[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., GA., FLA., TENN., MO., NEB.

[Rick Halperin]

March 15



PENNSYLVANIA:

The death penalty moratorium in Pennsylvania is warranted



In response to your March 4 article "Pennsylvania Supreme Court to Take Death 
Penalty Moratorium Case," I commend Gov. Tom Wolf for using his power as 
governor to create this badly needed moratorium to allow the results of a study 
on the fairness and effectiveness of the death penalty to be made known.

I question, however, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams' request that 
the state Supreme Court hear a legal challenge to the moratorium on an 
expedited basis, especially since the study's results are expected in the 1st 
half of 2015.

Why the rush to the Supreme Court before the study's findings are fully 
available? Is there an expectation that the study will affirm Gov. Wolf's 
concerns about the "fundamental fairness" of capital punishment? Perhaps the 
report will establish that Gov. Wolf's discomfort with the 150 people on death 
rows across the nation who have been exonerated, the system's racial biases or 
the court proceedings that Gov. Wolf described as "ineffective, unjust and 
expensive" is warranted.

Could this be the reason that Mr. Williams is trying to beat a hasty path to 
the Supreme Court? If so, I applaud the Supreme Court's decision to hear the 
case on a standard calendar. We may or may not see an end to the injustice of 
the death penalty in Pennsylvania, but at a minimum, people in power will not 
be permitted to skirt the justice system to further a partisan political 
agenda.

SISTER JUDITH E. CONNOR

Sisters of Divine Providence

Peace and Justice Committee

Bellevue

(source: Letter to the Editor, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)








GEORGIA:

Legal Fight Reopens Over Woman's Execution in Georgia----Lawyers for Kelly 
Gissendaner use botched attempt to argue for a stay

Lawyers for a woman awaiting execution in Georgia are asking a federal court to 
stay her death sentence in the wake of a botched attempt to carry it out.

Kelly Gissendaner's planned execution has been postponed twice over the past 2 
weeks: first in late February due to a winter storm, then in the 1st week of 
March because the drug that was to be used for her execution looked unusually 
cloudy.

Her supporters are using the postponements to revive pleas that her life be 
spared, though state and federal officials have declined such appeals in her 
case several times. She is the only woman on death row in Georgia and would be 
the 1st woman to be executed in the state in 70 years.

Ms. Gissendaner has admitted to persuading a man with whom she was involved to 
kill her husband, Doug Gissendaner, in 1997. She was convicted of murder the 
following year. The man received life in prison without parole in exchange for 
testifying against Ms. Gissendaner.

Lawyers for Ms. Gissendaner have said in various court filings that she should 
receive life in prison. They didn't return calls or emails for comment this 
past week.

The family of her late husband says her execution would bring long-overdue 
justice.

On Monday, Ms. Gissendaner's lawyers filed suit in U.S. District Court in 
Atlanta against Georgia Department of Corrections officials, asking for her 
sentence to be stayed while state execution protocols and procedures are 
investigated. In the complaint, the lawyers argue the hours of delay involved 
in the drug-related postponement in early March subjected Ms. Gissendaner to 
"mortal fear" and violated a prohibition in the U.S. Constitution against cruel 
and unusual punishment.

"Ms. Gissendaner endured hours of unconstitutional torment and uncertainty - to 
which she had not been sentenced - while Defendants dithered about whether they 
could execute her," the lawyers said in the filing.

The lawyers also challenged a 2013 law that declares the manufacturer of any 
lethal drug used in executions a state secret, arguing that under the law, the 
public can't know if the drugs are being made and administered to avoid cruel 
and unusual punishment.

Death-penalty procedures have come under increased scrutiny nationwide in 
recent years. A few executions have been botched, including a high-profile case 
in Oklahoma, as some states turned to alternative drug protocols amid a 
nationwide shortage of traditional lethal-injection drugs. Some pharmaceutical 
firms have stopped selling them to states, saying they were uncomfortable being 
linked to executions.

