[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----UTAH, ARIZ., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

March 25



UTAH:

Utah 'Missed Opportunity' for Dialogue on Death Penalty - Catholic 
Diocese----Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed the Utah Firing Squad Bill into 
law on Monday. The law stipulates the Utah authorities can execute convicted 
individuals by firing squads if there are no lethal chemicals available for 
execution by lethal injection.



US state of Utah Governor Gary Herbert and the state's legislature missed a 
golden opportunity to have a conversation on whether the death penalty should 
remain a part of the US criminal justice system, Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake 
City Government Liaison Jean Hill told Sputnik.

"[G]overnor Herbert and our legislature missed an opportunity to have the much 
more important conversation about whether we should even maintain the death 
penalty as part of our criminal justice system," Hill said on Tuesday. "The 
method is barbaric, but the entire concept of state-sanctioned executions as a 
form of official punishment is even more primitive."

Governor Herbert signed the Utah Firing Squad Bill into law on Monday. The law 
stipulates the Utah authorities can execute convicted individuals by firing 
squads if there are no lethal chemicals available for execution by lethal 
injection.

Hill said the death penalty is about revenge, and Utah should be protecting 
human life and public safety while not seeking vengeance.

She also said the new law is not needed anyway, because the next lethal 
injection execution in Utah is several years away.

"The time spent debating methods [of execution] could have been much better 
spent discussing whether a modern state should execute its citizens," Hill 
stated.

Hill expressed hope that instead of sentencing more individuals to die and 
permitting more firing squads, the Utah government leaders to place a 
moratorium on future death sentences until US lawmakers are able to completely 
erode the death penalty away.

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

New US Law Could Lead to Elimination of Death Penalty - Former Mayor



The US state of Utah law allowing executions to be carried out by a firing 
squad might lead to the eventual elimination of the death penalty in the United 
States as a growing number of people view it as illogical and immoral, 2-time 
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson told Sputnik.

On March 10, the legislature of Utah passed a bill allowing executions to be 
carried out by firing squads if chemicals used in lethal injection cocktails to 
kill prisoners are not available.

"I do think this law could lead to the elimination of the death penalty if for 
no other reason that it has revived a discussion about the death penalty 
generally," Anderson said on Tuesday.

Anderson argued that given the rate at which people that have been exonerated - 
150 since 1976 - the arbitration with which executions are carried out, the 
economic costs involved and the general trend against executions, the death 
penalty may finally be erased in the United States.

The 150 exonerated is than 1 in 10 people on death row, he added, leaving no 
doubt that more innocent people are being convicted.

"No doubt innocent people have been executed, and we all know that without 
exception, most people are too poor to afford effective counsel and have 
received effective counsel."

Utah resident Ronnie Lee Gardner was killed by firing squad in 2010, Anderson 
stated, but jurors said they would have not voted for the death penalty had 
they seen evidence that Gardner's attorney failed to present in court.

"It's very sobering for people to hear especially with judges from federal and 
state courts that Gardner had received ineffective assistance of counsel, but 
that concern was just disregarded by the appellate courts," he said.

In the last 7 years, 6 US states eliminated the death penalty, 5 declared a 
moratorium on the death penalty, and 2 governors have declared moratoriums.

Only 7 US states carried out executions in 2014 - a 20-year low.

Anderson stated that the controversy surrounding the death penalty prompted 
Utah legislators to ask for an interim committee to evaluate it through further 
study.

"This discussion about the means of executing people actually led to a broader 
discussion concerning whether we should have the death penalty at all," he 
added.

Anderson also stated that the death sentence costs $1.6 million more than all 
procedures of cost of life imprisonment for a defendant's lifetime, an audit of 
a court case revealed.

Given those facts, he argued, Utah's Firing Squad Law is a big step backwards.

"It's astoundingly embarrassing we are returning after more than a generation 
to this barbaric means of the state killing people."

There are enough good people in the legislature that have tremendous 
reservations about restoring the means of state murder, he concluded.

