[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., FLA., ALA., LA., OHIO, KY., TENN., MO., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

November 6





NORTH CAROLINA:

Suspects in 2 Henderson County accused killers will face death penalty at trial


Accused killers Terry Brank and Anthony Moore both had hearings Monday in their 
domestic and family violence cases. News 13 was there, and learned that each of 
the accused will face the death penalty in trial.

Brank is accused of killing Laura Cox with an edged weapon in their home in 
July.

Major Frank Stout told News 13 that there were 13 calls for service made to the 
home the year Cox died.

Not all of them were domestic related, but, Stout said, investigators were 
quite familiar with the address.

Since 2005, Stout says there were 54 total calls for service. 15 of those were 
domestic related, though not all of them involved Brank.

Cox's frend Vicky Seelig said Brank was gone from the home for more than a 
month, but came back at the end of May, with no protective order on file at the 
clerk’s office to keep him away.

Moore is accused of throwing gasoline on Teresa Stallings and lighting her on 
fire -- resulting in her death 6 months later.

Stallings, 44, died at the Burn Center at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem in 
July.

"She got in an argument with her boyfriend and she was going out of the house 
to leave and he threw gasoline on her," Stallings' sister Andrea Blankenship 
told News 13 this past August. "And she didn't know what it was. And she got in 
her car, and he lit her on fire in her car,."

Stallings fought for her life.

"She was in the ICU at Wake Forest, and they did 3, 4 surgeries a week, skin 
grafting, because she lost her ear, her breast, her lips," Blankenship said.

The family told News 13 they hoped the murder charge would bring some justice 
for Stallings, and keep Moore off the streets.

(source: WLOS news)




FLORIDA:

Man exonerated in Seminole County double murder after 10 years on death 
row----Clemente Aguirre-Jarquin 'nearly executed for a crime he didn't commit'


All charges have been dropped against a man who spent more than 14 years in 
jail and a decade on Florida's death row for the 2004 murders of his Altamonte 
Springs neighbors, according to State Attorney Phil Archer.

Clemente Aguirre-Jarquin was arrested at 24 years old and received the death 
penalty in 2006 for the stabbing deaths of his neighbors, Cheryl Williams and 
her mother, Carol Bareis.

Aguirre, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras, found their bodies, but 
didn't report it in fear of being deported, he told authorities. The victims 
had been stabbed dozens of times. While checking for a pulse, Aguirre's 
attorneys said he got their blood on his clothing.

The Innocence Project, which works to exonerate wrongly convicted people, took 
on Aguirre’s case in 2011.

In 2016, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously overturned Aguirre’s conviction 
and death sentence based on new evidence that included DNA testing of multiple 
pieces of crime scene evidence that  implicated another suspect: the victims’ 
daughter and granddaughter, Samantha Williams. Williams later confessed that 
she committed the murders to numerous friends and acquaintances who had no 
connection to Aguirre, according to the Innocence Project.

Archer planned to seek the death penalty again in a re-trial, but Aguirre's 
lawyers presented the State Attorney's Office with additional evidence 
"undermining Williams’ alibi and further implicating her emerged in recent 
pretrial proceedings," according to a news release.

On Monday, the State Attorney's Office announced it was dropping the 
prosecution of Aguirre, now 38. His 2nd trial was set to begin this week.

"While the State has serious concerns about the credibility of Mr. 
Aguirre-Jarquin's statement of facts regarding his participation in this 
incident, the State does not believe further incarceration of Mr. 
Aguirre-Jarquin is warranted or justified at this time," a spokesperson for the 
State Attorney's Office said. "We appreciate the efforts of his attorney's in 
presenting this new evidence."

     "From the bottom of my heart, this humble immigrant thanks you." Clemente 
Aguirre-Jarquin https://t.co/64oELedXP3 pic.twitter.com/U1LmTazaHM — Innocence 
Project (@innocence) November 5, 2018

Williams has not been charged in the deaths of her mother and grandmother.

A spokesperson for the state attorney's office said prosecutors "will be 
meeting with the Seminole County Sheriff's Office over the coming weeks to 
review the evidence and determine if there are any investigative avenues that 
can be pursued, or any further action to be taken in this case."

Aguirre's exoneration hearing Monday in Seminole County was attended by more 
than a dozen lawyers who worked on his case over the last decade, along with 
his 2 sisters and friends.

After the hearing Aguirre thanked his legal team.

“I have only forgiveness in my heart for those who did wrong to me," Aguirre 
said.

“Mr. Aguirre was nearly executed for a crime he didn’t commit,” one of 
Aguirre’s lead trial attorneys, Joshua Dubin, said. “While we are overjoyed 
that his ordeal is finally over, the case of Clemente Aguirre should serve as a 
chilling cautionary tale about how dangerous it is when there is a rush to 
judgment in a capital case."

There is an immigration hold on Aguirre's jail file preventing his release.

