[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., MO., OKLA., NEB., COLO., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 25



ARKANSAS----executions

Time of death----Arkansas goes through with double execution despite 
allegations that one inmate was "gulping for air"


For a few minutes Monday night, it seemed like the United States's 1st double 
execution in more than a decade would not take place. After attorneys alleged 
that Arkansas inmate Jack Jones suffered a "torturous and inhumane" execution 
Monday evening, a federal judge briefly put what was to be the 2nd state 
execution of the night on hold before ultimately allowing it to proceed.

Not long after Jones' execution, U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker issued a 
stay of execution for inmate Marcel Williams, citing court filings arguing that 
continuing with his execution would "demonstrate an ongoing constitutional 
violation - cruel, unusual, and inhumane infliction of pain and suffering," 
because Jones remained partially conscious during his execution. Just an hour 
later, she lifted the stay "for reasons stated in the Court's hearing on Mr. 
William's emergency motion," according to her order.

Arkansas initially announced that it intended to carry out an unprecedented 8 
executions in just 11 days because its supply of midazolam - a controversial 
sedative that has led to botched lethal injections in states like Arizona, 
Alabama and Oklahoma - was set to expire at the end of April. The plan was met 
with several legal challenges, including claims that midazolam would likely 
fail and result in inmates suffering inhumanely, and allegations that Arkansas' 
Department of Correction was far from equipped to carry out such an arduous 
string of executions.

According to the inmates' attorneys, that's exactly what happened in Jones's 
execution.

"The infirmary staff tried unsuccessfully to place [an IV] central line in Mr. 
Jones's neck for 45 minutes before placing one elsewhere on his body," the 
motion, filed in U.S. district court, alleges. Minutes after midazolam had been 
injected, "Mr. Jones was moving his lips and gulping for air. Mr. Jones's 
movements after the midazolam was administered is evidence of continued 
consciousness."

Attorneys for Jones and Williams, arguing against the death penalty, had said 
that the two men had underlying medical conditions which were likely to make 
execution more painful or impact the effectiveness of the three-drug lethal 
injection cocktail.

The state of Arkansas contends that the attorneys' account of Jones's execution 
is inaccurate, saying that although the Arkansas Department of Correction 
officers did fail in their attempt to place an IV in Jones's neck, they were 
ultimately successful in sedating him. "The claim that Jones was moving his 
lips and gulping for air is unsupported by press accounts or the accounts of 
other witnesses," an Arkansas filing reads. "The drugs were administered to 
Jones at 7:06 p.m. and he was pronounced dead at 7:20 p.m. There was no 
constitutional violation in Jones' execution."

Williams was executed on the same gurney and pronounced dead at 10:33 p.m.

Jones was convicted in 1996 for raping and murdering a 34-year-old Mary 
Phillips, and Williams was convicted in 1997 for the abduction, rape, and 
murder of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson.

In a handwritten statement, Jones apologized for his crime and said he tried to 
better himself on death row. "I want people to know that when I came to prison 
I made up my mind that I would be a better person when I left than when I came 
in. I had no doubt in my mind that I would make every effort to do this. I'd 
like to think that I've accomplished this. I made every effort to be a good 
person - I practiced Buddhism and studied physics. I met the right people and 
did the right things. There are no words that would fully express my remorse 
for the pain I've caused."

When asked for comment, the Arkansas Department of Correction told a VICE News 
reporter to call back during normal business hours and hung up the phone.

(source: vice.com)

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

Arkansas executes 2 inmates in 1 night, 1st state to do so since 2000


Arkansas executed 2 condemned murderers Monday night, becoming the 1st state in 
17 years to carry out 2 death sentences in one day.

Marcel Williams was pronounced dead at 10:33 p.m. Central Time, 17 minutes 
after the procedure began at the Cummins Unit in southeastern Arkansas. Jack 
Jones had been put to death more than 3 hours earlier.

Williams' execution had been delayed for 2 hours after a federal judge in 
Little Rock issued an emergency stay over concerns about how Jones' execution 
was carried out. Williams' attorneys claimed Jones gasped for air, an account 
the state's attorney general denied, but the judge lifted her stay about an 
hour later.

Initially, Gov. Asa Hutchinson scheduled 4 double executions over an 11-day 
period in April. The eight executions would have been the most by a state in 
such a compressed period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death 
penalty in 1976. The state said the executions needed to be carried out before 
its supply of one lethal injection drug expires on April 30.

The 1st 3 executions were canceled because of court decisions, then inmate 
Ledell Lee was executed last week.

Arkansas' last double execution occurred in 1999.

Jones was sent to death row for the 1995 rape and killing of Mary Phillips. He 
strangled her with the cord to a coffee pot.

He was also convicted of attempting to kill Phillips' 11-year-old daughter and 
was convicted in another rape and killing in Florida.

Jones said earlier this month that he was ready for execution. He used a 
wheelchair and he'd had a leg amputated in prison because of diabetes.

Williams' "morbid obesity makes it likely that either the IV line cannot be 
placed or that it will be placed in error, thus causing substantial damage 
(like a collapsed lung)," his attorneys wrote in an earlier court filing asking 
justices to block the execution.

Both men were served last meals on Monday afternoon, Arkansas Department of 
Correction spokesman Solomon Graves said.

