[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., OKLA.

[Rick Halperin]

July 8



TEXAS:

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----9

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----527

Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #

10----------July 16------------------Clifton Williams-----528

11---------August 12----------------Daniel Lopez----------529

12---------August 26----------------Bernardo Tercero------530

13---------September 2--------------Joe Garza-------------531

14---------October 6----------------Juan Garcia-----------532

15---------October 14---------------Licho Escamilla-------533

16---------October 28---------------Christopher Wilkins---534

17---------November 10------------Gilmar Guevara--------535

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)






FLORIDA:

After Supreme Court ruling on controversial drug midazolam, officials are 
already petitioning to resume executions in Florida


The drab curtains rose slowly over the unfolding scene, where behind thick 
glass, Darius Kimbrough was already strapped to a gurney with IV needles stuck 
into his arms. His face was peeking out from underneath a white sheet. After 
spending 19 years on Florida's death row, Kimbrough still had the same boyish 
face he had when he was sentenced to death in 1994 for the murder and rape of 
Orange County woman Denise Collins.

Official witnesses and Collins' family sat silently in the first 2 rows of 
seats behind the glass while media witnesses, including myself, jotted details 
in the back rows. I was the newly hired crime reporter at the The Gainesville 
Sun in late 2013, and we were close enough to the Florida State Prison in 
Raiford to cover all the executions. This would be the 1st out of many.

At 6 p.m., a chaplain turned off the noisy window air conditioner so the room 
could hear Kimbrough's final monologue.

"Any last words?" an official asked him.

"No, sir," he said.

As the lethal injection cocktail of three drugs, including midazolam 
hydrochloride, flowed through his veins, an intense wave of eerie calmness and 
tension filled the room. The reporter in me continued to observe any subtleties 
in Kimbrough's breathing and the movement of his lips, but the rest of me 
disassociated. After 17 long minutes, a doctor proclaimed Kimbrough dead. His 
body, now still beneath the white sheet, was the last thing we saw as the 
curtain went down again.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of midazolam, the same 
drug used to sedate Kimbrough. The justices ruled 5-to-4 in Glossip v. Gross 
against death row inmates who argued that the use of the midazolam in the 
lethal-injection procedure could violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel 
and unusual punishment because it does not reliably leave inmates unconscious. 
While the decision opens the door for states to continue using the sedative, 
some states, like Ohio, have said they will not. In Florida, the state still 
hasn't commented on what it plans to do regarding midazolam, but officials are 
already petitioning for executions to resume.

The Glossip case arose after several botched executions across the country, 
most notably one in Oklahoma, where the state executed Clayton Lockett using 
midazolam for the first time. Lockett thrashed, moaned and tried to get up 
several times, before ultimately dying 43 minutes later. Months later using the 
same lethal cocktail, Oklahoma executed Charles Warner, who reportedly said as 
the first drug was being administered, "My body is on fire."

Oklahoma's expert witness in the case, Dr. Roswell Lee Evans, testified that 
with a high dosage of midazolam, inmates would not feel pain during the 
execution. Evans, the dean of the Harrison School of Pharmacy at Auburn 
University, also told the district court that he has never used midazolam on a 
patient or induced anesthesia.

Dr. David Lubarsky, chairman of anesthesiology at the University of Miami, 
testified for petitioners in the case and says in an email that the drug is 
commonly used as a pre-procedural drug to calm patients and block their memory, 
but is not approved as a sole anesthetic under which one can perform a 
procedure such as surgery.

The anesthesiologist also said that there are several issues with the drug, 
including the fact that some patients do not become sedated, and that there can 
be a ceiling effect, which Lubarsky compares to adding too much sugar to iced 
tea - regardless of how much you add, no additional effect is achieved.

These complications can cause inmates who may not be sufficiently anesthetized 
to experience air hunger, a sensation that feels like being buried alive, or a 
painful chemical burning from the injection that stops the heart, he said. Both 
situations can wake inmates who can't signal that they are conscious because 
they have already been paralyzed.

"The use of paralytics as a second drug following both drugs does nothing but 
mask potential problems with the lethal injection," he writes. "Paralytics are 
banned by animal euthanasia protocols for this reason, and their use should 
definitely be banned in lethal injection."

The Supreme Court found that the inmates had failed to prove midazolam is 
ineffective, and they did not identify an alternative, less painful method of 
execution, said Justice Samuel Alito Jr., writing for the majority. Robert 
Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that 
because the court did not decide on the constitutionality of midazolam, 
challenges to the drug can and probably will continue as long as states keep 
using it.

