[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., IND., MO., ARIZ.. USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 3


ALABAMA:

Legislature to consider bringing back Alabama's famed 'Yellow Mama' electric 
chair



For 3/4 of a century (1927-2002), executions in Alabama were carried out using 
an electric chair dubbed "Yellow Mama," a nickname it was given after being 
covered in the same paint used to stripe Alabama's highways. "Mama" has been in 
storage since 2002 when legislation was passed giving prisoners the ability to 
opt for lethal injection. But if one Republican state legislator has his way, 
the chair may be brought out of retirement.

State Rep. Lynn Greer (R-Rogersville) told WSFA he plans to introduce 
legislation during the upcoming legislative session that would bring the chair 
back because of problems obtaining the drugs needed to conduct executions by 
lethal injection. Executions in Alabama are currently on hold because of a 
shortage of pentobarbital, 1 of 3 drugs that state utilizes when creating its 
execution cocktail.

There is also a lawsuit pending in Alabama to compel the state to release 
secret details about its lethal injection procedures, including the names of 
the companies who supply the chemicals.

"Theoretically, an hour before an execution is carried out, the [Department of 
Corrections] could unilaterally decide to lethally inject a condemned inmate 
with any form of poison sufficient to effectuate death, even if the poison 
results in excruciating pain, and where painless alternatives are available," 
the lawsuit states.

Rep. Greer says the holdups are costing taxpayers money because of the extended 
time death row inmates are cared for by the state.

"Those on death row today may be there for many many more years, because if 
we're using the lethal injection drugs and we don't have the drugs then we have 
no way of carrying out the process." he said.

Yellow Mama is currently being stored in the attic of Holman Correctional 
Facility in Atmore. It was originally made by an inmate named Edward Mason, who 
was serving a 12 to 60 year sentence for burglary and gran larceny. Mason was 
given a month's furlough for making the chair, but after he left for his 
furlough he was never seen or heard from again.

If Greer's legislation is passed, the chair would be taken down for use on 
current death row inmates.

(source: Yellow Hammer News)

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

Alabama officials: No interviews for condemned inmates



Neither of the 2 men scheduled to die on Alabama's death row early this year 
will be able to speak to the media face-to-face before they're put to death, a 
prison official said.

The Alabama Department of Corrections this week turned down The Anniston Star's 
request for an in-person interview with Thomas Arthur, who is scheduled for 
execution Feb. 19. Arthur had requested an interview in letters to the 
newspaper.

In a brief email to The Star, Alabama Department of Corrections spokeswoman 
Latonya Burton said there will be "no interviews of (the) condemned or those on 
death row" based on a state law that limits access to condemned inmates. Under 
the law, only physicians, lawyers, relatives, friends and spiritual advisers 
may visit inmates on death row.

Attempts to reach Burton for further comment on the policy were unsuccessful 
this week.

Death row interviews are somewhat rare, because lawyers typically don't want 
their clients to give interviews, said Richard Dieter, director of the Death 
Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that studies capital punishment.

"What usually happens is that the media wants the interview but the inmate or 
the inmate's lawyers don't want one," he said. He said it was "unusual" for a 
state to have a blanket policy denying interviews to inmates who request one.

"A person about to be executed certainly has something the public might want to 
hear and the media is the way the public would hear it," he said.

Florida allows death row inmates to schedule interviews with individual 
reporters, and gives condemned prisoners a chance to speak with up to 30 
reporters in a press conference on the day before they're executed.

Tennessee prohibits media interviews with death row inmates, according to state 
regulations. Attempts to reach prison officials in Mississippi and Georgia for 
comment on their policies were not successful Friday.

Janette Grantham, of the victims' rights group Victims of Crime and Leniency, 
said death row interviews only cause pain and suffering for the friends and 
family members of murder victims.

"There is nothing he can say that will help the victims," Grantham wrote in an 
e-mail.

Grantham said a woman she knew, the mother of a murder victim, "was so shocked 
that she had a stroke" when she saw a former death row inmate hugging his 
girlfriend on a nationwide news program. Grantham didn't name the inmate, but 
said it was someone whose sentence was commuted when the Supreme Court ruled 
states can't kill inmates who were under 18 at the time of their crime.

"Those out there for a story should stop and think of what it does to the 
victims' families," she wrote.

Alabama's law on death row inmate access has been in place since 1985, but the 
current ban on inmate interviews seems to date to 2002, when state courts ruled 
that the law did allow the Department of Corrections to block such interviews.

In that case, television station WSFA sued for the opportunity to interview 
Lynda Lyon Block, who would become the first woman in Alabama executed since 
1957 and the last Alabamian killed in the electric chair.

WSFA reporter Eileen Jones argued at the time that denial of an interview 
violated her First Amendment rights as a journalist. Prison officials argued 
that the interview ban was in place for security reasons. In its ruling, the 
court noted that reporters can still conduct interviews by telephone and mail.

British writer Tahir Shah managed to interview Block in person, though it's not 
clear whether that interview came before or after the court ruling. Prior to 
that, the most recent interview of an Alabama death row inmate by a news 
organization was an Associated Press interview with Henry Francis Hays before 
his execution in 1997.

Hays, a Klansman, was convicted in the 1981 lynching of black Mobile resident 
Michael Donald.

