[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., FLA., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 9




TEXAS----impending execution

Texas Set For 1st Execution Since Obtaining New Supply Of Lethal Injection 
Drugs



Kent Sprouse is scheduled to be executed Thursday for the 2002 murders of a 
police officer and a gas station customer.

Sprouse, 42, was convicted and sentenced to death for killing a Dallas police 
officer and a customer at a gas station in 2002.

In March, Texas acquired a new supply of pentobarbital, the sole primary drug 
it uses for executions, from an unidentified "licensed pharmacy" according to 
the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ).

Like other active death penalty states facing a shortage of execution drugs, 
Texas had almost run out if its supply of pentobarbital.

A TDCJ spokesman said that it has acquired more pentobarbital to conduct all 4 
executions scheduled next month, including Sprouse's.

"The drugs were purchased from a licensed pharmacy that has the ability to 
compound," TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark said.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Sprouse's case last November. He did 
not have any last-day appeals in the courts to stay the execution scheduled for 
Thursday at 6:00 p.m. CDT.

In 2004, Sprouse was convicted and sentenced to death for killing Officer Harry 
Steinfeldt and Pedro Moreno, a customer at a gas station.

In 2002, Sprouse entered a convenience store at a gas station 20 miles south of 
Dallas with a shotgun hung over his shoulder, according to court documents. 
After returning to his vehicle he fired his gun in the direction of 2 men at a 
pay phone.

He then attempted to speak to Pedro Moreno, a customer who was filling his 
truck with gas. When Moreno did not respond, Sprouse reached into his vehicle, 
pulled out a gun and shot and killed the 38-year-old man.

When Ferris Police Officer Harry Steinfeldt arrived at the scene, he approached 
Moreno who was on the ground before turning towards Sprouse's car. As he 
turned, Sprouse shot him twice under the arm - an area not protected by his 
bullet-proof vest. Before dying from his injuries, Steinfeldt fired 17 shots 
wounding Sprouse in the chest, leg, and hand, the Associated Press reported.

Tests revealed that Sprouse was high on drugs at the time of the shootings 
having consumed amphetamines, methamphetamines, and cannabis within the past 48 
hours.

His lawyer presented an insanity defense to the court, but the jury rejected 
the defense and sentenced Sprouse to death for capital murder.

Sprouse told an officer that he shot Moreno because he thought he was an 
undercover cop, according to court records. "And I shot the other officer that 
was in uniform," he said.

He has unsuccessfully appealed to courts to focus on the question of whether he 
was mentally ill at the time of the shootings and therefore should not be 
executed.

(source: buzzfeed.com)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----4

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----522

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

5------------Apr. 9--------------------Kent Sprouse---------523

6------------Apr. 15-------------------Manual Garza---------524

7-----------Apr. 23-------------------Richard Vasquez------525

8-----------Apr. 28-------------------Robert Pruett--------526

9-----------May 12--------------------Derrick Charles------527

10----------June 3--------------------Les Bower------------528

11-----------June 18-------------------Gregory Russeau------529

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)








VIRGINIA:

Mark Earley, former Virginia attorney general, now opposes death penalty ---- 
He said execution is based on the false premise that death sentences are 100 % 
accurate.



Mark Earley, Virginia's attorney general during one of the busiest execution 
stretches in modern state history, has changed his mind about capital 
punishment.

"If you believe that the government always 'gets it right,' never makes serious 
mistakes, and is never tainted with corruption, then you can be comfortable 
supporting the death penalty," he wrote in a recent essay for the University of 
Richmond Law Review.

"I no longer have such faith in the government and, therefore, cannot and do 
not support the death penalty," wrote Earley, attorney general from 1998 until 
June 3, 2001, when he resigned to run for governor.

Among other things, his essay touched on a capital murder case he handled as a 
young lawyer; the case of Earl Washington Jr., an innocent man wrongly 
sentenced to death in Culpeper; and a capital murder conviction recently tossed 
out in South Carolina some 70 years too late.

Earley is at least the 2nd Virginia attorney general to change his mind about 
capital punishment.

William Broaddus, the state's attorney general in 1985 and 1986, when 5 
executions were held, was an outspoken opponent of the death penalty by 2000.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 36 people were executed in 
Virginia while Earley was attorney general. One of his office's jobs was to 
defend death challenges from lawyers representing the condemned inmates, and he 
had high praise for the members of his staff tasked with the job.