(source: clickorlando.com)


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


Clemente Aguirre-Jarquin: Florida Death Row Exoneration #28

Circuit Judge John D. Galluzzo has dismissed all charges and exonerated 
Clemente Aguirre-Jarquin after prosecutors announced today, in the middle of 
jury selection, that they will not proceed with
his retrial. Clemente spent nearly 15 years behind bars — including 10 on 
Florida's death row.

Kudos to The Innocence Project and the dedicated team of attorneys who donated 
their time and worked for years to make this possible.

“Mr. Aguirre was nearly executed for a crime he didn’t commit,” said Joshua 
Dubin, one of Aguirre’s lead trial attorneys.

This is the 28th death row exoneration in Florida since executions resumed in 
the 1970's. One wonders how many more innocent people remain on Florida's death 
row and how many other innocent men and women have already been executed. We 
will never know for sure. By state statute, the evidence is destroyed after an 
execution.

Please support the statewide organized grassroots effort to end executions in 
Florida.

Please share this message with others. Only with your help can the work be done 
and progress made.

(source: Mark Elliott, Executive Director Floridians for Alternatives to the 
Death Penalty----www.fadp.org)





ALABAMA:

Legal battle centers on release of Alabama execution details


A federal appeals court is considering whether a lower court judge was wrong to 
rule that Alabama's execution protocol should be unsealed at the request of 
news outlets.

U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre ruled in May that the public has "a common law 
right of access" to a redacted version of the state's lethal injection protocol 
and related court records. The state appealed, and a three-judge panel of the 
11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta on Monday heard arguments in the 
appeal.

The Associated Press, The Montgomery Advertiser and the Alabama Media Group had 
asked the court in March to unseal records in a lawsuit brought by death row 
inmate Doyle Lee Hamm. Alabama prison officials in February halted Hamm's 
scheduled execution at the last minute when the lethal injection team was 
unable to connect an intravenous line to his veins.

Alabama has for years refused to release the details of its execution process 
and where it gets the drugs used in lethal injections.

The public has a great interest in understanding how Alabama carries out 
executions and the unsealing of the documents would likely "promote 
understanding of a historically significant event," Bowdre wrote in a 19-page 
memorandum ordering the release of the records. She wrote that the state could 
keep secret some information, like the names of low-level prison employees 
involved in executions.

Hamm's attorneys had sued to block his execution, saying his veins were so 
damaged by lymphoma, hepatitis and past drug use that it would be extremely 
difficult to execute him. As part of that litigation, the state provided Hamm's 
attorneys with a redacted copy of the execution protocol after securing a 
protective order from the judge to keep it confidential.

Stephen Frisby, a lawyer for the state argued in court that while the execution 
protocol was provided to Hamm's attorneys and the judge, it was never attached 
to a filing in the case and therefore shouldn't be considered a judicial record 
that is subject to release.

Bowdre had concluded in her order that it was a judicial record because she 
"needed and relied upon" that document to decide Hamm's case. The reason it 
wasn't formally filed is because the parties and the court were rushing to 
address Hamm's claim before his scheduled execution date, she wrote.

Frisby argued that even if the execution protocol is subject to the common-law 
right of access, the state's interest in keeping it secret for security reasons 
outweighs the interest of news outlets to access it.

Catherine Martinez, representing the news outlets, acknowledged that the state 
has legitimate security interests but argued that redactions can eliminate that 
problem. The balancing test between the parties' interests starts with the 
presumption that judicial records are open to the public, she said.

Frisby also argued that the news outlets shouldn't have been allowed to 
intervene in Hamm's case because they waited until the case had been dismissed. 
But Martinez noted that their motion was filed the same day that the case was 
dismissed and that the court's jurisdiction over a sealing order extends beyond 
the end of the case.

The panel of judges grilled Frisby, repeatedly asking why an execution protocol 
should be exempt from release and whether the public is entitled to know what 
the judge considers when deciding a case.

But Judge Gerald Tjoflat cautioned Martinez not to take the harsh questioning 
of the state as an indication that her side had a leg up. The judges asked 
Martinez about the timing of the new outlets' motion to intervene in the case 
and the balancing test judges use to determine whether to unseal documents.

(source: Associated Press)




LOUISIANA:

Conservative-led effort to abolish death penalty headed to Louisiana, activists 
say


While abolition of the death penalty has long been considered a liberal policy 
goal, a new group of conservatives activists say it fundamentally conflicts 
with their view of a limited government, and they are now organizing an effort 
to end its practice in Louisiana.

In 2013, the number of Republican lawmakers proposing legislation to end the 
death penalty in their states more than doubled from single digits to 20, and 
doubled again in in 2016 to 40, according to a group called Conservatives 
Concerned About the Death Penalty, which sponsored a forum on the issue 
Thursday evening at Tulane University. Likewise, nearly a third of the 
co-sponsors of bills abolishing the death penalty were Republicans in 2016 and 
2017, up from nearly zero a decade ago, the group’s research shows.