In recent pleadings before state and federal courts, the inmates said the 3 
drugs Arkansas uses to execute prisoners -- midazolam, vecuronium bromide and 
potassium chloride -- could be ineffective because of their poor health.

Jones, 52, lost a leg to diabetes and was on insulin. Williams, 46, weighs 400 
pounds, is diabetic and has concerns that the execution team might not be able 
to find a suitable vein to support an intravenous line.

The poor health of both men, their lawyers claimed, could make it difficult for 
them to respond during a consciousness check following a megadose of midazolam. 
The state shouldn't risk giving them drugs to stop their lungs and hearts if 
they aren't unconscious, they have told courts.

The last state to put more than 1 inmate to death on the same day was Texas, 
which executed 2 killers in August 2000. Oklahoma planned a double execution in 
2014 but scrapped plans for the 2nd one after the execution of Clayton Lockett 
went awry.

Arkansas executed 4 men in an 8-day period in 1960. The only quicker pace 
included quadruple executions in 1926 and 1930.

Williams was sent to death row for the 1994 rape and killing of 22-year-old 
Stacy Errickson, whom he kidnapped from a gas station in central Arkansas.

Authorities said Williams abducted and raped 2 other women in the days before 
he was arrested in Errickson's death. Williams admitted responsibility to the 
state Parole Board last month.

"I wish I could take it back, but I can't," Williams told the board.

"After more than 20 years, justice has prevailed for the family of Stacey 
Errickson," Hutchinson said in a statement after Williams' death. "This is a 
serious and reflective time in our state and it is important for the Errickson 
family and all Arkansans to know that in this case our laws ended in justice."

In a letter earlier this month, Jones said he was ready to be killed by the 
state. The letter, which his attorney read aloud at his clemency hearing, went 
on to say: "I shall not ask to be forgiven, for I haven't the right."

After Jones was put to death, Hutchinson said in a statement that the "rule of 
law had been upheld."

"A governor never asks for this responsibility, but I accept it as part of the 
solemn pledge I made to uphold the law," he added. "We hope this will help 
bring closure to the Phillips family."

Including Jones and Williams, nine people have been executed in the United 
States this year, 4 in Texas, 3 in Arkansas and 1 each in Missouri and 
Virginia. Last year, 20 people were executed, down from 98 in 1999 and the 
lowest number since 14 in 1991, according to the Death Penalty Information 
Center.

(source: Fox News)

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

Harvard Project Outlines Pattern Of Attorney Failures In Arkansas Death Row 
Cases


NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Jessica Brand of Harvard Law's Fair Punishment 
Project about the chronic problem of bad lawyering on capital punishment cases. 
All 8 death row cases in Arkansas had examples of attorney failures, including 
drunk lawyers, a conflict of interest affair involving a judge, lawyers missing 
deadlines, and failure to disclose mental disorders.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Arkansas has carried out 1 of 2 executions that were scheduled for tonight, 
part of a series of executions the state wants to do this month before a key 
drug expires. The courts have put most of the executions on hold, but last 
week, Arkansas executed Ledell Lee for a 1993 murder. Lee maintained his 
innocence to his death.

Earlier today, I spoke with Jessica Brand, legal director for the Fair 
Punishment Project at Harvard Law School. She told me what happened to Lee is 
part of a pattern of bad representation for defendants around the country. She 
told me everything went wrong with the way lawyers handled Lee's case.

JESSICA BRAND: He had trial lawyers who begged to get off of his case because 
they argued there was a conflict. He had a judge who was having an affair with 
a prosecutor in the case. His 1st state post-conviction lawyer was drunk in 
court and literally stated the words blah, blah, blah. His next post-conviction 
lawyers missed filing deadlines. They had briefs sent back by the court. And 
then he had a federal post-conviction lawyer who had his license suspended last 
year because of a mental illness that caused him not to be able to represent 
his clients.

That's an incredible litany of things to happen in a case, and it meant that 
only 2 weeks before his execution did someone finally investigate his life 
history, his trauma, his mental illness and uncover that he may have had an 
intellectual disability.

SHAPIRO: How can that many egregious things go wrong in a case where a person's 
life is literally on the line without anyone flagging it until two weeks before 
the execution?

BRAND: I think what Ledell's case has shown is what happens in so many of these 
cases. It's astounding. There is a complete lack of counsel from start to 
finish in all of these cases. And there are a lot of reasons for them, one of 
which is, this work is hard. It's grueling, and there aren't a lot of lawyers 
who do it. And there aren't a lot of lawyers who can do it well. It costs a lot 
of money to do this well. It costs a lot of time.

And I think Ledell Lee has - his case has really exposed what is the dirty 
little secret in the death penalty world, which is, this happens all the time. 
And it happened in the cases that are scheduled for execution tonight as well.

SHAPIRO: Well, I was going to ask about those 2 men, Marcel Williams and Jack 
Jones. Is their history of representation as appalling as Ledell Lee, the man 
who was executed last week?

BRAND: It is. Jack Jones - his case occurred in the '90s. For the 1st time in 
2005, someone presented the extraordinary mental illness that he saw ants and 
spiders as a child, that there was incredible daily physical abuse in his 
house, sexual abuse in his house - that's decades after his trial - and the 
same thing in Marcel Williams's case. No lawyer ever uncovered that his mother 
was literally pimping him out for food stamps and shelter at the time he was 9 
years old.