That development, as well as a recent U.S. Supreme Court case by death-row 
inmates challenging the constitutionality of Oklahoma's lethal-injection 
protocols, is spurring states to consider alternatives. On Tuesday, Utah 
legislators approved a bill to allow firing squads for executions. This past 
week, the Alabama House voted to keep execution drug-suppliers secret and to 
bring back use of the electric chair if lethal injections can't be performed.

The Georgia Department of Corrections has postponed all executions while 
officials analyze what happened with the drug prepared for Ms. Gissendaner's 
execution, said spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan. Once the department is ready to 
resume executions, a state court would have to reissue a new execution order 
specifically for Ms. Gissendaner, Ms. Hogan said. "The time frame is unknown," 
she said.

The state Board of Pardons and Paroles, a 5-member body appointed by the 
governor that has sole authority to grant clemency in Georgia, has declined Ms. 
Gissendaner's requests for clemency twice.

The state attorney general's office hasn't yet replied to the latest complaint 
and a spokeswoman had no comment on the case.

While in prison, Ms. Gissendaner has studied theology, earning a degree and 
corresponding with religious thinkers. As her execution approached, ministers 
and others opposing the death penalty wrote letters to the state and signed 
online petitions urging mercy.

The victim's family has steadfastly urged that the sentence be carried out. 
"Doug is the true victim of this pre-meditated and heinous crime," the family 
said in a statement last week. "We, along with our friends and supporters and 
our faith, will continue fighting for Doug until he gets the justice he 
deserves no matter how long it takes."

The latest woman to be executed in Georgia was Lena Baker, a black maid who was 
electrocuted in 1945 for killing her white male employer. In 2005, the state 
Board of Pardons and Paroles issued her a posthumous pardon, calling the 1945 
board decision to ignore her claims of self-defense "a grievous error."

(source: Wall Street Journal)








FLORIDA:

Witness to murder: Marquardt's Florida crime



Paige Ruiz was a few days from her 4th birthday.

She hid behind some curtains to surprise the person who came one morning in 
March 2000 to her grandmother's back door.

She quickly ran under a table after hearing gunshots and screams.

After hearing that person exit, she looked out the window and saw a car drive 
away.

For the next 4 hours, she and her nearly 2-year-old brother, Trevor, played in 
this remote central Florida home where her grandmother and aunt had been shot 
and stabbed by Bill Marquardt of Fairchild.

It wasn't until the girl's uncle called and she told him about blood and his 
wife lying on the floor that authorities and family members were aware of the 
tragic event that still haunts everyone connected with the case.

Paige, now 18 and a college student interested in crime scene investigation, 
doesn't shy away from giving details of that eventful day, 15 years ago today.

She also doesn't shy away from saying Marquardt, 39, on Florida's death row, 
deserves such a penalty.

Paige, her mother, Pam Ruiz, and others also still marvel at the manner in 
which Marquardt was identified as the culprit - largely through the exhaustive 
investigative efforts of Jon Theisen, now an Eau Claire County judge, but 
district attorney in Chippewa County in 2000.

"When I tell the story of all this, a lot of people are just amazed at how all 
this happened; how I can remember what I do at such a young age, and how it all 
came about that the man who did all this to our family was caught," Paige said 
in a recent interview in Florida.

"Him on death row, well, you get what you deserve," she said. "You just can't 
come into someone's house, kill them and not expect to get a sentence like 
that."

No execution date has been set for Marquardt.

"I'll be there when they do it. I want to see this taken care of," Pam Ruiz 
matter-of-factly said. "I just thank God he didn't see the kids, or it could 
have been so much worse."

'Gunshot and screams'

No one's really sure why Marquardt went to the home of Margarita Ruiz, where 
her daughter and son-in-law Esperanza "Hope" and Robert Wells also were living.

Pam Ruiz, as usual, had dropped Paige and Trevor off at the residence around 7 
a.m. for day care. A short time later, someone came to the door.