But he described the process of going up and down the appeals courts as being 
"like a yo-yo on a string ... literally until moments before an execution was 
carried out."

Today, there are 8 men on Virginia's death row, among them Ricky Javon Gray, 
sentenced to death for a weeklong killing rampage in January 2006 in Richmond 
that claimed seven lives.

Virginia has put to death 110 people since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed 
executions to resume in 1976. The toll is 3rd-highest among execution states in 
the U.S., but the percentage of people sentenced to death in Virginia who were 
ultimately executed is by far the highest in the country.

"We were poised to fight any last-minute appeals that were filed to spare a 
defendant's life," Earley recalled. But, he added, "Being that close to it all 
had a profound effect on me. Overseeing a legal system that put so many to 
death with such efficiency eroded me.

"Regardless of one's support or lack thereof, the carrying out of the death 
penalty is gruesome business," he wrote.

Earley participated in a symposium on the death penalty at the University of 
Richmond School of Law in October. Stephen Northup, former director of 
Virginians For Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an anti-capital punishment 
group, said he chatted there with Earley, and Earley said he still had not made 
up his mind about the death penalty.

Reached by telephone Wednesday, Earley said it was a ruling last December by a 
South Carolina judge tossing out the conviction of 14-year-old George Stinney - 
executed more than 70 years ago - that was his tipping point.

Now in private practice in Leesburg, Earley said he plans to return to Richmond 
this year and open an office.

In his essay, Earley wrote that he could still make an argument on why the 
death penalty should remain a tool for prosecutors and, he noted, "there are 
some very heinous and unspeakable criminal atrocities."

But he argued that the death penalty is based on the false Utopian premise that 
death sentences are 100 % accurate.

"From the inception of our democracy, we have viewed it better that 10 guilty 
persons escape than one innocent person languish in prison or be put to death," 
wrote Earley.

(source: Richmond Times-Dispatch)








FLORIDA:

9 Investigates lethal injection drugs and the Florida death penalty



The State of Florida has put 90 people to death since 1976 when the state 
reinstated the death penalty. On Feb. 26 at 6 p.m. a convicted killer from 
Orlando, Jerry Correll, was scheduled to be the 91st inmate to be put to death, 
but his execution has been placed on hold.

In January the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear arguments from 3 
Oklahoma death row inmates over concerns that states plan to use a 3-drug 
combination to carry out the lethal injections.

Because Florida uses a similar 3-drug combination, the Florida Supreme Court 
put the planned execution of Correll on hold. States like Oklahoma and Florida 
have been forced to change from a traditional 7-drug combination to just 3 as 
many drug companies have refused to sell the drugs to states for use in 
executions.

Until 2011, states used drugs like sodium thiopental in lethal injections; 
however, that drug became unavailable when the Italian government objected to 
the drug being used in executions. In response to the sudden shortage of sodium 
thiopental states switched to another drug, which also suddenly became 
unavailable after the company manufacturing it objected to its use in lethal 
injections.

That led states, including Florida, to midazolam. Midazolam was the main drug 
used in botched executions in Oklahoma and Ohio.

In the wake of the botched executions critics have called for a moratorium on 
the death penalty.

Now the U.S. Supreme Court will decide if using 3 drugs, including midazolam, 
violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

"The reality of it is the actual execution of any case you have today is 
decades away," said State Attorney Jeff Ashton.

Ashton has prosecuted 2 cases that have ended with a death penalty carried out 
by the state. In reviewing the cases before his office, Ashton says his office 
doesn't consider the current landscape of how executions are administered since 
procedures can change several times after a conviction.

"I personally support it, I think it should be used very carefully," said 
Ashton. "Ultimately that's an issue for the Legislature, and as long as the 
death penalty is the law in the State of Florida we're going to apply it."

But opponents of the death penalty applaud the drug companies for their 
decision to not sell and say now is the time to end the practice of the 
government putting people to death.

"The sacredness of life applies to the beginning of life and to those who may 
be innocent or guilty of a crime," said Deborah Shearer of the Orlando Diocese. 
"It's a very clear issue because nobody has the right to kill anyone."

The Catholic Church has long opposed the death penalty. The church says the 
practice of putting people to death to remove them from society is antiquated 
and no longer necessary. Instead the church would rather see inmates give life 
in prison without parole.