Alabama hasn't conducted an execution since 2013, largely because of drug 
shortages and legal challenges to the state's protocol for conducting lethal 
injection. Arthur, a 73-year-old convicted in the 1980s murder-for-hire of 
Muscle Shoals resident Troy Wicker, was scheduled to be executed in 2008 and 
2012, but obtained stays of execution after filing court challenges.

One of Arthur's challenges to the case involves a wig found in Wicker's car 
after the murder. Past DNA testing on the wig proved inconclusive, and Arthur's 
lawyers have offered to pay for a new round of testing using technology that 
wasn't available during the most recent test.

Another convict, Bobby Ray Gilbert, stated in an affidavit in 2008 that he 
killed Wicker. Gilbert later refused to testify about the case in court, citing 
his rights under the Fifth Amendment.

Last fall, the state sought execution dates for 9 men on death row. So far, 
only 2 dates have been set: 1 for Arthur and 1 for William Kuenzel, convicted 
in the murder of a convenience store clerk in Sylacauga.

Kuenzel is set for execution March 19.

(source: Anniston Star)

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

see: 
https://www.change.org/p/robert-bentley-grant-billy-kuenzel-the-right-to-a-new-trial-so-he-can-present-the-evidence-which-was-unlawfully-withheld-by-the-prosecution-at-his-original-trial

(source: change.org)








INDIANA:

Complaint against prosecutor Terry Curry dismissed



The disciplinary arm of the Indiana Supreme Court has dismissed a complaint 
brought against Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry by the mother of the 
suspect in the fatal shooting of Indianapolis police officer Perry Renn.

The complaint by Cynthia Davis alleged that Curry failed to take into account 
details of an autopsy report that said fragments found in part of Renn's body 
were not bullet fragments but possibly fragments from a damaged canister of 
tear gas the officer was wearing on his belt.

In a Dec. 5 letter to Davis, the court's Disciplinary Commission said it has 
dismissed the matter. "After reviewing the complaint," the letter said, "we 
have determined that it does not raise a substantial question of misconduct 
that would warrant disciplinary action."

The complaint is not a public record. A copy of the complaint and the Supreme 
Court letter were posted on the Facebook page of the Rev. Mmoja Ajabu, Davis 
spiritual adviser.

Curry's spokeswoman, Peg McLeish, confirmed the complaint was filed.

"Yes, Cynthia Davis filed a grievance against the prosecutor," McLeish said 
Friday. "It was summarily dismissed by the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary 
Commission."

Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathryn Dolan said the process is confidential unless 
a misconduct charge is filed against an attorney.

"The purpose of that," she explained, "is because anyone can accuse someone of 
anything."

Dolan said the commission received 1,678 complaints against attorneys last 
year, with charges filed in 35 of those cases.

Davis' 25-year-old son, Major Davis Jr., is accused of fatally shooting Renn in 
a July 5 confrontation that turned into an exchange of gunfire. At least 22 
.40-caliber shots were fired by police, a probable cause affidavit said, and at 
least 6 shots were fired from an AK-47-type assault rifle that authorities say 
Davis fired at Renn.

Autopsy reports under Indiana law are not a public record.

Davis Jr. is charged with murder, and Curry said he would seek the death 
penalty if Davis Jr. is convicted.

(source: Indianapolis Star)








MISSOURI:

Instead of defying a national trend, Missouri could lead by ending the death 
penalty



35 prisoners were executed in 2014 in the United States. That's 35 too many, 
but at least it was the lowest number in 20 years.

But, shamefully, Missouri is bucking this good trend. It executed a record 10 
people in 2014, tying it with Texas for the most of any state in the nation.

In fact, the annual report about all of this from the Death Penalty Information 
Center shows that Missouri, Texas and Florida accounted for 80 % of the 
executions in 2014.

It's a disgraceful record for Missouri, one of 32 states that still retain the 
outrageously expensive, unreliable and immoral system of capital punishment. 
Although no states abolished the death penalty in 2014, half a dozen have done 
so in the past few years.

That's an important effort, and it needs to continue as public support for 
capital punishment keeps falling.

Another positive takeaway from recent years has been the falling number of 
executions. Last year's total was just over 1/3 of the 98 that occurred in 
1999.

The United States is among the few developed countries still clinging to this 
arbitrary, vengeful system. Some 140 nations have walked away from capital 
punishment, leaving the U.S. in the company of such countries as North Korea, 
Iran and Pakistan. In this matter, our country is known for the company it 
keeps.

Gov. Jay Nixon has consistently failed to stop executions in Missouri. It's a 
serious blight on the Democratic governor's record and an embarrassment to 
Missourians.

His inaction, however, is in harmony with Democratic Attorney General Chris 
Koster and a Republican-controlled legislature that cannot find the will even 
to try to fix the 100-plus faults in the state???s death penalty system that 
have been identified in a 2-year American Bar Association study.

Worse, Missouri, along with Georgia, has been the subject of recent national 
press coverage for those states' willingness to execute people with low IQs. In 
some of these cases, it's doubtful that those convicted even understand the 
charges against them. Missouri's reputation for justice thus grows worse.

Although Kansas continues to have the death penalty on the books - and 10 death 
row inmates are in state prisons now - it hasn't executed anyone since 1976.

Reasonable alternatives to the death penalty exist, including, in some cases, 
life in prison without parole. These alternatives, which are much less 
expensive to operate, would prevent the execution of some people who aren't 
guilty of the crimes they're convicted of committing.

Do such convictions happen? Indeed, yes. In 2014 alone, 7 death row prisoners 
were exonerated in the U.S.