Louisiana is among those states, with legislation to eliminate the death 
penalty in 2017 sponsored by Republican state Sen. Dan Claitor of Baton Rouge, 
whose conserative bona fides include honors from the Louisiana Family Forum. 
Claitor’s stated views that the death penalty is expensive and ineffective fall 
right in line with the thinking being adopted by many other conservaties, said 
Hannah Cox, a national organizer for Conservatives Against the Death Penalty.

Cox was still strongly in support of the death penalty when she first began 
working in conservative politics, she told the crowd at the Tulane panel. But 
when asked to research a bill regarding the death penalty for the mentally ill, 
she began to examine the policy’s effects for the first time, and became 
convinced that it contradicted her conservative principles.

“People who have never been to prison think that life is the most valuable 
thing they have, but it’s actually freedom,” Cox said, noting that many 
death-row inmates give up on the appeals process and submit to execution as a 
way of ending their incarceration. “When you lose your freedom, you realize 
that.”

Michael Cahoon, a local organizer for the progressive Promise for Justice 
Initiative, said he was asked to join the penalty to provide the “liberal” 
perspective on the issue. But raised as a Catholic opposed to it for religious 
reasons, Cahoon said he feels the issue fits clearly as a conservative one.

“I actually think the conservative case against the death penalty is much more 
direct — a limit on government power,” Cahoon said.

Cox and Cahoon laid out a number of objections to the death penalty:

     It has great potential for error, possibly resulting in the government 
putting an innocent person to death. Nearly 1 in 10 people sentenced to death 
have subsequently been exonerated since the penalty was reinstated in the 
1970s, Cox said.

     It is too expensive, with millions spent by each death-penalty state on 
their cases every year that could be redirected into law-enforcement. Many 
critics of the justice system focus on the lengthy appeals process in 
death-penalty cases, which can drag on for decades. A study in North Carolina, 
however, showed that the 70 % of the cost was incurred during
the initial trial and sentencing phase, because the state must pay for so much 
more forensic testing and specialized experts to even seek the conviction.

     It is not a deterrent. States with the death penalty regularly see higher 
rates of violent crime than those without it. Meanwhile, most law-enforcement 
experts agree that the best deterrent to crime is the perceived likelihood of 
arrest — thoughts of eventual sentences are far more abstract and unlikely to 
play a role in a heated moment.

     It is applied seemingly at random. Many people say they support it only for 
the “worst of the worst,” but it is much more commonly applied to routine 
crimes. Many serial killers plead to life in prison, and the death-penalty was 
not even sought for 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, for example.

     It is racially biased — usually around the race of the victim, even moreso 
than the race of the criminal. The last time a white person was put to death in 
Louisiana for killing a black person was in 1752, Cahoon noted — and that was a 
slave considered property, so the sentence was actually applied for destruction 
of property, not for killing a person.

     That disparity, Cahoon said, shows that the implementation of the law 
implicitly values the lives of one racial group more than another — a direct 
contradiction of nearly anyone’s values imaginable.

     It does harm to victims of crime. A death-penalty trial is frequently the 
worst thing that can happen to crime victims, Cahoon said. Every development 
becomes front-page news, often for 2 decades while the lengthy appeals run 
their course.

     “A lot of people put the healing process on hold until the legal process is 
finished,” Cahoon said. “In the death penalty, that process could be 30 years. 
It could be never.”

The death-penalty opponents found few critics in their audience of 50, most of 
whom were college-aged. One man questioned whether isolating death-row inmates 
makes the general prison population safer, but Cahoon and Cox said that there 
is little evidence that the murders placed on death row are more dangerous than 
those who plead to life, and that better measures can be used to ensure safety 
in prisons anyway.

While some opponents of the death penalty envision a sweeping federal decision 
to repeal it, Cox said that Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty has 
decided that a state-by-state approach is more effective. For one thing, a 
single federal decision abolishing it could be overturned by a subsequent 
federal decision, essentially reinstating it yet again. State-level actions, by 
contrast, would have to be overturned individually.

The effort is also playing out in state legislatures — and must do so in 
Louisiana, Cahoon said, where the state Constitution does not lend itself to 
challenging the death penalty through a court decision. Claitor has already 
begun building allies for his work in Baton Rouge, however. His 2017 bill 
passed a Republican-majority committee, and both state Sen. J.P. Morrell and 
state Rep. Terry Landry (2 Democrats) have introduced similar bills — and 
activists predict the Catholic Church, opposed to the death penalty for 
decades, can be a particularly influential ally in the state.

“It’s not partisan, or bipartisan, even. It’s nonpartisan,” Cahoon said. 
“Especially in Louisiana, you have nonpartisan reasons that really bring people 
together.”

