[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., WYO., ARIZ.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 17


MISSOURI:

8th execution in Missouri in 2014 carried out by lethal injection----Earl Ringo 
Jr. was found guilty of murdering 2 people at a Columbia restaurant in 1998.


A Missouri inmate convicted in a 1998 double homicide was executed by lethal 
injection after the U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Jay Nixon denied pleas for 
clemency, according to a Sept. 9 news release from Nixon's office.

Earl Ringo Jr. was found guilty and later confessed to the murders of Dennis 
Poyser and Joanna Baysinger at a Columbia restaurant. His accomplice, Quentin 
Jones, avoided the death penalty by testifying against Ringo. Jones is 
currently serving a life sentence, according to court documents.

Nixon received an organized petition from the American Civil Liberties Union 
(ACLU) requesting the postponement of Ringo???s execution, but he decided to 
let the sentence carry out as initially scheduled.

"The evidence that was presented at trial left no doubt about Ringo's guilt," 
Nixon said in the release. "My denial of clemency upholds the court's decision 
to impose the death penalty for these 2 murders."

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster was also in the public eye in relation 
to Ringo's execution. He asked protesters to remember the severity of Ringo's 
crime in a Sept. 10 public statement.

"It should not be lost in the national debate over the death penalty that Earl 
Ringo, Jr. was responsible for the murders of 2 innocent Missourians," Koster 
said. "For 16 years he avoided payment for this crime. Tonight, he has paid the 
penalty."

Nixon and Koster are noted advocates of the death penalty. Since they both 
assuming their respective offices in 2009, they have overseen the execution of 
12 death row inmates, including 8 inmates in 2014 alone. No other state has put 
as many to death in such a short amount of time.

Missouri's efficiency in this matter has drawn a significant amount of 
criticism from the anti-death penalty public.

Mary Ratliff, president of Missouri NAACP, says her organization has long been 
fighting for the abolition of the death penalty in Missouri. Ratliff wrote 
several letters to the governor???s office and attended the Vigil for Life 
protest outside Boone County Courthouse prior to Ringo's execution on Sept. 10.

"We think that (the death penalty) is barbaric," Ratliff said. "You don't want 
to be known as the state with the highest number of executions per year."

Entering the public conscious so soon after the death of Michael Brown and the 
protests in Ferguson, the execution of Ringo has received much public 
attention, Ratliff said.

Ratliff said she thinks the 2 events are connected in that they both shed light 
on what she perceives as institutionalized racism within Missouri's legal 
system.

"There is a disparity in death sentencing for African-American folks," Ratliff 
said. "You're supposed to be judged by a jury of your peers. Certainly, the 
racial climate in this country does not lend itself to an African-American 
person receiving a fair trial. We are very disturbed about the fact that there 
was an all-white judge, jury and prosecutor."

Ringo's execution has also garnered attention as a result of the petition filed 
to Nixon as part of recent concern over the use of midazolam, a sedative that 
has been linked to botched executions in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona.

During a deposition in January 2014, Missouri Department of Corrections 
Director George Lombardi swore under oath that the state would not use 
midazolam in lethal injection executions due to its controversial nature. 
According to an investigative report conducted by St. Louis Public Radio, 
Missouri has since carried out seven executions using midazolam as a sedative.

Midazolam is a uniquely powerful sedative and, according to the Mayo Clinic's 
website, is "used to produce sleepiness or drowsiness and relieve anxiety 
before surgery or certain procedures. It is given only by or under the 
immediate supervision of a doctor trained to use this medicine."

Usually, medical doctors refuse to participate in lethal injection procedures 
because of the Hippocratic oath. The administration of the lethal drugs is 
normally left to an execution team comprised of prison employees.

As Missouri garners national attention for its continued use of midazolam, the 
attorney general's office said the sedative is used as part of a 
"pre-execution" procedure and therefore cannot be considered part of the lethal 
injection execution itself.

(source: maneater.com)






WYOMING:

Wyoming Panel Keeps Death Penalty and Endorses Firing Squad


A Wyoming legislative committee is endorsing changing state law to allow firing 
squads to execute condemned inmates if the state can't find the drugs to carry 
out lethal injections.

Meeting in Laramie on Friday, the interim Joint Judiciary Committee also 
considered and rejected a bill that would have called on the full state 
Legislature to repeal the death penalty altogether.

Wyoming has only 1 inmate on death row. Dale Wayne Eaton is pressing a federal 
appeal of the death sentence he received 10 years ago for the murder of a 
Montana woman.

Other states have found it increasingly difficult to get drugs to perform 
lethal injections. Several recent executions in other states have gone poorly 
as corrections departments have turned to untried compounds.

(source: KGWN TV news)

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

Firing Squad Support Growing: Wyoming Takes Aim


"Through the efforts of anti-death penalty activists, it's becoming harder to 
get the drugs necessary for lethal injection," Wyoming State Senator Bruce 
Burns (R-Sheridan) tells National Review Online of a Friday decision to propose 
firing-squad executions in the Equality State. "The secondary form of execution 
is the gas chamber. The problem Wyoming has there is we don't have one. So 
without the drugs we don't have any form of execution."

