[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., ARK., ARIZ., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 21




TEXAS:

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----42

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----560

Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #

43---------Apr. 24----------------John King---------------561

44---------May 2------------------Dexter Johnson----------562

45---------Aug. 21----------------Larry Swearingen--------563

46---------Sept. 4----------------Billy Crutsinger--------564

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

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

USA----countdown to nation's 1500th execution

With the execution of Billie Wayne Coble in Texas on February 28, the USA has 
now executed 1,493 condemned individuals since the death penalty was 
relegalized on July 2, 1976 in the US Supreme Court Gregg v Georgia decision. 
Gary Gilmore was the 1st person executed, in Utah, on January 17, 1977. Below 
is a list of scheduled executions as the nation approaches a terrible milestone 
of 1500 executions in the modern era.

NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution 
dates are added and possible stays of execution occur.

1494-------Apr. 24------------John King------------------Texas

1495-------May 2--------------Scotty Morrow--------------Georgia

1496-------May 2--------------Dexter Johnson------------Texas

1497-------May 16-------------Donnie Johnson-----------Tennessee

1498-------Aug. 15------------Stephen West-------------Tennessee

1499-------Aug. 21------------Larry Swearingen---------Texas

1500-------Sept. 4------------Billy Crutsinger---------Texas

1501------Sept. 12------------Warren Henness-----------Ohio

(source: Rick Halperin)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Why Philly’s Reformist Prosecutor Finally Supports Letting Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 
Appeal Go Forward



Mumia Abu-Jamal’s long struggle for freedom and justice gained crucial ground 
this week. The former Black Panther, activist, and journalist will get a new 
hearing to appeal his conviction for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police 
officer. On Wednesday, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner dropped his 
opposition to the appeal, opening a potential — though far from assured — 
avenue to freedom for Abu-Jamal, an outcome that had previously seemed 
impossible.

In January, Krasner’s office decided to fight Abu-Jamal’s appeal. He told The 
Intercept at the time that the move was “a narrow, technical decision in one 
sense, but incredibly complex and nuanced and affects many other cases.” The 
latest shift is a welcome one, not least because Abu-Jamal’s grounds for new 
appeals certainly go beyond the technical.

Larry Krasner dropped his opposition to the appeal, opening a potential avenue 
to freedom for Abu-Jamal, an outcome that had previously seemed impossible.

The reasons for the defense’s new appeal relates to a recusal issue. Former 
Pennsylvania Chief Justice Ronald Castille had been Philadelphia’s district 
attorney as Abu-Jamal initially tried to overcome his conviction. Then 
Castille, who supports the death penalty and has ties to police unions, heard 
Abu-Jamal’s case between the years of 1998 to 2012 as chief justice. 
Abu-Jamal’s attorneys argued that Castille should have recused himself from 
presiding as a judge over a case he had previously played the prosecutor’s role 
in.

The specifics aside, the mere fact that Abu-Jamal will be able to argue his 
appeal again in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is, at the very least, a tacit 
recognition that his treatment by the criminal justice system was colored by 
bias and an ideology of deference to the police.

“District Attorney Larry Krasner did the right thing when he withdrew his 
office’s appeal in Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case,” the Amistad Law Project, a 
Pennsylvania-based prisoner advocacy and prison abolitionist organization, 
wrote in a statement. “This shows commitment to individualized justice.”

As The Intercept reported last year, Krasner’s decision to block Abu-Jamal’s 
appeal effort drew fierce criticism from criminal justice advocates who had 
high hopes in the district attorney’s promise to radically reform his office. 
Before taking on the role, Krasner had sued the Philadelphia Police Department 
for abuses 75 times; as the city’s prosecutor, he recommended parole for former 
MOVE members. Yet in blocking Abu-Jamal’s appeal, he appeared to side with 
police interests, earning the ire of activists, raising questions about whether 
there could truly be a “progressive prosecutor” at a time when prosecutors 
around the country are winning elections on strong reformist platforms. 
Abu-Jamal, now 64, was sentenced to death in a 1982 trial for the killing of 
Daniel Faulkner, a police officer. His death sentence was commuted to life in 
prison in 2011, but the fight to overturn his conviction continues to draw 
international support. “Free Mumia!” has for decades been a rallying cry for 
justice against a racist criminal justice system.