"We don't approve of killing any life. That is God's decision in God's time and 
society doesn't have a right to do that," said Shearer. "That is not a solution 
to this problem, we need to change hearts and change minds."

In recent weeks the problem of carrying out executions became even greater for 
states when two leading doctors' groups began discouraging members from 
participating in the death penalty.

In March the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacies told its members: 
"IACP discourages its members from participating in the preparation, 
dispensing, or distribution of compounded medications for use in legally 
authorized executions."

The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the death penalty case on April 29.

(source: WFTV news)








CALIFORNIA:

Convicted molester could face death penalty in boy's slaying decades ago



A sexually violent predator twice convicted of molesting boys in California 
could face the death penalty if prosecutors can prove he killed a 6-year-old 
boy in Pomona decades ago.

Detectives say DNA from Kenneth Rasmuson, 53, connects him to the strangling 
death of Jeffrey Vargo, who disappeared from his Anaheim Hills neighborhood in 
1981 and was found dead at a construction site in Pomona.

Rasmuson was arrested March 27 at the lakeside home he shared with his parents 
in Sandpoint, a resort town in the Idaho panhandle. He had been living there 
quietly for about 5 years, police and neighbors said.

Los Angeles County prosecutors have charged Rasmuson with murder and a special 
allegation that he committed the crime during a lewd or lascivious act on a 
child, which makes him eligible for the death penalty, said spokesman Greg 
Risling.

Prosecutors haven't said whether they'll seek the death penalty for Rasmuson, 
who otherwise could face life in prison without parole if convicted, Risling 
said.

What does it matter if he get's the death penalty now when this monster has 
been free for almost 35 years for the crime for which he is accused? This guy 
almost beat the system. I hope he didn't harm any more children in that amount 
of time.

Bob Vargo, Jeffrey's father, said a Pomona detective, Jennifer Turpin, called a 
few months ago to tell them that police had a lead in the case. He said the 
detective later told them that DNA testing had identified Rasmuson as Jeffrey's 
killer. The Vargos had been asked not to say anything until he was arrested.

"The 1st time I slept was from Friday night to Saturday, when I was confident 
that this guy was in custody," Bob Vargo said a day after Rasmuson's arrest.

"Before that my mind kept racing, thinking, 'What if he's not the one? What if 
they don't have enough evidence? What if, when they are watching him in Idaho, 
he runs off?'"

When Rasmuson first moved to Sandpoint in late 2010, Idaho state police and 
local law enforcement passed out pamphlets and posted fliers announcing his 
arrival to the community. Residents were told he was a sex offender, but 
neighbors say details of his crimes weren't discussed.

"We've always known what he was, but we didn't realize a lot of that other 
stuff," said Joyce Hartley, 84, who lived 2 doors down from Rasmuson.

When Rasmuson moved in, residents protested but were told "there was nothing 
you can do about it," Hartley recalled. "A lot of people tried."

Rasmuson has a violent history, according to court records.

In 1982, he was sent to Atascadero State Hospital in Central California after 
being declared a mentally disordered sex offender for sodomizing and orally 
copulating an 11-year-old Santa Barbara boy. He was released after 2 years.

In 1987, Rasmuson was convicted of kidnapping and molesting a 3-year-old boy in 
Los Angeles. Rasmuson reportedly abandoned the boy naked in a deserted area 
miles from his home.

A judge described his actions as "cruel, vicious and callous as conduct can 
become," according to a Times account of the proceedings.

After his release from prison, Rasmuson spent time in Santa Barbara County, 
Oregon and Washington before settling down in Idaho in 2010.

Rasmuson was extradited to California this week and appeared in court Monday. 
His arraignment was delayed until April 28.

(source: Los Angeles Times)








USA:

Americans divided over the death penalty for Dzohkhar Tsarnaev



Just under 1/2 of Americans - 47% - prefer the death penalty for the Boston 
marathon bomber Dzohkhar Tsarnaev, while slightly fewer, 42%, would rather that 
Tsarnaev receive life in prison with no chance of parole. The latest NBC News 
online poll was conducted by SurveyMonkey in the 3 days leading up to the jury 
reaching a guilty verdict Wednesday on all 30 counts, 17 of which carry the 
possibility of a death sentence.

Older Americans are more likely to want the death penalty for Tsarnaev compared 
to those under the age of 30. Just about 1/3 of those under the age of 30 
prefer the death penalty, compared to half of those over the age of 30. More 
than 2/3 of Republicans say they want Tsarnaev to be executed, compared to 37% 
of Democrats and 42% of independents.