Is this a 1-year phenomenon? Not at all. Since 1973, 150 people have been freed 
from death row after being exonerated.

Capital punishment should be ended everywhere. It does nothing to bring back 
the lives that murderers have taken and it forecloses any possible 
rehabilitation of the convicts.

The system is broken, a moral stain on the people of every state where it's 
legal. Although the U.S. Supreme Court hasn't yet ruled it so, it's the very 
definition of cruel and unusual punishment.

This unfixable system must be abolished. State legislators should lead the way 
in doing that in Missouri, Kansas and elsewhere in 2015.

(source: Editorial, Kansas City Star)








ARIZONA:

Traffic accident 30 years ago could spare inmate the death penalty



A man who killed 2 others in a 1989 Tucson drug ripoff will get a chance to 
escape being executed.

In a split decision on Dec. 29, the majority of a 3-judge panel of the 9th U.S. 
Circuit Court of Appeals said the attorney for Eric Owen Mann failed to 
investigate the effects that a 1985 traffic accident might have had on him.

Chief Judge Sidney Thomas said there was reason to believe that mishap, which 
left two others dead, affected Mann in various ways, including the real 
possibility of traumatic brain injury. And that evidence, Thomas said, might 
lead a new judge to decide not to sentence Mann to death.

The ruling was not unanimous.

Judge Alex Kozinski accused his colleagues of basing their decision to give 
Mann a new sentencing hearing on a hyper technical interpretation of what the 
trial judge decided. And he said it ultimately won't make any difference and 
that, even after a new hearing, the death sentence will be reimposed.

"One way or the other, Mann will be executed, if he doesn't die of old age 
first," Kozinski wrote.

"But only after he [ and the families of the two people he killed 25 years ago 
- ensure what may be decades of further injustice," Kozinski continued. 
"Where's the justice in that?"

Court records show that Mann had arranged to sell a kilogram of cocaine to 
Richard Alberts, 22, for about $20,000. But Mann's girlfriend, Karen Miller, 
later testified that the real plan was to "rip off" Alberts by taking the money 
and giving him a shoebox filled with paper and then "whack" him.

Alberts came to the rented house in central Tucson with Ramon Bazurto, age 25. 
When Alberts realized what happened, Mann grabbed his pistol, which he had 
placed on the bed, and shot both of them.

Police searched the house about a week later but made no arrest until 1994 
when, after breaking up with Mann, Miller went to sheriff's deputies.

Mann was convicted after a 5-day trial. Miller and Carlos Alejandro, who helped 
dump the bodies, were both granted immunity.

The Arizona Supreme Court rejected claims that both the trial and sentencing 
phases were tainted by ineffective assistance of counsel. The 9th Circuit 
agreed with the former, saying a decision not to call witnesses was 
"strategic."

Thomas said, though, mistakes were made by Mann's lawyer when the court was 
deciding the penalty. And he said there was the possibility that the evidence 
never produced would have changed the sentence.

Some of that, Thomas said, was the failure to obtain any school, prison or 
medical records. But the judge said there was never any effort to look into the 
circumstances or consequences of that 1985 accident.

Miller said Mann was driving his friend's ex-wife and 14-year-old daughter when 
his Jeep rolled over and tumbled into a canyon. He remained unconscious at the 
bottom of the canyon for several hours before help arrived; his 2 passengers 
died.

Thomas said Miller would have testified of a dramatic and long-term change in 
Mann's personality as well as his decision to deal cocaine to bring in money, 
at least in part due to financial pressures brought on his family from his 
medical treatment.

And Thomas said that a doctor would have testified there was a "high 
probability" that Mann suffered traumatic brain injury.

"Counsel's failure to uncover and present reasonably available mitigating 
evidence left the sentencing judge and the Arizona Supreme Court with an 
incomplete and inaccurate picture of Mann," Thomas wrote. "Had counsel 
performed adequately, there is a reasonable probability that the sentencers 
would have concluded that the balance of aggravating and mitigating factors did 
not warrant death."

(source: azcapitoltimes.com)








USA:

Omissions in the death-penalty debate



2 of the Dec. 31 editorials pertained to capital punishment, and both were 
interesting for what they didn't say.

"The ultimate punishment" stated that executions ought to be as humane as 
possible. That's why the gallows, gas chamber, firing squad and electric chair 
have all been replaced by lethal injection - putting a killer to sleep. But 
even that won't satisfy death penalty opponents. Lethal injection as a method 
of execution continues to be tied up in the courts in the same way abortion 
foes continue their attempts to curtail a woman's right to choose by 
introducing new and novel restrictions to that procedure. In both cases, the 
will of the majority is stymied by vocal minorities.

"Potemkin death row" encouraged outgoing Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) to 
commute the four remaining death sentences in his state. The editorial didn't 
explain why he hadn't done so already. Mr. O'Malley could hope to get the 
Democratic nomination in next year's presidential race. He knows that, on the 
campaign trail, explaining why he reduced the death sentences of four convicted 
murderers will be a difficult sell for most American voters. Scott Wallace, 
Leesburg

(source: Letter to the Editor, Washington Post)

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

Federal Prosecutors to Seek Death Penalty in LAX Shooting



Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty against the man charged in a 
deadly shooting rampage at Los Angeles International Airport, according to 
court papers filed Friday.

