[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., FLA., LA., ARK., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 5



TEXAS:

Firing squad, blood-draining among suggestions sent to Gov. Greg Abbott to 
continue Texas death penalty


With lethal injection drugs in short supply nationwide, one Texan offered Gov. 
Greg Abbott what he called a straight-forward, low-cost, pain-free alternative 
to execute murderers in Texas.

"After administering a strong sedative," he wrote in an email, "just drain 
blood until they have bled to death."

Other letter writers suggested carbon monoxide poisoning as a painless approach 
- and maybe even more humane than lethal injection.

A firing squad could save the state money, wrote one man from a Houston suburb.

More than 3,300 people have written to Abbott about his role overseeing 
executions since he took office in January, accounting for about 11 % of his 
communication from constituents. Most of the letters - obtained by The Dallas 
Morning News under the state's open records law - plead with Abbott to grant 
clemency for inmates facing imminent execution dates. Many are from around the 
world, in languages including French, German and Dutch.

Many - some more politely than others - ask the governor to follow the lead of 
other states and stop the death penalty altogether. But about a dozen stood in 
stark contrast to the majority of letter writers, offering their novel, if 
sometimes grotesque, ideas for new ways to ensure capital punishment continues 
in Texas.

Abbott can't change execution protocol; that's the purview of the Legislature. 
But the issue of how to carry out the death penalty has been top of mind for 
officials in many states in recent years.

The drugs used in lethal injections have become increasingly difficult to find. 
European pharmaceutical companies stopped providing some drugs based on their 
objections to the use of the punishment. Now, Texas and other states are 
relying largely on compounding pharmacies, which are mostly unregulated, to 
produce execution drugs.

In its death penalty procedure, Texas uses a single lethal dose of 
pentobarbital, a barbiturate often used in animal euthanasia. Some states 
started using it as the supply of other drugs dwindled.

William Blackwood of North Little Rock, Ark., submitted perhaps the most 
creative proposal in the form of a 5-page, part fiction, part fact, short story 
he called, "An Alternative Method."

The 90-year-old World War II veteran said in an interview that he's sent his 
letter to governors in several states, and though a couple acknowledged 
receiving his suggestion, no one has contacted him about how his alternative 
method might actually work.

"I know they've got other things they're worrying with," he said.

Nathan Carmack, a small town reporter assigned to cover a death penalty case is 
the main character in Blackwood's story. Over lunch at a small cafe, he runs 
into an elderly World War II veteran who trained in San Antonio. The veteran 
explains to Carmack how he and other cadets were put in a pressure chamber to 
check their reaction to changes in pressure and oxygen.

The cadets were revived with oxygen shortly before passing out. But if the 
oxygen wasn't there, the veteran explained, the cadet would "painlessly go to 
sleep and die of hypoxia." (The veteran's story is the factual part, based on 
Blackwood's experiences.)

Together, the 2 hatch a plan to present the idea of using a pressure chamber 
for executions to the Board of Corrections.

"Each of the members was immediately alert and interested!" Blackwood wrote. 
"Joe (a board member) said, 'I've never even thought of that possibility for an 
execution!'"

(The story is posted below, so we won't give away the ending here.)

Military experience gave another writer an idea for executions. A retired U.S. 
Navy diver from Oregon, John Hill, discovered the lethal possibilities of 
nitrogen when he was nearly killed in a diving incident. Nitrogen, he said, 
displaces oxygen in the body without causing pain.

"For your concerns I believe it would be a much better way to execute murderers 
because the (sic) won't know they are going out and they will be dead as soon 
as the nitrogen has displaced the oxygen in the body quite painlessly," he 
wrote, adding the procedure would also be cheap.

Nitrogen Suggestions by rjrusak

The most popular suggestion, perhaps not surprisingly in gun-loving Texas, was 
the firing squad. Peter Sabino, from Montgomery, volunteered to form a squad 
himself "if legal or applicable."

"I have read that the average lethal injection cost $50,000. I would be willing 
to provide a five-man squad for $20,000 saving the state of Texas $30,000 on 
every execution," he wrote.