The trial began on March 4, with dozens of witnesses delivering testimony over 
the following weeks. The jury received the case Tuesday morning and deliberated 
for a total of about 11 hours before delivering the guilty verdicts. Tsarnaev 
expressed little emotion while the guilty verdicts were being read aloud in the 
courtroom, according to NBC News. The case now moves to a penalty phase, with 
the jury weighing whether to sentence Tsarnaev to death.

More than 1/3 of Americans said they were following the Boston Marathon bombing 
trial somewhat or very closely. Interest in the trial was highest among those 
living in the Northeast part of the country, with 49% indicating they were 
watching the trial very or somewhat closely, compared to 32% in the rest of the 
country.

Those living in the Northeast were similarly divided on the death penalty for 
Tsaernaev, with 1/2 preferring life in prison for him and 41% saying he 
deserved the death penalty.

Next week, April 15 will mark the 2nd anniversary of the bombing of the Boston 
Marathon, which left 3 people dead and 260 people injured. Overall, most 
Americans think the U.S. government is doing a good job of reducing the threat 
of terrorism, with nearly 62% saying they are doing "very well" or "somewhat 
well."

But Americans are also somewhat wary about just how safe the country is from 
future terrorist attacks. Nearly 1/2 - 46% - say that it is very or somewhat 
likely that there will be a terrorist attack in the United States within the 
next few months. Just 12% say that a terrorist attack in the near future is 
"not at all likely."

Anticipation of another attack on American soil rises with age, with 61% of 
those over 60 years of age saying one is likely, nearly double the number of 
those under 30 who say one is likely.

1/2 of Republicans and 57% of independents say that the U.S. government is 
doing somewhat or very well reducing the threat of terrorism and that sentiment 
is echoed by 78% of Democrats.

The NBC News-SurveyMonkey Poll was conducted online April 6-8, 2015 among a 
national sample of 2,052 adults aged 18 and over.

(source: MSNBC)

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

Life or death: Bombing trial moves to penalty phase



The real trial is about to begin in the Boston Marathon bombing case.

Wednesday, a federal jury found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21, guilty on all 30 charges 
for his part in the twin blasts near the race finish line 2 years ago. 3 people 
died, and more than 260 were wounded.

Judge George O'Toole said the sentencing hearing will begin early next week, 
but he didn't specify a day. At issue: Will Tsarnaev be executed or serve life 
in prison without parole?

Tsarnaev's lawyer, Judy Clarke, never denied her client was involved in the 
attack. She crafted her trial defense to lay the blame on Tsarnaev's older 
brother, Tamerlan. In her portrayal, he was the mastermind who died during a 
shootout with police when his fleeing brother ran over him hours before 
Dzhokhar was captured.

Admitting "it was him" on the trial's 1st day, Clarke acknowledged that her 
client had coordinated with Tamerlan. She called just 4 witnesses; none 
suggested Tsarnaev was innocent.

"We are not asking you to go easy on Dzhokhar," Clarke said in her closing 
argument. His actions "deserve to be condemned. And the time is now."

The jury must weigh mitigating vs. aggravating circumstances surrounding the 
crime. The goal of avoiding a death sentence could be attainable if Clarke's 
team can convince even one juror to hold out for life imprisonment.

The defense most likely notched a few meaningful successes in building rapport 
with the jury, Boston College Law School professor Robert Bloom told USA TODAY. 
Lawyers probably built trust, he said, by declining to challenge evidence 
against Tsarnaev or to cross-examine bombing victims.

"He bought into his brother's plans and his actions," Clarke said at her 
closing. "He was convinced they were right."

Tsarnaev's lawyers presented receipts, fingerprint analysis and other evidence 
to suggest his brother was the leader who did the bombmaking research, bought 
components and assembled them into improvised explosive devices.

(source: USA Today)

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

Why Tsarnaev should not get the death penalty: Column----Bomber's guilt never 
in question, but life without parole will let him drift off into obscurity.



Despite great anticipation and intensive news media coverage, the trial of 
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing has, up to 
this point, had as much suspense as a Law & Order rerun.

The guilty verdict on all 30 counts rendered by the jury of 7 women and 5 men 
inside a packed federal courthouse here came as no surprise. Not even the 
defendant showed any emotion as each count was read aloud.

