[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN., NEB., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 6



CONNECTICUT:

Cheshire Killer Steven Hayes Wants Death Sentences Vacated After Supreme Court 
Ruling


Attorneys for Cheshire home invasion killer Steven Hayes have filed legal 
papers asking a judge to vacate his death sentences and to impose a sentence of 
life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The 5-page motion, filed Thursday in Superior Court in New Haven where Hayes 
was sentenced to death in 2010, says Hayes' 6 death sentences are 
"unconstitutional and must be corrected" in light of the state Supreme Court's 
decision in August barring all executions, regardless of when the sentence was 
imposed.

The Hayes' filing is the first of what is expected to be a wave of resentencing 
motions filed in state court by attorneys for the state's 11 death row inmates. 
Each case could be handled separately or an administrative judge could 
consolidate them.

Connecticut lawmakers abolished capital punishment in April 2012 but made the 
law prospective, effectively applying it only to new cases and keeping in place 
the death sentences already imposed before the bill was passed. The provision 
was added after the high-profile trials of Hayes and his accomplice, Joshua 
Komisarjevsky.

Hayes, 52, and Komisarjevsky, 33, are on death row for killing Jennifer 
Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, during a July 2007 
home invasion.

The men tied up and tortured the family as they ransacked the Petit home for 
cash and valuables. Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted Michaela, and Hayes raped 
and strangled Hawke-Petit. The house was doused with gasoline and set on fire. 
Hayley and Michaela died of smoke inhalation. The daughters' father and 
Hawke-Petit's husband, Dr. William Petit Jr., survived but was severely 
injured.

Komisarjevsky was sentenced to death in January 2012.

After the 2012 repeal of the death penalty, attorneys representing those on 
death row challenged the law, saying it violated the condemned inmates' 
constitutional rights.

The state Supreme Court agreed to take up the prospective issue in the case of 
Eduardo Santiago, whose death sentence was overturned in June 2012. The case 
was argued before the state's highest court in April 2013.

In a 4-3 decision in August, the state Supreme Court banned capital punishment 
for all defendants in the case of State v. Santiago, saying in the majority 
decision that Connecticut's death penalty no longer comported with societal 
values and served no valid purpose as punishment.

Last week, the high court denied a request by the chief state's attorney to 
postpone the Santiago decision, a ruling that followed a denial by the Supreme 
Court of a request by prosecutors to reargue Santiago.

Hayes' attorneys said in the motion that a sentence is illegal "if it is not 
within the range of permissible punishment for an offense. Here, the 6 
sentences of death are unconstitutional pursuant to [the Santiago decision]. A 
life sentence is the only available alternative sentence under the statute 
governing " Hayes' offense."

(source: Hartford Courant)






NEBRASKA:

Nebraska's unseemly death penalty drug deal


It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what someone does when they want 
to score illegal drugs. They search in the shadows for a source - an illicit 
dealer - and they operate in secrecy. God forbid they get caught.

This is precisely the scenario playing out with the state governments of 
Nebraska, Arizona, Ohio and Texas. They're all desperately trying to import a 
drug called sodium thiopental to use for lethal injections in executions. 
However, it's against the law for the chemical to enter the country.

Just recently came a report about the feds confiscating drugs headed for Texas 
and Arizona, while the governors of Ohio and Oklahoma delayed executions until 
the drug mess is sorted out.

But Nebraska's new governor is a special case in point as he becomes an almost 
quixotic figure in his quest to kill. Gov. Pete Ricketts continues to insist 
that he is still "working with" federal authorities to obtain the necessary 
drugs to carry out the death penalty. This is in spite of the federal 
government repeatedly, and over a period of years, refusing Nebraska's 
requests.

This past spring, on the eve of the overwhelmingly conservative Nebraska 
legislature casting an historic vote to repeal capital punishment, Mr. Ricketts 
made a last-ditch attempt to persuade his Republican colleagues to continue 
killing. In a dramatic 11th-hour announcement, he claimed the state had just 
bought the drugs needed to proceed with executions after 18 years of failure.

Mr. Ricketts boldly proclaimed he had "purchased the drugs that are necessary 
to carry out the death penalty in Nebraska in the near future." He also 
insisted the state's inability to get the drugs before he came to office was a 
"management issue," blaming prior administrations. The governor, brand new to 
holding a public office, insisted he was the executive who could finally carry 
out death sentences.

