[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., NEB., MONT., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 8



KANSAS:

Justices Hear Capital Cases That Elicit a Muted Tone


The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard 2 hours of arguments in its 1st capital 
cases since 2 justices announced in June that they had grave doubts about the 
constitutionality of the death penalty.

The issues were technical, concerning sentencing procedures, and the crimes 
were terrible, even by the standards of capital cases. By the end of the 
arguments, there was little reason to think that the cases would make a 
significant contribution to the court's larger debate about whether the death 
penalty can be reconciled with the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual 
punishment.

Justice Antonin Scalia alluded to the June dissent, from Justices Stephen G. 
Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, during the discussion of Wednesday's cases, 
which concerned 3 inmates on death row in Kansas.

"Kansans," he said, "unlike our Justice Breyer, do not think the death penalty 
is unconstitutional and indeed, very much favor it."

But Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed doubts about whether the capital justice 
system was reliably separating the worst offenses from others.

"What a wonderful system we've created," she said sarcastically. "Even when a 
state court is wrong in convicting somebody, so long as they are reasonably 
wrong, we uphold them."

The exchanges had little of the bitter testiness of the arguments in April in 
Glossip v. Gross, the lethal injection case that gave rise to Justice Breyer's 
dissent. The muted tone may have been related to the nature of the crimes 
committed by 2 of the inmates, the brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr.

Their cases "involve some of the most horrendous murders that I have seen in my 
10 years here," Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said. "And we see practically every 
death penalty case that comes up anywhere in the country."

Justice Scalia recited the details of the brothers' crimes at length.

They broke into a Wichita home where 5 people were staying and forced their 
victims to strip naked and perform sex acts on each other. The brothers then 
raped the women in turn. Then they drove all 5 victims, still naked or partly 
clothed, to a snowy field where they shot them execution-style in the backs of 
their heads as they knelt.

1 woman survived, spared when a bullet was deflected by her hair clip. "Oh, and 
they ran over her, too," Justice Scalia said. "After shooting her in the head, 
the car ran over her."

Naked and barefoot, the woman ran for more than a mile through snow and barbed 
wire to seek help. The brothers returned to the home in Wichita and killed her 
dog.

The justices considered 2 issues in 3 cases, Kansas v. Jonathan Carr, No. 
14-449; Kansas v. Reginald Carr, No. 14-450; and Kansas v. Gleason, No. 14-452.

The 1st issue, concerning jury instructions, was pressed by the brothers and a 
3rd inmate, Sidney Gleason, who was convicted in a separate killing, a double 
murder.

Capital trials have 2 phases. After a conviction, juries weigh aggravating 
factors against mitigating ones to decide whether the death penalty or a lesser 
sentence is warranted. The inmates??? juries were told they had to find the 
aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt, but the jury instructions were 
silent about the standard of proof for the mitigating factors.

The inmates said their juries should have been told in so many words that the 
standard for beyond a reasonable doubt did not apply to the mitigating factors.

"A man is being put to death under jury instructions that are so confusing that 
there is a reasonable likelihood that some juries would interpret those 
instructions to bar consideration of the mitigating circumstances and others 
would not," said Neal K. Katyal, a lawyer for Reginald Carr.

Derek L. Schmidt, the state's attorney general, said there was no confusion. 
"The verdicts reflect the reasoned moral response of these jurors to the 
aggravated brutality of these crimes," he said.

Justice Scalia said it was "common sense" that if only one kind of factor was 
said to require the tougher standard then the other did not. "Inclusio unius, 
exclusio alterius," he said, a Latin maxim that means including one thing 
excludes the other.

Justice Sotomayor said that was slicing things too finely. "I doubt very much 
that any juror has heard of that maxim," she said.

The brothers, who were tried together, also argued that their sentencing 
hearings should have been held separately, as mitigation evidence offered by 
one may have hurt the other. Jonathan, for instance, argued that he had acted 
under the corrupting influence of Reginald, who is his older brother.

Justice Elena Kagan did not seem persuaded. "The idea that somebody was a lousy 
big brother seems pretty small in the scale of things," she said.