"I remember hearing a knock at the door and my grandmother going to the door to 
answer it. I hid behind a curtain because I thought it was my uncle or a family 
member," Paige said. "I was going to jump out and scare him, but then I heard a 
gunshot and screams.

"That's when I ran underneath the table (and tablecloth) and I remember people 
running to the back of the house and scattering," she recalled.

Paige remembers someone walking out the back door.

"That's when I got out from under the table and looked out the window and saw 
the green car backing out," she said, referring to a Ford Thunderbird that 
Marquardt previously had stored in Valdosta, Ga.

"After that, I just remember playing with my brother. He was like in the corner 
playing with toys and stuff, kind of out in the open."

Eventually, Robert Wells telephoned and asked about his wife, who had been ill.

"I told him she was laying down, sleeping," Paige recalled. "He thought it was 
a joke and started laughing and hung up."

Wells called back and asked if he could talk to Paige's aunt. Paige told her 
again that she was sleeping.

"I remember putting the phone to her ear and picking it up and saying she's 
bleeding," Paige continued. "That's when he said to just be calm and he'd call 
the police.

"I remember the police showing up and me running under the table again because 
I thought it was that guy. I remember them pulling me out from underneath the 
table and saying, 'It's OK; it's going to be OK.'"

Police records indicate Marquardt fired shots through the screen door, hitting 
Margarita Ruiz, 72, who then ran toward the bedroom where Esperanza, 42, was 
resting. He shot and stabbed them both numerous times and left.

"You get a call at work, and all of a sudden your whole life is turned upside 
down," Pam Ruiz said. "Your kids are being cared for by their grandmother and 
aunt, and then police call and say you need to go there as soon as possible. 
And they don't tell you why, just to go."

Ruiz saw the yellow police tape and located her children in a police car.

"When I heard what happened, all I could think about was that the kids were in 
that house for four hours and no one knew what had happened," Pam added. "How 
bad is that?"

Diligent DA

For 6 years, Florida police were unaware of Marquardt, who had been charged in 
Chippewa County with killing his mother, Mary Jane Marquardt, 54, 2 days before 
the double murder in Florida.

A jury from Polk County found Marquardt not guilty of that murder. A knife 
found by police had 3 DNA samples, including Mary Jane's. The others were 
identified as related females.

After the Chippewa County case verdict, a frustrated Theisen, who has library 
training, diligently researched possible double murders of related females 
between Wisconsin and Florida. Marquardt had testified that he traveled to 
Florida during the time of his mother's murder.

Through his research, Theisen eventually learned of the double murder about 40 
miles west of Orlando and contacted Florida officials. DNA on Marquardt's knife 
and other evidence, including a 9 mm handgun and blood in his car, eventually 
linked Marquardt to the murders. He was convicted and sentenced to death.

"Obviously, it's one of those cases that will be with me my entire life," 
Theisen said Wednesday. "I guess I appreciate being a part of it. It seems 
like, from my perspective, everything worked out positively. I feel like I have 
special friends, a special connection now in Florida."

Mary Jane's murder case is not considered an unsolved crime, Theisen said, 
recalling conversations he's had with Chippewa County authorities. If Marquardt 
had been found guilty in Chippewa County, would Theisen or others have been so 
diligent in searching for the other victims?

"It's hard to say whether any more would have been done," Theisen said. "My 
earnestness stemmed from the hurt of losing, believing he was the one who 
killed his mom. The fact that we didn't know at the time of his trial here who 
that other blood belonged to was something we, and I'm sure the jury, 
considered.

"That unidentified DNA was on the back of everyone's mind at trial, but I 
certainly wouldn't have been as earnest as I was had we won," he added. "I 
remember personally feeling there has to be an answer here, that you can't have 
DNA of unknown people on a knife."

Questions remain

Gale Carter, who lives across from the home where the 2 women were slain, said 
he never heard of any local suspects.

"We never thought anyone in the area would have done it. I guess he just 
happened to stop there, and my mother lived alone in the house right across 
from them. It could have been her. No one will ever understand something like 
this. Who could?"