SHAPIRO: If we assume that the death penalty is not going away but that the 
process can be fixed, what will it take to fix it?

BRAND: Well, the 1st thing I would say is, I don't think it can fix it. For 40 
years in the modern era of the death penalty, the court has been trying to 
issue procedural fixes. It's been trying to say intellectually disabled people 
can't be executed. It's tried to say juveniles can't be executed. It said, you 
really need a lawyer. And as much as the Supreme Court has tried to fix it, it 
has completely failed. So I think rather than trying to fix it, it is time for 
the Supreme Court to recognize its sort of complicity in this system where 
people don't get counsel is calling into doubt the whole integrity of our 
judicial system.

SHAPIRO: Is Arkansas much worse than other death penalty states, or is what 
we're seeing in these cases pretty typical?

BRAND: It's pretty typical. I live in the state of Texas. We are known for our 
death penalty here. And you see cases after case go up on appeal where the 
trial lawyers just never did the most basic of investigations.

SHAPIRO: That's Jessica Brand, legal director of the Fair Punishment Project at 
Harvard Law School. Thanks for joining us.

BRAND: Thanks for having me.

SHAPIRO: And after we spoke with Brand, the state of Arkansas carried out the 
execution of Jack Jones Jr.

(source: npr.org)

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

Medical Director in Arkansas Could Lose License for Acquiring Execution Drug


As Arkansas plans to continue its execution blitzkrieg Monday, a lawsuit filed 
by pharmaceutical distributor McKesson claims the Arkansas Department of 
Corrections "leveraged" its medical director's medical license to purchase 
vecuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant used in lethal injection.

While physicians have been active in executions as long as the United States 
has employed capital punishment, the use of a medical director's license to 
acquire the drug appears to be unprecedented. The identity of this person has 
not been made public because sweeping state secrecy laws hide the identities of 
those involved in executions, including employees of the Arkansas Department of 
Corrections (ADC). Typically, if physicians participate, they don't work for 
the state and could be any licensed medical practitioner.

Now that McKesson has revealed the role of the ADC's medical director, the 
Arkansas Medical Board, whose regulations prohibit the prescription and 
administration of drugs for anything other than "a legitimate medical purpose," 
could take action.

"It is something the medical board is keeping an eye on. We???re evaluating the 
circumstances to decide what comes next," said Kevin O'Dwyer, an attorney 
representing the medical board, which regulates the practice of medicine in the 
state. When asked about the possible ramifications for ADC's medical director, 
O'Dwyer said punishment could include license revocation.

The identity of ADC's medical director might be known to the board, said Dr. 
Joel Zivot, an expert in bioethics who teaches surgery and anesthesiology at 
Emory University. "I don't think anyone is really clear" about the limits of 
secrecy laws, he said, which are "broadly encompassing."

While "it's clear the state has used these secrecy laws in a most disturbing 
way," Zivot said, he warned that a confrontation could lead to a loss of 
medical board oversight, because of the state's secrecy laws.

Doctors in Missouri, Georgia, and North Carolina have all admitted to 
participating in executions. Those disclosures sparked outrage, and attempts 
were made to discipline the doctors in each case. The North Carolina Medical 
Board even brought charges against the state's department of corrections for 
its use of physicians for lethal injections, but in 2009 the state's Supreme 
Court ruled that a 1909 law that requires physicians to "certify the fact of 
the execution" supersedes the medical board's authority.

Such rulings, said Zivot, coupled with secrecy laws mean that "the chief 
physician of the state is no longer the medical board, it's the governor," who 
signs the death warrants of condemned inmates and keeps the identities of 
executioner-doctors secret. "This is very troubling."

The revelation that ADC's medical director used state credentials to obtain 
controlled substances for lethal injection raises the question of how often 
states are committing similar acts.

Jennifer Moreno, a staff attorney with the University of California - 
Berkeley's Death Penalty Clinic, told The Intercept that it's difficult to know 
exactly how frequently this occurs, but it appears states are increasingly 
turning to doctors and pharmacies to acquire drugs. Obtaining medications used 
for lethal injection has become more difficult over the past decade, thanks to 
advocacy work that motivated pharmaceutical companies to place distribution 
controls on their goods that prevent medications from being sold for 
executions.

In response to these controls, many corrections departments turned to 
third-party middle men such as willfully ignorant distribution companies or 
international pharmaceutical companies. The Food and Drug Administration has 
cracked down on these arrangements, however. On April 20, the same day Arkansas 
executed Ledell Lee, the FDA settled a 2-year standoff with Texas and Arizona 
by blocking their attempt to import the banned anesthetic sodium thiopental 
from a shady middle-man based in India named Chris Harris. The FDA crackdown 
has led states to purchase drugs using medical licenses to "nominally comply 
with what the law requires to purchase drugs," Moreno said.

Hospitals and other legitimate purchasers of controlled substances must be 
accredited by the Drug Enforcement Agency. In 2011, Texas was caught using 
expired DEA accreditation from a hospital that was closed in 1983 to purchase 
pentobarbital. Louisiana similarly used DEA forms to mislead Lake Charles 
Memorial Hospital into selling 20 vials of hydromorphone in 2o14. The hospital 
later said it assumed the drugs were needed for patients.