(source for both: sputniknews.com)

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

The Case for the Firing Squad ---- As Utah brings back execution by bullet, and 
other states weigh a change, some argue that the firing squad is the most 
humane method



Ronnie Gardner had to be punished.

He escaped twice while serving a 1980 sentence for robbery in Utah State 
Prison. During his 2nd escape, he killed a man before police could again put 
him in handcuffs. During a 3rd escape attempt in 1985, he killed a 2nd man, 
wounded several, and was arrested for the last time by 6 officers with guns 
drawn outside the Metropolitan Hall of Justice in Salt Lake City.

For the mayhem he caused, Gardner was sentenced to death. On June 17, 2010, his 
execution was carried out by the State of Utah. The method: firing squad. It 
was his choice - death row prisoners in Utah convicted before 2004 could still 
opt to be shot.

When asked why he requested bullets instead of a lethal injection, he told the 
Deseret News, "I like the firing squad. It's so much easier ... and there's no 
mistakes."

Having done away with the firing squad in 2004, Utah legislators passed a bill 
on March 10 to bring it back. The bill keeps lethal injection as the state's 
principal execution method but allows the firing squad as "a backup plan," the 
bill's sponsoring state representative told the Associated Press. On Monday, 
Utah's governor signed the bill into law, despite his having found the firing 
squad "a little bit gruesome," according to the AP. Utah's decision mirrors 
Oklahoma laws that allow the firing squad as an execution option. Arkansas 
lawmakers are considering a similar proposal.

The idea of a firing squad makes people uncomfortable. A firing squad bill 
failed to pass in Wyoming's state house on March 12, but the state's senate 
judiciary chairwoman told Wyoming Public Radio that it would likely re-emerge 
in future legislative sessions. "There was just a tough cloud over it" whenever 
it came up in a committee meeting, the Wyoming legislator told WPR. "People get 
thinking about the seriousness, and it's a very sobering conversation."

If the firing squad is gruesome, lethal injection isn't necessarily humane. 
After major drug companies began refusing to deliver execution drugs, states 
were forced to negotiate often-secret contracts with compounding pharmacies to 
get them. Grisly botched executions, in which condemned killers gasped for air 
and writhed in pain for an hour or longer before dying, called lethal injection 
further into question. The most recent came in July 2014.

"In lethal injections, you [typically] have prison personnel acting as medical 
professionals," says Dr. Jonathan Groner, a professor of pediatric surgery at 
Ohio State University who speaks and writes about lethal injection issues. 
"That's outside their usual scope of practice."

In Arizona, after receiving lethal injection drugs, Joseph Wood gasped 640 
times over a period of an hour and 40 minutes, according to the Arizona 
Republic, before he finally died in July. In Oklahoma, Clayton Lockett died 43 
minutes after his lethal injection execution began last April - but not from 
the drugs. He died from a heart attack. That's troubling, considering that the 
Supreme Court upheld the death penalty's legality in 1890 as long as it didn't 
involve "a lingering death" or "something more than the mere extinguishment of 
life."

Some experts say bullets are just better.

"Every law enforcement officer and every prison guard knows how to fire a gun," 
Groner says. "Death by firing squad is fast. When a person's heart stops 
pumping, that person loses consciousness. We believe that's when they stop 
feeling pain. That's what a firing squad does. You put a few bullets in 
someone's heart, it stops pumping. They lose consciousness almost immediately."

Paul G. Cassell agrees. A law professor at the University of Utah who consults 
with attorneys general nationwide about death penalty issues, Cassell calls 
Utah's firing squad law "pure common sense."

When John Taylor was executed by firing squad in Utah in 1996 - the 1st in the 
nation since 1977, when Utah executed Gary Gilmore by firing squad - it caused 
a national furor and took the focus off Taylor's crimes. For that reason, 
legislators pushed to eliminate the firing squad as an execution option.

It took 8 years, but in 2004 Utah's legislature banned the firing squad for 
death penalty cases. A state representative who introduced the 2004 bill told 
the Deseret News that death row prisoners' choice of the firing squad was "one 
last magnificent manipulation of the system to bring attention to themselves."