Today, Paige is remarkably relaxed while describing accounts of the murder 
scene, the family's long wait for resolution and how it has impacted multiple 
relationships. She has given several school presentations about the tragedy.

"When I did my first one in high school, people who were friends of mine never 
knew I was that girl in the house," Paige said. "People were in shock.

"There are still a lot of people who ask me about it, but it doesn't bother me 
as much anymore. It's still so bad to think about, though. We'll always wonder 
why."

Some reports over the years have speculated that Marquardt was visiting someone 
in Florida and stopped at the isolated residence because it might have reminded 
him of where he lived, some 1,450 miles away. "I don't think anyone will ever 
know why he stopped there, why he did what he did to 2 people who wouldn't harm 
anyone," Pam Ruiz said.

"I know his family feels bad about it all; they lost someone they love too in 
all this. All of this is just so hard to believe, but it's true, and we live it 
every day. It never goes away. Never will."

March 13, 2000: Mary Jane Marquardt is killed at her Chippewa County residence.

March 15, 2000: Margarita Ruiz and Esperanza Wells are killed at their home 
near Orlando, Fla.

March 17, 2000: Bill Marquardt is charged in Eau Claire County with 10 
felonies, including 7 related to mistreatment of animals between March 9 and 
13, 2000.

March 18, 2000: Marquardt is charged in Chippewa County with 1st-degree murder 
in the death of his mother, Mary Jane.

Feb. 5, 2003: He is found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect of 
the Eau Claire County charges and institutionalized.

May 26, 2006: Polk County jury finds him not guilty of murdering his mother.

Dec. 15, 2006: He is charged in Sumter County, Fla., with 2 counts of 
1st-degree murder for killing Ruiz and Wells near Tarrytown, Fla., on March 15, 
2000, and 1 count of burglary while armed with a weapon.

Oct. 12, 2011: He is found guilty of the Florida murders.

Feb. 28, 2012: Marquardt is sentenced to death.

15 years ago today, a little girl in central Florida, hiding under a table, 
overheard the brutal murders of her grandmother and aunt by a Fairchild man. 
Now 18, she recalls that horrific day with the wish that the killer will die 
soon.

(source: Leader-Telegram)








TENNESSEE:

Conviction upheld in dismemberment slayings of Walker County newlyweds



Tennessee's Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the 1st-degree murder 
conviction of Howard Hawk Willis, sentenced to death in the 2002 dismemberment 
killings of Walker County, Ga., newlyweds Adam Chrismer and Samantha Leming 
Chrismer.

In the teens' slayings, a skull and a pair of hands were found in Washington 
County, Tenn.'s Boone Lake and the rest of their bodies were found stuffed into 
plastic containers in a Johnson City mini-warehouse.

Willis challenged his conviction on 20 grounds, ranging from claims that the 
trial court shouldn't have let him defend himself or denied his motion to 
suppress his statements to challenges of various aspects of his 2010 trial and 
to assertions that the state's death penalty statute is unconstitutional.

The appeals court rejected them all and confirmed Willis' conviction. He is on 
death row at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

(source: Times Free Press)








MISSOURI----impending execution

Brain-Damaged Cop Killer Cecil Clayton To Die In 2 Days



The state of Missouri is preparing to execute Cecil Clayton, a brain damaged 
man who has been on death row since the mid 1990s. The elderly inmate, who is 
now in his 70s, has a low IQ and suffers from mental illness - facts that have 
inspired media coverage as well as protest from those who are against the death 
penalty. Mother Jones reports that the convicted murderer is "psychotic and 
unable to function" yet the state of Missouri is in a rush to put him to death.

Cecil Clayton is in bad mental shape and it probably has a lot to do with the 
fact that he is missing part of his brain. A large portion of his frontal lobe 
was removed after a terrible accident over 40 years ago - long before he 
committed the murder he committed in 1996. Doctors had to remove up to 20 
percent of his brain, leaving him brain damaged and with an IQ nearly 30 points 
below average. The Daily Mail has also pointed out that Clayton is Missouri's 
oldest death row inmate at 74-years-old.