Jim Greenberg ventured a proposal that would solve 2 problems. Heroin seized 
from drug busts could be used in lethal injections, he wrote, a solution that 
would also help reduce the street supply.

Abbott's office has a policy of responding to most of the letters constituents 
send, said spokesman John Wittman. They try to either answer the writer's 
questions or connect them with the appropriate person to help.

But the Legislature decides how executions should be carried out. Since the 
death penalty was reinstated in 1982, the law has required that the Texas 
Department of Criminal Justice officials use lethal injection. While the number 
and type of drugs has changed in recent years, the process has not.

In letters responding to the execution ideas, Abbott's office explained that 
his office couldn't help implement their suggestions.

"We understand you are interested in forming a firing squad to carry out 
executions," wrote Dede Keith, Abbott's deputy director of constituent 
communications. "Changing Texas' execution method would require action by the 
Texas Legislature. As such, you may wish to share your concerns with your state 
legislators."

(source: Dallas Morning News)

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

Where is the Texas death row class of '99 now?


With 2015 2/3 over, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice this year has yet 
to process a single new prisoner into its death row unit in Huntsville. The 
dramatic slow-down has caused the Polunsky Unit's population to plunge to 257 
residents, the lowest number since it peaked at 460 in 1999.

That year represented another milestone for the state's death chamber waiting 
room. The 1st man to arrive in 1999 was Robert Neville, who checked in on Jan. 
5, after his Tarrant County conviction for killing a disabled grocery bagger. 
(The only woman sent to death row that year, Suzanne Basso, who beat her 
boyfriend to death, arrived Oct. 28.) The last, Geno Wilson, took up residence 
2 days before the close of the year, following his conviction for killing a man 
during a robbery in Houston. In all, 1999 saw 48 Texas inmates added to death 
row - more than any other year before or since.

>From 4 dozen to zero in less than a generation is an extraordinary reversal for 
a state known for its support of government executions. A deconstruction of the 
historic class of '99 illustrates some of the trends responsible for the 
change.

For starters, there is no obvious reason for the close-of-the-decade surge. The 
2nd highest number of death sentences was in 1994, when the Texas prison system 
processed 43. Yet violent crime in Texas generally had been dropping since the 
early 1990s, and has continued to fall.

In Houston, where nearly 1/4 of the Class of '99 was prosecuted for its crimes, 
the number of murders fell from more than 600 in 1991 to less than a 1/2 of 
that in 1998. "I don't have a theory as to why a specific number of death 
penalties were tried in 1999," said Roe Wilson, who has handled the Harris 
County district attorney office's post-conviction death penalty writs since 
1986.

Prosecutors cite the lack of a life-without-parole sentencing option as a major 
reason for their active use of the death penalty at the time. (That changed in 
2005; today just under 100 inmates a year earn the life-without-parole 
sentence.) Anti-execution advocates say the high number of death penalty 
sentences at the time, despite the declining murder rate, represented the 
height of tough-on-crime paranoia - an effect detached from its cause.

Scott Henson, author of the well-regarded Grits for Breakfast criminal justice 
blog, views the Class of '99 as the crest of a wave churned up by political 
turbulence. At the time, Democrats statewide were losing power. "So Democrats 
were trying to out-Republican the Republicans by getting ever more tougher on 
crime," he said.

Exit routes

But a willingness to deploy the death penalty only partially explains the 
bulge. Kathryn Kase, executive director of Texas Defender Service, said money 
and geography have contributed, too.

11 members of the class of '99 came from Harris County. Dallas, Bexar and 
Potter counties added another dozen. On one level, it's not surprising to see 
such high numbers from the state's population centers.

But Kase also notes that placing convicts on the execution waiting list is 
expensive. Studies have pegged the cost to taxpayers of trying a death penalty 
case of between just under $1 million to $3 million. Some small counties have 
had to raise taxes to cover the cost.

"So what it has always boiled down to is which counties have the money to put 
people on death row and keep them there," Kase said. She contends prosecutors 
from Texas's larger counties have been more likely to pursue an execution than 
their rural colleagues facing comparable crimes because they can afford to.