(source: New York Times)

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

Supreme Court hears new death penalty arguments


The Supreme Court heard arguments concerning the death penalty on Wednesday, 
for the 1st time since the issue bitterly divided the justices last term.

The justices grappled with sentencing requirements and jury instructions in 
consolidated cases from Kansas, involving a decision by the Kansas Supreme 
Court to overturn death sentences for crimes that Justice Samuel Alito said 
"rank as among the worst."

Wednesday's cases come at a time when there is renewed national interest in the 
fundamental questions about the death penalty, increased judicial skepticism 
and dramatically less applications across the country. Justices Stephen Breyer 
and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have urged the court to revisit the constitutionality 
of the death penalty, although Wednesday's cases did not consider that issue.

Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, noted the 
court has so far agreed to hear four death penalty cases this term.

"I think in general we will see this term that the Court is going to be very 
closely scrutinizing the procedural questions concerning its implementation," 
she said.

Several of the justices seemed skeptical of the arguments put forth by lawyers 
representing the convicted murderers, who are challenging their death 
sentences.

One of the cases deals with 2 brothers, Reginald and Jonathan Carr, who went on 
a brutal crime spree in December of 2000 in Wichita, Kansas. It began when they 
carjacked and robbed a victim named Andrew Schreiber, forcing him at gunpoint 
to travel from ATM machines and make withdrawals from his bank account. 4 days 
later, they attacked an orchestra cellist named Linda Ann Walenta who later 
died as a result of her injuries. Finally, three days later, they invaded the 
home of 3 victims and engaged in sex crimes, kidnappings and murders. In all 
there were 4 murders that night. One victim, identified in court papers as 
"Holly G.," survived apparently because her hairclip deflected a bullet to the 
head.

The justices were clearly concerned with the gravity of the crime.

Justice Antonin Scalia read a summary of the crimes in open court.

Alito said that the Carr brothers were involved "in some of the most horrendous 
murders that I have seen in my 10 years here, and we see practically every 
death penalty case that comes up anywhere in the county."

The brothers were convicted and sentenced to death. The Kansas Supreme Court 
however, reversed the death sentences.

The state's high court noted that the Eighth Amendment requires individualized 
consideration of a defendant at capital sentencing hearings and said that the 
trial court violated the requirement when it allowed a joint penalty 
proceeding. The Kansas court found that the brothers needed separate penalty 
proceedings because the evidence supporting one brother's sentence could be 
seen as antagonistic to the other.

Frederick Liu, a lawyer for Reginald, explained his why his client suffered 
from the joint hearing. He said, for instance, that one specialist testified 
that Jonathan, the younger brother, "Looked up to Reggie."

"These are precisely the sort of evidence that shows that however bad you think 
Jonathan is, Reginald is worse," he said. "It is in a sense making Reginald 
doubly culpable for these offenses."

Alito questioned whether separate proceedings could further traumatize victims 
and waste resources.

"Do you think that the desire to spare Holly from having to testify more than 
once is a relevant factor here," he asked.

And Breyer worried about "throwing a huge monkey wrench" into ordinary cases 
involving gangs and drugs where joint proceedings are very common and "reversal 
is very rare."

Stephen R. McAllister, Solicitor General of Kansas, said the Kansas Supreme 
Court was wrong.

"The joint sentencing proceeding in these cases did not violate the Eighth 
Amendment," he said, "because each defendant received the individualized 
sentencing determination to which he was entitled."

Rachel P. Kovner, Assistant to the Solicitor General, argued for the Justice 
Department in support of Kansas.

"Joint proceedings can enhance accuracy and fairness as a long line of this 
Court's cases hold," she said.

Kovner told the justices that joint proceedings offer a "fuller evidentiary 
record" to juries and prevent "arbitrary disparities that may arise when two 
juries reach inconsistent conclusions about the common facts of a single 
crime."

