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

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 30



TEXAS:

Texas Executes Intellectually Disabled Man, Violating Constitution



Robert Ladd, an intellectually disabled person with an IQ of 67, was executed 
tonight at 7:02 CT in Huntsville, Texas. His death violates the Supreme Court's 
rulings that the Eighth Amendment prohibits executing the intellectually 
disabled as cruel and unusual punishment. In any other state Mr. Ladd would be 
considered ineligible for the death penalty because of his intellectual 
disability.

Brian Stull, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project 
and Mr. Ladd's attorney, had this comment:

"Texas aggressively pursued Mr. Ladd's execution, despite the fact that our 
constitution categorically prohibits the use of capital punishment against 
persons with intellectual disability. Mr. Ladd, whose IQ was 67, was executed 
because Texas uses idiosyncratic standards, based on stereotypes rather than 
science, to determine intellectual disability. His death is yet another example 
of how capital punishment routinely defies the rule of law and human decency.

"We are eager for a court to address the fact that Texas' unscientific 
standards can't be reconciled with the Supreme Court's decision in Hall v. 
Florida,mandating that states must use universal medical diagnostic practices 
rather than inaccurate and self-invented methods for determining intellectual 
disability. However, no future ruling can undo the unconscionable fact that 
tonight Texas ended the life of an intellectually disabled man who deserved the 
protection of the Constitution."

For more information about the case Ex Parte Ladd, visit: 
https://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment/ex-parte-ladd

For information about the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, visit: 
https://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment

(source: ACLU)

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

'Stings my arm, man!' Last words of Texas killer as he was executed with 
controversial drug - after he begged victim's relatives not to view his death 
as 'revenge'

Robert Ladd, 57, received lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 7.02pm, 
27 minutes after the drug pentobarbital was administered

Ladd was put to death for 1996 slaying of Vicki Ann Garner, who was strangled 
and beaten with a hammer

'I really, really hope and pray you don't have hatred in your heart,' Ladd told 
victim's sister before execution

US Supreme Court rejected arguments that with an IQ of 67, Ladd was mentally 
impaired and ineligible for the death penalty



Texas death row inmate Robert Ladd man was executed Thursday evening for the 
killing a 38-year-old woman nearly 2 decades ago while he was on parole for a 
triple slaying years earlier.

Robert Ladd, 57, received a lethal injection after the US Supreme Court 
rejected arguments he was mentally impaired and ineligible for the death 
penalty.

The court also rejected an appeal in which Ladd's attorney challenged whether 
the pentobarbital Texas uses in executions is potent enough to not cause 
unconstitutional pain and suffering.

Ladd was put to death for the 1996 slaying of Vicki Ann Garner, of Tyler, who 
was strangled and beaten with a hammer. Her arms and legs were bound, bedding 
was placed between her legs, and she was set on fire in her apartment.

In his final statement, Ladd addressed the sister of his victim by name, 
telling her he was 'really, really sorry.'

'I really, really hope and pray you don't have hatred in your heart,' he said, 
adding that he didn't think she could have closure but hoped she could find 
peace. 'A revenge death won't get you anything,' he said.

Then Ladd told the warden: 'Let's ride.'

As the drug took effect, he said: 'Stings my arm, man!' He began taking deep 
breaths, then started snoring. His snores became breaths, each one becoming 
less pronounced, before he stopped all movement.

He was pronounced dead at 7.02pm, 27 minutes after the drug was administered.

Teresa Garner Wooten, Vicki's sister who was on hand Thursday to watch Ladd put 
to death, told CBS19 on the eve of the execution that it has been a long time 
coming.

'I did not think, 18-plus years ago, that I would still be fighting for justice 
for her,' Mrs Wooten said, adding that she had forgiven her sister's killer.

Ladd came within hours of lethal injection in 2003 before a federal court 
agreed to hear evidence about juvenile records that suggested he was mentally 
impaired.

That appeal was denied and the Supreme Court last year turned down a review of 
Ladd's case. His attorneys renewed similar arguments as his new execution date 
approached.

'Ladd's deficits are well documented, debilitating and significant,' Brian 
Stull, a senior staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union Capital 
Punishment Project, told the high court.

In a press release sent out immediately after Ladd's execution, Stull said that 
his death 'is yet another example of how capital punishment routinely defies 
the rule of law and human decency.'

Kelli Weaver, a Texas attorney general, reminded the justices in a filing that 
'each court that has reviewed Ladd's claim has determined that Ladd is not 
intellectually disabled.'

Ladd's lawyers cited a psychiatrist's determination in 1970 that Ladd, then a 
13-year-old in custody of the Texas Youth Commission, had an IQ of 67.

