[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., N.C., S.C., OKLA., ARIZ., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 30



NEW HAMPSHIRE:

NH court upholds death sentence in police officer death



The New Hampshire Supreme Court is upholding the death sentence of a man 
convicted of killing a Manchester police officer in 2006.

The justices unanimously ruled Thursday that Michael Addison will remain the 
state's only death row inmate. He was convicted of killing officer Michael 
Briggs after a violent, weeklong series of crimes that put him at the top of 
the city's "most wanted" list.

In their 1st fairness review of a death sentence, the justices said Addison's 
sentence was fair when compared to those of similar cases across the country 
involving officers killed in the line of duty.

His lawyers had argued the Briggs killing lacked the brutality of other 
killings of on-duty police officers.

Addison's lawyers can ask the court to reconsider its ruling.

(source: Associated Press)








NORTH CAROLINA:

North Carolina House passes bill aimed at resuming executions



North Carolina lawmakers approved a measure on Wednesday aimed at resuming 
executions in the state after a 9-year break by removing the requirement that a 
doctor be present at all lethal injections.

The state has not executed any inmates since 2006, in part due to conflicts 
with the state's medical board, which has threatened to punish physicians who 
participate in a prisoner's death.

The state's House of Representatives passed legislation in an 84-33 vote 
Wednesday night that would also allow nurses, physician assistants or 
paramedics to oversee lethal injections.

Supporters hope the measure will pave the way for prison officials to resume 
carrying out death sentences. There are 149 inmates on death row in North 
Carolina, according to the state Department of Public Safety.

"When a court hands down a decision, particularly in the matter of life and 
death, that decision ought to be carried out," said House Speaker Tim Moore, a 
Republican.

Other legislators who were critical of the measure noted that legal challenges 
to lethal injection protocols would likely continue to postpone executions even 
if the bill passes.

Some opponents focused on a recent string of exonerations and revelations of 
convictions based on faulty evidence.

"It should horrify us as a state that we might execute someone who is 
innocent," said Representative Pricey Harrison, a Democrat.

The measure still has to pass the state Senate, whose leader supports capital 
punishment but could not be reached on Wednesday for comment about the current 
legislation.

Republican Governor Pat McCrory has not indicated whether he would sign the 
bill into law.

Elizabeth Hambourger, an attorney with the state's Center for Death Penalty 
Litigation, questioned the timing of the House move. The state's longest 
serving death row inmate was recently exonerated.

"There are so many problems with the death penalty that are gaining exposure, 
to want to restart executions at this time seems like the opposite of what we 
ought to be doing," she said. "We should be taking a hard look at it instead."

(source: Reuters)








SOUTH CAROLINA:

Accused leader in Lake Wylie killings pleads not guilty to all charges



The man accused of ordering and planning the October shooting deaths of Doug 
and Debbie London pleaded not guilty to all charges during a brief Wednesday 
morning appearance in federal court.

Jamell Cureton, 22, is charged with murder, racketeering and other crimes in a 
federal indictment released last week. He is also accused of taking part in the 
2013 shooting death of 18-year-old Kwamne Clyburn in a Charlotte park.

His hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge David Cayer lasted about 40 seconds. 
He faces the death penalty in 6 of the charges filed against him, life in 
prison in 2 others, and up to $2.5 million in fines.

The indictment alleges that Cureton is 1 of 3 gang members who tried to rob the 
Londons' mattress store on South Boulevard last May. Cureton was wounded during 
a shootout with Doug London.

Prosecutors say the couple was gunned down at their Lake Wylie, S.C., home to 
keep Doug London from testifying against Cureton, his brother Nana Adoma and 
David Fudge. All 3 are reputed members of United Blood Nation, an East Coast 
gang with deep criminal ties across the region. Cureton is accused of ordering 
and planning the killings from his Mecklenburg County jail cell.

The federal indictment accuses 12 suspected gang members of charges ranging 
from murder to racketeering conspiracy and firearms violations. 6 of the 12 
defendants are suspects face a possible death sentence.

