen comes not from what's in the gas, but what isn't. Nitrogen 
is air without oxygen, yet a person dying from it doesn't feel as if they are 
suffocating. They still breathe in and expel carbon dioxide but may begin to 
feel lightheaded, fatigued and have impaired judgment.

Several breaths can render a person unconscious, with death following in 4to 5 
minutes, according to Copeland's report. That's based on experiences of people 
who have used nitrogen for suicides.

Janis Landis, president of the nonprofit Final Exit Network, which promotes 
assisted suicide rights, said the physiology of nitrogen is "very well 
understood."

"It's so dangerous precisely because it is quick and painless," she said. "The 
evidence is there."

Death may not occur quickly when nitrogen gas is diluted, however. Copeland's 
report noted that masks not tightly sealed over a person's face could delay the 
onset of unconsciousness and death because of oxygen getting in. Nitrogen also 
is sold in different grades, or levels of purity.

Arizona attorney Dale Baich, a federal public defender who represents Richard 
Glossip, an Oklahoma death row inmate whose execution was postponed after the 
botched Lockett execution, said he had little comment yet on nitrogen 
executions because of many unresolved details.

"We don't know who is going to be doing this," Baich said. "Are the folks 
competent to perform this procedure? There are too many unknowns to really 
comment other than to say it's not as simple as the state would lead the public 
to believe."

Don Knight, another attorney representing Glossip, cited scenarios that could 
complicate using nitrogen and could open up the method to constitutional 
challenge.

"What if the person struggles and fights?" he said. "What if you can't get the 
mask on?

"Are you going to force the person's head into the helmet? How is that going to 
look?"

Robert Dunham, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information 
Center, said even with the eventual guidelines in place, there will be 
imponderables.

"How do you ensure that the nitrogen won't leak out or that oxygen won't leak 
in?" he said. "Those are all the types of things that they will have to 
address. It's not like a medical procedure with a patient who's cooperating."

Protection Concerns

Although nitrogen dissipates quickly in the air, proximity to it can kill. 
Additionally, nothing alerts people to its presence because the gas is odorless 
and tasteless.

Because of the risks, a specially trained prison guard or health care worker 
would have to place a tight mask over the inmate's face.

It's unclear whether the person will do that before or after the inmate enters 
the death chamber and is strapped to the special table. The flow of nitrogen 
would have to be controlled so that it can't escape and endanger prison 
personnel and observers should the inmate refuse to breathe. The tank would 
have to be placed in or near the execution chamber or elsewhere in the prison 
and connected via a gas line.

Pure nitrogen is extremely potent and has been fatal in industrial settings.

In May 2017, for instance, a worker in a Houston auto body shop, preparing to 
paint a car, died after accidentally hooking his respirator to a nitrogen hose 
instead of the compressed air hose, Federal Occupational Safety and Health 
records show.

Public Perception

Over decades, execution methods preferred by states have changed, moving in 
many cases from hanging, electrocution, the gas chamber or firing squad to 
lethal injection, although some states still allow or use the other methods.

18 states have abolished the death penalty. The number of executions has 
plummeted over the past 2 decades, from 98 in 1999 to 23 in 2017, according to 
the Death Penalty Information Center.

Jennifer Moreno, a staff attorney with the Death Penalty Clinic at Berkeley Law 
in California, said that when lethal injection emerged for executions, the 
government pitched it as a reliable method that could be trusted.

"As we've seen over the years, that hasn't turned out to be true," she said.

Public perception could play a factor in acceptance of nitrogen execution. If a 
condemned inmate enters the chamber wearing a mask or plastic hood or the 
guards must wear gas masks, will the method be perceived negatively? After 
Oklahoma announced its change to nitrogen, critics compared the proposal to 
Nazi gas chambers.

In Oklahoma, 47 inmates are on death row in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in 
McAlester. The state has not carried out the death penalty in 3 1/2 years, 
since Charles Warner was executed by lethal injection after being convicted in 
1997 for the sexual assault and murder of an 11-year-old girl.

A 2016 poll by SoonerPoll found that a majority of Oklahomans support the death 
penalty, although it also found that most would support abolishing it if a life 
sentence without parole, property forfeiture and restitution to victim's 
families were required instead. That year, 66 % of voters approved State 
Question 776, which amended the state constitution to affirm the death penalty 
and the right to switch execution methods.

With nitrogen inhalation, however, uncertainties remain, Moreno said. "Just 
like lethal injection, the devil is going to be in the details."

(source: oklahomawatch.org)








IDAHO:

Judge: Psychologists can visit man charged in mass stabbing



An Idaho judge says psychologists can have jailhouse access to a man charged 
with murder and several other felonies in connection with a knife attack at an 
apartment complex.

Timmy Kinner, 30, is charged with 1st-degree murder in connection with the 
stabbing death of 3-year-old Ruya Kadir. He is also charged with multiple 
counts of aggravated battery in connection with the June 30 attack at the Boise 
apartment complex that injured 8 others.

Kinner is being held without bond at the Ada County Jail, but he appeared in 
court by video on Monday during a motion hearing.

"This is sabotage, your honor," Kinner told 4th District Court Magistrate Judge 
Michael Oths before his microphone was turned off. A woman in the front row of 
the courtroom's gallery shouted "shut up" at Kinner and began weeping.

Kinner had previously asked to represent himself, but a judge opted to appoint 
him defense attorneys anyway. If convicted Kinner could face the death penalty, 
though prosecutors haven't yet decided if they will seek that option.

One of Kinner's defense attorneys, David Smethers, asked the judge to allow 
them to access Kinner in jail. "We cannot properly represent the defendant 
unless we have access to him," he told Oths.

Last week the judge granted a defense attorney motion to allow that access and 
to let psychologists visit with Kinner, but Smethers said he wanted to ensure 
the access continued in the future.

Kinner has had 5 behavioral violations at the jail, Ada County Sheriff's Office 
spokesman Patrick Orr said. Most were for breaking rules or failing to follow 
jail staff commands, he said. But in one Incident, he allegedly verbally 
threatened violence to a jail employee, Orr said.

Kinner's preliminary hearing is set for Aug. 14.

(source: Associated Press)








NEVADA:

Scott Dozier being tortured by anti-death penalty zealots



The fiasco surrounding the death penalty for Scott Dozier is nothing more than 
cruel and unusual torture of the man. He has several times made it clear that 
he wants to be executed rather than spend the rest of his life in a cage. (I 
can understand that desire.) The ACLU is not doing him or anyone else any 
favors by finding ways to delay this execution.

The argument that the particular cocktail of drugs has never been used before 
and therefore should not be used now is totally specious. Every cocktail of 
execution drugs had to be used for the 1st time somewhere. Further, allowing 
the manufacturer of the drug to specify how its drug is to used - regardless of 
a physician's approval - is stretching the First Amendment a bit far.

I have never understood why human executions cannot be carried out with the 
same drugs that are used to put old and terminally sick animals to death. We 
call that "putting our pets down." I have had to have two dogs "put down" and 
have watched the procedure and it is quick and the animal does not suffer. 
Whether or not the death penalty is constitutional should not be debated when a 
prisoner has quite clearly stated that he wants to be put to death.

What is going on now with respect to Dozier is torture, nothing more or less.

Walter F. Wegst, Las Vegas

(source: Letter to the Editor, Las Vegas Review-Journal)