In Cassell's view, the furor now lies with lethal injections, and if it 
develops into a "de facto abolition of the death penalty by eliminating lethal 
injection," Utah needs an alternative.

Austin Sarat offers a further alternative: Stop executing people.

Sarat, who calls Utah's decision "a step backwards," is a jurisprudence and 
political science professor at Amherst College who published the book Gruesome 
Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty in 2014. Gruesome 
Spectacles discusses the ways in which capital punishment has gone wrong. 
Chapters in Sarat's book discuss bungled executions by hanging, electrocution, 
the gas chamber, and lethal injection.

Not 1 chapter focuses on the firing squad. One reason for that, Sarat says, is 
that it's so rare. From 1972 to 1976, the death penalty was unconstitutional in 
the U.S. Since then, only 3 out of 1,228 capital sentences have been carried 
out by firing squad, each of them in Utah. None were mishandled.

But Sarat doesn't believe that the firing squad's relative success should take 
more states down Utah's path. There have, in fact, been cases of botched firing 
squad executions. During a Utah execution in 1879, Wallace Wilkerson moved just 
enough to cause shots fired at his chest to miss his heart; he bled to death 27 
minutes after the execution began.

"This is the story of a broken system," Sarat says. "The death penalty is in a 
very different position than it was, even 10 or 15 years ago. The number of 
death sentences is way down." In 1999, 98 executions were carried out in the 
U.S.; in 2014, there were 35. Utah's decision to bring back the firing squad, 
he says, is "part of a bigger story about people having doubts about the 
punishment phase of the criminal justice system."

(source: bloomberg.com)

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

3 of Utah's 8 death row inmates have chosen firing squads



Republican Gov. Gary R. Herbert signed a law Monday that makes the firing squad 
the approved method of execution if drugs needed to carry out a lethal 
injection are unavailable. Utah is the only state where a firing squad is the 
backup method.

Oklahoma makes firing squads a 3rd choice after drugs and electrocution.

The issue is more than a theoretical one for Utah, which has used firing squads 
in the past. The state is out of drugs used in lethal injections with no real 
hope of getting more, according to Rep. Paul Ray, the Republican who sponsored 
the legislation.

"We are completely out of the drugs," Ray told the Los Angeles Times on 
Tuesday. "We found out last year that there we had no ability to purchase more 
drugs. So looking down the road, we had to come up with a backup plan.

"We decided to make it automatic to go to the firing squad to avoid the extra 
costs of additional litigation," Ray said. "It was the obvious choice since we 
had done it before, the protocols and facilities were already in place and 
nothing required a change."

Ray said he was aware of complaints by opponents of the death penalty that a 
firing squad was less humane than lethal injection, but that argument was 
discounted because drugs are not available.

"We could argue all day about what is more humane," said the lawmaker, who said 
he specializes in criminal justice issues. "I think any time you have to take a 
human life, there may be a way to dress it up and make it look nice, but my 
concern is make sure that there is justice for the victim."

The new Utah law reinstated the use of firing squads, a practice that ended in 
2004 amid public complaints that it was inhumane.

The mechanics of using the firing squad are well established in Utah.

5 sharpshooters are set up behind a wall about 25 feet from the condemned 
inmate, sitting in a chair with a target pinned to his chest. The inmate is 
offered 2 minutes to say his last words. Gary Gilmore famously used that period 
to tell his executioners, "Let's do this."

The sharpshooters open fire through slots in the wall. One unknown rifleman 
fires a blank so it won't be known which person fires the death round.

Herbert signed the bill even though he has said that he finds the firing squad 
"a little bit gruesome."

"We regret anyone ever commits the heinous crime of aggravated murder to merit 
the death penalty and we prefer to use our primary method of lethal injection 
when such a sentence is issued," gubernatorial spokesman Marty Carpenter 
stated. "However, when a jury makes the decision and a judge signs a death 
warrant, enforcing that lawful decision is the obligation of the executive 
branch."