Courts have embraced scientific studies that consider an IQ of 70 a threshold 
for impairment. The inmate's attorneys also contended he long has had 
difficulties with social skills and functioning on his own.

Ladd also was a plaintiff in a lawsuit questioning the 'quality and viability' 
of Texas' supply of its execution drug, pentobarbital. The Texas Attorney 
General's Office called the challenge 'nothing more than rank speculation.'

When he was arrested for Garner's slaying, Ladd had been on parole for about 4 
years after serving about 1/3 of a 40-year prison term for the slayings of a 
Dallas woman and her 2 children. He pleaded guilty to those crimes.

(source: Daily Mail)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Frein pleads not guilty in shooting death of Pennsylvania state trooper



Eric Frein pleaded not guilty Thursday afternoon to shooting 2 Pennsylvania 
state troopers. It was his 1st court appearance since prosecutors officially 
declared they would seek the death penalty against him.

In a brief court appearance via video feed from the Pike County jail, Mr. Frein 
remained expressionless and responded politely to Judge Gregory H. Chelak. He 
waived his formal arraignment and said he understood the charges against him, 
which include murder and terrorism.

It was his 1st court hearing since District Attorney Raymond J. Tonkin of Pike 
County filed notice this week that he is seeking the death penalty against Mr. 
Frein. And it could be at least another year before the trial of the 
self-styled survivalist who eluded capture for weeks in the Pocono woods.

The 31-year-old man from Canadensis, Monroe County, is accused of killing Cpl. 
Bryon Dickson and wounding Trooper Alex Douglass outside the state police 
barracks in Blooming Grove in September.

As Mr. Frein appeared in court Thursday afternoon, Trooper Douglass was 
scheduled to have hip replacement surgery, an important step in treatment for 
his wounds from the Sept. 12 ambush.

Trooper Douglass was shot in the groin outside the state police barracks before 
crawling into the lobby and awaiting rescue from his colleagues. The hip 
replacement marked his 14th surgery since September.

Lt. Christopher Paris, commander of the Blooming Grove barracks, said he has 
not yet discussed with the trooper whether he would return to work.

"His spirits are upbeat," Lt. Paris said.

Standing outside the Pike County courthouse in Milford on Thursday afternoon, 
Mr. Tonkin said he has not considered offering a plea deal to Mr. Frein.

If Mr. Frein is convicted, Mr. Tonkin wrote in his notice to seek the death 
penalty, the sentencing phase of the case will include testimony from the 
family, friends and coworkers of Cpl. Dickson, the 38-year-old father of 2 who 
was killed in the attack.

Michael Weinstein, 1 of Mr. Frein's defense attorneys, said he does not expect 
the case to go to trial until 2016.

In the coming weeks, Mr. Weinstein will decide whether to request moving the 
trial out of Pike County, where residents were affected by the massive manhunt 
for Mr. Frein. More than 1,000 law enforcement officers descended on Pike and 
Monroe counties following the shootings, as Mr. Frein evaded capture in the 
woods for 48 days.

Mr. Frein also faces charges of terrorism and possession of explosive devices.

(source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

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

Lancaster DA seeks death penalty in teacher homicide



Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman is pursuing the death penalty 
against one of Nicole Mathewson's alleged killers.

Mathewson, a 32-year-old teacher and community volunteer, died in December 
during a random burglary inside her Lancaster home.

Police last month charged Thomas Moore, 25, and Marcus Rutter, 16, with several 
counts of homicide, burglary, conspiracy to commit those crimes, and Moore is 
also charged with access device fraud.

Earlier this month, Stedman added a felony sexual abuse charge, saying Moore 
and Rutter engaged in deviate sexual intercourse with the victim prior to her 
death.

Prosecutors on Friday said they're pursuing the death penalty against Moore.

"We always compare the facts to the law and, in this case, there are 
aggravating circumstances which warrant the filing," Stedman said. "Quite 
simply, this is an absolutely horrific case and we are filing this based on the 
facts."

Because Rutter is a juvenile, state law prevents him from facing the death 
penalty. He could face life in prison without parole.

The case will be heard in Lancaster County Court, but a trial date has yet to 
be determined, Stedman said.

(source: pennlive.com)








VIRGINIA:

Bill proposes secrecy on Virginia executions



The state's prisons and one of the most powerful politicians in the state 
Senate are arguing for a bill that critics say could keep any information about 
executions secret.

The bill also says information about the drugs and equipment used in executions 
and the firms that supply the drugs could be kept out of any lawsuits.

The measure was meant to protect the firms that mix up the so-called 
"cocktails" of drugs Virginia uses to execute people, said state Sen. Richard 
Saslaw, D-Springfield, the Senate minority leader.

