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

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 29




KANSAS:

Ohio death row inmate urges repeal of ultimate penalty----Priest's intervention 
leads to disclosures of misguided prosecution


Death row inmate Joe D'Ambrosio articulated Wednesday in personal terms how it 
felt to be exonerated of murder after decades behind bars.

"It was surreal," he said. "It truly is because you dream of that day. They had 
my body but not my mind."

D'Ambrosio, who resided more than 20 years in an Ohio prison on a capital 
conviction before he was freed in 2012, said he was falsely accused and the 
victim of perjury by a killer angling for a plea bargain. Surviving captivity 
led D'Ambrosio to participate in the Witness to Innocence organization and 
contribute to campaigns to repeal the death penalty.

"If this can happen to me, it can happen to you," the U.S. military veteran 
said. "I have to put a stop to it. I think that's why God saved me."

He said court-appointed legal representation at his murder trial, which set a 
record for brevity at less than 3 days, was inadequate. He expected to benefit 
from a Cleveland public defender on the order of television's Perry Mason, but 
"what I ended up having was Barney Fife."

He spoke of his legal nightmare to a group at Washburn University. The event 
was sponsored by the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty and Ichtus 
Campus Ministry.

In September 1988, a jogger found the body of a teen in a Cleveland creek whose 
throat was slashed and chest stabbed. D'Ambrosio was among 3 men charged with 
murder.

1 defendant pleaded guilty, received a 15-year sentence and testified against 
D'Ambrosio and the 3rd suspect, who separately were convicted and sentenced to 
death.

D'Ambrosio said he was at home asleep during the slaying. A priest with legal 
and medical training who visited death row inmates agreed to look into his 
case, and his diverse training enabled him to detect irregularities in the 
case.

"It's God sent and not luck," D'Ambrosio said. "He had to be the priest. He had 
to be the attorney. He had to be the registered nurse."

In a 2004 appeal, D'Ambrosio's attorneys uncovered a trove of information 
hidden at trial. His conviction was vacated in 2006, and he was released after 
the state didn't proceed with a new trial.

Appellate court decisions in 2011 and 2012 precluded renewed prosecution of 
D'Ambrosio.

(source: Topeka Capital-Journal)






NEBRASKA:

Throwback Thursday: Ramsey Clark addresses students about abolishing death 
penalty


This week in 1981, The Daily Nebraskan covered a speech by guest Ramsey Clark, 
former United States attorney general.

Clark came to the campus in an event sponsored by the University Program 
Council and the Union Homecoming Council. He spoke to about 30 people about his 
thoughts on the death penalty and provided five specific reasons it should be 
abolished.

"The real reason to oppose it is we don't want to be killers," Clark said in 
the article. "Do we really believe in the dignity of human life? Once we assume 
1 person is evil enough to kill, we have to accord the same assumption to them 
(the 'evil' people). And to the last day we go on killing."

He said the death penalty corrupts the judicial system because it doesn't show 
a "passion for justice" within our society. Clark also said the means used to 
execute a criminal are intrinsically cruel. He believed the argument for them 
is incomplete because painless methods such as gas chambers and injections are 
used as well.

Clark said the judicial system consistently makes mistakes and executes the 
innocent. He cited Lafayette, the famous French general, who said he would 
always oppose capital punishment until he could believe in the infallibility of 
human judgment.

His final reason was that the death penalty is invariably discriminatory. The 
rationale should be adequate in and of itself.

"Fear and hatred are not ever even-handed," Clark said. "Discrimination in 
executions in our past is undeniable."

Clark said people need to examine the company they keep in their inconsistence 
with executions as form of justice. He said countries such as Iran and Chile 
execute thousands every year while the death penalty is almost unknown in 
Western Europe.

He ended his speech saying, "The psychology that evolves the war machine - the 
finger on the button - and that of the death penalty is all very similar: 
'We'll solve this problem by killing people.' If we could find the courage to 
refuse to kill, we could revolutionize the world."