Of the 4 dozen people who arrived on Texas' death row in 1999, 1/2 have been 
executed. That comports generally with the prison system's numbers over time. 
Since 1982, Texas has executed 528 prisoners. Another 257 remain on death row, 
while 306 have been removed from the unit or died. (The latter 2 numbers 
include prisoners from before 1982, altering the ratio slightly.)

For those who leave, their exit routes vary. Raymond Reese, who killed a 
pregnant woman and her husband in Hidalgo County, died of cancer 3 years after 
arriving at Polunsky in March 1999. Harris County's Calvin McGee died from 
natural causes in 2004; he'd been sentenced to death in March 1999 for killing 
a woman during a carjacking.

Some depart because they shouldn't have been there at all. 13 Texas men 
awaiting execution have been freed after it was determined they'd been 
wrongfully convicted.

One, Michael Toney, arrived with the class of '99, convicted of setting a bomb 
15 years earlier that killed 3 people. Appellate judges later concluded Tarrant 
County prosecutors withheld crucial evidence. (Released from Polunsky in 
September 2009, Toney died a month later in a car wreck.)

It's a relatively small number (one study estimated 4 % of death row inmates 
nationally are wrongly accused). Yet the fact the state can march the innocent 
so close to the cliff's edge before admitting error almost certainly has eroded 
public support of the death punishment.

15 still on death row

6 of the 1999 death row class - 12 % - left the Polunsky Unit on the same day.

When Leo Little, Derek Guillen, Christopher Solomon, Michael Lopez, Bruce 
Williams and Geno Wilson committed their murders, each was 17 years old. 
Historically, that made little difference in Texas; between 1985 and 2002, the 
state executed 13 men who committed their crimes as juveniles, according to the 
non-profit Death Penalty Information Center.

While the youngest members of the class of '99 were awaiting their fate, 
however, the U.S. Supreme Court in March 2005 ruled that executing prisoners 
who were minors at the time of their crimes was unconstitutionally cruel. 3 
months later, the 5 Texas men had their sentences commuted to life in prison.

That leaves 15 of the class of 1999 still on death row 16 years after arrival. 
They are hardly alone in their lengthy limbo. 5 men in Polunsky arrived there 
in the 1970s; another 18 arrived in the 1980s.

In many cases, lengthy appeals can delay an execution for decades. But to Kase 
and others who oppose the ultimate penalty, why one prisoner dies and another 
lives can also appear capricious - an example "of how people are not treated 
equally within the system," she said. The U.S. Supreme Court heard a case this 
week contending such discrepancies rendered California's death row system 
"arbitrary."

Consider 2 of the Texas 1999-ers. John King arrived on Texas' death row Feb. 
25, 1999; Lawrence Brewer arrived on the Polunsky Unit 7 months later. Both men 
were convicted of kidnapping and murder in the notorious racially motivated 
dragging death of James Byrd, Jr., in Jasper County.

While Brewer was executed, in September 2011, King remains alive, his case 
pending appeals. "Who is going to be executed and who is going to be left 
alive," Kase said, "can be like a lightning strike."

(source: Austin American-Statesman)






CONNECTICUT:

Prosecutor appeals end of death penalty


The state's top prosecutor is asking the state Supreme Court to reconsider its 
4-3 decision ending the death penalty in Connecticut.

"The Division of Criminal Justice recognizes the complex legal and policy 
issues that the court confronted in this crucially important case," Chief 
State's Attorney Kevin Kane said in a motion filed Friday afternoon with the 
Supreme Court.

"And, as always, the division realizes there are legitimate opinions on both 
sides of the death penalty debate. But the process that the majority followed 
in reaching its conclusion deprived the division of the opportunity to address 
the concerns that drove the results and led the majority unaided by the 
time-tested adversarial process to inaccurate assumptions and errors of law."

This motion leaves the 11 inmates on Connecticut death row in limbo.

Kane said the motion "speaks for itself," and declined further comment.

Last month, the state Supreme Court, in deciding the death penalty case of 
Eduard Santiago, went beyond what it was asked to consider in that case and 
threw out Connecticut???s death penalty.