The justices also considered a technical question about whether a jury 
instruction for the penalty phase of the capital trial was consistent with the 
Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Lawyers for the Carr 
brothers as well as Sydney Gleason, a Kansas man convicted of murder, argued 
that the jury wasn't allowed to properly consider so called "mitigating 
factors" that might justify a sentence of life without parole instead of death.

Neal K. Katyal, a lawyer for 1 of the brothers told the justices, said, "a man 
is being put to death under jury instructions that are so confusing that there 
is a reasonable likelihood that some juries would interpret those instructions 
to bar consideration of the mitigating circumstances and others would not."

"That ambiguity and inequality is impermissible under the Eighth Amendment," he 
said

But Kansas Attorney General Derek L. Schmidt said that the death sentences were 
fair. "Each of these jurors was able to give meaningful effect to anything and 
everything they heard," he said.

(source: CNN)






NEBRASKA:

Nebraska death penalty group asks judge to dismiss lawsuit


The group that led a petition drive to reinstate Nebraska's death penalty is 
asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit that could keep the issue off the 2016 
ballot.

Attorneys for Nebraskans for the Death Penalty filed a motion to dismiss the 
case earlier this week, arguing that the death penalty opponents who sued 
failed to state a legitimate claim.

The lawsuit filed last month argues that the death penalty ballot measure is 
invalid because Gov. Pete Ricketts wasn't listed as a sponsor even though he 
was a major donor.

Nebraskans for the Death Penalty is also seeking an order to halt discovery in 
the case until the judge rules on the motion to dismiss.

A 2nd lawsuit challenging the proposed ballot language is also pending.

(source: Associated Press)






MONTANA:

Montana Death Penalty Moratorium Shows Lethal Injection Risks High - NGO


The moratorium placed in the US state of Montana on administering the death 
penalty reveals the dangers that are posed by lethal injection drugs to death 
row inmates, advocacy group Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty 
Advocacy Coordinator Marc Hyden told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"The risks are far too high especially considering the extensive ineptitude 
that is prevalent in the process," Hyden stated.

On Tuesday, a Montana judge ruled that 1 of the drugs used in death penalty 
lethal injections violates state law. The ruling placed a hold on all death row 
executions in Montana.

Hyden noted Montana has joined a growing list of US states in a de facto 
moratorium, which he said is further proof that the death penalty is no longer 
workable.

"This also calls into question whether taxpayers should trust the government 
with the flawed capital punishment system when states are unable to even 
concoct approved death penalty drug combinations," he pointed out.

The ruling by the Montana court demonstrates capital punishment is being phased 
out nationally, Equal Justice USA Communications Strategist Sarah Craft told 
Sputnik that on Wednesday.

"The court's ruling, telling the State [of Montana] that it must abide by its 
own laws, illuminates just one more piece of evidence that the death penalty is 
on its way out," Craft said.

(source: sputniknews.com)






CALIFORNIA----female faces death penalty

DA seeks death penalty in Exeter cop's killing


The woman accused of killing an Exeter officer may get the death penalty.

The Tulare County District Attorney's Office announced on Sept. 30 that it 
would seek the death penalty for Erika Sandoval, the Visalia woman accused of 
killing her ex-husband, Exeter Police Officer Daniel Green. Sandoval is charged 
with 1 count of 1st degree murder, special circumstances for lying in wait and 
special allegations for the personal discharge of a firearm with intent to 
cause bodily harm or death and use of a firearm in the commission of a crime.

Stuart Anderson, spokesperson for the District Attorney's Office, said the 
combination of first degree murder and special circumstance for lying in wait 
triggered the possibility of the death penalty because it would "show intent."

During a preliminary hearing on Aug. 11, detectives with the Visalia Police 
Department and Tulare County Sheriff's Department described Sandoval as someone 
who carefully crafted and executed a plot to murder Green. Surveillance footage 
on Green's cul-de-sac showed a feminine figure walk up the driveway of Green's 
house the day of the murder at 11:37 a.m. on Feb. 6, 2015 and disappears from 
sight. Green returned home at 12:12 p.m. and at 12:54 p.m., the female figure 
emerged from the east backyard gate of Green's home and began stumbling and 
walking in the middle of the street. Surveillance video also showed a vehicle 
matching Sandoval's white Toyota Forerunner drive past cameras at locations 3/4 
of a mile from Green's home.