Prosecutors said Paul Ciancia acted intentionally in the killing of an airport 
screening officer and terrorized passengers and colleagues of the fallen man.

"Ciancia acted with the intent that his crimes would strike fear in the hearts 
of Transportation Security Administration employees and dissuade them from 
fulfillment of their duties," Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald wrote. 
"By committing his crimes on a weekday morning in a crowded terminal at one of 
the busiest airports in the world, ... Ciancia terrorized numerous airline 
passengers and airport employees by causing them to fear for their lives and 
experience extreme emotional distress."

Ciancia, 24, has pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges in the killing 
of Gerardo Hernandez, 39, and the wounding of 3 other people at LAX on Nov. 1, 
2013. The New Jersey native is due in court Monday for a hearing on the status 
of his case.

The shooting caused chaos and terror as security screeners fled their posts 
among a hail of bullets and passengers ran for cover. The airport was crippled 
for most of the day and flights across the country were interrupted.

Although officers quickly shot Ciancia and arrested him, it took hours for 
officers to search the rest of the airport and determine there were no 
additional gunmen.

The decision to seek the death penalty was up to U.S. Attorney General Eric 
Holder.

A judge wants the case to be tried this year, but the death penalty decision 
could delay it.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Is it time to remove the death penalty?----With over 700 inmates on death row, 
San Quentin warden Jeanne Woodford argues it???s time to remove the death 
penalty, writes Bette Browne



In San Quentin prison in California just after midnight on 4 occasions warden 
Jeanne Woodford checked her watch before giving the final order to execute 4 
men on death row. Today she is among a growing number of Americans campaigning 
to end the death penalty in the United States, the only Western democracy that 
still imposes it.

The death penalty, which Ms Woodford now decries, is legal in 32 states and 
there are 18 non-death penalty states - the federal government and military 
also impose it, though neither has done so in over 10 years. The country has 
executed 1,385 people since it became constitutional to do so again almost 40 
years ago.

Execution by hanging still exists in 3 US states. That was also the method used 
in Ireland for the last execution here in 1954 when Limerickman Michael Manning 
was hanged in Mountjoy Prison for the murder of Catherine Cooper. The death 
penalty was abolished in law for all offences in 1990 and was expunged from the 
Irish Constitution in a referendum in 2001.

In San Quentin that same year Ms Woodford was giving the order to proceed with 
the execution of Robert Massie. She began her 30-year career in San Quentin in 
1978 after graduating with a degree in criminal justice, rose through the ranks 
to the top post of warden of the prison and ultimately became the director of 
California's entire prison network of 33 prisons.

San Quentin has the most populous death row in the US, with over 700 people, or 
nearly double the number in Texas, though Texas leads the nation in the number 
of executions. The prison was built in 1852 and still has a gas chamber, but 
since 1996, executions, like those overseen by Ms Woodford, have been carried 
out by lethal injection

"Being a warden in San Quentin is like running a city," Ms Woodford said in an 
interview from California.

"Prisons are very large and very different from a jail. Within a prison you 
have a school, a hospital or some form of medical facility, you have plant 
issues and maintenance staff who work for you, and you're responsible for 
making sure inmates and staff are safe and that individuals aren't able to 
escape from your facility."

She described in matter-of-fact detail how executions happen in San Quentin. 
"The executions don't start on one day. The planning starts when the warrant is 
received 30 to 60 days prior to an execution. You begin planning for the 
execution from the moment you get the warrant.

"There are lots of protocols that have to be addressed and depending on the 
notoriety of the individual there may be protests along the way. You also 
expect protests at the facility itself on the night of the execution, so you 
begin working with outside law enforcement to plan for any of those scenarios.

"You serve the warrant to the inmate and the death row inmate has decisions he 
has to make - things like what his last meal will be, who will handle his 
remains, who he will give his property to, his religious adviser will be there. 
So there is dialogue between you or your staff and the individual who has a 
scheduled execution date."

On the day of his execution - San Quentin now holds only male prisoners on 
death row - the condemned man prepares to say his final goodbyes to any family 
or friends who may have come to be with him on the night of his death. At 
exactly 6pm that night he begins his final journey to the death chamber.

"The day of the execution, the inmate is allowed to visit with his family or 
friends or attorney up until 6pm, at which time he is moved into the execution 
chamber holding area. He remains in contact with his attorney by phone after 
that. The execution occurs one minute after midnight, so throughout the night 
before that you're going over and checking on the inmate and staff."

Ms Woodford informs the inmate he will be allowed a last statement and comes 
back a short time later to ask if he has a statement. "Then it's very close to 
midnight and the warden talks to each of the groups of people who have 
assembled for the execution. They include the victim's family members, if they 
are in attendance, his attorney, official witnesses and the media.

"The purpose of that is to let everyone know that the execution will go forward 
and will be carried out in a dignified manner and that if anyone has an 
outburst or cannot control themselves they will be removed from the execution 
chamber.

"At midnight, the warden is on the phone with 2 people - a representative of 
the US Supreme Court and a representative of the state courts. The warden turns 
to them and says 'are there any legal issues pending before the court that 
would prevent this execution from going forward,' waits for an answer, and if 
the answer is 'no, there's not' then the warden gives the order for the 
execution to proceed."

13 people have been executed in this manner in San Quentin since 1978, 11 by 
lethal injection and 2 in the gas chamber. Of the 4 executions by lethal 
injection that Ms Woodford oversaw, she said 2 stand out.