In order to support those efforts, Conservatives Concerned Against the Death 
Penalty is forming a chapter specifically for Louisiana, Cox said. They hope to 
have the structure in place by the end of the year, so they can begin work 
during next year’s legislative session.

(source: uptownmessenger.com)






OHIO:

U.S. Supreme Court won’t review Ohio death penalty law


Declining to hear an appeal challenging Ohio’s death penalty law,
the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for a Marion County court to 
sentence a man convicted of murder and rape in 1993 in Marion County.

By doing so, the justices chose not to review an Ohio Supreme Court decision 
last April holding that the state’s death penalty law does not violate the 
Constitution.

Instead, the Marion Court of Common Pleas can hold a hearing to determine 
whether Maurice Mason of Marion should be sentenced to death for the murder and 
rape of 19-year-old Robin Dennis.

Attorneys for Mason argued that Ohio’s death penalty law violated the 
Constitution because a judge — as opposed to a jury — imposed the sentence. The 
U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 struck down a Florida death penalty law in which a 
jury issued an advisory sentence, but a judge could rule for the death penalty.

Kort Gatterdam, a Columbus attorney representing Mason said he was 
“disappointed” the justices “not to take the case at this time. We were hopeful 
they would take a look at Ohio’s statute because it had the same flaws as 
Florida’s.”

(source: The Columbus Dispatch)


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


North Royalton man admits killing woman, daughters, as judges hear evidence in 
potential death-penalty case


A 3-judge panel began hearings Monday to decide whether to accept George 
Brinkman’s guilty plea to murder charges that make him eligible to face the 
death penalty in the grisly June 2017 slayings of a North Royalton mother and 
her 2 adult daughters.

Brinkman, 46, showed little emotion Monday as he admitted to murdering his 
longtime friend, 42-year-old Suzanne Taylor, and her 2 daughters who witnesses 
said looked up to Brinkman like a second father, Taylor Pifer, 21, and Kylie 
Pifer, 18.

Brinkman used a knife to slit Taylor’s throat, strangled Kylie Pifer with a 
telephone cord and smothered Taylor Pifer with a pillow, before placing their 
bodies in Taylor’s bed, investigators said.

When a person charged in a death-penalty case in Ohio wants to plead guilty, 
prosecutors must first present evidence to prove each charge the person wants 
to plead to is based in fact before a judicial panel can accept the plea and 
find that person guilty.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judges Peter J. Corrigan, Michael 
Shaughnessy and Timothy McCormick immediately began that hearing Monday after 
Brinkman said he wished to plead guilty.

Brinkman faces either execution, life in prison with no chance at parole or 
life with parole after 20, 25 or 30 years on the murder charges. He could face 
additional time behind bars on top of the life sentence as he also pleaded 
guilty to aggravated burglary, kidnapping and offenses against a human corpse 
charges in connection with the women’s deaths.

Brinkman is also accused of fatally shooting a Stark County couple in their 
home. That case will be tried separately in Summit County after the case that 
began Monday is wrapped up.

Corrigan, Shaughnessy and McCormick will preside over the hearings because 
Brinkman waived his right to have a jury make those decisions.

Thomas Conway, part of the team of defense lawyers representing Brinkman, said 
in court Monday that his client had offered several times to plead guilty and 
serve a life sentence with no chance at parole. But Cuyahoga County Prosecutor 
Michael O’Malley and his office refused to drop the pursuit of the death 
penalty.

Witnesses called on the 1st day of testimony illuminated Brinkman’s 
relationship with Taylor, and the discovery of the women’s bodies.

Brinkman and Taylor went to grade school together, and remained friends into 
adulthood, Taylor’s boyfriend, Scott Plymale, testified. Brinkman had no family 
and often needed a place to sleep, so Taylor opened up her home to him on 
holidays and cold nights, Plymale said. Brinkman helped with work around the 
house.

“She told me once that she wasn’t going to let a friend freeze to death because 
they didn’t have a place to stay,” Plymale said.

Brinkman drove a black cargo van with a red stripe down the side that the 
family referred to as the “A-Team van," and one year for Christmas Taylor 
Pifer’s boyfriend, Dale Kostar, outfitted the van with neon lights as a gift.

“She thought of [Brinkman] as another father,” Kostar said of his late 
girlfriend. “He would probably be one of the first persons they would call.”

On June 10, 2017, Taylor texted Plymale that she had not been feeling well and 
was going to take a nap, which Plymale said was out of character. That 
afternoon, Plymale helped one of the daughters after she got a flat tire at 
SouthPark Mall. He told Taylor that he was going to take her daughter to Sears 
to get her tire fixed, but Taylor called him on the phone and told Plymale to 
just send the girl home.

Plymale said he then went shopping and bought Taylor flowers because she was 
sick. He dropped them off at her home and noticed Brinkman’s van was backed up 
to the front window, he said. The doors were locked and all the windows were 
shut, which he found unusual because the house had no air conditioning and it 
was the summer. He put the flowers on the porch and left.