During interviews with detectives, Sandoval changed her story several times 
before confessing to the murder. After detectives said her son would be taken 
into custody by Child Welfare Services, detectives testified that Sandoval 
admitted to the crime and revealed key details consistent with what had 
happened. After entering the home, she went into Daniel's room and emptied the 
rounds from his duty weapon. She then loaded the bullets into a non-police 
issued handgun that Green stored on top of the refrigerator. She took the 
handgun into Aiden's room and then hid in his closet with it and waited for 
Green to come home. After he arrived home, she came out of the closet and fired 
the weapon at him several times. An autopsy confirmed that Green died from 
multiple gunshot wounds.

When one of the detectives asked Sandoval if she said anything to Green before 
firing the gun she replied, "I didn't have to say anything" and "He knew what 
was up." After shooting Green, Sandoval told detectives she took his duty 
weapon, the handgun, some ammunition, his cell phone and a PlayStation 4 to 
stage a robbery, in a gym bag and drove away. Zamora said Sandoval then told 
them she threw the bag out of the window on Highway 99. Officers later found 
the bag of guns, ammo and the PlayStation along Highway 99 near the rest stop 
where her vehicle was on video after the time of Green's death.

Detectives said this was to backup her original story. Detectives said in 
Sandoval's original statement a Hispanic male put a gun to the back of her head 
as soon as she entered the home and then forced her into the closet where she 
had to lie down, and never got to see the man as part of a burglary. Shortly 
after Green arrived, the man shot him and then left.

Fearful that her fingerprints were on the guns, she took them and the other 
items with her so she would not be suspected in Green's shooting. However, 
detectives went on to testify that there were no signs of forced entry, the 
back door was wide open and moss growing along the fence line was not 
disturbed.

Anderson said this is the 1st time the DA has sought the death penalty for a 
woman in more than 10 years. The last woman to face the death penalty was 
Delfina Jahnigen. The 35-year-old Visalia woman was convicted for the murder of 
Jaime Mayne, a 5 year old boy who had been placed under Jahnigen's care as a 
foster child. The murder conviction included a Special Circumstance that the 
Murder was Committed During the Infliction of Torture and 2 counts of Felony 
Child Abuse relating to a 2nd foster child that had been under Jahnigen's care 
prior to Jaime Mayne. The 2nd child was an 8 year old girl.

Judge Patrick O'Hara sentenced Jahnigen to life in prison without the 
possibility of parole instead of the death sentence.

Sandoval will return to court on Oct. 29 for a trial setting in Department 5 of 
the Tulare County Superior Court. She is being represented by Defense Attorney 
Dan Chambers. The case is being prosecuted by Supervising District Attorney 
David Alavezos.

(source: The Sun-Gazette)






USA:

Death Penalty States Face Hurdles in Carrying Out Executions


Despite a Supreme Court ruling allowing a controversial drug to be used for 
lethal injections in Oklahoma, death-penalty states are finding it harder to 
carry out executions as they struggle to obtain and properly use limited 
supplies of ever-changing combinations of lethal injection drugs.

Prison officials in Texas and Virginia have improvised a short-term solution by 
trading drugs for lethal injections. Both Ohio and Nebraska have sought to buy 
a drug no longer available in the United States from overseas only to be told 
by the federal Food and Drug Administration that importing the drug is illegal.

Executions in Mississippi have been postponed for months over a federal lawsuit 
challenging the state's 3-drug protocol. The delay will stretch into next year, 
with a trial scheduled in July 2016. And in Montana on Tuesday, a judge blocked 
the state from carrying out executions, ruling that 1 of the 2 drugs it planned 
to use did not comply with the state law governing lethal injections. The only 
way Montana can resume executions with that drug, the judge said, is by having 
the State Legislature modify the law.

"Over time lethal injection has become only more problematic and chaotic," said 
Deborah W. Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School and an expert on lethal 
injections.