Predictably, details of the purchase of the drugs were sketchy. The state paid 
$54,000 for 1,000 units - to be delivered at a later date - from a company 
based in India called Harris Pharma. It happened to be the exact same 
unauthorized supplier the previous Nebraska governor had tried to use in 2011.

As Mr. Ricketts continues to wait 5 months later for delivery of the drugs he 
paid for, it has now come to light that the operator of Harris Pharma, who 
cashed that $54,000 state check, has no pharmaceutical background. Further, the 
company apparently has no manufacturing capabilities, and it may have lied 
about how it acquired the drugs. The origin of the drugs is vital to determine 
quality and avoid botched executions from tainted sodium thiopental.

By any measure, Nebraska's death penalty adventure under Pete Ricketts is a 
fiasco. Despite the governor's grand attempt to resume executions, his 
Republican brethren voted to end the state's failed death penalty and they did 
it based on rock-solid conservative principles of limited government, fiscal 
conservatism and a respect for life. When the thoughtful lawmakers overrode Mr. 
Ricketts' veto, the petulant rookie governor pitched a fit.

What's evident to even casual observers is that even if his coveted death 
penalty drugs were to make it to Nebraska, they would merely become the focus 
of extended and costly litigation, wasting more time and tax dollars.

A government that buys drugs from an illegal source and then attempts to skirt 
the law is not the type of government that can be trusted to have the power to 
take a life; not when the rule of law is so easily ignored to try and achieve a 
particular goal. Government in America is supposed to be transparent and our 
leaders are expected to follow the law, not act like someone in a back alley 
trying to make a shady drug deal.

(source: Washington Times)






CALIFORNIA:

California proposes new single-drug method for executions


California unveiled a new method for executing condemned prisoners Friday, 
proposing a single-drug lethal injection protocol that could restart capital 
punishment after a 10-year hiatus.

The proposal came as a result of a lawsuit filed against the state by crime 
victims. A settlement of the suit, brought by the Criminal Justice Legal 
Foundation, required the state to devise a lethal injection method by this 
month.

Executions are not likely to resume immediately, however. Public vetting could 
take a year, and court challenges may follow. Voters next year also may see one 
or more ballot measures on the death penalty.

The single-drug protocol proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown's administration would 
replace the former 3-chemical method, struck down by a federal judge in 2006 
who said it could cause inhumane suffering if one of the drugs failed to work.

The new protocol would require the injection drug to be selected on a 
"case-by-case basis, taking into account changing factors such as the 
availability of a supply of chemical." The state would have the option of using 
1 of 4 barbiturates: amobarbital, pentobarbital, secobarbital and thiopental.

Pro-death penalty forces had called for a single-drug protocol and saw the 
ability to substitute 1 drug for another as a bonus. Difficulty in obtaining 
drugs has led to the postponement of executions in other states.

The barbiturate is to be administered in a 7.5-gram dose, via 5 syringes, 
through an intravenous line. As in the past, if the 1st course of the drug does 
not kill the inmate within 10 minutes, a second course would begin.

The inmate's heart would be monitored by an electrocardiograph to determine 
death.

The proposed regulation allows for the warden to order as many as 4 rounds of 
drug infusions, delivered over 40 minutes. Only if an inmate is alive after 
that would the execution be stopped and medical assistance summoned.

As in the past, inmates may choose death by lethal gas instead of injection.

The proposed regulation estimates the cost of a single execution to be just 
under $187,000, with more than $97,000 of that expected to go to crowd control 
outside San Quentin State Prison, where executions take place.

The proposed protocol creates "a better flexibility, a better system of 
options," said Michael Rushford, who heads the foundation that filed the suit.

Rushford said the state's chosen path will delay implementation by a year or 
longer, and his group seeks to challenge that. He blamed Brown and Atty. Gen. 
Kamala D. Harris, who personally oppose the death penalty but have said they 
would enforce it, for the delays.

"If we had a different governor and a different attorney general, these 
wouldn't be problems," Rushford said.

More than 30 states and the federal government use lethal injection as their 
primary method of carrying out executions, according to the Death Penalty 
Information Center, a group that has been critical of the way capital 
punishment has been administered. 8 states have used a single-drug method for 
executions, while 6 others have announced plans to do so.