The 5 other defendants are charged with racketeering conspiracy related to the 
Londons' death. They face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Cureton and his attorney have asked that the charges against him be dropped 
because of constitutional violations by the government. Separate motions filed 
by Cureton and his attorney, Chiege Okwara of Charlotte, allege that FBI agents 
seized confidential correspondence between Cureton and Okwara along with other 
documents vital to Cureton's defense during a January raid on Cureton's jail 
cell. Okwara says their arguments will be heard May 13.

In her motion filed Tuesday, Okwara says some of those documents have not been 
returned. She says her client's right to a fair trial has been damaged and that 
the indictment should be dismissed.

After the Wednesday hearing, Okwara said she still hasn't seen a letter that 
Cureton says he had written and was preparing to mail to her when it was 
seized. She said she doesn't know if other documents are missing, too.

Asked about her client's state of mind, she said he's facing the death penalty 
and is "distraught."

Acting U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose declined comment about the 
defense's allegations against the government.

(source: The State)








OKLAHOMA:

Using nitrogen gas in executions is humane



Those who worry about the humaneness of nitrogen asphyxiation to carry out the 
death penalty should try it - under medical supervision, of course. Nitrogen 
asphyxiation is a type of hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation, and it has the same 
symptoms as altitude hypoxia. Both are treacherous because there are no 
symptoms other than unconsciousness and, ultimately, death. I experienced it 
several times in an altitude chamber as part of my military pilot training. One 
by one, we trainees removed our oxygen masks at a pressure altitude of 35,000 
feet, and begin putting pegs into a daycare pegboard. Everyone laughed as each 
of us struggled to put square pegs into round holes, and ultimately became 
nonresponsive. At that point, the trainer put our masks back on, and recovery 
was almost instantaneous.

Anyone can have the same experience at sea level, simply by breathing pure 
nitrogen through a mask. Needless to say, there must be an EMT present to 
supervise and to remove the mask. If nitrogen asphyxiation becomes the mode of 
execution in Oklahoma, I'd suggest the mask exercise be made mandatory training 
for lawyers, judges and jurors in capital cases.

Roger Rensvold, Midwest City

(source: Letter to the Editor, The Oklahoman)








ARIZONA:

Accused Paradise Valley killer removed from courtroom again



A suspect accused of killing a Phoenix businessman and a Paradise Valley couple 
in 2012 has been removed from a courtroom again.

Michael Crane was led out of Wednesday's evidentiary hearing within 5 minutes 
of entering the Maricopa County Superior Court courtroom for yelling slurs 
toward a judge.

The 34-year-old Crane is charged with 1st-degree murder in the deaths of Bruce 
Gaudet in Phoenix on Jan. 26, 2012, and philanthropists Lawrence and Glenna 
Shapiro 4 days later.

Crane has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Prosecutors are seeking the death 
penalty.

A psychiatrist testified Wednesday that Crane's mental health has declined in 
the three years he's been in custody in connection with the 3 killings.

(source: Associated Press)








USA:

Obama Administration Steps Back From Effort to End Federal Death Penalty



For a moment last year, it looked as if the Obama administration was moving 
toward a history-making end to the federal death penalty.

A botched execution in Oklahoma brought national attention to the issue, public 
opinion polls began to shift and President Obama, declaring that it was time to 
"ask ourselves some difficult and profound questions," directed Attorney 
General Eric H. Holder Jr. to review capital punishment.

At the Justice Department, a proposal soon began to take shape among Mr. Holder 
and senior officials: The administration could declare a formal moratorium on 
the federal death penalty because medical experts could not guarantee that the 
lethal drugs used did not cause terrible suffering. Such a declaration would 
have pressured states to do the same, the officials reasoned, and would bolster 
the legal argument that the death penalty is unconstitutionally cruel 
punishment.

But the idea never gained traction, and Mr. Obama has seldom mentioned the 
death penalty review since. Now, as the Supreme Court considered arguments 
Wednesday over whether lethal injection, as currently administered, was 
unconstitutional, the obstacles the Obama administration faced provide vivid 
examples of just how politically difficult the debate remains.