The next evening, after no one heard from Taylor or her daughters for more than 
24 hours, Kostar said he went to the house while he spoke to Plymale on the 
phone.

Kostar said he used his experience as a contractor to pick the lock and enter 
the home. He noticed the bouquet of roses that Plymale had left the day earlier 
on the kitchen table, and that Taylor’s bedroom door, which was always open, 
was closed and latched shut.

He opened the door, and saw what he could tell was Kylie Pifer’s arm hanging 
over the side of the bed from beneath the covers on her mother’s bed. He said 
he could tell there were more bodies under the blanket.

Plymale told Kostar to get out of the house, and then hung up and called 
police, who later found all three women’s bodies, face down and side-by-side, 
in the bed.

Sometime after the discovery, Kostar said he called Brinkman to inform him. 
Brinkman seemed surprised, sad and genuinely heartbroken from the news, Kostar 
said.

Police and the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office sealed off the house 
all week as part of the investigation. When the home was unsealed, Plymale 
said, he and other family friends and relatives came to clean the house and 
find the documents and paperwork. That’s when he noticed a lock of hair on top 
of a suitcase just outside Taylor’s bedroom door.

Taylor had long, flowing dark hair that stretched to her lower back, and she 
took pride in her locks, Plymale said.

Police came back to the home and found the woman’s hair strewn about the house, 
leading investigators to believe Brinkman had cut off Taylor’s hair before he 
took the knife to her throat.

The hearings are expected to last several days.

(source: cleveland.com)





KENTUCKY:

Murder suspect wants death penalty removed


The attorneys for a man suspected of killing a woman at her Russellville 
apartment is seeking to have the death penalty removed as a potential 
punishment.

Demetrius Roberson, 24, is charged with murder, attempted murder, 1st-degree 
robbery and 9 counts of 1st-degree wanton endangerment.

The charges stem from an Aug. 21, 2016, shooting in which Lexus Bell, 21, was 
killed at her apartment in front of several children, who were there in 
anticipation of traveling to a birthday party the next day, according to 
police.

Acting Logan County Commonwealth's Attorney Justin Crocker is seeking the death 
penalty for Roberson, who is currently incarcerated on an unrelated robbery 
conviction.

Roberson's attorneys, Michael Bufkin and Audrey Woosnam, filed three motions to 
exclude the death penalty on the grounds that the state's death penalty statute 
is unconstitutional.

Woosnam said in one motion that the state's death penalty law was drafted based 
on language in the Model Penal Code, a text published in 1962 by the American 
Law Institute that assists state legislatures in the setting of law relating to 
criminal penalties.

The death penalty statute was removed from the Model Penal Code in 2009, with 
members of the American Law Institute questioning the soundness of implementing 
capital punishment, and Woosnam argues that Kentucky's statute "is no longer 
consisting with evolving standards of decency" and violates Roberson's rights.

Woosnam seeks in another motion to declare the state death penalty 
unconstitutional, arguing that it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and 
noting that 20 states have abolished the death penalty.

No one in Kentucky has been executed since 2008, and a state court judge issued 
an injunction in 2010 preventing the state from carrying out further executions 
until new protocols regulating lethal injunction as a method of execution are 
implemented.

In a 3rd motion, Woosnam argues that the death penalty violates due process 
rights on several grounds.

"Several aspects of Kentucky's criminal justice system create a substantial 
risk of sentencing to death and ultimately executing persons for whom death is 
a disproportionate punishment, or even those who are completely innocent," 
Woosnam said in one motion.

Defendants in capital cases also receive inadequate legal counsel, Woosnam 
argued. He said public defenders with high caseloads and low salaries struggle 
under an inadequately funded system to provide effective representation of 
clients in death penalty cases.

Other factors that throw the legality of the death penalty into question 
include capital juries being incapable of rendering fair and impartial verdicts 
due to not understanding jury instructions, a lack of opportunity for convicted 
defendants to wage meaningful appeals and inadequate safeguards under state law 
to prevent the execution of mentally ill defendants, Woosnam argued.

A hearing to address the motions has been set for Nov. 13 in Logan Circuit 
Court.

2 co-defendants, Reba Kirk and Jordan Lunsford, have pleaded guilty to crimes 
associated with Bell's death and have been sentenced. Cases against 2 more 
co-defendants, Tayveon Bibb and Deon Young, are pending.

(source: Bowling Green Daily News)




TENNESSEE:

Tennessee death row inmates want firing squad as execution alternative


Lawyers for 4 inmates on Tennessee’s death row are seeking the firing squad as 
an alternative to the state’s execution methods of lethal injection and the 
electric chair, The Tennessean reported Monday.

The inmates who filed suit in federal court late Friday included David Earl 
Miller, scheduled to be executed Dec. 6 for the 1981 rape and murder of Lee 
Standifer, the newspaper reported. The other inmates are Nicholas Todd Sutton, 
Stephen Michael West and Terry Lynn King.