Close to 30 years after nearly 20 % of the frontal lobe was removed from his 
brain, he committed the shooting death of Missouri police officer Christopher 
Castetter. It was a violent and impulsive crime that rocked the community of 
Barry County, Missouri. A family lost their loved one and a police force lost a 
partner. Clayton quickly became a convicted cop killer, and he was swiftly 
given the death penalty - regardless of his severely low IQ and the 
circumstances surrounding why his IQ was so low. Along with his attorney, his 
daughter Jena has spoken out against the upcoming execution - which is slated 
to take place on St. Patrick's Day.

"Talking with him is like talking to a child. I do not believe we are the kind 
of country that executes the disabled."

The frontal lobes of the human brain are responsible for numerous functions 
associated with spontaneity, impulse control, judgment and sexual behavior. In 
other words, it's the "moral" center of the brain that is vulnerable to injury 
or, really, any kind of tinkering that may take place (such as surgical 
removal). The Centre for Neuro Skills states that damage to the frontal lobes 
can manifest itself in either a depressive state or a psychopathic state. Cecil 
Clayton has been described as a "brain-damaged psychopath" in more than one 
media report covering his case.

Do you think Missouri is right for choosing to execute Cecil Clayton? His 
attorney says that he is so mentally disabled that he questions whether or not 
the man even understands that he is going to die in just days. While he appears 
cognizant to the fact during conversations, he reportedly forgets shortly 
thereafter. This fact makes it hard to predict how he will react to his own 
execution when the day comes.

(source: inquisitr.com)

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

Governor should stop execution of mentally disabled inmate



Missouri officials plan on March 17 to execute Cecil Clayton, a 74-year-old 
with severe damage to his frontal lobe, the brain's executive center. This case 
raises grave civil rights concerns about the use of the death penalty for 
people with disabilities. Missourians are urged to contact Gov. Jay Nixon to 
suggest he stay the execution and commute Clayton's death sentence to life 
without parole - or at least convene a board of inquiry about his competency.

My background is in clinical neuropsychology, the study of brain-behavior 
relationships. Psychologists, physicians and other health professionals promote 
the well-being of all citizens and advance the state of knowledge regarding 
individuals, such as Clayton, with health and mental health impairments.

Medical records indicate that in 1972, while Clayton worked at a sawmill in 
southwest Missouri, a piece of log pierced his skull. He arrived at Barry 
County hospital semiconscious with bone embedded in his brain, and 20 % of his 
frontal lobe was removed. 9 days later he was released from the hospital 
without long-term therapy. After the injury, he experienced marked personality 
and behavioral changes, could not maintain long-term employment and was deemed 
medically eligible for Social Security disability. He spent years in and out of 
mental health facilities.

In 1996, Clayton fatally shot Barry County Sheriff's Deputy Christopher 
Castetter. We extend condolences for this horrible crime to Deputy Castetter's 
grieving loved ones. For the community's safety, Clayton requires long-term or 
permanent placement in a secure setting. However, his brain injury raises 
questions about his ability to check impulsivity, to deliberate and to 
appreciate fully the consequences of his actions - all necessary for legal 
imposition of Missouri's death sentence.

Decades of research demonstrates the frontal lobe is pivotal in impulse 
control, judgment and deliberation. Health professionals have cataloged 
Clayton's brain damage, including organic brain syndrome, hallucinations and 
disorganized thinking. Physicians and psychologists examined Clayton at least 9 
times since 2003 and deemed him incompetent to be executed.

Neuropsychological testing showed significant cognitive deterioration, 
rendering him intellectually disabled, according to a January 2015 civil rights 
complaint. Clayton's 2005 evaluation yielded a full-scale IQ of 71. A 1983 
evaluation had determined he was reading at a 4th-grade level. Multiple doctors 
over the past 10 years concluded Clayton suffers from dementia related to 
traumatic brain injury and lacks ability to make rational decisions and control 
impulses.