"It was a step in the right direction, but not enough of a step," said Charles 
J. Ogletree Jr., a Harvard professor and a death penalty opponent who met with 
administration officials as part of the review. The Justice Department, he 
added, has been refusing to say what he thinks senior officials there believe: 
"We've had too many executions that didn't work and killing somebody???s not 
the answer."

In remarks last May after a prisoner in Oklahoma regained consciousness and 
writhed and moaned during a lethal injection, Mr. Obama, who has supported the 
death penalty, seemed to raise expectations for a policy change. He lamented 
its racial disparities and the risk of executing innocent people. He referred 
the matter to Mr. Holder, a liberal stalwart who opposed capital punishment. 
But privately the White House was cautious, sending word to the Justice 
Department to keep its focus narrow, administration officials said.

Mr. Obama called for the review at a time when there had not been a federal 
execution since 2003, when Louis Jones Jr. was killed for raping and murdering 
a 19-year-old female soldier. Since 2010, the federal government has 
effectively had a moratorium on executions - all are carried out by lethal 
injection - because manufacturers in Europe and the United States refused to 
sell the government the barbiturates used to render prisoners unconscious. 
States, however, found alternatives, including the sedative midazolam, which 
was used in the gruesome execution of Clayton D. Lockett in Oklahoma last year.

As the Justice Department sought advice from experts on both sides of the 
issue, opposition to the idea came from unexpected corners. Some of the most 
outspoken voices against the death penalty also urged the most caution, fearful 
that a federal announcement would actually do more harm than good.

"From my view, we're better off with things bubbling up in the states," said 
Henderson Hill, the executive director of the Eighth Amendment Project and one 
of several people consulted by the administration last year. "I've never been 
all that enthusiastic about the executive branch's role." While 32 states allow 
the death penalty, many have their own moratoriums on executions and the number 
of people put to death is declining.

Advocates in particular worried that having Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder as the 
faces of the anti-death penalty movement would stoke conservative support for 
capital punishment at a time when some libertarian-minded Republicans, 
Christian conservatives and liberal Democrats appeared to be finding common 
ground in opposition to it.

"I'm not sure that what the administration would have to say would be 
inherently influential in Nebraska," Mr. Hill said. Opposition to the death 
penalty was growing in Nebraska last year and lawmakers voted overwhelmingly 
this month to replace it with life in prison, setting up a veto fight with Gov. 
Pete Ricketts, a Republican.

Advocates were further worried that if lethal injections were eliminated, 
states would bring back older methods of execution, a concern borne out in 
Utah, where officials said they would bring back firing squads if lethal drugs 
were not available. Other states are reviving plans to use the electric chair 
or gas chambers.

Inside the Justice Department, some officials opposed a formal moratorium 
because it would eliminate the option for the death penalty in terrorism cases 
like the one against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who faces a possible death sentence for 
the 2013 bombings at the Boston Marathon. Others worried that eliminating the 
death penalty would make it harder to persuade Congress to move terrorist 
suspects from the island prison at Guant???namo Bay to the United States for 
trial.

There were also logistical hurdles. Advocates and administration officials 
asked what would happen to the roughly 5 dozen people on federal death row. 
Would Mr. Obama, who has said the death penalty was appropriate in some cases, 
commute the sentences of men who raped and murdered people? There were no clear 
answers.

In the end, the question never made it to Mr. Obama's desk. Last fall, Mr. 
Holder announced plans to resign, and officials said it would be inappropriate 
to recommend a major policy change on his way out of office, then leave it up 
to his successor to carry it out. In January, the Supreme Court agreed to hear 
the case of 3 convicted murderers who challenged the lethal injection drugs. 
Now with the issue before the justices, the review at the Justice Department 
has come to a halt because any administration action could be seen as trying to 
influence the court.

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, who was sworn in this week, told senators 
during her confirmation hearing that the death penalty "is an effective 
penalty." But she did not elaborate. Emily Pierce, a Justice Department 
spokeswoman, said the review continued. "And we have, in effect, a moratorium 
in place on federal executions in the meantime."