Compounding pharmacies, which historically produced made-to-order drugs for 
patients who couldn't take commercially-made medications due to conditions like 
allergies, also produce medications meant for lethal injection. At least 10 
states have used these pharmacies to obtain lethal injection drugs, according 
to the Death Penalty Information Center. Though many have been pressured to end 
the practice, some compounding pharmacies continue to produce the drugs. There 
are also examples of private physicians prescribing these drugs for inmates so 
states could acquire them, Moreno said.

These actions fall into a legal gray zone. Even Texas, which allegedly violated 
Federal drug laws by using expired DEA credentials, faced no repercussions. The 
U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed the constitutionality of lethal injection, and 
states believe the ends justify the means. As Lee Short, Ledell Lee's former 
attorney, told The Intercept last week, "you'd have to find a prosecutor that 
would press charges."

Zivot believes lethal injection is at odds with the ethical obligations of a 
physician. He cites numerous ethics recommendations, including those of the 
American Medical Association, that say state-sanctioned executions cannot be 
aided by licensed physicians.

Arkansas, Zivot said, "is trying to suck and blow at the same time. They're 
claiming on the one hand to use licensed providers. On the other hand, they're 
mocking these things. The license doesn't allow for these things to take 
place."

(source: theintercept.com)

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

In Its Rush to Kill, Arkansas May Have Executed an Innocent Man


Ledell Lee's 1st hard-knock moment came even before he was born. His mom, 16 
and on her 3rd pregnancy by a man years older than she was, drank and smoked 
through his pregnancy. Because of her substance abuse, Ledell was born with a 
fetal alcohol syndrome disorder, a medical condition that left him with brain 
dysfunction and intellectual disability.

28 years later in 1993, Ledell Lee was arrested for the murder of Debra Reese. 
And on Thursday night, just before midnight, the state of Arkansas killed 
Ledell in a gross miscarriage of justice.

>From the beginning, Ledell proclaimed his innocence and wrote to everyone he 
could think of, beseeching lawyers to fight for him. His journey through the 
legal system consisted of an unbroken chain of drunk, conflicted, and grossly 
incompetent attorneys. No one who represented Ledell ever looked at the chasm 
between the state's theory of guilt and the proof presented at trial. For 
instance, the crime scene was drenched in blood, but the state witnesses who 
put Ledell at the scene said he didn't have any blood on him. None of the 
limited forensic evidence tested, like fingerprint analysis, at the time 
matched him. Ledell has been asking for DNA testing for decades.

Until last week, when our team joined his defense and began to frantically 
investigate the case, no defense lawyer had ever hired a psychologist to test 
Ledell's intellectual disability. And no court had ever been troubled by the 
one pertinent claim his former counsel had raised: that a member of the 
prosecution team was having an affair with the trial judge at the time of 
Ledell's trial.

As a death penalty lawyer who handles death penalty cases exclusively, I am all 
too familiar with the story of poor lawyering and court failures. That said, 
the facts of Ledell's case stand out and are an indictment of the system that 
put him to death. Serious questions of guilt, conflicts of interest by defense 
counsel, a deeply biased judge, and never presented evidence of intellectual 
disability: Any one of these bases should be enough to pause an execution. It 
is profoundly disturbing that even taken together, they weren't enough to move 
the courts or the governor to spare his life.

Gov. Hutchinson bears heavy blame for the wrongful killing of Ledell Lee. 
Hutchinson arbitrarily set eight dates for execution - originally as 4 double 
executions - based on the amount of midazolam, a lethal injection drug, 
Arkansas had on hand. Worse still, he scheduled them within an incredibly short 
period, so he could beat the drug's expiration date of April 30.

The facts of Ledell's case stand out and are an indictment of the system that 
put him to death.

The practical consequences of this pace are profound. Every institution that 
touches these capital cases is overtaxed and beleaguered. For example, when we 
requested (but never received) Ledell's medical and mental records from the 
prison, the lawyer for the prison told us the prison staff simply couldn't 
respond in time because of the pressures of the fast-tracked multiple 
executions. The medical records could well have contained previous IQ testing - 
records that may well may have helped us save his life. State and federal court 
staff are overwhelmed by the number of important and serious legal filings 
arriving at a furious pace and are forced to work at a breakneck pace. This 
pace jeopardizes the kind of careful consideration necessary for any capital 
case, but especially one with a pending execution date. In the case of these 8 
executions, the parole board actually had to curtail their internal clemency 
policies and procedures to try to process so many applications in such a short 
time.

I got involved in the case 2 weeks before Ledell's execution after reading that 
he was about to die without any lawyer ever having investigated the fact that 
he might have an intellectual disability. I called a friend who is a life 
history investigator in capital cases, and together we decided that we should 
see if there was anything we could do to help Ledell. We knew we would be 
running against strong headwinds: Courts are hostile to any claims close to an 
execution date, and we were incredibly close. But we thought if there was a 
small chance we could do something, we had to try. We made contact with 
Ledell's Arkansas counsel, who had only been appointed months before, and who 
readily welcomed our assistance.

More on Ledell Lee v. State of Arkansas

The life investigator flew down the next day, and we began the process that 
typically takes years. We struggled to even obtain the full case files, and it 
was challenging to find and interview critical witnesses who had never been 
interviewed during the course of Ledell's trial or years of appeals. The 
investigator met with Ledell for 2 long days and learned basic life history 
information about him that no one had gathered previously. Ledell thanked her 
for listening to what he had to say. He was grateful to have a team willing to 
look into his innocence.