In May 2015, Nebraska became one of 19 states to abolish the death penalty. 
There were 10 inmates on death row at the time, and their status remains 
uncertain. A petition has since been submitted to suspend the repeal and put it 
to a voter referendum. It's currently pending signature verification.

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

Death penalty debate: activist brings political discourse to theatre


Mike Lee is back in Lincoln for October, and he is using his 4 short weeks in 
the capitol city to facilitate a night of collaborative theatre and community 
activism focused on alternatives to the death penalty.

The event, Living Newspaper: Alternatives to the Death Penalty: "Don't say what 
you think; come and show it to us," will occur Oct. 30 at 6 p.m. at the 
Antler's Club.

Lee, a South Dakota native, graduated from UNL with a degree in Performance in 
December 2012. While at the university, he worked with Professor Frances "Fran" 
Kaye. Specializing in Great Plains studies, Native American studies and 
Canadian studies, Kaye helped Lee connect his passion for theatre with 
community activism. It was Kaye who encouraged Lee to become involved with a 
group of men at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution who wanted to 
perform a play.

For 9 months, Lee worked with these men once or twice a month on putting 
together a theatre piece. His experience sparked his passion for social 
activism through theatre.

"I got to meet guys who were formerly on death row," Lee said. "I never got to 
meet anyone who was on death row because death row inmates are not allowed to 
partake in clubs like that, but I met a couple of guys who had been taken off 
of death row, and I met some guys who were serving life sentences without 
parole. So I got to explore that difference, and I got to do theatre with 
them."

Lee recently completed his M.F.A. in acting at the University of Houston. 
Before he moves to New York City next January, he's making a stop in Lincoln. 
Upon returning, Lee immediately reconnected with Kaye. She suggested that 
during his time in Nebraska, he use his talents to organize a workshop because 
of the political climate surrounding the death penalty in the state.

Lee began planning the workshop on Oct. 1. In the process, he has collaborated 
with the local non-profit Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the 
organization's President Stephen Griffith and intern Grace Solem-Pfeifer, and 
has received advice and information from professors and activists in both 
Lincoln and Omaha.

On Friday, anyone and everyone can join Lee to start a dialogue about the death 
penalty. The event will take place in parts, evolving over the course of 3 
hours. The 1st part of the night is devoted to discussion and collaboration 
based in the ideas of Brazilian theatre technician Augusto Boal.

"Boal came up with this whole system called 'Theatre of the Oppressed,'" Lee 
said. "'Theatre of the Oppressed' aims to turn spectators into spect-actors, in 
Boal's words. What that means is that we are not interested in talking down to 
people; we're not interested in giving a presentation to people; we're 
interested in letting people be a part of the presentation."

Boal's ideas find their base in Brazilian philosopher and educator Paolo 
Freire. Freire analyzed pedagogy, the method and practice of teaching as a 
theoretical concept.

"Freire describes traditional pedagogy - Western pedagogy typically - as if you 
imagine the teacher, the holder of knowledge and a torch bringer, coming into a 
classroom and taking the top off of your cranium and pouring knowledge into 
your head," Lee said. "His answer to that is all learners and teachers should 
be on the same level, and everybody's viewpoints should be heard, appreciated 
and ingrained into the curriculum."

It is this philosophy that Boal then applied to the Western theatre and that 
Lee will facilitate Friday.

"Boal took Freire's ideas and looked at the Western theatre," Lee said. "You 
are probably familiar with sitting in silence for three hours in the car and 
watching someone else who is in a beautiful costume under beautiful lighting 
live out their lives, and you don't really have a lot to do with it. Boal 
believed that the audience should have a vital role in the telling of the story 
and the unfolding of the story."

So this Friday there will be no script. There will be no production at all 
until it is created by the spect-actors through discussion and dialogue 
dismantling, in Lee's words, "the current system of oppression - the death 
penalty."

For 2 hours, the spect-actors will work together based in the ideas of Boal, 
giving non-actors the tools to become actors. In the third hour, the group will 
create a "living newspaper" and then take it to the streets.