"When we use the electric chair, we don't give the name of the guy who pulled 
the switch," he told the Senate subcommittee on health professions, adding that 
his measure just extends that to the companies that put together the three 
drugs used in executions.

Dean Ricks, chief of professional services for the Department of Corrections, 
said the bill was needed to ensure the state prison system can get the drugs it 
needs for executions.

Current state law says firms that compound drugs must do so for therapeutic 
purposes.

"We don't qualify," Ricks said.

He said Virginia needs to keep the names of the firms that provide execution 
drugs confidential for the safety of those firms.

But the wording Saslaw proposed is so broad that it covers everything to do 
with executions, said Craig Merritt, a Richmond lawyer whose practice focuses 
on Freedom of Information Act and First Amendment issues. Merritt spoke on 
behalf of the Virginia Press Association.

The bill, he noted, says "all information relating to the execution process" as 
well as information about the equipment used, would be exempt from the Freedom 
of Information Act's requirements.

On top of that, it would mark the 1st time in Virginia that information about 
what the government spends taxpayer dollars on, how much it spent, how it acted 
to ensure the state got a good deal and whether it got what it paid for, would 
be secret, Merritt said.

Corinna Lain, a University of Richmond law professor, said the bill raised 
serious constitutional issues.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case from Kentucky that putting 
people sentenced to death at risk of excessive pain violates the Bill of 
Rights' prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The Kentucky case 
challenged that state's use of lethal injections.

Lain said the secrecy that Saslaw and the corrections department propose would 
make it impossible for anyone to know whether they were at such a risk and be 
able to challenge the process in court.

Ricks said the state makes public the drugs used in its lethal injections, but 
Lain said other significant information, such as the potency or possible 
contamination of the drugs, would remain hidden.

"I think it is the essence of bad government to enshrine in secrecy the state 
at its most powerful moment, when it exercises its sovereign right to take 
someone's life," Lain said.

Recent botched executions in Oklahoma and Arizona have focused attention on the 
drugs used in executions, especially since some states have found they are 
having a hard time getting the drugs they prefer. The firms that sell them are 
often based overseas, and many refuse to sell the drugs for use in executions.

The U.S. Supreme Court has halted the scheduled executions of 3 Oklahoma 
prisoners, after agreeing this month to review a challenge to that state's 
lethal injection procedures.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia noted that for more than 10 
years the corrections department has released information about the drugs used 
and the procedures followed without any problems.

There is no basis for saying the public can't handle the information, the ACLU 
said.

In a briefing paper, the ACLU said the bill could clear the way for 
experimenting with combinations of lethal drugs, adding that such 
experimentation caused the botched executions in Oklahoma and Arizona.

Saslaw dismissed criticism of his bill as simply objections from death penalty 
opponents.

Those on death row, he added "have had a hell of lot more rights protected than 
the people they killed."

(source: The Daily Press)

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

Va. Senate panel advances bill to ensure supply of lethal-injection drug



A Senate panel on Thursday advanced a bill that would allow the state to hire 
pharmacies to prepare lethal-injection drugs that some drugmakers won't sell 
for executions.

But the proposal came under fire at an afternoon hearing from a law professor 
and advocates for the Virginia Press Association, who objected to provisions 
meant to shield the identity of the pharmacies. Critics said that hiding that 
information would make it harder to ensure that inmates were not subjected to 
faulty drugs and would prevent news organizations and others from scrutinizing 
death penalty practices and state purchasing.

In other states, such secrecy provisions have been intended to protect drug 
manufacturers from the political pressure that has prompted some of them to 
halt sales in the United States.

The administration of Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) is seeking the measure. 
McAuliffe's secretary of public safety, Brian Moran, said the secrecy provision 
was included in the proposal for "security" reasons.

The bill would allow the state to hire pharmacies to make the drugs. Currently, 
pharmacies can mix custom drugs only with a prescription for a specific patient 
for a therapeutic use.

The Senate Education and Health subcommittee that heard the bill voted to amend 
it to require that the state disclose what drug or drug combination is used in 
any execution. But it left intact the secrecy provision, which extends to the 
terms of the pharmacies' contracts with the state.

"There ain't a state in America that gives you the name of the guy who sticks 
the needle in any more than you got the names of the folks who pulled the 
switch when we had the electric chair," said Sen. Richard L. Saslaw 
(D-Fairfax), the bill's sponsor.

Saslaw said that the measure would help the state carry out executions in the 
most humane way possible.

"Would you like us to go back to the electric chair?" he asked when Corinna 
Barrett Lain, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, spoke 
against the bill.

Lain, a former prosecutor who described herself as "agnostic" on the death 
penalty, focused on the bill's "secrecy provisions."