Oklahoma last week halted the execution of Richard E. Glossip, who was part of 
the challenge the Supreme Court had turned down, after officials realized 2 
hours before it was to take place that the state's supplier had sent prison 
officials the wrong drug. The error led to a court-ordered stay of the 3 
executions scheduled in October and November while officials conduct an 
investigation.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled against Mr. Glossip and 2 other Oklahoma 
death-row inmates who argued that 1 of the drugs in the state's 3-drug protocol 
- midazolam, a short-acting sedative - was unreliable. But the court's decision 
has had little impact, experts said. Several states appear to be reluctant to 
use midazolam in part because of its involvement in 3 high-profile executions 
in which prisoners appeared to suffer last year, in Oklahoma, Ohio and Arizona.

The apprehension over midazolam, combined with a drug shortage caused by 
manufacturers' ceasing production or limiting how drugs can be used, has made 
it increasingly difficult for states to obtain drugs and carry out executions 
without delays, mistakes or controversies, and without pushing the legal limits 
of how drugs can be obtained.

The scramble for drugs has caused some states to embrace or consider more 
unusual or more antiquated ways of putting inmates to death.

In 2014, Tennessee authorized prison officials to use the electric chair if 
lethal-injection drugs were unavailable. Gov. Gary R. Herbert of Utah signed a 
bill into law in March approving firing squads when drugs cannot be obtained. 
In April, Oklahoma made nitrogen gas its new backup method. In Louisiana, where 
executions have been postponed following a federal lawsuit over its 
lethal-injection system, prison officials recommended in a report in February 
that nitrogen gas be adopted as an alternative method, through the use of a 
mask or other device but not a gas chamber.

Lethal injections in many of the nation's 31 death-penalty states have become 
increasingly varied in the type, combination and source of drugs used. The 6 
executions in 6 states in January 2014 were conducted using 4 different 
protocols, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that 
opposes capital punishment.

In 1 of those cases, 2 drugs - midazolam and hydromorphone - were used together 
for the 1st time for an execution in the United States. The Ohio inmate who was 
injected with them in January 2014, Dennis McGuire, appeared to struggle for 
several minutes.

1 year later, Ohio officials said they would no longer use the 2-drug 
combination they had used on Mr. McGuire and postponed all executions planned 
for 2015 until they obtained new drugs. As it prepares to resume executions in 
2016, Ohio's search for new drugs earned it a warning from federal authorities, 
after prison officials explored buying a sedative, sodium thiopental, from 
overseas. In June, an Food and Drug Administration official told the state in a 
letter that "there is no F.D.A.-approved application for sodium thiopental, and 
it is illegal to import an unapproved new drug into the United States."

Ohio officials declined to answer questions about the letter. JoEllen Smith, a 
spokeswoman for the state's Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said 
the agency "continues to seek all legal means to obtain the drugs necessary to 
carry out court-ordered executions."

In Nebraska, where proponents of the death penalty have been fighting a vote in 
May by state legislators to abolish capital punishment, prison officials 
ordered lethal-injection drugs from India but said they had not received them. 
A spokesman for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services said hundreds 
of vials and capsules of sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide were ordered 
at a cost of more than $50,000.

Despite the Supreme Court's ruling allowing the use of midazolam, Florida has 
been blocked for months in using it as part of its 3-drug method because of 
legal challenges over midazolam raised by a death-row inmate, Jerry Correll. 
The Florida Supreme Court ruled against him on Friday.

In Texas, the execution of Michael Yowell in 2013 marked the 1st time the state 
had used a sedative known as pentobarbital that was made not by a drug 
manufacturer but by a compounding pharmacy. Such pharmacies are largely 
unregulated by the F.D.A. Texas changed its protocol from a 3-drug cocktail to 
a single drug after its stock of one of the drugs expired and it was unable to 
obtain a new shipment.