"I remember 2 of them more than the others because they interacted more with 
me. One individual, Robert Massie I knew for many, many years. He had also 
stopped his appeal so in that sense he was a volunteer. He said he was in a lot 
of pain; he had arthritis and some other healthcare issues. He said he was just 
tired. He had no family that I know of. He only spoke about being raised in 
foster care. He was a little more fearful at the end. He said 'promise me it 
won't hurt.'

"I remember the night of his execution, March 27, 2001. I was the last person 
to talk to him before he died. After that, I brought the witnesses in. I looked 
at the clock to make sure it was after midnight. I got a signal from 2 members 
of my staff who were on the phone with the state Supreme Court and the US 
attorney general's office to make sure there were no last-minute legal 
impediments to the execution. There were none, so I gave the order to proceed."

At 12.20 am, the execution by lethal injection of Robert Lee Massie began. He 
was pronounced dead 13 minutes later at 12.33 am. His last words were 
"Forgiveness. Giving up all hope for a better past."

He was California's longest-serving condemned inmate, having spent 28 years on 
death row. Ms Woodford explained why 59-year-old Mr Massie was executed. 
"Everyone on death row has committed murder or murder for hire. In his case he 
was there for murder during a liquor store robbery. He also was on death row 
for the 2nd time. He had come off it the 1st time when the death penalty was 
declared unconstitutional in California in 1972. [It was re-introduced in 
1978]. He was eventually paroled but then, sadly, committed murder again during 
the liquor store robbery."

Ms Woodford recalled the execution two years earlier of Manuel Babbitt. "I 
remember him especially because he was a Vietnam veteran. He had a lot of 
support from people he had served with in Vietnam. Mr Babbitt was a very 
talkative individual. He talked about everything, but not the execution. He 
never spoke to me about that."

At 12:29 am on May 4, 1999, the execution by lethal injection of Manuel Babbitt 
began. He was pronounced dead 8 minutes later at 12.37 am. His last words were 
"I forgive all of you."

His execution for the murder of 78-year -old Mrs Leah Schendel came one day 
after he had turned 50. 30 years earlier, he had been wounded in the Battle of 
Khe Sanh in Vietnam and a year before his execution, while on death row, he was 
awarded a Purple Heart for the wounds he'd received in Vietnam.

How does Ms Woodford feel personally about these executions? "When you're a 
warden or a correctional officer you really are trained to have the same 
relationship with inmates that a doctor would have with his patient. You can be 
sad when something bad happens to your patient and feel sad when someone is 
executed, but if you allow it to be that personalised you couldn't survive 
that. It would just be impossible.

"I was always opposed to the death penalty because I've seen it from every 
point of view. It's not about the individual; it's about public policy for me. 
>From a public policy point of view I came to understand how useless the death 
penalty is, how expensive it is, it serves no-one, no-one feels better at the 
end of it, and public safety isn't improved at the end of it."

If she never believed in the death penalty, how did she approach implementing 
it? "Most people don't believe in the death penalty that I know of who have 
been involved in it. It's your job to carry out the law and you look at it from 
that point of view. I didn't believe that mentally ill people should be sent to 
prison but yet they are. That's the law and so it's your job to try to handle 
that issue as professionally as you possibly can. That is really the way that 
people in my profession view this issue.

"Wardens say the same thing: would you want someone there who wanted to kill 
someone. No, but you carry out the law as professionally as you can and you 
hope that over time things will change and people will understand it as those 
who are close to it do."

Working in San Quentin was "tough and often horrible", especially in the 1970s 
and 1980s, she said. Hardly surprising because during this time San Quentin 
held about 6,000 prisoners though it had been built for about half that number.

"There are a lot of tough days in a prison. When I started there were so many 
inmates and the overcrowding was so bad and so few staff and they had such poor 
training then and so few resources. There were inmates in classroom and gyms, 
in every nook and cranny. Over time, things improved and they continue to 
improve, but there were pretty horrible conditions when I first started there. 
Almost every day was a horrible day."

There's no reason to believe that the death penalty is a deterrent, Ms Woodford 
emphasised. "For something to be a deterrent it must be swift and certain, but 
there's nothing swift or certain about the death penalty. Geography decides 
whether or not you'll be on death row in the United States and there's much 
research and evidence to show why the death penalty is really ridiculous."

Judge Cormac J Carney would appear to agree. On July 16 he ruled California's 
death penalty unconstitutional because it violates the Eighth Amendment to the 
US Constitution prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.

In vacating the 1995 death sentence of Ernest Jones, Judge Carney wrote: 
"Allowing this system to continue to threaten Mr Jones with the slight 
possibility of death, almost a generation after he was first sentenced, 
violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual 
punishment." An appeal is expected since no executions can proceed in 
California while the decision stands. A state-wide vote to repeal the state 
death penalty was narrowly defeated by a 52-48 vote in 2012.

"In modern societies we have modern prisons with electric fences and prisoners 
don't escape. They're safely housed cheaper than those under the death penalty 
and so as a public policy we no longer need the death penalty and it serves 
no-one. To take a life in order to prove how much we value another life does 
not strengthen our society," Ms Woodford emphasised.

Looking back, does she fear that someone who may have been innocent was 
executed during her watch? "I do fear during my career, not during my time as 
warden, that it's possible that an innocent person was executed. I don't think 
anyone, even if you're pro death penalty, would feel OK about that.