Though neither side in that case argued the points, the state's highest court 
ruled the death penalty should be abolished because: the state rarely imposes 
the death penalty; there are other states that have abolished the death 
penalty; and there are racial disparities in the way the death penalty is 
administered.

"The majority opinion, along with the concurring opinion of two justices, 
addresses issues, undertakes analysis and relies on materials that were never 
raised or presented and never subjected to any adversarial inquiry," the 
prosecutor's motion states.

(source: Connecticut Post)

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

Connecticut prosecutors seek to again argue death penalty struck down by state 
Supreme court


Connecticut prosecutors are seeking to re-argue the death penalty before the 
state Supreme Court, which voted last month to strike it down as 
unconstitutional.

The Hartford Courant reports (http://cour.at/1JUZISZ ) that the chief state's 
attorney's office filed a motion Friday to again argue the case.

Justices ruled 4-3 that the death penalty "no longer comports with contemporary 
standards of decency."

Prosecutors seek to strike from the record an opinion by Justice Andrew J. 
McDonald and now-retired Justice Flemming Norcott who wrote that evidence 
suggests racial disparities in capital punishment.

Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane and Senior Assistant State's Attorney Harry 
Weller say that statement amounts to an advisory opinion the Supreme Court is 
barred from issuing.

Prosecutors say the 2 justices are repeating an unsupported and "pernicious 
accusation."

(source: Associated Press)






FLORIDA:

Trial delayed for Delray man charged with killing 2 kids, their mother


Nearly 5 years after Delray Beach police found the bodies of 2 children stuffed 
in suitcases in a canal, the trial of their accused killer has been delayed 
again.

Hoping to bring 38-year-old Clem Beauchamp to trial for the murders of the 
children and their mother before the end of the year, Palm Beach County Circuit 
Judge Charles Burton on Friday set the trial for Nov. 30. Noting that Beauchamp 
faces the death penalty in the triple-murder case, prosecutor Terri Skiles 
warned it may be difficult to find enough jurors willing to spend an estimated 
4 to 6 weeks in court during the holidays.

(source: Palm Beach Post)

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

Teens indicted for 1st-degree murder in autistic man's slaying


2 teens accused of targeting an autistic St. Augustine man in a car theft 
turned deadly shooting have been indicted on 1st-degree murder charges, the 
State Attorney's Office announced Friday.

It's not yet clear whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty in their 
cases.

Christopher O'Neal, 16, and Kevin Williams, 18, both of Jacksonville, will be 
charged as adults in the murder of Carl Starke, 36, of St. Augustine, who was 
found dead of a gunshot wound at the Vista Cove Condominiums Aug. 18, 
prosecutors told reporters at a news briefing.

The teens had identified Starke as a "soft" target when they spotted him in the 
parking lot of Walmart and later followed him home with plans of stealing his 
car, according to the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office.

Instead, Sheriff David Shoar has said, they murdered him in "cold blood."

Starke's murder triggered a massive manhunt the following day that locked down 
6 nearby schools.

(source: firstcoastnews.com)

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

Rogers pleads guilty of 1st degree murder


William Eddins, State Attorney for the First Judicial Circuit, announced 
Wednesday defendant Shawn Rogers entered a plea of guilty as charged to one 
count of First Degree Pre-Meditated Murder and/or Felony Murder and one count 
of Kidnapping with Intent to do Bodily Harm. Circuit Judge, Marci L. Goodman, 
in Santa RosaCounty accepted the plea. Mr. Rogers also waived a penalty phase 
jury and agreed that the sentence of either death or life in prison without 
parole would be decided by Judge Marci L. Goodman without a jury. The State 
Attorney is seeking the Death Penalty as to Count 1, First Degree Murder.

As reported by the Northwest Florida Daily News January 9, Rogers was already 
serving a life sentence for armed robbery. Rogers received the kidnapping 
charge for typing up Martin before beating him. His hands and feet were tied 
with torn strips of bed sheet, and part of a bed sheet was found tied around 
his neck. Martin's pants and underwear were found pulled down around his knees, 
according to Eddins, leading to the victim's death at SacredHeartHospital in 
Pensacola April 8, 2012. At the time of his death, Martin had about a year left 
to serve for burglary, grand theft, and trafficking stolen property.