At least 16 death row inmates in California have exhausted their appeals and 
could be executed if the protocol is finally adopted. The inmates range in age 
from 49 to 78. One was condemned for crimes that took place 36 years ago.

Some death row inmates were stoic when told about the impending arrival of a 
new execution protocol.

"In the meantime, I have my life," Clifton Perry, 46, sentenced to death for 
the 1995 killing of a convenience store owner during a robbery, said in a 
recent interview.

With legal challenges to the new policy highly likely, he said, the bigger 
problem for him was continuing to find meaning in his current life.

The state has not executed anyone since 2006, when the federal judge found 
California's procedures violated the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and 
unusual punishment.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation proposed another method and 
remodeled its execution chamber, but a state appeals court said California had 
violated an administrative procedures law by failing to vet the new protocol 
properly. The state agency refused to immediately identify those who helped 
develop the new policy, seeking more time to respond to a request under 
California???s public records law.

California has 749 inmates on death row, the most in the country. Since 1978, 
the state has executed 13 inmates, 66 have died from natural causes and 24 have 
committed suicide.

California currently condemns to death an average of 2 people a month. As a 
result, the mammoth building at San Quentin set aside for condemned men is at 
capacity and the state is funding an expansion of other parts of the prison.

The state's voters narrowly defeated a ballot measure in 2012 that would have 
abolished the death penalty. 8 states have rescinded capital punishment laws 
since 2000.

Death penalty opponents have proposed an initiative for the November 2016 
ballot that would replace capital punishment with life without the possibility 
of parole. Legislative analysts this week said it would save California some 
$150 million a year, by reducing the costs of murder trials and death penalty 
appeals.

A competing measure, sponsored by law enforcement and victim groups, also will 
be circulated for signatures. That measure would propose changes to speed up 
executions.

Executions around the country have declined in recent years as prisons have 
been unable to obtain lethal injection drugs.

Manufacturers, pressed by death penalty opponents, have refused to sell the 
anesthetics to prisons. Compounding pharmacies are an alternative, but even 
they would be vulnerable to boycotts if their identities were disclosed. They 
also could have trouble procuring the necessary chemicals to make the drugs.

The corrections department will take public comment on the proposed execution 
method until Jan. 22, 2016. It plans to hold a 5-hour hearing that day in 
Sacramento as well.

(source: Los Angeles Times)

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

Death penalty to resume, officials propose plan to use 1 drug in executions


California proposed Friday to allow corrections officials to choose 1 of 4 
types of barbiturates to execute prisoners on death row depending on what's 
available, as states deal with a nationwide shortage of execution drugs.

The single drug would replace the series of 3 drugs that were last used when 
Clarence Ray Allen was executed in 2006, strapped to a gurney in what once was 
the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison.

8 states already have used a single anesthetic drug for executions, and 5 
others have announced plans to switch to the method, according to the nonprofit 
Death Penalty Information Center.

"What it gets us closer to is litigation over the protocol," the center's 
executive director, Robert Dunham, said of the proposed regulations. "No matter 
what drug or drug combination California proposes, there are going to be 
substantial issues both as to the constitutionality of the drug and the 
availability of the drug."

Executions in California stalled in 2006 when a federal judge ordered an 
overhaul of the state's lethal injection procedures and said California could 
resume executions if it began using a single drug.

A Marin County judge invalidated the state's subsequent attempt at drafting 
regulations in 2011, saying the state failed to explain why it chose the 3-drug 
process over the 1-drug method.

That led Gov. Jerry Brown to say in 2012 that California would consider a 
single-drug lethal injection. However, the process lagged for 3 years in part 
because of a nationwide shortage of execution drugs, officials said.

The process was jump-started this year after a judge sided with the 
Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which sued on behalf of 
relatives of murder victims who said they are affected by the long delay in 
executions. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation agreed to propose 
the new regulations to settle the lawsuit.

"I'm very pleased that we have started this ball rolling. Resumption of 
executions in California is at least a foreseeable possibility now," said Kent 
Scheidegger, the foundation's legal director.

The 1-drug proposal now faces a 62-day public comment period.

(source: Orange County Register)