The original case was mired in the sort of police misconduct typical in the 
prosecution of Black Panthers, including evidence tampering and racism in jury 
selection. According to the affidavit of a court stenographer, Abu-Jamal’s 
trial judge, the late Albert Sabo, reportedly told someone in the courthouse, 
“I am going to help them fry the n—–.”

Krasner’s decision this week made no judgement on the activist’s original 
conviction, but removes a crucial hurdle enabling a historic injustice to be 
legally challenged. He stressed that his previous opposition was based in the 
fact that the original ruling to grant Abu-Jamal new appeals had been too 
broad. Krasner claimed that the ruling, from Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge 
Leon Tucker, risked reopening many hundreds of cases wherein a judge had at one 
time been a prosecutor.

Last month, however, Tucker rewrote and narrowed his opinion in such a way that 
continued to grant Abu-Jamal new appeals but allayed the district attorney’s 
concern about the possible consequence of reopening many other cases.

The judge’s opinion, which vacates the appeal denials from 1998 to 2012, 
followed a Supreme Court precedent that also involved Castille. Tucker said 
that an impartial appeal process is violated if a prosecutor who had 
significant personal involvement in the case is later a judge in the same 
matter. The changes Tucker made in his modified opinion makes clear that being 
a former prosecutor alone is not grounds for recusal, but Castille’s 
involvement as a prosecutor rose to the level of “significant personal 
involvement.” As an instance of potential bias, Tucker cited a letter Castille 
had sent in 1990 urging the governor’s office to issue death warrants for all 
police killers.

“So-called progressive prosecutors and lawmakers must reverse the racist 
policies that resulted in the crisis of aging in prison, which 
disproportionately impacts Black and Latinx people sentenced to ‘death by 
incarceration.'”

“Although the issue is technical,” wrote Krasner’s office in a muted statement, 
“it is also an important cautionary tale on the systemic problems that flow 
from a judge’s failing to recuse where there is an appearance of bias.”

Krasner’s office noted in its statement that, in withdrawing its opposition and 
allowing Abu-Jamal new appeal hearings, it is “effectively setting the clock 
back to where it was in the past,” before the appeals heard by Castille. But, 
for Abu-Jamal, those two decades — half spent on death row — cannot be taken 
back. Like so many long-term victims of the carceral system, the chance for 
eventual freedom does not add up to the deliverance of justice.

“So-called progressive prosecutors and lawmakers must reverse the racist 
policies that resulted in the crisis of aging in prison, which 
disproportionately impacts Black and Latinx people sentenced to ‘death by 
incarceration,’” Jose Hamza Saldana, the director of the Release Aging People 
in Prison campaign and himself a former political prisoner, told The Intercept. 
“These elders are left to grow old, despair, and die in prison, and could 
otherwise be safely released to our communities. DA Krasner can and should take 
the lead on ensuring justice applies to Abu Jamal, reopen his case, decide that 
the prosecution was racially and politically motivated and support his release 
from prison.”

(source: theintercept.com)








ARKANSAS:

Arkansas Sued by Death Row Inmates Over Sedative for Executions



A federal lawsuit filed by death row inmates in Arkansas has reignited a court 
fight over the sedative used in the state's lethal injections. Two years ago, 
Arkansas raced to put 8 convicted killers to death in 11 days before a batch of 
the controversial drugs expired. They successfully put to death only 4 of the 
inmates, with courts halting the others. The controversy is over whether the 
sedative used in the lethal cocktail, midazolam, renders inmates fully 
unconscious during the injections. The state's executions have been on hold due 
to a lack of the drugs. Arkansas currently doesn't have any execution drugs 
available, but officials believe they'll be able to get more once a new secrecy 
law takes effect this summer. The law prohibits the release of any information 
that directly or indirectly would identify the maker or supplier of Arkansas’ 
execution drugs. Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty 
Information Center, says the law would be the most extreme in the country. 
“It’s a combination of withholding all the information and making it a felony 
to even unintentionally but recklessly disclose it,” Dunham said. “What also 
stands out is the level of conscious disregard for the facts and conscious 
disregard of the potential effects.”