In a 2nd story, the NWFL Daily News reported Rogers wrote a letter to Judge 
Goodman admitting to tying and beating Martin to death. However, his scheduled 
January trial came to a halt after Rogers' attorney motioned for a continuance 
due to serious questions regarding how the Florida Department of Corrections 
handles death investigations as well as guard actions at the prison the night 
of Rogers' attack.

Goodman's concern was over courtroom security saying the Santa Rosa Courthouse 
has only one with satisfactory security for the trial. According to Assistant 
State Attorney, Robert C. Elmore, conducting prosecution in the case, starting 
October 28 in the morning to December 4, Rogers will be brought to the 
courthouse for the penalty phase hearing. The judge will hear evidence and 
witness testimony, then in December, the judge will read her sentencing 
decision.

According to data from the Florida Department of Corrections, the last time 
Santa RosaCounty sentenced someone to death was in November of 2012. Before 
then, there was 1 in 2007, 3 in 2000, 1 in 1995, and 1 in 1989. Elmore, who 
handled the Hernandez case, said the death penalty "doesn't get handed down in 
small counties every week, or every year."

(source: Santa Rosa Press Gazette)






LOUISIANA:

killing La. trooper----Suspect is charged with 1st-degree murder in the death 
of Trooper Steven Vincent


Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a man accused of fatally 
shooting a Louisiana trooper last month.

Multiple media outlets report 54-year-old Kevin Daigle of Lake Charles was 
indicted Thursday on murder charges.

Daigle is charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of Trooper Steven Vincent 
on Aug. 23. Police say Daigle shot Vincent after Vincent found Daigle's truck 
in a ditch and stopped to offer assistance. Vincent died at a hospital the next 
day.

Calcasieu Parish District Attorney John DeRosier says he'll seek the death 
penalty as part of Daigle's sentence.

Daigle also faces a 2nd-degree murder charge in the death of 54-year-old Blake 
Brewer. Authorities say Brewer was found slain Aug. 24 in the Moss Bluff home 
he and Daigle shared.

(source: Associated Press)






ARKANSAS:

Arkansas wants to get back in the execution business


Arkansas has nearly 3 dozen inmates sitting on its death row, but like most 
states, it has not carried out an execution in years. This week, state 
officials said again that they intend to end that hiatus.

It has been a decade since Arkansas executed an inmate. But several moves made 
in the state and beyond this year have pointed to a new path for trying to 
resume lethal injections, even as the number of executions continues to decline 
across the country.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge (R) has asked Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) 
to begin setting execution dates for inmates. Hutchinson's office said this 
week that it had received the letters from Rutledge requesting execution dates, 
but it has not scheduled any so far, said J.R. Davis, a spokesman for the 
governor.

Hutchinson intends to quickly set the dates, Davis said, but he did not have a 
specific timetable.

Earlier this year, the Arkansas Supreme Court said the state's method of 
executing inmates is constitutional. The justices had struck down an earlier 
law on the state's death penalty statute, ruling in 2012 that it was 
unconstitutional because it effectively gave too much leeway to the Department 
of Corrections.

The current death-penalty statute, by comparison, "provides reasonable 
guidelines" to corrections officials who will figure out the precise way to 
carry out a lethal injection, Justice Karen R. Baker wrote in a March opinion 
explaining the court's 4-to-3 decision.

Rutledge, who as a candidate last year said she thought executions should 
resume, praised that decision.

"I am hopeful that this decision will allow the convictions of those on death 
row to move forward so that some closure and justice is brought to the families 
of the victims," she said in a statement.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lethal-injection protocol in Oklahoma 
that involved the drug midazolam. This drug was used in three problematic 
lethal injections, and experts have questioned whether it can produce the deep 
level of unconsciousness needed to prevent inmates from feeling pain during the 
executions.