Some Utah inmates on death row, who were convicted before 2004, have still been 
able to choose firing squad. Ronnie Lee Gardner, a convicted murderer who shot 
and killed a lawyer during a prison escape attempt, was the last inmate 
executed in Utah by a firing squad in 2010.

There are currently 8 inmates on death row, according to the state Department 
of Corrections. 4 inmates have chosen lethal injection. 3 have selected the 
firing squad and 1 inmate's choice is unspecified.

The execution dates for 6 on death row are at least 5 years away.

But 2 could be executed within the next 2 to 3 years depending on appeals. Ron 
Lafferty, who killed his sister-in-law and her baby daughter in 1984 because 
the woman questioned his beliefs on polygamy, has already requested the firing 
squad.

The other inmate, Douglas Stewart Carter,convicted of stabbing 57-year-old Eva 
Olesen to death during a home-invasion robbery in 1985 has chosen lethal 
injection. He could become the 1st to be involuntarily executed by firing squad 
if the state can't procure the lethal injection drugs, Ray said.

All of the states that have capital punishment and the federal government use 
lethal injection as their primary method of execution, though the protocols 
vary.

The most common method involves 3 injections, including an anesthetic or 
sedative, followed by pancuronium bromide to paralyze the inmate and potassium 
chloride to stop the heart. The 1- or 2-drug protocols typically use a lethal 
dose of an anesthetic or sedative.

Lethal injection was considered a humane advancement over other forms of 
execution including poison gas, electrocution, hanging and firing squad. But 
drug companies, many in Europe where capital punishment is banned, have 
objected to the use of their drugs to kill people.

In addition, a series of recent executions in Oklahoma, Arizona and Ohio raised 
questions about whether inmates suffered under some applications of lethal 
injection. The U.S. Supreme Court this term is scheduled to hear arguments on 
an Oklahoma case seeking guidance on lethal injection procedures.

(source: Los Angeles Times)

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

Utah death penalty trial: Witness says killer has become 'a gentleman, a kind 
man'



More than 7 years ago, Rebecca Douglas' charity received a letter from a death 
row inmate in Utah.

The inmate had seen a documentary while in prison about Rising Star Outreach, 
Douglas said Tuesday, and wanted to know if he could sponsor a child in India.

Since then, inmate Douglas Anderson Lovell has donated $820 to help Indian 
children and families affected by leprosy, by sending $5 a month of his 
$30-a-month prison income.

"When I added it up that's almost 1/3 of his income," Douglas testified Tuesday 
at Lovell's death penalty trial. "It just seemed like an incredible amount of 
money."

Along the way, Douglas said she formed a friendship with Lovell through letters 
and a face-to-face meeting in 2012. She said Lovell has asked frequently about 
the children in India, and about her own family.

Douglas said she only very recently googled Lovell and saw what his crimes 
were, which felt to her "like a punch in the gut."

"I was overwhelmingly sad," Douglas testified. "This was caused by one of my 
friends."

But Douglas said that if Lovell was somehow paroled, she would welcome him into 
her home and help him, adding: "I have no fear [of him]."

"In 30 years of prison, he has become literally a gentleman, a kind man," 
Douglas said. "In 7 years, if this is all an act? It's been flawless."

Douglas was called by Lovell's defense team, as they try to convince a 2nd 
District Court jury that the now-57-year-old defendant should not be put to 
death for kidnapping and killing 39-year-old Joyce Yost in 1985.

The charity founder testified Monday that she felt Lovell has become a 
different person than the man who murdered Yost to prevent her from testifying 
against him in a rape case. Douglas said she felt the prisoner's donations were 
an effort to redeem himself.

"He expressed so many times that he could not do any good," Douglas said. "He 
felt like he had done so much evil, that he had to do as much good as he can 
possibly do. ... I believe he wants to be reconciled with God, whatever way he 
can be."

Last week, the 12-member jury found Lovell guilty of aggravated murder for 
Yost's death.

