[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., OHIO, NEB., UTAH, NEV., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 18





FLORIDA:
Man Faces Death Penalty For Killing Ex-Girlfriend, 3 Others

A Florida man is facing a possible death sentence after being convicted of 
killing of his ex-girlfriend, her new boyfriend and her parents.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that 32-year-old Adam Matos was found guilty 
Thursday of 4 counts of murder. The penalty phase starts Monday.

Matos could get the death penalty if all 12 jurors vote for that. Otherwise he 
would be sentenced to life in prison.

Authorities say Matos fatally shot Megan Brown and her father, Greg Brown, at 
their Hudson home in 2014. He also fatally beat Margaret Brown and Nick Leonard 
with a hammer, jurors heard.

Matos testified Wednesday he'd been suffering from paranoia and committed the 
slayings in self-defense.

The 4-year-old son of Megan Brown and Matos was at the home when the killings 
occurred.



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


Prosecutor misses filing deadline to seek death penalty

A Florida prosecutor who recently reversed a blanket policy against executions 
has missed the filing deadline to pursue the death penalty in a murder case.

The Orlando Sentinel reports Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala issued 
a statement Friday acknowledging the lapsed deadline. Her office filed to seek 
the death penalty against 33-year-old Emerita Mapp on Oct. 31, but the 45-day 
deadline between indictment and that filing had passed.

Mapp's attorneys filed a motion Wednesday to stop the state from seeking the 
death penalty.

After Ayala previously announced she'd stop seeking the death penalty, Gov. 
Rick Scott reassigned her death penalty eligible cases to another prosecutor. 
The Florida Supreme Court upheld him.

Authorities say Mapp fatally stabbed one man during a robbery and seriously 
wounded another at a hotel in April.

(source for both: Associated Press)


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






Once on death row as a teen killer of newlyweds, man getting new shot at 
freedom----Killer of Miami couple in 1981 to get new sentence


Nearly 37 years ago, Gail and John Hardeman of Miami were shot and killed by 
17-year-old Cleo LeCroy at a southwestern Palm Beach County hunting area. 
Currently serving life in prison terms, LeCroy, now 54, is scheduled to be 
resentenced on Dec. 1.

Cleo Douglas LeCroy — previously on Florida’s death row for nearly 20 years for 
killing young newlyweds from Miami in 1981 — has a shot at being set free from 
prison.

A judge is set to give LeCroy, who is serving a life term, a new sentence Dec. 
1, thanks to several high court rulings favoring people who were juveniles when 
they committed murder.

For the family of victims Gail and John Hardeman, gunned down by a 17-year-old 
LeCroy at a southwestern Palm Beach County hunting area, the possibility of 
seeing him walk is painful.

“I should never after all of these years be going through this,” said Ruth 
Haines, 81, mother of Gail. “To me, it should be life without parole.”

In a handful of Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states, new data from 
athenahealth shows Lyme Disease diagnoses were up more than 20 percent in 2017. 
The reason why? A bumper crop of acorns in the fall of 2016.

LeCroy should “rot in jail,” said David Hardeman, 61, whose older brother was 
fatally shot in the face. He actually wishes it was still legal to execute 
juvenile killers. Since it’s not, LeCroy “should never be allowed to get out,” 
the Miami man said.

Gail and John Hardeman were killed on Jan. 4, 1981 during a hunting trip in 
southwestern Palm Beach County.

But LeCroy, now 54, is hoping to leave prison and move to Alabama where he 
would care for his elderly mom and draw support from a church program for 
released convicts.

“He’s hopeful, but he’s been through a lot,” said defense attorney James 
Eisenberg, who was LeCroy’s first court-appointed lawyer and still argues for 
his freedom three decades later. “I see no reason to deny this guy’s release.”

On and off death row

In the years after his arrest and convictions at a 1986 trial, LeCroy lost 
numerous appeals in the murder case that captivated South Florida.

LeCroy, who grew up in North Miami as the youngest of five children, has 
admitted he shot fellow hunters and campers John and Gail Hardeman within an 
Everglades wildlife preserve, about 16 miles south of Belle Glade and five 
miles from the nearest house.

Gail, a secretary for a ceramic tile company, was 24 when she died on Jan. 4, 
1981. John, who worked as an exterminator for a pest control business, was 27 
and the father of two boys, 5 and 3, from a previous marriage.

John Hardeman III, whose sons are now in their early 40s and raising five young 
kids, was killed by a shotgun blast to his face. His wife was shot at close 
range in the head, neck and chest with a .22-caliber gun.

Their bodies weren’t discovered until a week later, after LeCroy and his family 
assisted authorities in a massive search by air and land for the couple who 
went missing a month before their first wedding anniversary.

LeCroy was sentenced to death for Gail’s murder and mandatory life in prison 
without the possibility of parole for 25 years for John’s murder, based on the 
jury’s recommendations. At that time, capital punishment for juveniles was 
still legal.

