[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MISS., KAN., OKLA., NEB.

[Rick Halperin]

April 22



MISSISSIPPI:

State Fights Execution Drug Disclosure While Compensating Wrongfully Convicted



At the same time the State of Mississippi continues fighting the release of 
details about where it gets drugs used in executions, Mississippi taxpayers 
will have to compensate people wrongfully convicted and incarcerated, including 
several who were sentenced to death.

Last week, a lawyer for Richard Jordan and Ricky Chase wrote in a lawsuit filed 
in United States District Court in Jackson that Mississippi prisoners face 
risks of excruciating pain and torture during an execution that violates the 
U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual 
punishment.

A prison spokeswoman declined to comment.

Mississippi plans to execute prisoners by mixing pentobarbital from ingredients 
it purchased from a compounding pharmacy in Grenada. Lawyer Jim Craig said 
Mississippi doesn't seem to have ever used the drug in an execution before and 
questioned whether the state can mix a safe and effective anesthetic for 
prisoners.

Even if it can, Craig warns that the drug may act more slowly than drugs used 
previously, meaning that prisoners could be conscious as a paralyzing agent is 
injected, causing them to know they're unable to breathe. They might remain 
conscious as potassium chloride is injected to stop their hearts.

"The defendants' untried and untested drugs create a substantial risk that 
plaintiffs will suffer unnecessary and excruciating pain, either by injection 
of the compounded pentobarbital causing a painful reaction itself, or by the 
compounded pentobarbital failing to work, resulting in a torturous death by 
live suffocation and cardiac arrest," the suit states.

The prisoners also allege using pentobarbital is illegal under state law, 
because it doesn't meet the legal mandate for an ultra-fast-acting barbiturate. 
Mississippi formerly used a different drug, but the supplier cut off use in 
executions.

"Craig has fought the state corrections department in court seeking information 
about Mississippi's suppliers of execution drugs. The new lawsuit argues that 
the secrecy is a separate constitutional violation, because it retards 
prisoners' ability to mount Eighth Amendment challenges.

"Under the due process clauses of the United States and Mississippi 
constitutions, plaintiffs are entitled to notice of the defendants' intended 
method of execution," the suit states.

Craig argues that under evolving standards of decency, U.S. District Judge 
Henry T. Wingate should bar Mississippi from using the paralytic agent and 
potassium chloride, though state law requires them. He said executing people 
using only barbiturates, as Texas now does, could meet these standards.

Jordan was convicted of capital murder committed in the course of kidnapping 
Edwina Marta in Harrison County in 1976. At 68, Jordan is the oldest inmate on 
Mississippi's death row, having won 3 successful appeals, only to be 
resentenced to death. He's also the longest serving death-row inmate, having 
spent 38 years there. What would likely be Jordan's final appeal is pending 
before the U.S. Supreme Court. Hood's office could ask the state Supreme Court 
to set an execution date within weeks if Jordan's appeal is refused. That's 
important, because Mississippi's current supply of pentobarbital is supposed to 
expire May 20.

Chase was convicted and sentenced to death in 1990 for the 1989 killing of an 
elderly vegetable salesman in Copiah County.

Information from the Death Penalty Information Center estimates that the death 
penalty costs states approximately $1.26 million per case; on average, it costs 
$90,000 per year more to house a death-row inmate than a prisoner in the 
general population.

As DNA science improves, and courts exonerate more and more people, states have 
also started paying settlements to victims. Among them are more than a dozen 
people who the state of Mississippi will compensate this year for being 
wrongfully convicted of crimes.

Some of the cases made headlines: Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, both of 
Noxubee County; Arthur Johnson of Sunflower County; and Cedric Willis of Hinds 
County.

Some are getting compensation for the first time. Others are receiving annual 
installments as provided by law.

Mississippi law provides $50,000 for each year of wrongful imprisonment, up to 
a maximum of $500,000. The compensation must be sought within three years after 
a pardon or overturned conviction. It is retroactive. A stipulation for 
accepting the money is that the wrongly convicted person can't sue the state.