Jurors now must decide whether Lovell should be executed for the crime.

Lovell's defense attorneys did not contest Lovell's guilt during the 1st phase 
of the trial, saying they would instead focus on the mitigating factors in the 
case.

Mark Cunningham, a clinical forensic psychologist, testified for the defense on 
Tuesday about how Lovell's childhood and family history affected who he became 
as an adult. Cunningham said he set out to answer the question, "How did we get 
here?"

"What happened growing up?" Cunningham said. "What damaged him along the way?"

Cunningham said the defendant has ADHD, suffered multiple head injuries as a 
child and had a history of mood disorders and depression within his family. 
While pregnant with Lovell, his mother also took amphetamines in the form of 
diet pills, Cunningham added.

(source: Salt Lake Tribune)








ARIZONA:

Woman who spent 22 years on death row to speak out



An Arizona woman who spent 2 decades on death row in the killing of her 
4-year-old son will speak out for the 1st time since she had her case 
dismissed.

Debra Milke was scheduled to hold a news conference Tuesday, a day after a 
judge formally dismissed a controversial case that relied almost entirely on 
the work of a detective with a long history of misconduct.

Milke, 51, was convicted of murder in 1990 in the death of her son, 
Christopher. Authorities say Milke dressed him in his favorite outfit and told 
him he was going to see Santa Claus at a mall in December 1989. He was then 
taken to the desert near Phoenix by two men, one of whom was Milke's roommate, 
and shot in the back of the head.

Authorities say Milke's motive was that she didn't want the child anymore and 
didn't want him to live with his father. Milke has maintained her innocence and 
denied that she confessed to the killing. James Styers and Roger Scott, the 2 
men who led Christopher to his death, have been on death row and have refused 
to testify against Milke.

While Milke sat on death row, the Arizona Supreme Court had gone so far as to 
issue a death warrant for her in 1997. The execution was delayed because she 
had yet to exhaust federal appeals.

An appeals court overturned Milke's conviction in 2013, ruling that prosecutors 
failed to disclose a detective's history of misconduct. Her conviction was 
based entirely on a confession Milke gave to the now-discredited detective, 
Armando Saldate.

Multiple rulings in other cases said the now-retired officer either lied under 
oath or violated suspects' rights during interrogations, according to the 
federal appeals court.

One of Milke's attorneys, Michael Kimerer, said Monday that he was still in 
disbelief that "a long, long journey with so many ups and downs" ended with his 
client's freedom.

"She was innocent. It was all based upon a police officer that just totally 
lied," Kimerer said outside court. "To see her free today and totally free and 
exonerated, it's an unbelievable feeling - just unbelievable."

Saldate's history of conduct included a 5-day suspension after he stopped a 
female motorist in 1973 and "took liberties" with her before agreeing to meet 
her later for sex. According to court documents, he questioned a suspect in 
1982 who was strapped to a hospital bed and was so incoherent he didn't even 
know his own name.

Saldate had said he would not testify at any retrial, citing fears of potential 
federal charges based on the 9th Circuit's accusations of misconduct. Both 
county and federal authorities said they did not intend to seek charges against 
the detective based on the accusations, and a state appeals court later ruled 
that Saldate would be compelled to testify even against his will.

Milke sued the city of Phoenix, Maricopa County and numerous individuals 
earlier this month, alleging authorities violated her civil rights. She also 
contends she was denied a fair trial and was a victim of malicious prosecution.

Milke, whose mother was a German who married a U.S. Air Force military 
policeman in Berlin in the 1960s, has drawn strong support from citizens of 
that nation and Switzerland, neither of which has the death penalty.

(source: Associated Press)








WASHINGTON:

Jurors deliberate in Carnation killings trial



The case of Joseph McEnroe is in the hands of a Seattle jury. McEnroe is 
accused along with his former girlfriend of killing 6 members of her family on 
Christmas Eve 2007.

Jurors began their deliberations Tuesday.