"We now know that we've gotten sentences wrong a lot thanks to DNA testing. 
Indeed, it's highly probable that we've executed many innocent people. We know 
that for every 10 people who have been executed, 1 person has been exonerated 
or freed. If you knew that 1 out of 10 planes was going to fall out of the sky 
would you fly, no. So why would we have the death penalty.

"I don't think it's a matter of if it will be abolished, it's a matter of when 
and I hope it will happen soon. I would very much like to see the end of it."

So too would Clareman Dannie Hanna, who is in his last months of training to be 
a solicitor and who studied the issue first hand while working with death row 
inmates in Texas, the US state with the highest number of executions.

Mr Hanna studied law at NUI Galway, graduating in 2008 and then went on to do a 
Masters of Law at Cambridge, where he came in contact with the Texas Defender 
Service, a group of attorneys working to combat the flaws plaguing the death 
penalty in Texas.

Mr Hanna was attached to the Texas Defender Service as a legal intern in the 
summer of 2010 working on behalf of male death row prisoners who were held at 
the Polunsky Unit prison in Livingston, 60 miles from the execution chamber in 
a separate facility in Huntsville.

"A typical day on death row in Texas starts at 4.30am when the prisoners are 
served breakfast. If they don't wake up for breakfast, they may not be fed for 
the day," Mr Hanna told me in an interview.

"The prisoners remain in their cells for 23 hours a day, 7 days a week in total 
isolation. The only physical human contact they ever have is the mandatory 
strip searches every time they leave their cell for a 15-minute shower and 
45-minute recreation time each day.

"They recreate one at a time in a cage with 1 basketball and a basketball hoop. 
This is again done in total isolation. This is repeated every day until the day 
of their execution.

"In my discussions with some prisoners they told me that sometimes the prison 
guards deliberately deny some death row prisoners their shower and recreation 
time.

"The death row prison cells have no air conditioning and they are not permitted 
fans. In Texas the weather can, and did when I visited the prisoners, go over 
100 degrees Fahrenheit.

"The prisoners can buy radios which some use. They are supposed to have access 
to a prison library every 2 weeks, but when I visited death row the library had 
not been offered in more than a few weeks.

"I worked on behalf of guilty individuals who were seeking to either have their 
death sentence set aside or, more often than not, commuted to life without 
parole -on grounds, for example, of mental illness rendering an inability to 
stand trial. I was part of a team that achieved success for Ricky (Eugene) 
Kerr, whose sentence was commuted to life without parole.

"Ricky was sentenced to death for the murder of his landlord and landlord's son 
in 1994 in a dispute over Ricky's lease. It was successfully argued before the 
Texas Criminal Court of Appeal that he had ineffective legal counsel at trial 
phase because his lawyer at the initial trial had not adequately prepared 
Ricky's case and informed the jury of a myriad of mitigating factors, like 
physical and mental abuse, addiction, low IQ, and so on. The Texas Criminal 
Court of Appeal was of the opinion that had the jury been informed of these 
mitigating factors, it may have impacted on their decision to sentence Ricky to 
death. [In most US states the judge, alone, determines the sentence. In some 
states, following a guilty verdict, a new jury determines the sentence for 
certain crimes.]

"Ricky was on death row since 1995 and came within 1 day of his execution when 
the Texas Defender Service obtained a stay of execution. His new punishment 
trial was concluded on November 22, 2011, where Ricky secured a plea bargain of 
life in prison. Ricky had spent 16 years on death row.

"One of my tasks as part of the team was to contact as many teachers as 
possible who might have had some interaction with Ricky as a young student. The 
purpose of this was to build as complete a picture as possible of Ricky to 
demonstrate mitigating circumstances that had not been set out to the jury at 
the initial punishment phase in 1995.

"This task was complicated by the fact that he had dropped out of school at an 
early age. But I did achieve one breakthrough when I managed to make contact 
with a school which was able to provide a list of teachers, whether they were 
still alive and their whereabouts. I will never forget the feeling of sheer joy 
from that minor breakthrough."

Mr Hanna said death row is designed to "penalise and dehumanise" prisoners "in 
a slow, grinding process" before their execution.

"Imagine you were to place a group of men in separate cages in one building who 
have committed atrocious murders, robbed and killed and raped. The death row 
regime is designed to penalise and dehumanise them in a slow grinding process 
from the moment they are sentenced to death and deprives them of basic

He also found that "there is a recurring theme on death row of poverty, mental 
illness, addiction, intellectual disability, a history of sexual, emotional or 
physical abuse. Depression is also rampant among the prisoners arising from 
knowing the date of their death."

Mr Hanna travelled to Texas and worked with the prisoners so he could make an 
informed decision on the death penalty. His work convinced him of the validity 
of his stance against it. "I was against it in principle before starting work. 
I can now firmly say that it is not a solution to dealing with the terrible 
crimes death row prisoners have committed. It is deeply flawed on so many 
levels as a criminal justice tool."

Recent botched executions underline these flaws and show the increasing "chaos 
and desperation" of the death penalty system in the United States, according to 
Matthew Cherry, director of the anti-death penalty organisation Death Penalty 
Focus. Since the death penalty became constitutional in 1976 there have been at 
least 45 botched executions, with three so far this year.

"We hope that both the states that are conducting executions and perhaps more 
importantly the courts will react to these botched executions by calling a 
moratorium because there is so much uncertainly about how they can carry them 
out without causing cruel and unusual punishment, as the US Constitution says.