Virginia found itself in a similar situation as it prepared to execute Alfredo 
R. Prieto last week for the murders of a Virginia couple in 1988. Virginia uses 
a 3-drug combination that includes midazolam. The state's stock of midazolam 
was set to expire, and officials were unable to obtain additional supplies, 
according to court documents. Virginia wanted another sedative, pentobarbital, 
and turned to Texas for help.

Texas prison officials donated 3 vials of pentobarbital to the Virginia 
Department of Corrections for Mr. Prieto's execution, and 2 Virginia prison 
employees traveled to Texas in late August to bring the vials to Virginia, 
according to court papers. Texas was returning a favor: In 2013, Texas 
officials facing a shortage of pentobarbital were given the drug by Virginia.

"Even if the transactions between states do not comply with law, there is no 
recourse for death-sentenced prisoners," said Megan McCracken, a 
lethal-injection expert with the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of 
California, Berkeley, School of Law. "Over the years, we have seen states 
obtain drugs for execution in ways that clearly do not comply with legal and 
regulatory frameworks."

A spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said the supply of 
pentobarbital given to Virginia in August was legally purchased from a 
compounding pharmacy and tested for potency and purity. He said Texas law 
prohibited the agency from disclosing the supplier's identity.

Lawyers for Mr. Prieto questioned the efficacy of the drug. Virginia officials 
argued that Texas has used compounded pentobarbital successfully in 24 
executions in 2 years. A federal judge sided with Virginia, and allowed Mr. 
Prieto's execution to proceed last week.

(source: New York Times)

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

"I executed 62 people. I'm sorry": An executioner turned death-penalty opponent 
tells all ---- "3 hours away from being executed and he's putting his sundae 
away for tomorrow. There was no tomorrow"


They say you can't put a price on life, but what about death? Earlier this year 
I spoke to Jerry Givens, a former state executioner turned death penalty 
abolitionist. He told me that for people who carry out the death penalty, the 
real, enduring cost is emotional.

"If I had known what I'd have to go through as an executioner, I wouldn't have 
done it. It took a lot out of me to do it. You can't tell me I can take the 
life of people and go home and be normal."

Givens executed 62 people during his 17 years working for Virginia's Department 
of Corrections, and like many executioners, he felt the consequences long after 
the act itself. It was clear from speaking with Givens that he couldn't shake 
the lasting weight of his actions, and he's certainly not alone: a startling 31 
% of prison staff who perform executions will suffer from post-traumatic 
stress. Flashbacks, nightmares and other symptoms of PTSD are habitually seen 
among correctional officers and executioners, according to the National 
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

It isn't just the prison staff who suffer. California Gov. Edmund Brown had the 
unenviable task of deciding whether to commute death sentences to life without 
parole - absolute judgments over life and death that continued to haunt him 
through his later years:

"The longer I live, the larger loom those decisions I had to make as governor. 
Looking back over their names and files now, I realize that each decision took 
something out of me that nothing - not family or work or hope for the future - 
has ever been able to replace."

So what was it that Brown lost in the process? Steve Martin, a former execution 
witness for the Texas Department of Corrections, believes it's nothing less 
than his humanity: "We do these things we'd never normally be involved in 
because they're sanctioned by the government," he explained. "And then we start 
walking through them in a mechanical fashion. We become detached. We lose our 
humanity."

A Moral Dilemma

It's estimated that around 10 % of death row inmates suffer from a severe 
mental illness; recently these statistics have again raised some of the moral 
dilemmas surrounding capital punishment. According to legal briefs raised in 
court this year, the very nature of executing someone who lacks the capacity to 
fully comprehend their actions "offends humanity". American law asserts that it 
is illegal to execute the insane - but what constitutes 'insanity' is up to 
each state to decide.

In Texas, where more than 20 % of death row inmates are mentally ill, attorneys 
for convict Scott Panetti are currently fighting to commute his death sentence 
to life without parole. Before he shot and killed his in-laws in 1992, Panetti 
had been hospitalized countless times for schizophrenia, hallucinations and 
manic depression. Evidence shows Panetti believed he'd been at war with Satan 
since 1986 and, imagining the devil had possessed his home, he buried his 
furniture in the backyard.