The lawsuit asks the court to postpone Miller's execution until his case can be 
heard, The Tennessean reported. Tennessee’s execution protocol stipulates that 
Miller will be asked to choose his method of execution 30 days before the 
sentence is carried out. That means Miller must make his choice Tuesday, the 
newspaper reported. The lawsuit wants the court to stop state officials from 
presenting Miller with that choice.

The lawsuit was filed a day after 63-year-old Edmund George Zagorski was 
executed by electric chair for a pair of 1983 murders.

Zagorski won a legal action to bypass Tennessee’s lethal injection execution, 
winning the right to die by the electric chair on Nov. 1.

Trained professionals reduce error rates in executions by firing squad, the 
lawsuit claims.

"The firing squad significantly reduces a substantial risk of unnecessary and 
severe pain when compared with" Tennessee's three-drug cocktail used in lethal 
injections, sparing the men suffocation, internal chemical burn and paralysis, 
The Tennessean reported, citing the lawsuit.

Only Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah formally authorize the use of a firing 
squad, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. It was last used in 
the United States in 2010 by Utah officials.

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)




MISSOURI:

Dilatory Tactics in a Death Penalty Case?----My co-authored amicus brief urges 
the Supreme Court to bring an end to decades-long abusive litigation by 
convicted murderer Russell Bucklew.


In 1996, Russell Bucklew murdered Michael Sanders as his 2 young sons—only 4 
and 6 years old—watched their father bleed to death in front of them. Then, as 
the young daughters of Bucklew's other victim, Stephanie Ray, cried and wailed 
for their mother, Bucklew handcuffed and dragged her away to endure hours of 
rape and torture. Bucklew's reign of terror continued when he broke out of 
jail, forced victims to go into hiding, and ambushed 1 victim's mother in her 
own home. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death over 20 years ago.

Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Bucklew v. Precythe, in 
which Bucklew is raising an "as applied" challenge to Missouri's method of 
executing him (lethal injection). Counsel of record Allyson Ho, several of her 
colleagues at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and I have filed an amicus brief in 
support of Missouri. We filed the brief on behalf of the sister of Michael 
Sanders and Arizona Voice for Crime Victims. Our amicus brief urges the Court 
to reject Bucklew's challenge and end more than 2 decades of litigation.

Bucklew's latest challenge argues that, as applied to him, Missouri's method of 
carrying out the capital sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment 
because of his unique medical condition (benign oral tumors). This challenge 
could have been raised more than decade ago. In June 2008, Bucklew filed a 
pleading asking to hire a medical expert to support a clemency application—and 
supported his request by claiming that, because of his condition, "execution by 
lethal injection may pose a substantial and intolerable risk of inflicting 
serious harm and excruciating pain." His 2008 filing included extensive 
argument that he would "suffer the risk of serious harm amounting to cruel and 
unusual punishment during the administration of Missouri's lethal injection 
protocol in light of his affliction with cavernous hemangioma." It even stated 
that Bucklew sought to demonstrate that Missouri's procedure was 
unconstitutional "as applied uniquely" to him.

Yet despite his obvious awareness of a possible as-applied challenge based on 
his condition, Bucklew refused for years to bring such a challenge. Instead, he 
brought or joined a series of facial challenges—always ensuring that his 
as-applied challenge was at the ready for later use. After years of litigation 
on facial challenges, in May, 2014, less than 2 weeks before his scheduled 
execution, Bucklew finally brought his as-applied challenge. Having held that 
challenge in reserve for years, Bucklew was able to secure a stay of execution 
from the Supreme Court while Missouri's other capital defendants could not, and 
he staved off dismissal of his new as-applied claims despite the dismissal of 
the other defendants' facial challenges.

In proceedings below, the district court and the court of appeals saw through 
Bucklew's strategy and held that, even after extensive discovery, he had not 
made any real effort to discern what procedures would actually be used at his 
execution—and thus could not show that any such procedures would be more 
painful than his lethal gas alternative. As the Eighth Circuit noted, Bucklew 
successfully prolonged his as-applied challenge in 2015 by arguing for the 
necessity of further fact-finding—and then showed no interest in that 
fact-finding once his challenge was revived. Specifically, three years before, 
Bucklew argued that the Eighth Circuit should reverse the dismissal of his 
complaint to allow him to take further discovery regarding what changes the 
State could make to its protocol to accommodate his condition—because without 
knowing the exact parameters of the protocol, Bucklew could not effectively 
argue against them. But once Bucklew secured reversal and remand, he stopped 
caring about what changes Missouri would make to its procedures, and did 
nothing to determine what, exactly, the effects of those procedures would be 
with respect to his condition. The district court ruled for the State and the 
Eighth Circuit affirmed.