King County Deputy Prosecutor Scott O'Toole told jurors in closing arguments 
Monday that the rampage in Carnation, east of Seattle, was well-planned and 
clearly premeditated.

The Seattle Times reported that O'Toole urged jurors to convict McEnroe of 6 
counts of aggravated 1st-degree murder, a verdict that could result in the 
death penalty.

Defense attorney Leo Hamaji hasn't disputed McEnroe's role in the killings. But 
he argues that McEnroe was coerced by his former girlfriend, Michele Anderson, 
into the killings.

McEnroe and Anderson are accused of shooting her parents, brother, 
sister-in-law, 5-year-old niece and 3-year-old nephew.

(source: Associated Press)








USA:

Prosecutors: Gary Lee Sampson raging and remorseless on death row



Serial killer Gary Lee Sampson's outbursts over the past 10 years on death row 
at a federal prison in Terre Haute prove he is a violent, unapologetic murderer 
who should be put to death, prosecutors stated in a court filing yesterday.

"Do you know what the definition of a serial killer is?" Sampson asked a woman 
who runs the unit he is housed in, according to a court filing. "Me. I'm a 
stone cold killer."

Prosecutors said Sampson has assaulted one guard, attempted to attack other 
guards numerous times - once with a sharpened broom handle - and lunged at a 
dental hygienist who told prison staff Sampson is the only death row inmate she 
fears. A prison councilor described him as one of the 5 most aggressive 
prisoners in Terre Haute. Prosecutors said Sampson is unapologetic in jailhouse 
telephone calls.

"I'm gonna die in prison, but I'm going to die with a smile on my face," 
Sampson said in one recorded phone call transcribed in a court filing. "They 
can bury me with my face down and this whole world can kiss my Yankee white 
ass."

Sampson - who is known at the prison for having a large commissary account - 
kicked 1 guard in the head in July 2013, threatened to kill another inmate in 
February 2013, and threatened to stab a medical assistant in February 2014, 
prosecutors said.

Sampson killed 3 men in a week-long 2001 crime spree, and was sentenced in 
federal court to die. However, federal Judge Mark Wolf tossed his death penalty 
conviction in 2011 after it was discovered a juror lied on a questionnaire. 
Yesterday's filing is related to Sampson's upcoming death penalty retrial.

(source: Boston Herald)

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

Pharmacists Are Getting Closer To Cutting Off Access To Death Penalty Drugs



It may soon become harder for state officials to get their hands on the drugs 
they need to execute inmates, as major pharmacist organizations keep inching 
closer toward ceasing to supply that medication.

Pharmacists seem like unlikely targets in the political and ethical debate over 
the death penalty. But, since they're the ones who manufacture and distribute 
lethal drugs, they actually play a key role in the executions of condemned 
prisoners.

For the states that are regularly executing inmates, American pharmacies have 
become particularly critical in the wake of growing international opposition to 
capital punishment. As European companies refuse to sell drugs for use in 
executions, there's somewhat of a lethal drug shortage here at home. Officials 
have started turning to so-called "compounding pharmacies," which are 
facilities that mix and repackage drugs to keep down the cost of filling 
prescriptions, for their supplies.

But that option might not be available for much longer. The Wall Street Journal 
reports that the leading trade group for compound pharmacists is now 
discouraging its members from supplying the drugs necessary for lethal 
injections - in what represents the 1st official stance the International 
Academy of Compounding Pharmacists (IACP) has ever taken on death penalty 
issues.

The group, which represents about 3,700 pharmacists across the country who 
compound drugs, is mainly worried about potential legal repercussions in this 
area. Since a handful of drug makers have started taking steps to prohibit 
their products from being used in executions, compounding pharmacists might be 
liable if they repackage those drugs for the states that want to execute 
inmates.

David Miller, the chief executive for IACP, told the Wall Street Journal that 
"we have concerns about what may occur" if compound pharmacists continue to 
manufacture death penalty drugs. In addition to potential legal issues, Miller 
is worried that pharmacists may face harassment if their identities are 
disclosed.