Yet, somehow - and most bizarrely - Panetti was allowed to represent himself at 
trial. He dressed up as a cartoon cowboy and, wildly incoherent, attempted to 
call the pope, Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy as his witnesses. If Panetti is 
executed, he will be killed believing that the gold filling in his mouth is a 
covert listening device that transmits his thoughts to prison staff; that 
actress Selena Gomez is his daughter; and that his death is really just the 
state's way of preventing him from preaching the gospel.

Somewhat surprisingly, a group of conservative leaders took up the case for 
Panetti's death sentence to be commuted. In their letter to the court, the 
group stated that "the authority to take a man's life is the most draconian 
penalty that we allow our government to exercise .... such an extraordinary 
sanction [should] not be used against a person mentally incapable of rational 
thought. It would be immoral for the government to take this man's life."

"Immoral" and "offending to humanity" it may be, but cases like Panetti's are 
not rare. Individual states decide what constitutes "insanity," allowing judges 
to make inexplicable statements such as "[offender] is clearly 'crazy' but he 
is also 'sane' under Texas law." Just this year Georgia executed decorated 
Vietnam veteran Andrew Brannan, a man who had been diagnosed with severe mental 
illness prior to his crime; in March, Missouri executed Cecil Clayton, a man 
missing 20 % of his frontal lobe. These dubious death sentences are not at all 
a scarcity within the justice system, as Givens can recall himself:

"This one guy, he was sort of moderately retarded. He'd ordered a chocolate nut 
sundae for his last meal. But he couldn't swallow it. So he said to me, 'I 
can't finish it so I'll put it in the fridge for tomorrow.' Here he is, 3 hours 
away for being executed and he's thinking about putting his sundae away for 
tomorrow. But there was no tomorrow for him. He hadn't realized this was his 
last day."

Serving Society's Interest in Revenge

The debate about the humanity of capital punishment, or lack thereof, was 
further brought to the forefront with the botched executions of Clayton Lockett 
and Joseph Wood last year. Lockett's miscalculated execution in Oklahoma was 
blood-spattered and harrowing, with witnesses conveying their anguish at what 
they saw inside the death chamber. In Arizona, Wood took 2 excruciating hours 
to die on the gurney, gasping and choking as horrified witnesses looked on - 
but this, according to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, is inconsequential.

"Wood died in a lawful manner and by eyewitness accounts he did not suffer," 
she stated. "This is in stark comparison to the gruesome, vicious suffering 
that he inflicted on his 2 victims."

The argument that a convict's crime was so heinous that it negates their 
execution is unsettling. While Brewer seems to ignore the protracted, torturous 
way Wood was killed, my argument is that her comparison fails. Why? Because she 
looked to a double murderer for justification. Wood's death may well appear 
befitting in light of his own terrible crime, but why use the actions of a 
convicted killer to determine the baseline of what's morally acceptable?

Further, if an offender will never learn any lessons from it, how can capital 
punishment generate anything other than an erroneous sense of reparation, and 
an ugly expression of our most base thirst for revenge? Most advocates of the 
death penalty publicly deny the idea that it's about revenge, but District 
Attorney Dale Cox - the man responsible for issuing one third of Louisiana 
death sentences since 2011 - doesn't:

"I'm a believer that the death penalty serves society's interest in revenge. I 
know it's a hard word to say and people run from it, but I don't because I 
think there is a very strong societal interest. I think we need to kill more 
people."

The urge to wreak revenge is surely understandable when someone has lost a 
loved one. But when the facts tell us that the death penalty is not a deterrent 
and costs the taxpayer 10 times more than life without parole, is this instinct 
something we want our society to actively sanction and encourage? It is 
difficult to truly understand, let alone morally respect, a society in which we 
are genuinely comforted by human pain and vengeful cruelty.

"It is revenge," Givens agrees. "Death is going to occur anyway, but we're so 
impatient we have to execute someone. That's the mentality people have. It 
doesn't add up, because when you're using killing for killing, we'll continue 
to have killings."

(source: salon.com)