As a result of these manipulative litigation tactics, Michael Sanders' family 
has been harmed. The first part of our amicus brief reviews the academic and 
other literature on the effect of such delays on victims' families. The 
literature confirms that long after the immediate loss and physical trauma are 
over, victims' families continue to suffer from psychological trauma, which 
courts frequently overlook. A victim's experience with the criminal justice 
system—particularly when the process is long-delayed, convoluted, and seemingly 
never-ending—compounds the initial effect of the violent crime. In capital 
cases in particular, years of delay exact an enormous physical, emotional, and 
financial toll on victims' families. The delays also keep family members from 
experiencing a sense of "closure"—the hope that they will be able to put the 
murder behind them.

In this particular case, the Eighth Circuit properly sought to put an end to 
Bucklew's abusive litigation and dilatory tactics, rejecting his "as applied" 
challenge to Missouri's use of lethal injection to carry out the execution. Now 
that the case is before the Supreme Court, Missouri has responded in detail to 
Bucklew's as-applied claims in its brief. Seventeen States have supported 
Missouri's analysis on the lack of merit to Bucklew's claims in an amicus 
brief.

Our amicus brief takes a different tack and focuses on victim-related issues. 
We urge the Court to reject Bucklew's arguments because of his deliberate 
dilatory tactics. Here is how our brief concludes:

     For as long as this Court has recognized § 1983 method-of-execution claims, 
it has also recognized the potential for their abuse. See, e.g., Gomez v. U.S. 
Dist. Court for N. Dist. of California, 503 U.S. 653, 654 (1992) (per curiam) 
(rejecting method-of-execution challenge and explaining that "[e]quity must 
take into consideration the State's strong interest in proceeding with its 
judgment and Harris' obvious attempt at manipulation"). And this Court has held 
that "[b]oth the State and the victims of crime have an important interest in 
the timely enforcement of a sentence" that should be protected by dismissing 
abusive § 1983 suits. Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573, 584 (2006) (citing 
Gomez).

     In Hill, this Court held that capital defendants could sometimes step 
outside the habeas framework and use § 1983 to challenge the method of their 
planned execution. Id. at 583. At the same time, the Court recognized the 
obvious potential for abuse in using § 1983 as a procedural vehicle given that, 
among other things, such suits are not subject to the bar on successive habeas 
petitions—and warned that repetitive, dilatory, and strategic § 1983 suits 
should not be allowed to trump the interest of victims. Id. at 584. The Court 
explained that its decisions upholding § 1983 method-of-execution suits "do not 
diminish that interest, nor do they deprive federal courts of the means to 
protect it." Ibid. This is so, in part, because "the 'last-minute nature of an 
application' or an applicant's 'attempt at manipulation' of the judicial 
process may be grounds for denial of a stay" or other relief. Ibid. (quoting 
Gomez, 503 U.S. at 654).

     Although Hill was most directly concerned with stay applications, it 
approvingly cited cases that applied the same reasoning to dismiss outright 
"[r]epetitive or piecemeal" § 1983 claims. Id. at 584–85 (noting courts' use of 
their equitable authority "to dismiss suits they saw as speculative or filed 
too late in the day" as an example of how "dilatory or speculative suits" could 
be addressed); id. at 584 (citing White v. Johnson, 429 F.3d 572, 574 (5th Cir. 
2005), which dismissed a § 1983 action because the claimant "has been on death 
row for more than six years, and only now, with his execution imminent, has 
decided to challenge a procedure for lethal injection that the State has been 
using for his entire stay on death row").

     It is difficult to imagine a more appropriate case for exercising equitable 
authority to protect crime victims against repeated manipulation of the 
judicial process than this one. Bucklew refused to make his as-applied 
challenge until the last moment—a mere 12 days before his execution—despite his 
awareness of the availability of such a challenge at least 6 years earlier. See 
White, 429 F.3d at 574 (dismissing § 1983 method-of-execution challenge where 
the claimant was aware of its availability "for more than six years" and only 
brought it "with his execution imminent"). Despite virtually unlimited 
opportunities to bring (and have resolved) any as-applied claims during that 
six-year period, Bucklew chose not to do so. Even after he was finally forced 
to bring his claim, he has been careful to avoid any real merits 
determination—arguing that a lethal gas procedure Missouri has not used for 50 
years could possibly be constitutional, while offering the testimony of an 
expert who claims that no procedure whatsoever, gas or otherwise, could be 
satisfactory.

     Unless the judgment below is affirmed, Bucklew will continue to bring suit 
after suit for no purpose other than drawing out these proceedings and dragging 
his victims through as many years of litigation as he possibly can. The 
"important interest" of crime victims that this Court recognized in Hill should 
be vindicated here by holding that the equities lie with the victims who have 
been denied peace and closure for over two decades—and affirming the judgment 
below on that ground.

I hope that the Supreme Court will affirm the judgment of the Eighth Circuit.