"'Living newspaper' originally was a concept used in the 1930s," Lee said. "It 
was a part of the New Deal that included bringing arts to people. There was a 
big problem of illiteracy, people were not only not reading the newspaper, but 
they couldn't. [Actors] took to the streets and would act out, simply read or 
dramatize the events of the news, so people could know what was going on."

Lee has combined the tradition of the "living newspaper" with Boal's 
philosophies to create an innovative, collaborative and creative experience.

"We'll take headlines, sound bites, anything we can find in the media that 
people are saying: the current state of the conversation on the death penalty," 
said Lee. "We'll put it into scenes, images and sound bites that we can take 
out into the public. We'll let people interact with us, finding ways to solve 
the problem. We'll look for alternatives to the death penalty. It's a very 
active, in-the-moment thing."

Within the 3-hour event, Lee hopes the spect-actors will experience 
satisfaction in expressing their political consciousness and being politically 
active.

"The importance of this event is getting a lot of people from the community in 
one room with all different perspectives and finding common ground," Lee said. 
"Exploring common beliefs and uncommon beliefs. Exploring the current 
conversation. Having the conversation."

Lee said all are welcome to join - even those who might support the death 
penalty in Nebraska.

"We're interested in starting a dialogue," Lee said, "And the best way to do 
that is to have more than one viewpoint, so if somebody does support the death 
penalty, they are more than welcome to join us. Perhaps they will see a 
viewpoint they haven't considered before. Perhaps we will. That is the aim of 
this kind of work."

(source for both: The Daily Nebraskan)

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

Nebraska AG Defends Ballot Language for Death Penalty Measure


The Nebraska attorney general's office is defending language approved for a 
2016 death penalty ballot measure. State attorneys argued in a court filing 
Tuesday that the ballot language is "sufficient, fair and not misleading."

The ballot language informs voters that retaining the repeal law would 
eliminate capital punishment and change the "maximum" penalty for 1st-degree 
murder to life in prison. Critics say the word "maximum" is misleading because 
it incorrectly implies that 1st-degree murder convicts could face a lesser 
sentence than life in prison.

State lawmakers abolished the death penalty in May, but the repeal measure was 
suspended until voters decide the issue next year.

(source: hastingslink.com)

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

Death Penalty Opponents Say State Won't Get Execution Drugs


A group that opposes Nebraska's death penalty says the state won't be able to 
import lethal injection drugs without violating federal law and exposing itself 
to additional legal challenges.

The Nebraskans for Public Safety coalition took issue Wednesday with assertions 
that state officials are working with the federal government to try to obtain 
the necessary drugs.

Lincoln Senator Adam Morfeld, a member of the legislature's Judiciary 
Committee, said the governor should follow the same laws as everyone else.

"Ordinary Nebraskans are swiftly brought to justice for buying illegal drugs. 
Yet our governor and his administration paid $54,500 in black market drugs, 
from a middleman with no pharmaceutical background. We have no idea where these 
drugs were manufactured, and Harris has actually deceived the state before. 
Twice now Nebraska has given Harris tens of thousands of dollars and we have 
nothing to show for it," Morfeld said.

Morfeld tells 10/11 he doesn't necessarily believe Governor Pete Ricketts 
believe need to be prosecuted, but says they should be subject to the same 
punishments from the Drug Enforcement Administration and Food and Drug 
Administration as any other Nebraskan would be when importing illegal drugs.

He said he doesn't know exactly what those punishments are. In our research, 
10/11 found the FDA typically confiscates the drugs upon import if they are 
illegal. We believe the consequences from the DEA are similar, but have a call 
in to them to verify that.

The group released written comments from University of Nebraska law professor 
Eric Berger, noting that federal law makes it "very clear" that the drug sodium 
thiopental cannot enter the country legally for executions.

Berger says states will likely face more difficulty carrying out executions in 
the future.

Nebraska lawmakers abolished capital punishment in May, prompting a petition 
drive that suspended the repeal until voters decide the issue in November 2016.

Governor Ricketts' office has not responded to a request for comment.

(source: Associated Press)






ARIZONA:

Federal judge wants Arizona to identify its execution drugs


A federal judge on Wednesday said he won't resume a civil rights lawsuit 
against the state of Arizona until it reveals which execution drugs it has in 
its possession.