Mississippi's compensation program went into effect on July 1, 2009. That same 
year, a new law took effect requiring the state Crime Lab or local law 
enforcement agencies to preserve biological or DNA evidence gathered in felony 
investigations. Many law enforcement agencies across the state gather DNA 
during investigations, but the samples weren't always preserved.

The new laws were inspired, in part, by the 2008 exoneration of Kennedy Brewer, 
who had been convicted of capital murder in the 1992 rape and strangulation of 
his former girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter. Brewer spent 15 years in prison, 
part of it on death row. DNA tests proved his innocence in February 2008.

Brooks served 18 years for the rape and murder of a 3-year-old girl. Johnson 
was convicted of a 1993 rape and sentenced to 55 years. He served 16 years. 
Willis was convicted in 1997 in the death of Carl White Jr., and for robbing 
White's wife and daughter. He was sentenced to life plus 99 years but was 
exonerated in 2006 after serving 12 years. In 2012, the city of Jackson City 
Council authorized a $195,000 settlement with Willis for his wrongful arrest 
but denied culpability.

Each will receive $50,000 this year as provided in Senate Bill 2837, which is a 
catch-all bill of deficit appropriations and additional spending authority to a 
variety of agencies and programs. Also in the bill are funds the attorney 
general's office requested to pay for outside legal assistance, expert witness 
fees, judgments and settlement agreements.

Others receiving compensation in the bill are:

-- Sabrina Butler Porter, exonerated in the death of infant son in Lowndes 
County, $50,000

-- Rodney Demetrius Sands, whose Jefferson Davis County conviction in the 
fatal shooting of 2 men was overturned, $39,998.

-- Larry Ruffin, Bobby Ray Dixon and Phillip Bivens, exonerated in a rape and 
capital-murder case in Forrest County, $50,000 each. Money for Ruffin and 
Bivens is going to their estates.

-- John Randall Alexander, whose Panola County murder conviction was tossed 
after testimony against him was recanted, $50,000.

-- Matthew Norwood, whose Hinds County carjacking conviction was overturned, 
$50,000.

-- Jimmie Bass, whose Bolivar County aggravated assault and armed robbery 
convictions were thrown out, $50,000.

-- Frank Sanders Tipton, whose Jackson County extortion conviction was 
overturned, $50,000.

-- Derrick Luckett, whose Rankin County embezzlement conviction was 
overturned, $20,000.

(source: Jackson Free Press)








KANSAS:

Death penalty opponents to rally Thursday around 'Tree of Healing'----Tree 
planted 21 years ago when Kansas restored death penalty



A coalition of death penalty opponents will rally Thursday evening at a Topeka 
site established 21 years ago when Kansas restored its death penalty law.

The 6 p.m. rally will observe the anniversary of the "Tree of Healing," a 
cottonwood planted on April 23, 1994, at 1176 S.W. Warren. The tree symbolizes 
the nonviolent efforts of 2 groups, Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation 
and the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty, to oppose state-sponsored 
executions, organizers of the event scheduled at the tree site said in a news 
release.

Kansas last carried out an execution in 1965, but currently has prison inmates 
who have received death sentences.

(source: The Capital-Journal)








OKLAHOMA:

New Law May Bring Controversial Form Of Capital Punishment To Oklahoma



The state of Oklahoma isn't about to let something like a Supreme Court 
decision prevent it from executing inmates.

On Friday, Gov. Mary Fallin (R-OK) signed legislation establishing that death 
row inmates will be asphyxiated with nitrogen gas if the state is unable to 
obtain lethal injection drugs or if the Supreme Court strikes down that method 
of execution. The bill responds to 2 developments that currently stand between 
the state and its desire to kill several inmates - a shortage of execution 
drugs and a Supreme Court case that could potentially limit the kinds of drugs 
Oklahoma may use in executions.