(source: Paul G. Cassell is the Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of 
Criminal Law and University Distinguished Professor of Law at S.J. Quinney 
College of Law at the University of Utah----reason.com)


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


U.S. Supreme Court death penalty case puts Kavanaugh on the spot


The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday considers a Missouri murderer’s bid to avoid 
execution by lethal injection on the grounds that the procedure might rupture 
blood-filled tumours on his body due to a rare ailment, with new Justice Brett 
Kavanaugh likely to be the deciding vote.

Lawyers for Russell Bucklew, 50, have argued that because of a congenital 
condition called cavernous haemangioma the lethal injection could cause undue 
agony in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual 
punishment.

In Missouri, execution is authorised using either lethal injection or lethal 
gas. The state in practice uses only lethal injection. Bucklew, whose appeal is 
neither contesting his guilt nor seeking to avoid execution, has suggested 
being put to death by gas.

The high court on March 20 issued a stay of execution moments before Bucklew 
was scheduled to be put to death so he could pursue his appeal. The vote was 
5-4, with four of the court’s five conservative justices voting to deny the 
request.

The conservative justice who voted with the court’s four liberals to grant the 
stay, Anthony Kennedy, has since retired. He was replaced by Kavanaugh, a 
conservative appeals court judge who was appointed by President Donald Trump 
and joined the court last month after a fierce Senate confirmation battle.

Trump’s other Supreme Court appointee, conservative Justice Neil Gorusch, voted 
against granting the stay. The justices issued a similar stay of execution for 
Bucklew in 2014.

Bucklew was convicted of the 1996 murder in southeastern Missouri of Michael 
Sanders, who was living with Bucklew’s former girlfriend Stephanie Ray at the 
time. Bucklew fatally shot Sanders at his trailer home, kidnapped and raped 
Ray, shot at Sanders’ 6-year-old son and wounded a police officer before being 
apprehended, according to court papers.

Bucklew’s condition has caused large, blood-filled tumours to grow on his face, 
head, neck and throat, according to court papers.

A ruling is due by the end of June.

Bucklew’s case represents the latest fight at the Supreme Court involving the 
death penalty, though he is not challenging the constitutionality of capital 
punishment. While some liberal justices have questioned the death penalty, the 
high court has steered clear of cases that directly challenge its legality.

In March, the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against 
Bucklew, saying he had failed to show lethal gas would not cause him similarly 
intense pain as lethal injection. Bucklew then appealed to the Supreme Court.

In 2015, the Supreme Court upheld the use of a drug employed by Oklahoma in its 
lethal injections. The court made clear that when challenging a method of 
execution, inmates must show that there is an alternative method that would be 
less painful.

A convicted double murderer named Edmund Zagorski was executed by electric 
chair in Tennessee last Thursday after arguing that the state’s lethal 
injection procedure would be too painful.

(source: Reuters)



CALIFORNIA:

2 California death row inmates found dead; suicide suspected


2 condemned multiple murderers, including a serial killer, apparently committed 
suicide within hours of each other on the nation’s largest death row, 
California officials said Monday.

Corrections officials said they found Andrew Urdiales, 54, unresponsive during 
a security check at San Quentin State Prison late Friday.

He was sentenced to death on Oct. 5 by an Orange County judge for killing 5 
women in California, and previously faced the death penalty for 3 murders in 
Illinois.

Urdiales had been on California’s death row since Oct. 12.

Separately, authorities say they found Virendra Govin, 51, unresponsive alone 
in his cell in a different death row housing unit late Sunday.

Govin was sentenced in December 2004 for committing four Los Angeles County 
murders.

Officials said that while both men’s deaths are being investigated as suicides, 
there is no indication that their deaths are related.

California has not executed anyone since 2006 and inmates are far more likely 
to die from suicide or old age.

Since California reinstated capital punishment in 1978, 79 condemned inmates 
have died from natural causes, 25 have committed suicide, 13 have been executed 
in California, 1 was executed in Missouri, and 1 was executed in Virginia.

There currently are 740 offenders on California’s death row.

The suspected suicides were announced the same day that a federal 
court-appointed special master who oversees prison mental health care 
criticized California corrections officials for proposing that they be allowed 
to start negotiating an end to federal oversight of suicide prevention efforts.

Special master Matty Lopes called the state’s proposal “incredibly premature” 
given the continued problems outlined in an expert’s report also released 
Monday.

Attorneys representing inmates said the state’s suicide rate is, for the second 
year in a row, on track to exceed 24 suicides per 100,000 inmates. That was 
before 6 suicides since Sept. 1, including the 2 on death row.

That far exceeds the national state prison rate of 16 suicides per 100,000 
inmates.

The exchange came as a federal judge considers appointing an outside 
investigator to weigh a whistleblower’s allegations that top California 
corrections officials are misleading federal officials about improvements in 
the treatment of mentally ill inmates.

State officials again denied that there was any fraudulent activity but said 
some mistakes have since been corrected.

(source: Associated Press)