(source: Reuters)

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

Arkansas faces new court fight over sedative for executions



A federal lawsuit filed by death row inmates has renewed a court fight over 
whether the sedative Arkansas uses for lethal injections causes torturous 
executions, two years after the state raced to put eight convicted killers to 
death in 11 days before a previous batch of the drug expired.

Arkansas recently expanded the secrecy surrounding its lethal injection drug 
sources, and the case heading to trial Tuesday could impact its efforts to 
restart executions that have been on hold due to a lack of the drugs. It'll 
also be the latest in a series of legal battles over midazolam, a sedative that 
other states have moved away from using amid claims it doesn't render inmates 
fully unconscious during lethal injections.

States that want to avoid unnecessarily inhumane executions will be watching 
closely, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty 
Information Center, which has criticized the way states carry out the death 
penalty.

But, Dunham added, "states that are watching because they want to figure out 
how to just execute people will be looking to see what Arkansas is able to get 
away with."

Only four of the eight executions scheduled in Arkansas over 11 days in 2017 
actually happened, with courts halting the others. The state currently doesn't 
have any executions scheduled, and Arkansas' supply of the three drugs used in 
its lethal injection process has expired. Another round of multiple executions 
is unlikely if Arkansas finds more drugs, since only one death row inmate has 
exhausted all his appeals.

This time, Arkansas isn't racing against the clock to execute inmates before a 
drug expires. The state currently doesn't have any execution drugs available, 
but officials believe they'll be able to get more once the secrecy law takes 
effect this summer.

State Attorney General Leslie Rutledge says the inmates in the case have a very 
high burden to meet and cites a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last monthagainst a 
Missouri death row inmate. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority in 
that case, wrote that the U.S. Constitution "does not guarantee a prisoner a 
painless death." Rutledge called the federal case in Arkansas the latest 
attempt by death row inmates to delay their sentences from being carried out.

"Juries gave these individuals lawful sentences for committing the most heinous 
acts against a human being, taking another human being's innocent life," 
Rutledge, a Republican, said. "We must see these sentences carried out. The 
families of these victims deserve justice."

30 states have the death penalty. Governors in 4 of them — Oregon, Colorado, 
Pennsylvania and California — have declared moratoriums, and court rulings have 
effectively put executions on hold in several others. The list of death penalty 
states is poised to shrink, though, with New Hampshire lawmakers sending the 
governor a repeal measure. Bills to repeal or significantly curtail the death 
penalty have been introduced in 18 states this year, Dunham said.

Much of the trial over Arkansas' process will focus on midazolam, which critics 
have said doesn't render inmates fully unconscious before the other lethal 
injection drugs are administered. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld midazolam's use 
in executions in 2015, but its use continues to prompt legal challenges 
nationwide. Seven states have used the sedative as the 1st administered in a 
3-drug execution process, and 2 have used it in a 2-drug process, according to 
the Death Penalty Information Center.

Critics have cited problematic executions involving the sedative as evidence 
that it doesn't work properly. Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett remained alive 
for 43 minutes, groaning and writhing on a gurney after an intravenous line was 
improperly connected in his 2014 execution. Inmate Joseph Wood gasped for air, 
snorted and his belly inflated and deflated during the nearly t hours it took 
him to die during his execution in Arizona in 2014.

Under Arkansas' execution process, inmates are first administered midazolam. 
They're then administered vecuronium bromide, which stops the lungs, followed 
by potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

Attorneys for a group of death row inmates argue that 2 of Arkansas' executions 
in 2017 demonstrate the problems with midazolam. One execution cited is that of 
convicted murderer Kenneth Williams, who witnesses said lurched and convulsed 
20 times before he died. Another inmate, Marcel Williams, arched his back and 
breathed heavily during his execution, according to a witness.

Based on past court rulings, the inmates will also have to prove there's an 
alternative to the state's lethal injection method available that's likely to 
be less painful. The inmates' attorneys have argued those alternatives include 
firing squads and a barbiturate commonly used in physician-assisted suicide.

Other states have moved away from midazolam over concerns about the drug. 
Ohio's Republican governor earlier this year ordered the prison system to look 
at alternative drugs after a federal judge said midazolam could cause severe 
pain and needless suffering. Oklahoma put executions on hold in 2015 after a 
series of mishaps that included a botched execution involving midazolam, and 
the state is now developing a plan to execute inmates using nitrogen gas.