And later this week, in a move that could have further repercussions for 
capital punishment, the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) will meet to 
discuss a similar policy. If the APhA decides to follow in the IACP???s 
footsteps and discourage its members from dispensing lethal drugs, that 
decision will affect about 62,000 professionals across the country who work in 
traditional pharmacists rather than in compounding facilities.

Most medical groups - including the American Medical Association, the American 
Public Health Association, the American Board of Anesthesiology, and the 
American Nurses Association - already prohibit their members from assisting in 
executions. But there's nothing in the American Pharmacists Association's code 
of ethics that explicitly prevents pharmacists from dispensing death penalty 
drugs. Right now, pharmacists are allowed to dispense lethal medication for use 
in executions if a "licensed doctor writes a legitimate prescription."

It's an unusual loophole in the medical field that has caught the attention of 
human rights activists. Last spring, several human rights and anti-death 
penalty groups sent a letter to the APhA pressuring the group to forbid their 
members from assisting in the execution of inmates. "Participation in 
executions undermines the position of trust that pharmacists enjoy in this 
nation," the letter said.

If states' access to lethal drugs dwindles even further, they will likely be 
left looking for alternative ways to end the lives of their prisoners. This 
week, for example, Utah became the only state to authorize the firing squad as 
a legal method of execution when lethal injection drugs are not available. 
Lawmakers in other states like Missouri and Wyoming have also recently 
suggested bringing back the firing squad. Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia have 
proposed reinstating the electric chair.

(source: thinkprogeress.org)

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

All the ways it's actually still legal to execute people in the U.S.



Utah Gov. Gary Herbert approved a bill on Monday that will allow the state to 
execute death row inmates by firing squad, bringing back an execution method 
previously on the brink of extinction in the United States.

The bill only allows Utah to use a firing squad if the chemicals required for 
lethal injection are unavailable, which is not far-fetched, given that many 
companies that manufacture such chemicals are refusing to sell them to prisons 
because they don't want to be associated with executions.

Utah is now the only state legally allowed to execute prisoners via firing 
squad, though Oklahoma has kept the option on the table if lethal injections 
and electrocutions are both outlawed, according to the Death Penalty 
Information Center.

----

Firing Squad

Including firing squads, only 5 methods of execution are legal in the U.S. The 
others include lethal injection, electrocution, hanging and placement inside a 
gas chamber.

Lethal injection

Lethal injection is by far the most common method; it has been used to kill 
1,229 inmates since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. It is the primary 
execution method for all 32 states that still permit the death penalty, though 
inmates in several states can request other options.

Connecticut and New Mexico have abolished the death penalty in recent years, 
but the removal of the punishment was not retroactive, meaning inmates on death 
row are still going to be executed. The primary method of execution in those 
states is also lethal injection.

Electrocution

8 states still have legal clauses that allow electrocution, and 158 inmates 
have been executed this way since 1976, making it the 2nd-most common method 
since then. Inmates in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and Virginia can 
request electrocution instead of lethal injection.

----

Hanging and gas chambers

Arizona, California, Missouri and Wyoming are the 4 states that have clauses in 
state laws allowing inmates to be killed in gas chambers. In California, 
inmates can pass on lethal injection in favor of this method.

Inmates can also still be hanged in New Hampshire and Washington.

Hanging was historically the most common method of execution in the U.S. 
Hanging was historically the most common method of execution in the U.S. That 
started to change at the beginning of the 20th century, when electrocution 
became more frequent, which eventually gave way to lethal injection in the 
1980s. Other methods of execution in America dating back to colonial days 
include burning, bludgeoning and pressing, which often involved tying a person 
down and placing heavy stones on him until he could no longer breathe.

Utah is the only state that has executed a man by firearm in the past 4 
decades. The last inmate to be executed in such a manner was Ronnie Lee Gardner 
in 2010.