"I think most states will not go forward with midazolam because a state 
concerned with the integrity of the execution process would certainly be 
extraordinarily reluctant to use a chemical that America has seen was 
responsible for three botched executions," Dunham says.

Florida was the first state to use midazolam as part of the lethal injection 
mix, during the 2013 execution of William Happ, who, according to reporters, 
moved and remained conscious longer than previously executed inmates. Just 
hours after the Supreme Court's June 29 decision in Glossip, Attorney General 
Pam Bondi filed a motion to vacate the stay the Florida Supreme Court had 
imposed on executions until the ruling by the higher court in the case. The 
stay delayed Florida's execution of Jerry Correll, who was sentenced to die for 
murdering his ex-wife, her mother, her sister and her daughter. His execution 
was scheduled to take place last February.

Correll's attorneys filed a response last week asking the Florida Supreme Court 
to continue the stay until the lawyers in the Glossip case had a chance to file 
a motion for a rehearing, says Maria DeLiberato, an attorney with Capital 
Collateral Regional Counsel - Middle Region, the firm defending Correll. 
DeLiberato said the defense also asked the court to hold the stay until after 
the Supreme Court considers Hurst v. Florida, a case that argues whether 
Florida's death sentencing scheme violates constitutional amendments.

"His team is working very hard on this case," she says. "Mr. Correll has many 
other issues pending in his appeal, including the constitutionality of 
Florida's death penalty statute."

Gov. Rick Scott's deputy communications director John Tupps said in a statement 
Wednesday, "Our office respects the court's decision and will continue to 
follow the law. The governor's foremost concern is for the victims of these 
heinous crimes and their families."

Journalist Ron Word covered about 60 executions as a reporter for the 
Associated Press bureau in Jacksonville before it was closed in 2009. After so 
long, the names and faces of the inmates mesh together, but Word can still 
remember the jarring details: flames coming out of prisoners' heads as they 
were executed on the electric chair, blood running down an inmate's shirt and a 
serial killer who sang.

"It's a surreal experience," he said. "When I was covering them, I found myself 
working so hard to get as many details that I concentrated on what I was doing 
and not what was happening."

The last one he remembers clearly was the botched execution of Angel Nieves 
Diaz in 2006. Diaz took 34 minutes to die after executioners improperly 
inserted the IV needles into his flesh and not his veins, causing the lethal 
injection chemicals to seep into his skin, Word said. Diaz shuddered, grimaced 
and gasped for air during the procedure, and an investigation later found Diaz 
had received chemical burns on his arms. After the execution, Florida 
Department of Corrections officials told reporters it took longer for Diaz to 
die because of a liver problem, which later turned out to be false.

"I think many of the victims' families supported the death penalty," he said. 
"They wanted closure, but I don't know whether they got it or not. It would be 
interesting to know if they found that comfort and peace they were looking 
for."

After Kimbrough's execution, Collins' family was in tears at the media staging 
area. Kimbrough's relatives were not allowed to attend the execution, which is 
the norm for family members of the executed, said Alberto Moscoso, press 
secretary for the Florida Department of Corrections.

Diane Stewart, Collins' mother, said the execution was peaceful, forgiving and 
not something Kimbrough deserved after killing her daughter.

"He went out a lot neater than she did," she said.

But did he? In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the 
Supreme Court had absolved Oklahoma from its duty against cruel and unusual 
punishment by "misconstruing" and "ignoring" proof about the constitutional 
insufficiency of midazolam.

"As a result, it leaves petitioners exposed to what may well be the chemical 
equivalent of being burned at the stake," she wrote. "The contortions necessary 
to save this particular lethal injection protocol are not worth the price."

(source: Orlando Weekly)






OKLAHOMA----3 new execution dates

Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals sets execution date for 3 death row inmates


The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has set execution dates for 3 death row 
inmates who had challenged a drug that will be used in their lethal injections.

The court on Wednesday set execution dates of Sept. 16 for 52-year-old Richard 
Eugene Glossip, Oct. 7 for 50-year-old Benjamin Robert Cole, and Oct. 28 for 
54-year-old John Marion Grant.

The 3 inmates had argued that the sedative midazolam that the state plans to 
use to execute them presents an unconstitutional risk of pain and suffering 
because it doesn't properly render a person unconscious.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month in a 5-4 decision that the drug can be 
used.

(source: Associated Press)