Some advocates, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss conversations 
that were confidential, said they urged the Justice Department to focus on 
exposing racial inequities, problems with legal representation and the costs of 
capital punishment. Officials said that was likely to happen, regardless of 
what happens at the Supreme Court.

"We keep having these moments where we're very close," Mr. Ogletree said.

He said that the focus had simply moved to the Supreme Court, where he held out 
hope that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy would side with the more liberal members 
of the court and declare the lethal drugs unconstitutional.

(source: New York Times)

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

Dangerous cocktails



When states began using lethal injection to execute criminals in the late 
1970s, the idea was to make state killing more humane. This method allowed 
states to retire their electric chairs, and it was quietly effective for a 
couple of decades. But in recent years a key drug in the execution cocktail has 
been hard to come by. This has led some of the 32 states that have the death 
penalty to improvise, with grisly results. On April 29th 2014, when Oklahoma 
used a new regimen to execute Clayton Lockett, the condemned man spent 43 
minutes writhing and shouting on the gurney. "This shit is fucking with my 
head," he said, head bucking, before he finally died.

Almost a year later, the Supreme Court heard challenges today from three 
death-row inmates who appear destined for a similar fate. The case, Glossip v 
Gross, turns on complex and hard-to-verify medical claims about the use of a 
new drug, midazolam, that apparently caused Lockett's pain and several other 
less-than-smooth executions in Ohio and Arizona.

Sodium thiopental, a barbiturate that reliably induces a coma-like state, was 
once the 1st of 3 drugs in the execution protocol pioneered by Oklahoma in 
1977. But sources for this drug dried up in 2010 when European pharmaceutical 
companies opposed to the death penalty refused to export it for that purpose, 
and a domestic producer, Hospira, stopped making it in 2011. Oklahoma turned to 
pentobarbital, another barbiturate, but this drug also became hard to locate. 
The central question for the justices is whether midazolam is up to the task of 
knocking out a criminal before the 2 other drugs - a paralytic to quiet the 
body and potassium chloride to stop the heart - are injected. These drugs, in 
people who are not fully unconscious, produce searing pain. When the justices 
approved the earlier trio of drugs 7 years ago in Baze v Rees, they did so on 
the grounds that the cocktail did not carry a "substantial risk of serious 
harm." If midazolam does pose such a risk, it would constitute a "cruel and 
unusual punishment" that is prohibited by the 8th amendment.

Though the case challenges only the constitutionality of a particular drug and 
not capital punishment per se, the politics of the death penalty pervaded much 
of the oral argument. "Let's be honest about what's going on here," said 
Justice Samuel Alito in a tone that was even testier than usual (which is 
saying something). "Oklahoma and other states could carry out executions 
painlessly," he said, pointing to jurisdictions where assisted-suicide laws 
allow for an easeful death. Yet the state has been boxed into a corner by a 
"guerrilla war against the death penalty." It would be inappropriate, he held, 
for the justices to "countenance" that war, "which consists of efforts to make 
it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out 
capital punishment with little, if any pain."

Justice Antonin Scalia extended this line of reasoning. More effective 
sedatives "have been rendered unavailable by the abolitionist movement putting 
pressure on the companies that manufacture them". Isn't that "relevant," he 
said, "to the decision that you're putting before us?"

Robin Konrad, the attorney arguing against using midazolam, seemed caught off 
guard. Though she gave the correct answer - "I don't think that it's relevant" 
-she did not put nearly enough force behind her response. It doesn't matter at 
all, from the point of view of the 8th amendment, why a particular drug has 
come to be adopted by a state for its execution regimen. If that drug fails to 
do its job, if it gives prisoners the sensation of being burned alive, it is 
unconstitutional. Ms Konrad's 3 clients should not have to be tortured to death 
because drug manufacturers - whether under pressure from death-penalty 
abolitionists or of their own accord - no longer supply drugs that kill 
criminals painlessly.

