[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 23



NORTH CAROLINA:

Sledge exoneration drives another nail in NC death penalty



Today's exoneration of Joseph Sledge after 36 years behind bars for a crime he 
did not commit gives rise to 1 overriding question today:

How many more men wrongfully convicted and imprisoned (or even sent to death 
row) is it going to take before the stubborn defenders of the death penalty in 
North Carolina finally admit that it is simply impossible to impose such a 
punishment in a fair and foolproof way?

Unless one simply goes along with the mind-boggling and terrifying position of 
Antonin Scalia that there is nothing wrong or unconstitutional with executing a 
person "who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a court 
that he is 'actually' innocent," any honest person must simply admit that the 
time has finally come to end the death penalty once and for all.

(source: Rob Schofield; ncpolicywatch.org)








USA:

Supreme Court will review lethal injection drug protocol used in executions



The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will review the lethal injection 
protocol used in many executions around the country, after allowing an Oklahoma 
inmate last week to be put to death using the drugs.

The court's 4 liberals would have granted Charles Frederick Warner a stay but 
were overruled.

But it takes only 4 votes to accept a case, and the court will review a 
petition put forward by 3 other inmates on the state's death row.

In a 2008 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that lethal injections did not 
violate the Constitution's ban against cruel and unusual punishment. But the 
drug protocol that the court considered in that Kentucky case is no longer 
used, because the drugs are difficult for states to obtain.

In Warner's case, Justice Sonia Sotomayor worried that it had not been proven 
that the state's new procedure was valid, following a botched effort in the 
execution last year of Clayton Lockett.

"Petitioners have committed horrific crimes, and should be punished," Sotomayor 
wrote. "But the Eighth Amendment guarantees that no one should be subjected to 
an execution that causes searing, unnecessary pain before death. I hope that 
our failure to act today does not portend our unwillingness to consider these 
questions."

She was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena 
Kagan. But that was one vote short of issuing a stay in Warner's case, who was 
executed without apparent incident.

The new case, Glossip v. Gross, will likely be heard in April.

(source: Washington Post)