"If the court in Arkansas finds that midazolam is a drug that doesn't do what 
the state claims that it does and in effect tortures prisoners when it's used 
in executions, that's going to be another state that may not be able to use the 
drug," said Dale Baich, an assistant federal public defender in Arizona who has 
been involved in litigation in that state and Oklahoma over the use of 
midazolam.

The trial comes weeks after Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed into law a 
measure prohibiting the release of information that could directly or 
indirectly identify the source of its executions drugs. The measure was in 
response to state Supreme Court rulings that the current secrecy law doesn't 
cover the manufacturers of Arkansas' drugs. Arkansas' supply of drugs has 
expired, and prison officials last year said they wouldn't search for more 
until the secrecy measure was enacted.

The bill faced criticism from media organizations and death penalty opponents, 
especially over its criminal penalties for recklessly disclosing the 
information. Two pharmaceutical companies also objected to the law, saying it 
would hamper their ability to ensure their drugs aren't used in executions. The 
new law takes effect in late July.

(source: Associated Press)








ARIZONA:

Man convicted of murder in 2010 killing of police lieutenant



The death penalty phase began Wednesday after a man was convicted of 1st-degree 
murder and other charges in the killing of a Phoenix-area police officer during 
a 2010 traffic stop. The shooter and another man then led police on a 
high-speed chase where he fired gunshots and tossed tools and other objects at 
pursuing officers, authorities said.

A jury returned its verdict against Christopher Redondo in the shooting death 
of Lt. Eric Shuhandler on Tuesday.

Authorities say Shuhandler, a 16-year police veteran, stopped Redondo's truck 
because his license plate was partially obscured. He was shot as he walked from 
his patrol car back to Redondo's truck after learning there was an open arrest 
warrant for Redondo.

Authorities say Redondo, 44, and Daimen Joseph Irizarry, who was driving 
Redondo's truck, fled after the shooting in Gilbert, a suburb of Phoenix.

Shuhandler was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

During the 50-mile (80-kilometer) chase, police say, Redondo leaned from the 
passenger-side window of the truck and fired 2 gunshots at a police vehicle on 
U.S. 60. Police also said Redondo climbed into his truck's bed and tossed 
wrenches, an air compressor tank and other objects at pursuing officers to get 
them to back off. The objects prompted some officers to pull to the shoulder of 
the freeway, police said.

They say Redondo fired shots at officers again after the truck ran out of gas, 
and the chase ended in the mining community of Superior, about 65 miles (104 
kilometers) southeast of Phoenix.

Authorities said Redondo and Irizarry got out of the truck, and Redondo fired 
more shots at officers, who returned fire.

Redondo and Irizarry were both shot and survived.

Redondo was convicted on charges of 1st-degree murder, aggravated assault, and 
drive-by shooting.

Irizarry was sentenced to 107 years in prison for his convictions on drive-by 
shooting and aggravated assault charges.

(source: Fox News)








USA:

Death penalty should be abolished in U.S.



Since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S., almost 1,500 
people have been executed. For every 10 people who have been executed, someone 
has been found innocent and released from death row. This irreversible 
punishment has taken the lives of many innocent people who could have had the 
chance to a whole life.

In Texas in 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed. He had been given the 
death penalty for starting a fire that killed his three young children at their 
family home. It later was proven the evidence that the fire was set was based 
on flawed science, and that the fire wasn’t intentionally set. Had he been 
sentenced to life in prison without parole, he would have been released and had 
the chance to reclaim his life.

There is no humane method of killing, whether its lethal injection, 
electrocution, lethal gas, firing squad or hanging — methods still used in the 
U.S. today.

Executions can be botched and cause cruel and torturous deaths. No one deserves 
to suffer that way.

Many also believe capital punishment scares people away from committing crimes, 
but in fact has never been proven to deter criminal actions more than a prison 
sentence. Having someone sit in prison for their rest of their life also costs 
us less in taxes than executing someone does. Killing someone because they 
killed someone is like taking an eye for an eye, and taking an eye for an eye 
makes the whole world blind.

ERIN McBRIDE, JACKSON TOWNSHIP

(source: Canton Repository)