[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 9




ARKANSAS:

Judge halts executions of 8 on death row


Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen temporarily halted the scheduled 
executions of 8 death row prisoners on Friday.

In an order issued in the inmates' lawsuit against the Arkansas Department of 
Correction, Griffen wrote "that immediate and irreparable harm will result to 
plaintiffs absent a temporary restraining order enjoining defendants from 
executing plaintiffs as scheduled."

9 inmates filed suit June 29 seeking to have the state law that sets out the 
method of execution declared unconstitutional. The suit also asked that the 
state be permanently blocked from using the current lethal injection method of 
execution.

Friday's order applies to all 9 inmates, but only 8 of them have scheduled 
execution dates, the earliest being Oct. 21. Plaintiffs Don Davis and Bruce 
Ward were to be executed that day.

(source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)






USA:

Mark White and Mark Earley: Enough is a enough on capital punishment


On Sept. 30, at the very last minute, Oklahoma once again stayed Richard 
Glossip's execution. The state had been about to inject him with a drug 
cocktail using potassium acetate instead of the specified potassium chloride, 
but the Department of Corrections apparently did not realize it had the wrong 
drug until just before the scheduled execution and, because of Oklahoma's 
secrecy laws, no one else did, either.

The victim's family issued an agonized statement about the confusion and delay; 
while Glossip, in the execution holding cell, wondered why he hadn't been 
executed yet, his grieving family and friends believed he had been executed.

We had once been fervent supporters of capital punishment. One of us, Mark 
White, oversaw 19 executions while governor of Texas; the other, Mark Earley, 
oversaw 39 while attorney general of Virginia. Gradually, as we have seen the 
fallibility of the capital punishment system, we have come to the conclusion 
that the death penalty serves no one and, as we saw recently in Oklahoma, is 
simply cruel to all involved.

We do not yet know how Oklahoma got the wrong drug. We know that Glossip's 
lawyers had been desperately trying for months to get information on the 
execution protocol, including the source of the drugs and the qualifications of 
the execution team, but the state secrecy laws prevented them from doing so.

At the very last minute, the state realized it had the wrong drug, and 
officials at the Department of Corrections did the right thing by asking Gov. 
Mary Fallin to stay the execution until they could get things straightened out. 
We don't know if they can, because the state has now asked for and received an 
indefinite stay not only of Glossip's execution, but also of 2 others who had 
been scheduled for later this month.

Had there been appropriate transparency, perhaps this whole mess would have 
been avoided. We simply don't know.

And that is the heart of the matter. No one knows what is happening as states 
continue their efforts to execute people, even in the face of botched 
executions (including the Clayton Lockett execution in Oklahoma last year), 
death row inmates without lawyers, racial discrimination, possibly exonerating 
evidence that is revealed, if at all, at the last minute, and other profound 
problems.

In Glossip's case, witness recantations and changes in stories have raised real 
questions about whether he was even involved in the murder for which he is to 
be executed. Despite Glossip maintaining his claims of innocence throughout the 
process, the courts have ruled that his execution should go forward anyway. 
Perhaps this delay in carrying out the sentence will give Glossip's lawyers 
more time to pursue these claims.

This is not justice, not for anyone involved in the system, and certainly not 
for the families of victims, and for those who might be executed despite weak 
or erroneous evidence, mistaken drug protocols, and states desperately trying 
to keep it all secret.

The most extreme expression of any state's power is its ability to execute one 
of its citizens. Having watched these tragedies play out across the country for 
years, we have now come to the only conclusion possible: Enough is enough. It's 
time for every governor (or other elected official or relevant agency) in every 
state that continues to rely on capital punishment - an increasingly dwindling 
number - to impose an immediate moratorium on administration of the death 
penalty.

If states are going to have the death penalty, then state officials cannot 
continue to cloak their executions and inquiries into the execution process in 
secrecy, preventing counsel for the condemned, the courts and the public from 
obtaining basic details about how the states intend to carry out the ultimate 
punishment of death.

The Constitution Project, the American Bar Association, and any number of other 
good government organizations oppose this secrecy and advocate complete 
transparency. We agree. Death penalty states must not continue to conceal their 
lethal injection practices behind walls of secrecy.

(source: Mark White, a Democrat, is a former governor of Texas, having 
previously served as the state's attorney general. Mark Earley, a Republican, 
is a former attorney general of Virginia. They are members of The Constitution 
Project Death Penalty Committee----Tulsa World)