The order issued Wednesday requires the state to tell the court which drugs it 
has and which of the four drug combinations it plans on using when it resumes 
executions. The lawsuit was put on hold last year, and the state wants the 
lawsuit to continue. Attorneys have until Nov. 18 to respond.

The state will comply with the judge's order, Department of Corrections 
spokesman Andrew Wilder said. Dale Baich, a federal death penalty defense 
attorney, said the order "maps out a reasoned and serious approach for the next 
steps in this litigation."

Meanwhile, Arizona is battling the federal government over a seized $27,000 
shipment of sodium thiopental, an execution drug banned in the U.S. Arizona and 
Texas have tried to import the drug, but the Food and Drug Administration says 
that is illegal.

Death penalty states are struggling to obtain execution drugs, resulting in 
executions being put on hold or in alternative methods. Utah, for example, 
brought back firing squads as a backup. The shortage of drugs began about 5 
years ago, when European manufacturers stopped supplying them.

The FDA stopped Arizona's drug shipment in July at the Phoenix airport, saying 
that it's illegal to import the drug.

Arizona confirmed Wednesday that it had filed an appeal with the FDA over the 
seizure. Attorneys for the state say the FDA doesn't have the authority to stop 
the shipment.

In a letter dated Oct. 23, a private attorney hired to represent the state 
argues that the importation doesn't violate the rules the FDA cited in its 
withholding of the drug.

Arizona put executions on hold following the lengthy death of convicted 
murderer Joseph Rudolph Wood in July 2014. Officials can't seek death warrants 
until the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Wood and other death-row inmates over the 
secrecy of execution drugs, is resolved.

It took a step last week toward resuming executions by asking the judge to 
allow the lawsuit to resume.

Wood took nearly 2 hours to die after he was injected with a combination of 
midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, a painkiller. State officials have 
since changed execution protocols twice, ending the use of that 2-drug 
combination. It now has 4 drug combinations available as options to use in 
executions.

The FDA says it is reviewing appeals by Arizona and Texas, where officials also 
tried to import the drug without success.

"The FDA will follow standard importation procedures, which allow for the 
importer of the detained products to offer testimony as to why the shipment is 
in compliance with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and should not be 
refused entry," spokesman Jeff Ventura said in a written statement. Venture 
said the FDA is currently evaluating Arizona's and Texas' appeals. It's unclear 
how long that process can take.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said the state 
legally purchased the drugs and obtained an import license from the federal 
Drug Enforcement Administration before the drugs were shipped.

Texas hasn't used sodium thiopental in recent years, but prison officials want 
to "explore all options, including the continued use of pentobarbital or 
alternate drugs to use in the lethal injection process," Clark said.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Arizona's New Lethal-Injection Drugs Don't Guard Against Botched Executions, 
Critics Declare


More than a year after the use of an experimental-drug cocktail left an inmate 
gasping on the executioner's gurney for nearly 2 hours, the Arizona Department 
of Corrections has revised its lethal-injection protocols - but prisoner 
advocates say the changes won't fix the problem.

"When the prisoner is paralyzed, he'll experience a feeling of suffocation like 
a horse sitting on his chest. Then, when the 3rd drug is administered, it'll be 
like liquid fire going through his veins." - Federal Public Defender Dale Baich

When Joseph Wood was put to death in July 2014, he was sedated with midazolam, 
a valium-like drug, then pumped full of the narcotic hydromorphone to stop his 
heart. When the mixture failed to kill him in a timely manner, officials 
re-administered the drugs 15 times. Witnesses counted more than 600 tortured 
breaths while his attorneys scrambled unsuccessfully to halt the procedure.

Arizona historically has relied on sodium thiopental and pentobarbital for 
executions but has struggled to find an acceptable replacement since the U.S. 
distributor ceased production in 2010. The FDA has not approved the drugs for 
importation; however, state officials twice have been caught attempting to 
illegally smuggle them into the states from overseas.