The more I learned about his case, the more troubled I felt. There were gross, 
shocking abuses throughout. I discovered that Ledell???s relationship with his 
lawyers had broken down over his insistence on defending his innocence. His 
lawyers had requested to withdraw and stopped working on his case. The judge, 
the same one having an affair with the prosecutor, wrote to the Arkansas 
Supreme Court and opposed new counsel for Ledell. He did so while personally 
disparaging him. The same judge then presided over Ledell's trial. This was not 
normal, and far outside of the bounds of the kind of impartiality we expect 
from judges.

The history of Ledell's defense provided a tour of the worst our profession has 
to offer, including a lawyer who was stumbling and slurring due to alcohol 
consumption during his representation of Ledell and another who was sanctioned 
by the bar for their terrible performance in his case.

A neuropsychologist finally tested Ledell for the 1st time the week before his 
execution. The results showed that Ledell was likely ineligible to be executed: 
He had significant intellectual deficits and disability. We would need more 
time, however, to investigate Ledell's life history for the expert to make a 
final determination.

As the evidence of Ledell's unfair trial and appeals grew, so did my anxiety. 
We had no time and an obstacle course of legal doctrinal hurdles to overcome 
before any court would consider the evidence of intellectual disability or 
innocence we wanted to bring. I knew I wouldn't be able to prepare and file all 
of the things that needed to be filed with this evidence. It was now just a 
week before his execution was scheduled, and I sent out a call for help.

Many answered this call. The more other people learned about the case, the more 
joined. Knowing about its injustices moved people to action.

I asked a colleague in New York at the Innocence Project for the name of an 
expert who could look at what we suspected were important DNA testing 
possibilities. She jumped in and joined 2 lawyers who worked over Easter 
weekend and around the clock to draft motions for testing the DNA in light of 
the troubling questions about Ledell's guilt.

My ears rang with the low hum of adrenaline, a substitute for sleep and symptom 
of the state of high alert that comes from profound fear.

Ledell's brothers and daughter wanted to know: Would we save him?

The night before Ledell's execution I tried to sleep for a few hours. I was 
worried, but hopeful. Earlier that day, a trial court in Arkansas put in place 
a stay of execution after a drug company had successfully won an order barring 
the use of its drugs in executions because of evidence that Arkansas acquired 
the drugs under false pretenses. We had filed claims in federal court and in 
state court, pointing out Ledell's intellectual disability and the need for a 
little more time so that we could fully develop and present that evidence and 
prove that his execution was unconstitutional.

We had also filed a motion requesting a few weeks time to allow for DNA testing 
that was very similar to the motion granted the day before by the state of 
Arkansas in another capital case set for execution the same night as Ledell.

Our hope was misplaced.

We learned in the afternoon that the stay had been vacated for the wrongly 
acquired drugs, and then slowly heard one by one that the courts were denying 
our claims. The state characterized our serious legal challenges as just run of 
the mill, last-minute filings of a kind that would oppose any execution. Gov. 
Hutchinson's scheduling of mass executions had cast a shadow on Ledell's strong 
legal claims, where they could be dismissed as nothing more than a delay tactic 
to get beyond the April 30 drug expiration date.

Gov. Hutchinson made it worse by issuing a press statement after the courts 
granted 3 stays of execution in the first 3 cases set, complaining that he had 
expected 1 or 2 cases might get stopped by appeals - but not 3. He sent the 
unmistakable message that he wanted an execution to go forward.

I can't shake the feeling that Ledell's execution was lost in the fray of the 8 
scheduled executions and that his claims of innocence, for DNA testing, and of 
intellectual disability were ignored because of it.

The truth is as clear now as it was before Ledell was executed this past 
Friday. Ledell Lee deserved better. He deserved a through defense and a fair 
trial. But conflicted and ineffectual lawyers failed him for years. The courts 
failed him at the end. And Gov. Hutchinson failed us all by setting this 
unprecedented and wrong execution schedule.

Ledell Lee's execution was shameful. Gov. Hutchinson and the Arkansas courts 
should avoid compounding the injustice of his unfair execution. The only moral 
course forward is to abandon the unfair and unjust execution schedule and 
cancel the 2 executions scheduled for tonight and the 3rd for Thursday. 
Carrying out these 3 executions on this schedule will violate the 
individualized consideration that the Constitution and justice require and 
further overstep the bounds of basic human dignity.

(source: aclu.org)






MISSOURI:

Prosecutors seeking death penalty against Jefferson City man


Prosecutors in Jefferson City will seek the death penalty against a man charged 
with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder.

According to online court records, a notice of intent to seek the death penalty 
was filed Friday against Brandon Rapier. Rapier is charged in a double homicide 
that took place in November 2016. He stabbed his ex-girlfriend, 27-year-old 
Ciera Kolb, and another man, 27-year-old Micah Hall, in Cole County, the 
charges allege. Both Kolb and Hall later died from their injuries.

(source: ABC news)






OKLAHOMA:

State's Death Penalty Review Expected Today


One day after the nation's 1st successful double execution in 17 years, 
Oklahoma officials are scheduled to release their death penalty review, almost 
2 years after the state put a hold on executions.

The Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission is scheduled to announce its 
findings at the Capitol this afternoon.