>From the very start of the proceedings 5 weeks ago, the defense has conceded 
defeat in the guilt phase of the bifurcated capital murder trial. In her 
opening statement to the jury, defense counsel Judy Clarke admitted that 
Tsarnaev did indeed join his now-deceased older brother, Tamerlan, in 
detonating 2 explosions near the finish line of the storied foot race, killing 
three spectators, including an 8-year-old boy, and injuring more than 260.

Despite the defense's concession, the prosecution proceeded to call 92 
witnesses to the stand, presenting in excruciating detail the pain and 
devastation caused by the Tsarnaev brothers as part of their self-styled 
jihadist attack on America. The purpose was to set the stage for the real 
challenge that lies ahead in the penalty phase, when the jury will be tasked 
with choosing between the death penalty and a sentence of life without parole 
eligibility.

I am certainly not alone in believing that the federal government should have 
saved time and great expense by negotiating a guilty plea in exchange for a 
life sentence, just as it had in the case against Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski. 
Besides, persuading the jury to recommend death for Tsarnaev, which requires a 
unanimous vote, is hardly the slam dunk that characterized the uncontested 
guilt portion of the trial.

Even though the jury pool was "death qualified," purged of anyone who would 
absolutely not be willing to vote to execute the defendant, it is still a tall 
order to persuade all 12 residents of liberal Massachusetts that capital 
punishment is the better option.

Notwithstanding the extreme horror of the marathon bombings and the 
terror-filled days before the massive manhunt came to an end, it is hard to 
argue that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21, qualifies as "the worst of the worst," the 
criterion often used in deciding who shall be executed.

Virtually all the evidence points to the fact that the defendant was 
subordinate to his 26-year-old brother. It was Tamerlan who became radicalized, 
who purchased the bomb-making supplies, and who threatened the carjacking 
victim at gunpoint. Tamerlan died in a confrontation with law enforcement 
officers 3 nights after the bombings. It is a stretch to suggest that the 
brothers were truly equal partners. Were it not for the close brotherly bond 
and Tamerlan's influence, Dzhokhar might still be just a struggling college 
student content to smoke weed with his buddies in his dorm room.

At the time of the bombing on April 15, 2013, the defendant was only 19, less 
than two years ?above the age threshold when he'd have been exempted from the 
death penalty. Even though legally of age, he lacked the maturity to think and 
act independently of the older brother whom he revered. Of course, none of this 
absolves the defendant or suggests that he is not culpable for his crimes, only 
that his responsibility is sufficiently diminished so as not to warrant the 
supreme penalty of death.

If the government is indeed successful in persuading the jury to recommend 
death, it will fail to bring the kind of closure that many of the victims and 
their survivors are anticipating. Just the opposite might occur.

A sentence of death will likely transform Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, an amateur 
terrorist, into a martyr for all those here and abroad who hate America. Better 
that he drift off into the obscurity of some dark and distant prison cell 
without the continued news media focus that an execution would bring.

Life without parole is an outcome we can all live with.

(source: Column; James Alan Fox is the Lipman Professor of Criminology, Law, 
and Public Policy at Northeastern University and co-author of Extreme Killing: 
Understanding Serial and Mass Murder----USA Today)

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

Sen. Elizabeth Warren Against Death Penalty For Tsarnaev



Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Thursday that she's against the death penalty for 
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and would rather see the Boston Marathon bomber "die in 
prison."

In an interview on CBS This Morning, the U.S. senator from Massachusetts was 
asked if she is in favor of the death penalty for the 21-year-old, who was 
convicted Wednesday in the attacks that killed 3 and injured more than 260 in 
April 2013.

"You know my heart goes out to the families here, but I don???t support the 
death penalty," she said. "I think that he should spend his life in jail, no 
possibility of parole. He should die in prison."

Warren said that if Tsarnaev is spared the death penalty, it's "not as if you 
turn this guy free."

"The point is that he stays in prison, he dies in prison, he's put away. He's 
not a danger to anyone else," she said. "He's not a part of an ongoing story, 
he's not someone who is able to keep sucking up a lot of energy and a lot of 
attention."

Wednesday's unanimous verdict on all 30 counts against Tsarnaev was a "step 
toward justice," Warren said.

"Nothing is ever going to make those who were injured whole and it's been a 
terrible thing, the marathon bombing," she said. "The families need their 
chance to heal, to move on beyond this and I think that's what really matters 
most."