The new protocol, issued in response to a lawsuit calling for more transparency 
in Arizona's capital punishment process, trades the hydromorphone used on Wood 
for potassium chloride, and adds a drug to prompt paralysis. However, it relies 
on the same sedative, midazolam.

Arizona Federal Public Defender Dale Baich argues that midazolam isn't strong 
enough to ensure inmates remain unconscious throughout the execution process.

"If the sedative wears off when the prisoner is paralyzed, he'll experience a 
feeling of suffocation like a horse sitting on his chest," he said. "Then, when 
the 3rd drug is administered, it'll be like liquid fire going through his 
veins. It is excruciatingly painful."

Before the debacle with Wood, midazolam was used in t2 other high-profile 
botched executions in 2014.

The traditional cocktail of drugs, when properly administered, completes its 
lethal job in about 5 to 10 minutes, but with an experimental cocktail 
including midazolam, it took Ohio's Dennis McGuire 26 minutes to die. A witness 
to his execution compared him to "a fish lying along the shore puffing for that 
1 gasp of air that would allow it to breathe." After Oklahoma inmate Clayton 
Lockett was shot up with midazolam and declared unconscious a few months later, 
he raised his head and said, "Oh, man . . . I'm not . . ." then continued to 
writhe, groan, convulse, and try to rise from the table. He suffered a heart 
attack 43 minutes later and died.

The Arizona Department of Corrections declined to comment on its new protocols.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June, though, ruled 5-4 that the use of midazolam as 
a sedative during executions does not violate the Constitution's ban on cruel 
and unusual punishment, saying the group of inmates behind the challenge had 
failed to "establish that the method creates a demonstrated risk of severe pain 
and that the risk is substantial when compared to the known and available 
alternatives."

Arizona's new protocol also allows for journalists to watch over closed-circuit 
television as a prisoner enters the death chamber, is strapped to the gurney, 
and is injected with the catheters carrying the lethal drugs. At that point, 
the curtains will be opened and witnesses will be allowed to watch the 
execution through a window. Previously, witnesses could not tune in until the 
catheters were inserted.

"No one is above the law - certainly not the state agency whose charge is to 
punish those who break the law. But they do what they damn well please." - Dan 
Peitzmeyer, Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona

The inmate's attorneys also will be permitted to bring a cell phone and 
computer into the prison so they can move quickly to halt the execution should 
things turn sour.

Dan Peitzmeyer, a board member with the grassroots advocacy group Death Penalty 
Alternatives for Arizona, said he was "delighted" by the move toward greater 
transparency.

"As it's written, it's beautiful," he said.

But he has little faith that the Department of Corrections will be so open in 
practice, he said, pointing to the department's recent tangle with the FDA over 
its attempts to smuggle sodium thiopental, a more effective anesthetic than 
midazolam, into the country.

The agency, working with local U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to 
skirt the ban on drug imports, paid $27,000 to obtain 1,000 vials of the 
anesthetic in July. Because many reputable manufacturers in Europe have blocked 
state governments from purchasing sodium thiopental as a means of protesting 
the death penalty, according to a recent Buzzfeed News investigation, Arizona 
may have turned to India, where a salesman without a pharmaceutical background 
is charging states seven times the retail price for drugs of questionable 
origin. The FDA flagged the shipment when it arrived at Phoenix Sky Harbor 
International Airport.

"No one is above the law - certainly not the state agency whose charge is to 
punish those who break the law," Peitzmeyer said. "But they do what they damn 
well please."

Executions, which were put on hold following Wood's death, will not resume 
until the department resolves the lawsuit with the U.S. Public Defenders 
Office.

(source: phoenixnewtimes.com)






USA:

O'Malley blasts Clinton over death penalty


Martin O'Malley said Wednesday that Hillary Clinton is "behind the times" 
because she supports capital punishment.

The former Maryland governor's criticism of the Democratic presidential 
front-runner came hours after Clinton told a crowd in New Hampshire that the 
death penalty has been applied "in a discriminatory way" -- but said she 
doesn't support abolishing it.

In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash, O'Malley touted Maryland's move to repeal 
the death penalty -- saying it is "not a deterrent to violent crime" and "can't 
be administered fairly."