"The court responsible for Arizona where the latest botched execution took 
place in July did stay the execution because of doubts about lethal injection 
protocol, centring on what drugs they were using, where those drugs came from 
and who was administering the drugs. However the Supreme Court overturned that 
ruling. That was a mistake because the execution was subsequently bungled. We 
hope the Supreme Court will learn its lesson, but only time will tell."

Meantime, Mr Cherry believes the tide is turning in favour of abolition. 
"There's been a long and slow decline in support for the death penalty. 20 
years ago polls showed about 80% support. Now it's down to about 60%. But when 
people are given a choice between the death penalty and life in prison, we see 
that a majority support life in prison."

Underscoring this view, a recent poll by ABC and the Washington Post for the 
1st time showed that 52% supported life imprisonment versus 42% for the death 
penalty. Meanwhile, the number of death sentences per year has dropped 
dramatically since 1999. Then there were 277 versus 79 last year.

"Slowly but surely we are seeing a change in public opinion and now a majority 
says it's better to have life in prison as the ultimate punishment instead of 
the death penalty, so we're getting there. But in many cases the states have 
not caught up with public opinion and politicians are still where they were 20 
years ago."

His argument against the death penalty focuses on a number of areas. 
"Personally I oppose the death penalty because it does not work, it's unfair, 
it's discriminatory and completely dysfunctional, it doesn't deter criminals, 
nor does it help victims.

"I also believe that, beyond being completely ineffectual, having the death 
penalty is actually counter-productive because it teaches us that violence and 
killing are acceptable solutions to social problems which is a mindset that 
encourages more violence and killing.

"On the economic argument, a lot of people assume that a death sentence is 
cheaper than life in prison but in fact in the US it is much more expensive to 
sentence someone to death and then go through with all of the appeals and extra 
hearings than it is to sentence someone to life in jail."

The humanitarian and legal side of the argument is especially powerful, he 
stresses. "If it only happens once that an innocent person is executed, that's 
too many times. We know that 144 people have been exonerated and freed from 
death row since 1973. That is a big concern with the public. We find that as 
awareness of innocent people being sentenced to death increases then support 
for the death penalty declines."

The strategy of abolitionists is to target the death penalty at all levels. "In 
the past 7 years 6 states have abolished the death penalty and we've also seen 
several states impose moratoriums in the last yew years.

"In some states it is very popular, particularly in the Old South where it 
tends to have a lot of historic support. But we believe if we can keep up the 
strategy to get rid of it in states across the country - it's almost gone in 
the north east and the west, it's been reduced in the mid-west and it's even 
been reduced in the Old South - we may reach a point where there is a national 
decision to get rid of it everywhere.

"That may come through the courts or the legislature. The Supreme Court may 
decide that a national consensus has clearly developed against the death 
penalty and could step in and outlaw it nationwide. This could happen very 
quickly though it's always hard to tell with the Supreme Court.

"Every time someone is about to be executed they take an appeal to the Supreme 
Court and overwhelmingly it just dismisses the appeal. But if justices were to 
decide that the time had come to end the death penalty then it would be up to 
them to accept one of these cases and make that ruling."

Mr Cherry suggested that such a momentous ruling could come within a decade. 
"One of the reasons I'm doing this work is that I believe the time is right and 
that we could see the end of the death penalty in the US within a decade."

And if that were to happen he believes it could ultimately lead to the global 
abolition of capital punishment.

"Before I worked for Death Penalty Focus I was doing human rights work at the 
UN and I think it's fairly clear that the rest of the West is strongly opposed 
to the death penalty.

"I think at the UN level what's holding things back is that the US continues to 
oppose any move for a global moratorium. But if the US was to flip, I think 
things could move very quickly worldwide."

US DEATH PENALTY: FACTS AND FIGURES

EXECUTIONS: The United States has executed 1,385 people since the death penalty 
was made constitutional again in 1976.

WHERE: It is legal in 32 states and there are 18 non-death penalty states. The 
US federal government and military also impose the death penalty but neither 
has carried out an execution in over 10 years.

California has the highest number of death row inmates at 742, followed by 
Florida 410 and Texas 278.

The highest number of executions since 1976 has been in Texas 515, followed by 
Oklahoma 111, Virginia 110 and Florida 88.

Last year there were 16 execution in Texas; 7 in Florida and 6 in Oklahoma.

WHO: The 1st federal execution in 38 years was that of Timothy McVeigh, who was 
executed in 2001 for killing 168 people in the1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The 
federal government also plans to seek the death penalty for accused Boston 
Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose trial is set for November 3, 2014

As of January 19, 2014, 59 people are on the federal death row for men at the 
Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana; while the 2 women on the 
federal death row are at Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas.

WOMEN: There were 60 women on death row as of January 1, 2014. This constitutes 
2% of the total death row population. A total of 14 women have been executed 
since 1976.

JUVENILES: In 2005, the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty for 
juveniles. 22 defendants had been executed for crimes committed as juveniles 
since 1976.

RACE: In 96% of states where there have been reviews of race and the death 
penalty there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant 
discrimination, or both.

METHODS: Most death row prisoners are now executed by lethal injection but some 
states still allow for execution by hanging, firing squad, electrocution or the 
gas chamber. A breakdown: Electrocution 8 states; gas chamber 3 states; hanging 
3 states; firing squad 2 states

BOTCHED: From 1890 to 2010, a total of 8,776 people were executed and 276 of 
those executions went wrong in some way. Of all the methods used, lethal 
injection had the highest rate of botched executions - about 7%.