Back in 2014, Oklahoma was on track to be the 1st state to carry out 2 
executions in 1 day since 2000 but the mismanaged execution of Clayton Lockett 
changed that. Governor Mary Fallin then put a hold on executions in the state 
in October 2015 after officials discovered a mix-up in 1 of the drugs in their 
lethal injection cocktail.

This error granted death row inmate Richard Glossip his 3rd stay of execution. 
A grand jury report from several counties criticized the handling of Glossip's 
case.

In response to the report, the State Department of Corrections is supposedly 
revising its execution protocol. Other constitutional means of execution in the 
state include a firing squad and gas chamber.

(source: newson6.com)






NEBRASKA:

Bill for lethal injection confidentiality raises arguments


A bill to allow individuals or companies involved in the distribution or 
manufacture of lethal injection drugs to be confidential continued for hours of 
debate Thursday.

LB661, introduced by Sen. John Kuehn of Heartwell, is also known as a "shield 
law" to protect anyone involved in the manufacturing of lethal injection drugs 
from threats or persecution.

"Keeping the identity of manufacturers confidential to ensure access of these 
drugs, to prevent further drugs from being removed from the market, to ensure 
safe medication to all citizens, is the greater good," Kuehn said.

Other states with similar shield laws include Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, 
Georgia and Ohio. Many others, such as Oklahoma and South Carolina, have also 
tried to implement this type of shield law.

According to the bill's proponents, states with the death penalty have 
difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs from domestic suppliers. Suppliers 
don't want the bad publicity of being associated with manufacturing and 
distributing these drugs. This results in states having to shop around other 
countries for the drugs.

Nebraska is known for buying a lethal injection drug in 2015 called sodium 
thiopental, from Harris Pharma, a distributor in India. The Food and Drug 
Administration said Nebraska could not legally import the drug and the shipment 
never made it to the state.

Opponents of the bill said that confidentiality would inhibit accountability 
for companies who make the drugs. Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha was particularly 
against full anonymity for such companies.

Chambers is a well-known opponent of the death penalty in general and mostly 
used his time to speak against the death penalty. However, he also spoke 
against hiding the identity of lethal injection drug manufacturers.

"We all know good and well why it's important to know the source of something," 
Chambers said. "If these bad drugs continue to show up, you need to trace it 
back and find the compounding pharmacy that's responsible."

Chambers was referring to the possibility of problems arising with a drug. If 
the drug is proven cruel or ineffective, people would need to know where it 
came from to hold that person or company responsible.

Nebraska voters decided last year to reinstate the death penalty after a repeal 
of it the year before. Legislators in support of LB661, like Sen. Mike Groene 
of North Platte, said the proposed shield legislation would let capital 
punishment work for the Nebraskans who voted it back in.

"I believe in justice," Groene said. "I believe in punishing evil that exists 
in this world."

Groene said anonymity would allow the state to be able to obtain, and if 
necessary, use the death penalty drugs again.

Nebraska has not used capital punishment since 1997.

There was no vote or action taken on the bill.

(source: The Daily Nebraskan)





COLORADO:

Week of hearings underway in county's 1st death penalty case in a decade


A man who is accused of killing his ex-girlfriend and a homeless man in 
separate attacks is expected to be in court for most of the week.

Glenn Galloway faces the death penalty in the back-to-back murders of Janice 
Nam and Marcus Anderson. They were murdered in May of 2016. Nam was shot to 
death inside her home in the 6000 block of Miramont Street in Stetson Hills. 
Anderson's body was found in a storage unit on N. Century Street, near the 
intersection of N. Nevada Avenue and E. Fillmore Street. Police said Anderson 
lived in the storage unit.

Lawyers on both sides argued motion after motion today as Galloway waived his 
right to a speedy trial. Judge Gregory Werner set a trial date of January 2, 
2018.

It's not clear yet whether Galloway will be tried simultaneously for both 
murders or if there will be 2 separate trials.

The defense conceded that Galloway could be seen on surveillance video at the 
scene of the Anderson murder. It is arguing self-defense in that death.

Galloway was also captured on surveillance video at Nam's home before her 
death. The defense argued that video should not be permissible.

Twice during today's proceedings, Galloway failed to stand when the judge 
entered the courtroom prompting the judge to quip "does the defendant have a 
leg issue?" The defense responded, "we'll work on that."

(source:: KRDO news)






CALIFORNIA:

San Quentin executions could hinge on next pivotal months


California has long been what 1 expert calls a "symbolic death penalty state," 
1 of 12 that has capital punishment on the books but has not executed anyone in 
more than a decade.

Prodded by voters and lawsuits, the nation's most populous state may now be 
easing back toward allowing executions, though observers are split on how 
quickly they will resume, if at all.

Corrections officials expect to meet a Wednesday deadline to submit revised 
lethal injection rules to state regulators, trying again with technical changes 
after the 1st attempt was rejected in December.

The California Supreme Court, meanwhile, is expected to rule by August on 
challenges to a ballot initiative narrowly approved by voters in November that 
would speed up executions by reducing the time allowed for appeals.

Still, it is a far cry from the situation in Arkansas, which carried out its 
1st execution since 2005 last week after trying to put 8 inmates to death this 
month in an unprecedented series of double executions. Courts have blocked 3 of 
them. Legal rulings have put at least 1 other in doubt.