(source: CBS news)

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

Capital Punishment? A Dead Policy Walking



A jury in Boston has returned a guilty verdict on all 30 counts against the 
Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Now the jury must deliberate on the 
punishment, which could be either life in prison or death. Capital punishment 
is outlawed in Massachusetts, but Tsarnaev was tried in federal court, where 
the death penalty is allowed. The jury will have to decide whether he lives or 
dies. The case provides a new reason to take a hard look at capital punishment, 
and why this irreversible, highly problematic practice should be banned.

Anthony Ray Hinton is alive today, a free man. But just last week he was on 
death row in Alabama, where he spent 30 years. Hinton was the 152nd person in 
the United States to be exonerated from death row, where he spent three decades 
for a crime he did not commit. He was accused of killing 2 fast-food restaurant 
managers in 1985. There were no eyewitnesses, nor fingerprints. Prosecutors 
alleged that bullets found matched a revolver belonging to Hinton's mother. 
Hinton had ineffective counsel, and no money to mount a credible defense or to 
hire a genuine expert witness to challenge the ballistics.

"The American criminal-justice system ... treats you better if you're rich and 
guilty than if you're poor and innocent," Bryan Stevenson told me. He is the 
founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and the 
attorney who eventually freed Anthony Ray Hinton. The unfair trial was just the 
beginning. "We developed the evidence that showed that these bullets could not 
be matched to a single gun and that it wasn't Mr. Hinton's gun," Stevenson 
explained. "The state then refused for 16 years to even retest the evidence. 
... It was really unconscionable that they chose to risk executing an innocent 
person over risking the perception that they were somehow making a mistake or 
not being tough on crime." In a remarkable and, according to Stevenson, 
extremely unlikely turn of events, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to look at 
Hinton's case, and unanimously overturned his conviction. "Had they not 
intervened, I think the risk of a wrongful execution would have been very, very 
high," Stevenson said.

Nearby, in Louisiana, Glenn Ford was released in March 2014, also after 3 
decades on death row. Evidence cleared him of the 1983 fatal shooting of a 
jewelry-store owner. Now, as a free man, he faces a death sentence of a 
different kind: stage 4 lung cancer that has spread to his bones, lymph nodes 
and spine. He is in hospice care, and wasn't strong enough to speak to me this 
week. But Marty Stroud was. He is the man who prosecuted Glenn Ford 30 years 
ago, and today regrets that he did so. He now says that Ford had an unfair 
trial in which key evidence was suppressed by police and the prosecutors, and 
that Ford lacked the money to mount a proper defense. Moreover, Stroud says, if 
he had properly done his job at the time, and all the evidence was collected, 
they would not have even been able to arrest Glenn Ford, let alone try him for 
the crime. Now, 30 years later, prosecutor Marty Stroud feels differently about 
capital punishment: "I am 100 % against the death penalty. It is barbaric. And 
the reason it is barbaric, is that it is administered by human beings, and we 
make mistakes. We are not infallible."

In addition to the legal, ethical, racial and economic-injustice arguments 
against the death penalty, there is a growing practical reason to halt the 
practice as well. It is becoming harder to obtain the drugs used in lethal 
injections. European drug companies are refusing to supply the drugs if they 
are used to kill people. The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) has now 
joined national organizations of physicians and anesthesiologists in 
discouraging their members from participating in executions. Dr. Leonard Edloe, 
a pharmacist with the APhA, told me: "We just don't want our pharmacists being 
involved either in the dispensing of the drugs or the use because, really, the 
prescriptions are illegal. They aren't prescriptions, they're purchase orders." 
Because of the shortage of lethal-injection drugs, Utah has reinstated the 
firing squad, and Oklahoma now uses untested drug combinations, which have 
caused botched executions with painful, protracted deaths.

The deliberations on the Tsarnaev case bring new, heightened attention to the 
death-penalty debate in the United States. Eighteen states plus the District of 
Columbia ban the death penalty. But there are still more than 3,000 people on 
death row in the U.S. As Bryan Stevenson notes, "For every 9 people that have 
been executed in this country, we have now identified one innocent person [on 
death row]." The time for a moratorium on executions is now.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

(source: Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international 
TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,200 stations in North America. She is 
the co-author of "The Silenced Majority," a New York Times 
best-seller----truthdig.com)