Burns serves on the state's interim Joint Judiciary Committee, which considered 
solutions to the problems lethal-injection state executions are facing all over 
the country. The committee last week rejected a proposal to ban the death 
penalty and submitted a proposal that would make Wyoming the third state (along 
with Utah and Oklahoma) to authorize its department of corrections to use 
firing squads for executions.

"The committee looked at various means of execution," Burns tells NRO. "Other 
than lethal injection and gas chamber, the other standard means are the 
electric chair, hanging and firing squad. Firing squad seemed like the most 
efficient. It's also usually the most thorough. One of the legislators 
[Republican State Representative Stephen Watt] asked what if they all miss? But 
there is less likelihood of all the members of a firing squad missing than 
there is of the kind of problems we've seen with other means."

An April execution by lethal injection in Oklahoma was "botched" in the sense 
that condemned prisoner Clayton Lockett's death throes were energetic and 
lengthy enough to make the grim reality of killing clear to onlookers. That 
incident provoked a wave of revulsion toward capital punishment, though the 
death penalty remains popular throughout the United States. In the aftermath of 
the Lockett execution, some observers, instead of ruling out the death penalty, 
have begun to question whether state governments' preference for more 
humanitarian-seeming methods is in fact any less harsh than more traditional 
forms of state-sponsored killing.

"I tried to put myself in that position," Burns notes. "How would I want to be 
executed?" The firing squad has actually been a requested means of execution 
for such prominent prisoners as Major John Andre, the British officer who 
facilitated Benedict Arnold's defection during the Revolutionary War, and who 
reportedly remarked after learning that he would instead be hanged, "I am 
reconciled to my death, but I detest the mode."

The full Wyoming state house will vote on the proposal in January.

(source: National Review)






ARIZONA:

Murder trials, not soap operas


In May 2013, a jury found Jodi Arias guilty for the 2008 murder in Mesa of her 
lover, Travis Alexander. It then decided that her crime was "cruel, heinous or 
depraved," making Arias eligible for the death penalty. During the sentencing 
phase of the trial, however, the jury failed to reach a unanimous decision 
about whether to assign the death penalty or life in prison. The hung jury 
prompted Judge Sherry Stephens to declare a mistrial. Arias' retrial is set for 
Sept. 29.

Last week, The Arizona Republic published an article explaining that Stephens 
wouldn't let Arias' lawyer remove himself from the case after he and co-counsel 
Jennifer Willmott were ordered to act as legal advisers.

Scroll down in the online version of the article and there is a timeline 
labeled "Jodi Arias Murder Case: 20 Top Moments," followed by additional 
articles. There's also a page on the website titled, "Killer Romance: Inside 
the Jodi Arias Trial," an archive of the case from January 2013 through June 
2013.

A reader might easily mistake the page for a Law & Order SVU promotional site. 
It almost makes one forget that Arias is a real human being, not a character in 
a soap opera.

The Arizona Republic's coverage of the Jodi Arias trial reflects the 
countrywide attention that the case has generated. During the trial, Arias 
dominated social media and national television. The case developed a cult-like 
following, and passionate protestors cried out for vengeance against Arias. As 
the retrial date looms nearer, the general public will undoubtedly begin to 
rehash a favorite debate: whether or not Arias deserves to live.

If death were not on the table, the sentencing portion of Arias' trial would be 
over. Passion would have been removed from the deliberation process, and Arias 
would already have begun serving a life sentence. But because the prosecution 
refused to settle for life in prison, taxpayers must continue to fund the 
trial, which has already cost more than $2 million. And should the new jury 
reach a guilty verdict, a recent study by the Urban Institute's Justice Policy 
Center indicates that the cost of appeals in death penalty cases exceeds the 
price of lifetime incarceration.

The death penalty desensitizes people to an institution that allows citizens to 
kill other citizens. By portraying death penalty trials as sick reality shows, 
the media glorifies government-sanctioned murder and trivializes the grave 
nature of capital cases. That it has become socially acceptable to engage in 
casual dinner conversation about Arias' fundamental right to life provides 
evidence for this phenomenon.

Furthermore, sensationalistic news stories about death penalty proceedings 
undermine the justice system by preventing defendants from receiving unbiased 
trials. It seems impossible that the picketers and television crews swarming 
Jodi Arias' courtroom did not exert any influence on the jury. Such media 
attention creates an environment where public perception is more important than 
the search for truth.

Regardless of Arias' innocence or guilt, the idea that putting a person to 
death can be taken so lightly is abhorrent. Ultimately, so long as the death 
penalty is practiced in this country, we will face the continued devaluation of 
life at the hands of the media.

(source: Elizabeth Hannah is a neuroscience & cognitive science sophomore; The 
(Univ. Arizona) Daily Wildcat)