California could come close to resuming executions in the next year, said law 
professor Robert Weisberg, co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, 
though others say too many variables remain to make a prediction.

California has by far the nation's largest death row with nearly 750 inmates, 
about double that of No. 2 Florida.

The state's proposed lethal injection regulations are patterned after a 
single-drug process that already passed muster with the U.S. Supreme Court, 
Weisberg said.

Corrections officials submitted the regulations only after they were forced to 
act by a judge's ruling on behalf of crime victims angered at the state's 
3-year delay.

Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham University School of Law and an expert on 
lethal injections, was among those who said recent revisions to the state's 
proposed regulations still don't cure underlying problems that can lead to 
botched executions.

For instance, the proposed rules now give executioners 10 minutes to administer 
each round of lethal drugs. The 1st batch is supposed to kill, but if that 
initial dose doesn't work, executioners would administer 4 more similar doses, 
each with a 10-minute countdown clock to make sure the process doesn't drag on 
for hours as critics said was a possibility under the original rules.

If the inmate is still alive after 5 massive doses, "the San Quentin Warden 
shall stop the execution and summon medical assistance for the inmate."

The regulations still call for letting the warden at San Quentin State Prison 
pick from among 4 powerful barbiturates, depending on which one is available as 
manufacturers try to limit the use of their drugs for executions. Inmates could 
also choose to die in the gas chamber.

The Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic, which opposes executions, says 
amobarbital and secobarbital have never been used in executions. The clinic 
said problems remain over how the drugs would be obtained and administered.

Officials in several other states with long-delayed executions have said their 
efforts to carry out the death penalty have been thwarted by a lack of lethal 
drugs.

Arkansas was rushing to try to execute as many inmates as possible before its 
supply of the controversial sedative midazolam expires at month's end. 
Midazolam would not be used under California's regulations.

Denno said California's regulations would still conceal the identities, 
training and experience of the execution team, crucial information since the 
deadly drugs must be properly mixed and administered to ensure a painless 
death.

"It's a complicated process, and everything has to be going right, and it's so 
easy in a prison context for everything not to go right," she said. She equated 
it to letting amateurs provide anesthesia for surgery.

Denno and other experts said the new rules eventually will have to pass the 
scrutiny of U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel, who halted executions in 
the state in early 2006 and ordered prison officials to improve their lethal 
injection process.

California voters have eased penalties for many crimes in recent years but have 
repeatedly rejected efforts to end the death penalty. They did so again in 
November, when 51 % approved Proposition 66, designed to speed up death penalty 
cases. 53 % of voters defeated a competing measure that would have abolished 
the death penalty.

The state Supreme Court quickly blocked Proposition 66 while it considers 
challenges.

Appellate lawyer Kirk Jenkins, who studies the court, expects the justices will 
reject the proposition's 5-year deadline for deciding death row appeals because 
it violates the separation of powers.

(source: Marin Independent Journal)






USA:

Debate over the death penalty in the United States begins anew


Since Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College to win the 
presidency, and especially since Trump was sworn in, the news has been filled 
with all manner of items, some of them silly, nit-picking and embarrassing for 
the media, and others of varying degrees of importance and interest.

Among the actual news items was the choice of the excellent Judge Neil Gorsuch 
to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court and the battle that ensued to confirm 
him; the Syrian air base strike and the MOAB bombing of an ISIS tunnel/cave 
installation in Afghanistan; and more recently the situation in Arkansas where 
the state intended to execute 8 death row inmates in the 11 days remaining 
before the end of April when 1 of the drugs used in executions reached its 
expiration date.

This latter development produced quite a lot of comment, most of it negative 
from opponents of the death penalty.

The death penalty is sanctioned through the 5th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. 
Constitution, and each death row inmate had been convicted and had many years 
to appeal their sentence or conviction, so why so much controversy? Many were 
horrified not about the death penalty itself, but that Arkansas would conduct 
so many executions in such a short period.

The death penalty is a matter of long, spirited debate, notwithstanding its 
constitutional and Biblical validations.

The religious aspect is important in the United States, since among the volumes 
of things former President Barack Obama misunderstands about America is its 
still-strong religious nature. Of the 35,000 participants from all 50 states 
polled in a 2014 Pew Research Center study of Religion and Public Life, 
Christians accounted for 70 % of participants, and more than 75 % claimed some 
religious affiliation.

While our government is not founded on any set of religious beliefs, people 
with religious beliefs have been a major segment of the population since the 
nation's founding, and their beliefs heavily influenced the founding 
principles, and that influence still exists today.

Many Christians, along with people holding other religious beliefs, and still 
others who do not cite religion at all, object to the death penalty on its 
failure of compassion. "How can religious and other compassionate people 
indulge in such a barbaric act?" the argument goes.

Steve Stephens, a 37-year-old man, was having trouble with his girlfriend, so 
naturally he decided the solution was to randomly pick out someone to kill. 
After mentioning the woman's name to 74 year-old Robert Godwin Sr., a man that 
he came upon while searching for a victim, he shot and killed the unsuspecting 
and totally innocent Godwin.

Stephens' stupid and vicious murder highlights this issue. Many believe that 
someone who intentionally and deliberately murders another person and inflicts 
shock and grief on that person's family and friends somehow is entitled to the 
compassion the murderer sadistically denied the victim(s). One religious 
argument against executions is that it denies the criminal the opportunity to 
repent and even use his/her experience to try to turn others to religion and 
away from crime.