"I think it's extremely bad government to shroud in secrecy the state at its 
most powerful moment, which is exercising its sovereign right to take the life 
of one of its citizens," she said.

After amending the bill, the subcommittee agreed to send it to the full 
Education and Health Committee, with the recommendation that it then move to 
the Courts of Justice Committee.

Under Virginia law, death row inmates have a choice between lethal injection 
and electrocution. If they don't choose, the default method is lethal 
injection. An effort to make electrocution the default method failed during 
last year's General Assembly session.

Virginia has a supply of the drugs needed for its lethal-injection cocktail, 
but the drugs will eventually expire or be used up, and there is no clear 
option for obtaining more, Moran said in an interview.

"We have all 3 right now. We could perform an execution by lethal injection 
right now," Moran said. "But the drugs do expire and are difficult to obtain."

Moran said the Department of Corrections has requested the bill in order "to 
implement the current law of Virginia, which is providing death row inmates a 
choice of lethal injection."

Del. Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) said he was concerned about the bill.

"From my point of view, whenever the government is putting a human being to 
death, we ought to have the absolute maximum amount of sunshine and make sure 
it's done humanely, properly and with as much dignity as possible for such a 
thing," he said.

After the electrocution debate in the legislature last year, Surovell submitted 
a Freedom of Information request asking the Department of Corrections for 
records related to drugs, execution protocols and other issues. He said the 
department denied most of his request, but a Fairfax County judge ordered the 
documents released. The department appealed. The state Supreme Court will 
consider next week whether to accept the appeal.

All 32 states that impose the death penalty primarily rely on lethal injection. 
States apply either single or dual-drug protocols that typically involve a 
fatal dose of an anesthetic or sedative, or a 3-drug cocktails that add a 
paralyzing agent and then a caustic heart-stopping agent, according to the 
Death Penalty Information Center.

Controversy over the death penalty has created severe drug shortages in recent 
years, setting off a scramble by states to adapt workable new execution 
protocols and effective drug combinations.

In the most urgent example, European manufacturers opposed to capital 
punishment no longer sell barbiturates to prisons in the United States. Critics 
say a substitute sedative adopted by several states, midazolam, may be less 
effective at inducing coma-like unconsciousness.

At least 3 of the 35 people executed in the United States last year endured 
prolonged and apparently painful deaths. Last February, a convicted murderer in 
Oklahoma, Clayton Lockett, appeared to writhe and struggle before succumbing 
after 43 minutes, while in July, the bungled execution of Arizona 
double-murderer Joseph Rudolph Wood continued for 90 minutes.

In response, Ohio, Arizona and Kentucky have altered execution plans to shift 
away from midazolam, although it remains proposed for use by Alabama and 
Virginia.

(source: Washington Post)








FLORIDA:

Man trying to avoid death sentence



A 57-year-old man, convicted for killing a fellow Lake County prison inmate 
over a stolen honey bun, is trying to convince a judge not to approve the 
jury's death sentence recommendation.

Defense lawyers for Raul Roque, who was found guilty in 2009 of prison-shank 
stabbing Miguel Griffin, 36, is contending the twice-convicted killer is 
intellectually disabled.

The hearing -- requested by defense lawyers to convince Circuit Judge G. 
Richard Singletary that Roque shouldn't be put to death -- started Wednesday in 
the Lake County courthouse and is expected to end Monday.

Prosecutors on Thursday hammered away at testimony from a psychologist for the 
defense, who contended Roque didn't have the intellectual capacity to know what 
he was doing when he stabbed Griffin. Psychologist Cristina Noder Miller said 
evidence included clinical testing conducted on Roque that showed he couldn't 
remember most of words given to him from a short list.

However, Assistant State Attorney Rich Buxman said there was no evidence that 
Roque required continuing mental support in or out of prison.

Buxman questioned how Rogue would have been able to hold various jobs in his 
native land of Cuba, as well as after he immigrated to the United States, plus 
learn to drive and buy a car, if he was borderline retarded as the defense 
claims.

The stabbing death occurred in 2006 at the Lake Correctional Facility in 
Clermont during a confrontation over honey buns and other items Roque said 
Griffin had stolen from his cell locker.

Roque already was serving life in prison for shooting a man to death in 1996.

Roque said he had marked his items, so he knew Griffin was the thief. Roque 
beat and stabbed the inmate to death with a makeshift knife.

During the 2009 trial, Chief Assistant Public Defender Bill Stone had asked the 
jury to consider what he said was the defendant's low IQ and his abuse as a 
child, adding that Roque's mother would tie the child to a tree and flog him.

However, the jury, in an 11-1 vote, handed down a recommendation of death for 
Roque about 5 days after convicting him of murdering Griffin - but Singletary 
still has the final say.

(source: Daily Commercial)