"Secretary Clinton is often a bit behind the times in terms of actually what 
works when it comes to policy," O'Malley said. "I respect her. I have a great 
deal of respect for her, but she's often late to many of these issues because 
she's of a different generation than I am."

Clinton has long backed the death penalty -- saying in her 2000 run for Senate 
that it had her "unenthusiastic support" and maintaining that position in her 
2008 run for president.

But she waded extensively into the issue Wednesday in New Hampshire, addressing 
a topic that she hadn't yet been asked about during the 2016 campaign.

"I think that we have a lot of evidence now that the death penalty has been too 
frequently applied and very unfortunately in a discriminatory way," Clinton 
said at Saint Anselm's College. "So I think we have to take a hard look at it 
and a lot of states are doing that."

Clinton said that the United State needs to be "smarter and more careful" about 
how the death penalty is applied, but that in some "egregious" cases, capital 
punishment is still needed in "very limited and rare" instances.

(source: CNN)

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

Alleged 9/11 plotter asks Army judge to fire his death-penalty attorney


In a fresh threat to progress in the Sept. 11 conspiracy trial, an alleged 9/11 
plotter announced Wednesday that he was firing his Pentagon-paid death-penalty 
defender of four years, and wanted a new lawyer.

The 9/11 trial judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, told the alleged terrorist, 
Walid bin Attash, that at the war court the judge decides if a captive can get 
a new lawyer. The judge then met for 25 minutes in a closed session with bin 
Attash and his troubled legal team, including the lawyer he wants replaced, 
Chicago criminal attorney Cheryl Bormann, to see if there was "good cause" to 
fire her.

Case prosecutors opposed Bormann's dismissal, which experts consulted by the 
Herald predicted could delay the next hearings in the 5-man conspiracy trial by 
6 months to more than a year. Pohl could decide the issue as early as Thursday 
morning.

Bormann had represented the Yemeni since before the 5 defendants were formally 
charged May, 5, 2012, as the alleged architects of the terror attacks that 
killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon. She 
always turns up in court in a stern black cloak and head scarf worn by modest 
Muslim women, she said, as an accommodation to her client's traditions.

Bin Attash, in his mid 30s, is the youngest of the 5 defendants, and is 
described in the charge sheet as the most militant. He lost a leg in a 1997 
battlefield accident in Afghanistan.

There's been no explanation for what went wrong between them, but the 
relationship had clearly frayed by last Monday, the start of this 2-week 
hearing. Bormann announced in court that bin Attash wasn't speaking to her and 
wanted to know how he could function as his own defense attorney.

Also last week, the Miami Herald has learned, Bormann fired a long-serving 
mitigation expert on her team who had consulted frequently with the Yemeni 
captive. The expert was abruptly was flown off the base Friday.

Mitigation experts help capital defense attorneys prepare for the sentencing 
phase of a death-penalty trial by researching and assembling evidence and an 
argument for why a convict should not be executed.

Wednesday in court, bin Attash was mostly consulting with a junior defense 
lawyer on the case, Air Force Maj. Michael Schwartz, about how to explain to 
Pohl why he wanted a new attorney. At one point, Schwartz said he had a 
conflict: Bin Attash was his client but Bormann was his boss.

Then it looked like Pohl was going to question bin Attash in open court.

But then Bormann interjected that would risk airing privileged defense strategy 
to the prosecution.

So, over the objections of prosecutors, the judge had the courtroom cleared to 
hear from bin Attash, Bormann and Schwartz. The alleged plot architect, Khalid 
Sheik Mohammed, asked to join the discussion. The judge said no.

Court reporters were creating a transcript of their 25-minute session for 
Bormann to censor out information about defense strategy that bin Attash would 
need to keep confidential - whether or not she continues as lawyer.

If Pohl permits bin Attash to fire Bormann, experts say, pretrial hearings 
would have to stop until the chief defense counsel, Marine Gen. John Baker, 
hires a seasoned death-penalty defender, a "learned counsel." In addition, that 
American lawyer would need to get security clearance, be accepted by bin Attash 
and catch up on the case.