The lawyer for Oklahoma, Patrick Wyrick, was unflappable in the face of an 
unusually aggressive series of questions from Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Fielding 
her long critique of specific points in his brief, Mr Wyrick responded with a 
greater command of the medical details, correcting her misinterpretations 
("respectfully, you have that backwards") and picking apart the studies on 
which the petitioners' expert witness relied. But he had some trouble with this 
question from Justice Elena Kagan:

"Do you think that if we conclude that there is just a lot of uncertainty about 
this drug, in other words, you know, you might be right, or Ms. Konrad might be 
right, and it's really just impossible to tell. Given that nobody does studies 
on this drug, it would be unethical to do studies on this drug, we simply can't 
know the answer to these questions. If that's the state of the world, do you 
think it's a violation of the Eighth Amendment to use it?"

Here Mr Wyrick just reverted to the legal standard, which puts the burden on 
the petitioner to show a clear error in the lower court's factual judgment that 
midazolam does in fact work as intended. It is unclear if a majority of the 
justices will agree that Ms Konrad showed such an error. 4 justices seem 
inclined to uphold the drug, and 4 seem aghast that Oklahoma is still intending 
to use it. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the oft-swing vote, was largely mum today, 
revealing little about his view.

(source: The Economist)

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

Justice Alito Blasts Death Penalty Abolitionists For ???Guerrilla War'



Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday accused anti-capital punishment 
activists of mounting "a guerilla war on the death penalty" as the court heard 
arguments on whether lethal injection violates the Constitution's ban on cruel 
and unusual punishment.

Alito noted during arguments in Glossip v. Gross that the high court has thus 
far upheld the death penalty as constitutional. But he acknowledged, "It's 
controversial as a constitutional matter. It certainly is controversial as a 
policy matter."

He continued:

Those who oppose the death penalty are free to try to persuade legislatures to 
abolish the death penalty. Some of those efforts have been successful. They're 
free to ask this court to overrule the death penalty. But until that occurs, is 
it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war 
against the death penalty, which consists of efforts to make it impossible for 
the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment 
with little, if any, pain?

The court is considering whether the drug midazolam, when used as the 1st of 3 
drugs in lethal injection, can reliably render an inmate unconscious and free 
of pain as the 2nd and 3rd drugs paralyze him and stop his heart. Midazolam was 
first used in Oklahoma's botched execution of Clayton Lockett in 2014, and has 
been used in putting 14 inmates to death since.

Prior to 2008, the 32 states that allow the death penalty used a 3-drug 
cocktail with sodium thiopental as the 1st to be administered. But in recent 
years, drug manufacturers have either stopped selling sodium thiopental to 
prisons or have quit making the drug altogether, forcing corrections officials 
to search for alternatives like midazolam.

Justice Antonin Scalia also expressed frustration with the case brought by 
death row inmates. Referring to Robin Konrad, the attorney representing the 
plaintiffs on behalf of the Federal Public Defender's Office in Arizona, Scalia 
said, "And now you want to come before the court and say, 'Well, this third 
drug is not 100 % sure.' The reason it isn't 100 % sure is because the 
abolitionists have rendered it impossible to get the 100 %-sure drugs. And you 
think we should not view that as relevant to the decision that -- that you're 
putting before us?"

Justices Elena Kagan and Sonya Sotomayor hammered Oklahoma's representative, 
who was defending lethal injection. Sotomayor suggested that Oklahoma solicitor 
general Patrick R. Wyrick had mischaracterized opinions from a state expert 
witness.

"So nothing you say or read to me am I going to believe, frankly, until I see 
it with my own eyes the context, okay?" Sotomayor told Wyrick.

Kagan said she was troubled that lethal injection drugs can't ethically be 
studied on humans. She repeatedly returned to the effects of the 2nd drug in 
today's lethal injection protocols, potassium chloride.

"It's like being burned alive," Kagan said.

"We've actually talked about being burned at the stake, and, and everybody 
agrees that that's cruel and unusual punishment," Kagan said. "So suppose that 
we said, 'We're going to burn you at the stake, but before we do, we're going 
to use an anesthetic of completely unknown properties and unknown effects. 
Maybe you won't feel it, maybe you will. We just can't tell.' And -- and you 
think that that would be okay."

(source: Kim Bellware, Huffington Post)