Since 1976 there have been at least 45 botched executions - there were 11 in 
the 1980s; 19 in the 1990s and 15 between 2000 and 2014, with 3 in 2014.

5 of the botched executions were by electrocution; 1 was in the gas chamber and 
the rest were through lethal injection.

President Barack Obama has ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to review the 
application of the death penalty in the US after the failed execution of 
Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma on April 29, 2014

EXONERATIONS: Since 1973, over 140 people have been released from death row 
with evidence of their innocence.

>From 1973-1999 there was an average of 3 exonerations a year. From 2000-2011, 
there was an average of 5 exonerations a year.

SUPPORT: In an indication of lessening support for the death penalty, there 
were no executions last year in 25 of the 32 states where the death penalty is 
legal.

Recent Washington Post/ABC poll found 52% supported life imprisonment versus 
42% for the death penalty.

The number of death sentences per year has dropped dramatically since 1999. 
Then there were 277 versus 79 last year.

COSTS: Enforcing the death penalty costs Florida $51m a year above what it 
would cost to punish all first-degree murderers with life in prison without 
parole. Based on the 44 executions Florida had carried out since 1976 that 
amounts to a cost of $24m for each execution.

The most comprehensive study in the country found the death penalty costs North 
Carolina $2.16m per execution over the costs of sentencing murderers to life 
imprisonment. The majority of those costs occur at the trial level.

In Texas, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3m, about 3 times the 
cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 
40 years.

Compiled from sources including Bureau of Justice Statistics: Capital 
Punishment 2013; Death Penalty Information Center; Death Penalty Focus, State 
statistics)

TIMELINE

1608: Captain George Kendall becomes the 1st recorded execution in the new 
colonies.

1632: Jane Champion becomes the 1st woman executed in the new colonies.

1700s: United States abolitionist movement begins.

1834: Pennsylvania becomes 1st state to move executions into prisons.

1847: Michigan becomes 1st state to abolish the death penalty for all crimes 
except treason.

1890: William Kemmler becomes 1st person executed by electrocution.

1907-1917: 9 states abolish death penalty for all crimes or strictly limit it.

1920s-1940s: American abolition movement loses support.

1924: Cyanide gas introduced as an execution method.

1930s: Executions reach the highest levels in US history, averaging 167 a year.

1950-1980: De facto abolition becomes the norm in Western Europe.

1953: Rosenbergs become first US civilians executed for espionage.

1966: Support for death penalty reaches all-time low with Gallup poll showing 
it at 42%.

1972: Supreme Court effectively voids 40 death penalty statutes and suspends 
death penalty.

1977: 10-year moratorium ends with execution by firing squad in Utah of Gary 
Gilmore.

1977: Oklahoma becomes the 1st state to adopt lethal injection as a means of 
execution.

1982: Charles Brooks becomes the 1st person executed by lethal injection.

1984: Velma Barfield becomes the 1st woman executed since reinstatement of 
death penalty.

1986: Execution of insane persons banned.

1988: Executions of offenders aged 15 and younger at the time of crimes is 
unconstitutional.

1989: Eighth Amendment does not prohibit death penalty for crimes committed at 
16 or 17.

1989: Executing persons with "mental retardation" is not violation of the 
Eighth Amendment.

1994: President Clinton signs Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act 
expanding federal death penalty.

1996: President Clinton signs the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty 
Act restricting review in federal courts.

1996: Last execution by hanging.

1999: Pope John Paul II on visit to Missouri calls for an end to the death 
penalty.

1999: Last execution in gas chamber.

2000: Illinois governor declares moratorium on executions.

2001: Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh is 1st federal prisoner executed in 
38 years.

2002: Execution of "mentally retarded" defendants violates the Eighth 
Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

2003: Illinois governor grants clemency to all of the remaining 167 death row 
inmates in Illinois because of the flawed process that led to these sentences.

2004: New York's death penalty law declared unconstitutional.

2005: Supreme Court rules that death penalty for those who had committed their 
crimes under 18 years of age was cruel and unusual punishment.

2007: UN General Assembly passes resolution calling for moratorium on death 
penalty

2007: New Jersey General Assembly becomes 1st state to legislatively abolish 
capital punishment since it was re-instated in 1976.

2008: Nebraska Supreme Court rules electrocution to be cruel and unusual 
punishment, effectively freezing all executions in the state.

2009: New Mexico governor repeals death penalty, replacing it with life without 
parole.

2010: Last US execution by firing squad is carried out in Utah.

2011: Illinois governor repeals death penalty in Illinois, replacing it with 
life without parole.

2012: Connecticut repeals death penalty.

2013: Maryland becomes 18th state to repeal death penalty.

2013: Poll shows death penalty support at lowest level in over 40 years.

Jan 16, 2014: Botched execution by lethal injection in Ohio of Dennis McGuire. 
Mr McGuire gasped for 25 minutes while the drugs slowly took effect.

Feb 11, 2014: Washington State governor suspends death penalty.

April 29, 2014: Botched execution by lethal injection in Oklahoma of Clayton 
Lockett. Mr Lockett died 43 minutes after the execution began of a heart 
attack.

July 16, 2014: Judge rules California's death penalty violates US Constitution.

(source: Irish Examiner)