Clayton is unable to assist in his own defense. Physician William Logan said in 
his 2008 evaluation: "Mr. Clayton believes his conviction was the result of a 
conspiracy by the legal system against him and that someone else killed Deputy 
Castetter." Logan's report continued, as Clayton's execution looms more likely, 
"he shows no concern and has an inappropriately elated mood. He cannot describe 
any issues on which his appeal is based." Clayton has repeatedly said God will 
prevent his execution, and he is unable to describe how he himself might assist 
that process.

Clayton has a history of other injuries, beginning when he was dropped on his 
head as an infant, leading to blindness in one eye. Psychologist Daniel Foster 
reported in 2008 that "his impairment, consistently described and reported for 
38 years, continues to be sufficiently profound and sustained so as to render 
him incompetent to be executed."

Missouri law says that "no person condemned to death shall be executed if as a 
result of mental disease or defect he lacks capacity to understand the nature 
and purpose of the punishment about to be imposed upon him." The process for 
determining capacity relies solely within the correctional system, despite 
Clayton's long and well-documented history of neurologic injury. Whether one 
supports or opposes the death penalty, it is in society's interest to reserve 
such punishment for "the worst of the worst" who have full knowledge and 
insight into their actions.

Cases like Clayton's demonstrate that too often, severely mentally disabled 
individuals face the harshest state sanctions. The American Psychological 
Association has called for a moratorium on executions because of wrongful 
convictions, inconsistencies in prosecutors' decisions to seek the death 
penalty, and the unfair role of race "until the jurisdiction implements 
policies and procedures that can be shown to ameliorate the (identified) 
deficiencies."

Health professionals serve Missourians using the best available specialized 
expertise. Chapter 552.070 of the Missouri statutes allows the governor to 
convene a board of professionals to gather information on whether execution, 
reprieve, pardon or commutation of sentence is most appropriate. Urge Gov. Jay 
Nixon to exercise his clemency power to stay the execution of Cecil Clayton and 
commute his sentence or at least to convene a board of inquiry to make an 
independent evaluation. Contact Gov. Nixon's office at 573-751-3222.

To execute this 74-year-old with significant brain injury would undermine 
Missourians' right to a fair system of justice.

(source: Op-Ed; Laura Schopp is a professor with the University of Missouri 
Department of Health Psychology----Columbia DailyTribune



NEBRASKA:

Not all on board with growing push to end death penalty in Nebraska



Christine Tuttle was a teenager when her mother, Evonne, was fatally shot 
inside a Norfolk bank in 2002.

No money was taken. But 5 people died in a botched robbery that was over in 
less than 50 seconds.

Tuttle, now a 30-year-old mother of 3, said she used to think it didn't matter 
if the 3 gunmen sentenced to death were eventually executed.

Not any more.

She said that paying the ultimate price for a horrific crime is a "traditional 
value" that shouldn't go away.

"They talk about the high cost of the death penalty, but what if we factor the 
cost of me living without a mom? Or me paying for college by myself? Or for 
these (other) families carrying on without a parent?" Tuttle said.

"I don't want them to not fear that they might die. I want them to be put to 
death," she added.

Tuttle's support for the death penalty took on a new urgency recently when a 
legislative committee advanced a bill that would replace capital punishment 
with life imprisonment. The vote was 8-0, the 1st time a repeal bill advanced 
unanimously from the Judiciary Committee.

Among those supporting repeal was Miriam Thimm Kelle of Beatrice, whose 
brother, James Thimm, was murdered by religious cult leader Michael Ryan.

11 senators have joined a longtime death penalty foe, State Sen. Ernie Chambers 
of Omaha, as co-sponsors of the repeal measure, Legislative Bill 268. The 
sponsors include not just traditional death penalty opponents who believe it's 
a barbaric and random punishment but also conservative Republicans who believe 
it's a broken, expensive policy that doesn't deter crime.