The shortage arises largely from opposition to the death penalty among drug 
manufacturers and foreign governments. Many pharmaceutical companies, 
especially European and Asian companies that have historically made drugs used 
in executions, refuse to distribute their products if they will be used to kill 
inmates. Meanwhile, foreign bodies such as the European Commission imposed 
tight restrictions on the export of many drugs that can be used in executions. 
As a result, many states have turned to less-reliable drugs - or to drugs 
produced through unreliable methods - in order to carry out executions.

That's why the Supreme Court is now involved. Earlier this year, the Court 
agreed to hear three Oklahoma inmates' cases challenging the state's plan to 
use a drug called midazolam during their execution. Oklahoma, like many states, 
uses a 3-drug protocol in its executions - an anesthetic to ensure that the 
inmate does not feel pain, a paralytic and then a 3rd drug that actually kills 
the inmate. The state intends to use midazolam as the 1st part of this 
protocol, but it is not at all clear that the drug is effective when used for 
this purpose. Rather, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained in a dissenting 
opinion last January, research indicates that midazolam has a "ceiling effect" 
- it is effective as a pain-killer up to a certain point but higher doses 
beyond that point do not increase its effectiveness.

Yet, while the Court is scheduled to hear a challenge to Oklahoma's use of this 
drug, there are 2 reasons to suspect that a majority of the Court will 
ultimately hold that it is acceptable to use midazolam in executions despite 
concerns that it may not adequately dull inmates' pain. The 1st is that, while 
the Court did agree to hear 3 inmates' cases, there were actually 4 inmates who 
petitioned the Court. The justices allowed that 4th inmate, Charles Warner, to 
be executed before they ultimately took the remaining 3 cases and stayed those 
executions - although the Court's 4 more liberal members did dissent from the 
decision to allow Warner to die.

Simply put, the fact that the justices permitted Oklahoma to kill Warner is not 
a hopeful sign that a majority of the Court viewed his execution as 
constitutionally doubtful.

The other sign that the Court may not strike down Oklahoma's execution protocol 
is a 2008 decision called Baze v. Rees. Baze involved a challenge to a somewhat 
different execution protocol used by the state of Kentucky prior to the 
execution drug shortages. Though the legal issues presented by Baze are 
somewhat distinct from the issues presented by the Oklahoma case, it is worth 
noting that Justice Anthony Kennedy, who sometimes votes with the Court's 
left-of-center bloc on death penalty cases, did not crossover in Baze. This 
suggests that Kennedy may be less sympathetic to challenges to a state's method 
of execution than he is to challenges alleging that certain classes of people - 
such as juvenile offenders or the intellectually disabled - may not be 
executed.

In any event, the law Fallin signed on Friday will likely permit the state to 
move forward with the 3 inmates' executions regardless of how the justices 
rule.

(source: thinkprogress.org)








NEBRASKA:

Flaws in death penalty



The death penalty should be repealed for several reasons ("Death penalty repeal 
passes first round," April 16). The first is that since 1970, 150 people on 
death row have been exonerated before they were put to death. That begs the 
question, how many innocent people do we accidentally put to death? Even one is 
unconscionable. To be convicted, someone has to be "guilty beyond a reasonable 
doubt," but the standards must be higher for the death penalty. To get the 
penalty of death someone must be guilty beyond any doubt and that is hard to 
prove.

Death penalty cases go through many appeals and it takes years to carry out the 
penalty. It is more expensive for the state to carry out a death penalty 
decision than a life in prison decision. At the hearing for this bill, several 
loved ones of victims came forward to support the repeal of the death penalty 
because death penalty decisions have caused them to go through years and years 
of trauma as the case goes through years and years of appeals. They said that a 
life in prison decision would at least give them closure.

The most important factors in whether or not someone gets the death penalty is 
the quality of their representation, the color of their skin, and the color of 
their victim's skin. African Americans are much more likely to get the death 
penalty than are white Americans. This points to a broken justice system that 
is given the power to determine whether someone lives or dies.

Nebraska senators, the death penalty is just a bad law. Get rid of it and don't 
let the fact that you don't like Ernie Chambers, who proposed the bill, get in 
the way of making a good decision.

Gwendolen Hines, Lincoln

(source: Letter to the Editor, Lincoln Journal Star)