Officials in states that use midazolam or plan to said after the ruling that 
they wanted to move ahead with executions. Across the country, states continue 
scrambling for lethal injection drugs amid an ongoing shortage. As this 
uncertainty persists, some states have added other options, like Utah and the 
firing squad, Oklahoma and nitrogen gas and Tennessee and the electric chair. 
Still others have adopted new drugs and changed their protocols, sometimes 
multiple times; Ohio had used midazolam in a mishandled execution last year, 
and the state postponed all executions scheduled for this year while it changes 
the drugs it uses.

Lawmakers in Arkansas passed legislation before the U.S. Supreme Court decision 
that allows the state to use midazolam as part of a 3-drug combination. The 
legislation also lets authorities hide the names of the companies that supply 
drugs for executions.

Arkansas officials said this summer they purchased lethal injection drugs, and 
the Associated Press reported last month that an invoice shows the state 
purchased midazolam for lethal injections.

There are 34 people on death row in the state, according to the Arkansas 
Department of Corrections. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 
Arkansas has carried out 27 executions, the 13th-highest total in that span. It 
has not executed an inmate since Eric Nance was put to death in 2005 for 
killing 18-year-old Julie Heath.

(source: Washington Post)



OHIO:

Ohio Death Row Quandary: 2 Dozen Executions, No Lethal Drugs


The state now has 2 dozen condemned killers with firm execution dates, but with 
4 months before the 1st one, it still doesn't have the lethal drugs it needs to 
carry them out.

The state's inability to find drugs has death penalty opponents calling for the 
end of capital punishment in Ohio. Supporters say the state needs to keep 
looking or find alternatives to provide justice for killings that are in some 
cases decades old.

"Rather than frustrate that process it would seem to me their goal ought to be 
to carry out that process," said Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien, who's 
contacted the prisons department, the attorney general and the governor's 
office for updates on their progress finding drugs.

1 option he'd like Ohio to consider: nitrogen gas, approved by Oklahoma in 
April as an execution alternative.

On Jan. 21, the state is scheduled to execute Ronald Phillips for raping and 
killing his girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter in Akron in 1993.

The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction "continues to seek all legal 
means to obtain the drugs necessary to carry out court-ordered executions," 
said spokeswoman JoEllen Smith, using the same statement the agency has offered 
for months. "This process has included multiple options."

On Wednesday, the Ohio Supreme Court set a March 2017 date for Gary Otte of 
Cleveland for the shooting deaths of two people in a 1992 robbery spree. The 
remaining executions are scheduled clear into 2019.

The state hasn't executed anyone since January 2014, when condemned killer 
Dennis McGuire gasped and snorted repeatedly during a 26-minute procedure with 
a then untried 2-drug method.

Ohio abandoned that method in favor of other drugs it now can't find.

Like other states, Ohio has struggled to obtain drugs as pharmaceutical 
companies discontinued the medications traditionally used by states or put them 
off limits for executions.

The state's latest attempt, to obtain a federal import license to buy drugs 
from overseas, ran into a roadblock when the FDA informed Ohio such actions are 
illegal because the drugs in question aren't FDA-approved.

That's the kind of thing that happens when dates are set without drugs on hand, 
said Tim Young, the state public defender.

"That continual setting of dates seems to bring to bear unfortunate pressure to 
drive the choices with untested drugs, untested processes," he said.

Gov. John Kasich said other states won't give Ohio their drugs and lawsuits may 
tie up attempts to import approved drugs. But he said there's still time before 
the January execution.

"I want to continue forward with the death penalty, but if I don't have the 
drugs it becomes very difficult," Kasich said.

Ohio appears to have the most killers with execution dates because of the 
state's system for scheduling them. Texas, which still leads the nation in the 
number of executions annually, sets dates a maximum of 90 days out. Missouri, 
which has a similar system, has a maximum 60-day window which extends up to 120 
days next year.

Last week in Arkansas, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge asked Gov. Asa 
Hutchinson to set execution dates for 8 death row inmates. Rutledge had waited 
until the prison system obtained the 3 drugs used in the state's new execution 
protocol, which happened about 2 months ago.

(source: Associated Press)