"It's not much of a deterrent right now if you can sit on death row for 18 or 
19 years," said State Sen. Mark Kolterman of Seward, one of the co-sponsors. 
"I've struggled with it - is it the right thing or not? If we're not using it, 
why have it."

With Kolterman and 17 other new senators in the Legislature, it's hard to tell 
whether Chambers and others against the death penalty will be successful when 
the full body takes up the issue. That's not expected to happen until next 
month.

The bill will need more than a simple majority of lawmakers to pass. Omaha Sen. 
Beau McCoy has already signaled a filibuster against the bill, meaning it will 
take 33 votes in the 49-member Legislature to advance the measure, rather than 
the normal 25.

Gov. Pete Ricketts, a proponent of capital punishment, has been talking with 
senators and is working with Attorney General Doug Peterson to restore the 
state's ability to carry out the death penalty.

Nebraska is one of 32 states that has a death penalty (Iowa does not), but 
there hasn't been an execution in the Cornhusker State since 1997. Carey Dean 
Moore, 1 of 11 men on death row in the state, has been there for 35 years.

Since at least December 2013, Nebraska has been unable to carry out an 
execution. That's when its supply of a key lethal-injection drug, sodium 
thiopental, expired.

A spokeswoman for Peterson said the attorney general has been seeking 
alternatives since he took office in January. Ricketts, a conservative 
Republican, said the state needs to keep capital punishment.

"I support the appropriate use of the death penalty and will work with members 
of the Unicameral to uphold it," he said in a prepared statement.

Nebraska and dozens of other states have struggled to obtain drugs needed to 
carry out executions by lethal injection.

Major U.S. manufacturers have quit making sodium thiopental, a sedative 
commonly used in executions, and foreign sources have dried up amid opposition 
to capital punishment overseas and questions over the purity of such imported 
drugs.

Alternative drugs that have been tried were part of botched executions in Ohio, 
Oklahoma and Arizona last year. Florida and Georgia just recently put 
executions on hold because of questions about the drugs used in those states.

Frustrated, Tennessee last year re-instituted the electric chair as a possible 
method if execution drugs are not available. Oklahoma is now exploring the use 
of nitrogen gas. In Utah, a bill to bring back the firing squad awaits a 
signature by the governor.

One result of the uncertainty: 2014 saw the fewest number of executions 
nationwide in 2 decades, 35.

A national authority on the death penalty said that the options available for 
death-penalty states are growing slimmer. Even if they are found, it would take 
months to develop and pass new rules and regulations, and any new protocol 
would likely face a new round of court challenges.

"It's becoming a crisis, or a decision point," said Richard Dieter, executive 
director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "Maybe a drug company will 
come forward (with a new drug supply) or compounding pharmacy. But there's not 
a lot happening."

Executions are still occurring. Missouri and Texas have executions scheduled 
this week, though the Lone Star State will use its final dose of sodium 
thiopental, forcing it to seek alternatives.

Kolterman said the problem of finding the necessary lethal injection drugs 
factored into his decision to support repeal of the death penalty, as did his 
"pro-life" views and conversations with several religious groups.

The cost was also a consideration, he said.

A 2014 report in Kansas concluded it costs 4 times more to defend someone 
facing the death penalty than someone facing life in prison.

In Nebraska there have been conflicting reports. The Attorney General's Office 
in 2007, 2008 and 2010 estimated that repealing the death penalty would not 
reduce its office's expenses - estimates that opponents of the death penalty 
disputed.

In 2013 a report by the ACLU, which opposes the death penalty, said capital 
punishment cases take twice as long to litigate and involve 5 times as many 
appeals, and thus are much more expensive - a report disputed by capital 
punishment proponents.

Tuttle, who works with troubled juveniles in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, said 
cost is immaterial to her.

People, she said, seem to have forgotten about the slayings in Norfolk and a 
later discovery that the ringleader, Jose Sandoval, was involved in 2 other 
murders.

The death penalty, she said, may not be a deterrent to such crimes, but it 
needs to remain.

"It's there to be a consequence for murder," Tuttle said.

(source: Omaha World-Herald)