Others believe, however, the condemned deserves no consideration or compassion 
when his or her justice is rendered. "Should not that person suffer at least as 
much as the victim and those close to the victim?" this argument goes.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1972 allowed the resumption of the 
death penalty, its use has dropped off substantially.

While 31 states still legally allow executions, ten of them have executed no 
one in the last 10 years, and 26 have executed no one in the last 5 years.

Several reasons are cited: the possibility of executing an innocent person; 
botched executions; a decline in the crime rate; and the cost of fighting those 
opposing the imposition of the death penalty in capital cases.

There are 5 legal methods of execution - firing squad, gas chamber, hanging, 
electrocution, and lethal injection - and lethal injection is the hands-down 
preferred method. Much of the opposition to the other 4 comes down to how 
"unpleasant" each of those methods is to the condemned, with lethal injection 
normally being the least uncomfortable. However, even lethal injections 
sometimes cause suffering to the condemned.

There is an ongoing debate over whether the United States should have a death 
penalty. Another debate centers on making the execution as easy on the 
condemned as possible.

Perhaps this represents a true expression of compassion, or maybe it is one 
more step toward making executions so difficult and expensive that eventually 
it will be abandoned, in favor of keeping vicious criminals alive and 
relatively comfortable in prison for the rest of their lives at a tremendous 
cost to taxpayers.

As long as there is a death penalty, someone who is absolutely proven guilty of 
committing a capital crime and sentenced to death should collect his or her 
just reward in a reasonable amount of time (which will be in fewer than 10 or 
20 years), as efficiently as possible, and as inexpensively as possible. If it 
hurts a little, or a lot, too bad.

Of all factors involved, the concerns of the criminal come last.

(source: James H. "Smokey" Shott, Column, a resident of Bluefield Daily 
Telegraph)

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

Inmate could be put to death if convicted of slashing, beating correctional 
officer


After more than 4 years of waiting and pre-trial maneuvering, the capital 
murder trial against Jessie Con-ui, who is accused of killing a correctional 
officer, begins today.

Con-ui, already a convicted murderer, could be put to death if convicted of 
viciously slashing and beating correctional officer Eric Williams, a Nanticoke 
native, during an ambush at U.S. Penitentiary at Canaan on Feb. 25, 2013.

Con-ui's attorneys have not disputed that he was responsible for the attack, 
which was caught on video, but are working to spare him the death penalty by 
arguing he snapped after being mistreated by guards.

The men and women who will decide if that reason is enough will be picked 
starting today - although the process is extensive and expected to take several 
weeks.

The selection process actually began back in January, when about 750 people 
were sent hardship questionnaires. Of those who made it through the 
pre-screening process, 12 will be called to court per day to be questioned 
about their knowledge of the case as well as any biases or conflicts they have.

Once at least 70 jurors have been qualified and accepted, the sides will have 2 
days to review the panel and exercise up to 20 strikes each. The final panel 
will consist of 12 jurors and 6 alternates.

Many trial observers don't expect a prolonged guilt phase - Con-ui's own 
attorneys have acknowledged in court filings that there is "overwhelming 
evidence of guilt" and that after viewing the surveillance footage "the jurors 
will become eyewitnesses to the crime."

The real question is whether the jury will decide Con-ui should die for the 
crime.

Prosecutors have described what jurors will see as a cold, calculated 
assassination carried out because Con-ui was angered over a cell search the day 
before.

The video depicts Con-ui "lying in wait" on the 2nd floor of the cell block, 
armed with shanks as he watches Williams approach a set of stairs, according to 
prosecutors. Con-ui then casually walks toward the officer before kicking him 
in the face and sending him down the stairs to initiate the 9-minute attack, 
prosecutors say.

The inmate takes Williams' radio away and proceeds to repeatedly hit and stab 
Williams in the face, head and upper body, cutting his own hand in the process, 
according to prosecutors. Con-ui then walks over to a shower to wash the wound, 
which he wraps in his own shirt before returning to continue attacking Williams 
as he lay defenseless on the floor, prosecutors say.

When he finishes, Con-ui takes a piece of gum from Williams' pocket and sits 
down to chew it before returning to his cell.

Court filings say Con-ui felt in danger after the attack, especially after an 
officer who discovered the carnage threatened to "kill one of you" inmates. He 
later surrendered, saying he felt disrespected by having his belongings tossed 
in the cell search and that he had "overreacted" to the perceived slight, court 
documents say.

The defense is seeking to spare Con-ui a death sentence by putting forward 
mitigating factors, including what they have termed "outrageous, clearly 
inappropriate conduct" by guards in their treatment of inmates. His attorneys 
maintain he was a respectful, well-mannered inmate who was so upset by what 
happened that afterward he had "tears pouring down his face like dew."

But Williams' family supports the death penalty against Con-ui, who is already 
serving 25 years to life at ADX Florence in Colorado for executing a gang 
member in Phoenix as part of his initiation into the Arizona Mexican Mafia in 
2002.

Among the reasons Con-ui should be put to death are that the crime was 
committed in an "especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner" by a convicted 
drug trafficker and murderer who has a history of violence - including against 
law enforcement, according to prosecutors.

(source: The Citizens' Voice)