Veteran death-penalty defender Rick Kammen, hired by the Pentagon as lead 
lawyer in the now-stayed USS Cole war crimes case, estimated it would take at 
least a year to replace Bormann and resume proceedings. And he predicted that 
not many in the learned counsel pool would be eager to sign on to the case 
because of the time, travel and security restrictions of working at Guantanamo.

"Word is out in the death-penalty community about what this court is like," he 
said by telephone from his office in Indianapolis.

Moreover, Kammen said, the loss of the bin Attash team mitigation specialist 
was also a setback to trial preparation.

Pohl has not set a date for the complex capital murder case, and each session 
seems to bring a new challenge.

The judge and lawyers spent much of last week crafting a warning-laden script 
that the judge would read to any Sept. 11 case defendant who decides to fire 
his lawyer and defend himself. That process brought discovery of a secret 
Pentagon program at Guantanamo that the judge was not initially allowed to 
know.

This case in particular hampers self representation because the CIA held the 5 
alleged terrorists incommunicado - no lawyers, no International Red Cross 
access - for 3 and 4 years before their transfer to a secret prison camp at 
Guantanamo. Aspects of their present prison, Camp 7, and their prior CIA 
captivity are still classified, and only their American lawyers can see some of 
the evidence that could be used at trial.

(source: Miami Herald)

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

Why the death penalty might come to an end


In a speech last week at the University of Minnesota, Supreme Court Justice 
Antonin Scalia said "it wouldn't surprise me" if the death penalty became a 
thing of the past in the United States.

He could even imagine it happening during his tenure, he said - which, 
considering he's 79, would presumably be soon.

But how close is the Court to actually ruling capital punishment 
unconstitutional?

MPR News' Kerri Miller spoke to David von Drehel, Time Magazine 
editor-at-large, and Carol S. Streiker, professor of law at Harvard Law School, 
about the realities of the issue. Drehel is the author of "Among the Lowest of 
the Dead," a history of the modern death penalty.

"I would say within 20 years, absolutely," Streiker said of the end of capital 
punishment.

Drehel and Streiker discussed many of the issues that would contribute to such 
a ruling.

Public support is waning

Public support for the death penalty has been dropping since the 1990s, when a 
record high of 80 % of Gallup poll respondents favored capital punishment. In 
the most recent poll completed this month, only 61 % were in favor.

Part of this drop can be attributed to the drop in the national murder rate. 
"The fact that the murder rate has fallen from record highs to around record 
lows takes that boiling pot off the stove in a sense," said von Drehel.

The Supreme Court has the tools it needs to eliminate it

The Supreme Court already has the legal tools it would need to abolish the 
death penalty, according to Streiker.

"The Court has an 8th amendment doctrine that says punishments are cruel and 
unusual if they violate evolving standards of decency," Streiker said. "And the 
court looks to developments on the ground: What's happening in the world? The 
death penalty in America is really on life support now."

The system of carrying out executions is flawed

With botched executions in the headlines, many people are asking questions not 
about the constitutionality of the death penalty but about the actual logistics 
of carrying it out.

In some states, the process is so complicated and controversial that it is 
rarely used.

"What we have now is a system in which after a person is sentenced to death, 
the likelihood that they'll actually be executed is minuscule," von Drehel 
said. "There are over 750 inmates on death row in California, and there have 
been just 4 executions in the last 10 years. The same sort of thing is true in 
Florida, in Pennsylvania - it's true all across the country."

The rate of error is troubling

The risk of executing innocent people was enough to lead Illinois governor 
George Ryan to clear out his state's death penalty in 2003. "The facts that I 
have seen in reviewing each and every one of these cases raised questions not 
only about the innocence of people on death row, but about the fairness of the 
death penalty system as a whole," Gov. Ryan said at the time.

How high is the error rate?

As many as 4 % of inmates on death row are wrongly convicted, according to the 
1st major study on the subject, published in 2014.

"We can't reach the level of certainty that our Supreme Court has said is 
necessary, and we've tried for 40 years," von Drehel said.

(source: Minnesota Public Radio)