(source: mashable.com)

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

Sister Prejean: Reinstatement of firing squad in Utah may hasten end of death 
penalty



Utah's reinstatement of the firing squad as a backup means to lethal injection 
to carry out executions may hasten the end of the death penalty, a renowned 
capital punishment opponent and author said Tuesday.

"I think the firing squad is more honest in a way and transparent, that you're 
actually killing a person," Sister Helen Prejean said following a luncheon at 
Westminster College with students from the college and 2 Catholic high schools.

"You're going to see the blood dripping from the chair. I think, in a way, it's 
more transparent. I think it's going to help end it quicker."

Prejean's appearance comes a day after Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed HB11 
designating the firing squad as Utah's backup means of execution. Utah is the 
only state that will allow that form of execution. Oklahoma will permit it only 
if lethal injection and electrocution are found unconstitutional.

Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death 
Penalty in the United States," was in Salt Lake City as a guest of Westminster 
College's Tanner-McMurrin lecture series.

Prejean has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times. She is 
working on her autobiography, "River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey."

Support for the death penalty is plummeting nationwide, she said.

"People don't see the practical effect of it. They don't see it being a 
deterrent. It's enormously expensive. So I think people are beginning to work 
their way out of the death penalty," she said.

Most people don't think about the death penalty. Many people are insulated from 
the reality of capital punishment, much as Prejean was as a teenager growing up 
in Louisiana. Little did she know that the mobile electric chair used by the 
state for executions was stored near her suburban home.

"I was just aware of being a kid and getting through high school," she said.

Prejean, a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, has 
accompanied 6 condemned men to their deaths. She wrote about 2 of them in her 
2nd book, "The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful 
Executions."

There are common characteristics among men and women who are sentenced to the 
death penalty. Most grew up poor, in chaos and experienced abuse as children.

"It embodies all the deepest wounds we have in society," she said.

The death penalty is unfairly applied, she added, noting people of color are 
far more likely to be executed than white people, particularly if the victim is 
white.

While all Americans fundamentally have the same rights and protections, much 
depends on the skill and commitment of a defendant's attorneys.

"Those are just words of paper if someone's not there to actualize that for 
you," Prejean said.

When people learn about the injustice of capital punishment and brutality of 
executions and remain silent, they are accomplices in allowing it to continue.

"After the person is killed, who is responsible?" she asked the students.

That point resonated with Paul Oliver, a senior at Judge Memorial Catholic High 
School.

"I walk away with a desire to learn more about it, learn more about the issues 
behind it and figuring out ways I can help," he said.

Westminster College student Elizabeth Donnelly said Prejean's presentation 
reinforced a great deal of what she has learned about issues of race and 
poverty.

Donnelly, a public health major, said she has been involved in recent 
demonstrations about officer-involved shootings, which has given her an 
understanding of Prejean's call to action.

"When you start to protest, when you get out there and say what you think and 
try to make a positive impact on the world, it's life-changing and it's very 
addictive, too," Donnelly said.

The Most Rev. John C. Wester, bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, said 
Herbert's decision to sign HB11 was disappointing.

"It seems as if our government leaders have substituted state legislation for 
the law of God. They argue that, because executions are lawful, they are then 
moral. This is not so. No human law can trump God's law. Taking a human life is 
wrong; a slap in the face of hope and a blasphemous attempt to assume divine 
attributes that we humble human beings do not have," Wester wrote in a 
statement issued Tuesday.

"The real issue here is the death penalty itself. Only God can give and take 
life. By taking a life, in whatever form the death penalty is carried out, the 
state is usurping the role of God. Execution does violence to God's time, 
eliminating the opportunity for God's redemptive and forgiving grace to work in 
the life of a prisoner."

Prejean said her experience working with men facing the death penalty has 
deepened her resolve to work to abolish it.

"I'm fighting like heck for their life. I don't just take my role as spiritual 
adviser to be able to accompany them to death and go quietly into their death. 
I get the legal team whatever is needed so they're not killed. I resist their 
death in every way I can. When they have been killed, it either paralyzes you 
or galvanizes you. It galvanizes me."

(source: KSL news)