He also was convicted of robbing his victims at the 4,400-acre Brown’s Farm 
Hunting Area. The motive for the killing: LeCroy wanted John’s new $100 rifle 
so he could sell it, prosecutors said at the trial.

Jon LeCroy, an older brother, also was charged with the murders, but was 
acquitted at a trial. He later confessed to the crimes at a 2003 court hearing, 
but a judge then ruled the statement could not be used to help Cleo LeCroy’s 
appeal for a lesser sentence or a new trial. Jon LeCroy has since died, says 
his brother’s lawyer.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for juveniles and 
Cleo LeCroy, without a hearing, was resentenced to life in prison for the 
slaying of Gail Hardeman.

Case for and against LeCroy

LeCroy’s lawyer argues the felon’s “tragic childhood” of physical and emotional 
abuse and neglect in a dysfunctional home is reason enough for the minimum 
possible punishment of 40 years in prison.

“Even his mother called him dumb,” Eisenberg wrote to the court. “He was picked 
on and tortured by his siblings.”

While LeCroy was diagnosed with severe brain damage as recently as 2002 — 
because of head-banging from the time he was a little boy until adolescence — 
he has succeeded in getting his high school diploma in 2010 as well as 
certificates for other coursework and educational programs, court records show.

The attorney also points out that LeCroy has been written up for discipline 
problems only twice the entire time he’s been in prison, and held a job called 
“security orderly.”

Defense attorney James Eisenberg says Cleo LeCroy, now serving life in prison 
for a 1981 double murder, should be released from prison under a new sentence.

But David Hardeman said he doesn’t care that LeCroy “has been a great boy in 
prison — he blew my brother’s face off.”

And Lisa Hardeman, John Hardeman’s now 81-year-old stepmother who lives near 
Asheville, N.C., said of LeCroy’s path through the criminal justice system: 
“What we have gone through as a family, it’s an affront.”

Ruth Haines, Gail Hardeman’s mom, also says she has no empathy for LeCroy, 
though she now opposes the death penalty because cases linger in the court 
system for decades.

>From her Bonita Springs home on the state’s gulf coast, Haines says LeCroy was 
practically an adult when he killed, just two months before his 18th birthday.

Kathryn Nichols, who was John Hardeman’s first wife and the mother of his kids, 
said she wants the sentencing judge to know that “the loss of their father” 
affected the boys, Charles and Matthew, their whole lives.

“It was a senseless murder,” said Nichols, of St. Augustine, adding LeCroy “has 
no business being out.”

Juvenile justice reforms

In June, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Laura Johnson ordered LeCroy is 
entitled to a new sentence. She cited U.S. Supreme Court and Florida Supreme 
Court rulings since 2010 that have had major implications for juvenile 
criminals.

First, the nation’s High Court ruled it is cruel and unusual punishment, a 
violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, to give young criminals 
a life term with no chance for parole for crimes other than murder.

Then in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled mandatory life terms are 
unconstitutional for juveniles who kill.

That landmark ruling requires judges to take various factors into consideration 
before concluding a juvenile offender can never be free, including their level 
of maturity and the possibility for rehabilitation.

It still allows for life sentences when a juvenile’s crime is deemed so heinous 
and the possibility of rehabilitation is extremely slim.

Assistant State Attorney Andrew Slater has not yet made a recommendation for 
LeCroy’s new punishment. He could not be reached for comment, and the victim’s 
kin have said they were unaware of the resentencing until a reporter called.

In Florida, if a judge determines life in prison is not warranted, the minimum 
sentence for a young killer is 40 years, with a judicial review after 25 years, 
under a 2014 state law.

LeCroy’s lawyer says his client is the “poster child” for benefitting from the 
shift in how juveniles with violent pasts are treated by the court system.

“LeCroy’s history and transformation while in prison to a responsible adult is 
remarkable,” Eisenberg told the Sun Sentinel, citing a consultant’s finding 
LeCroy is “now no danger whatsoever to society.”

He said LeCroy is entitled to credit for the nearly 37 years he’s been locked 
up, as well as a massive amount of “gain time” for good behavior. By 
Eisenberg’s calculation, LeCroy could be eligible for release almost 
immediately under even a 50 to 60-year sentence.

A state Supreme Court ruling last year turned out to be the final boost for 
LeCroy’s bid to re-enter free society.

That ruling, in a 1990 murder case from Broward, found that a life sentence 
including the possibility of parole after 25 years for a juvenile was 
unconstitutional. Justice Barbara Pariente, in her majority opinion, wrote the 
state’s parole system didn’t make any accommodations for youthful offenders.

The court decisions have brought a wave of resentencing hearings for juvenile 
criminals, “notwithstanding how horrific the crimes were for the victims’ 
families,” said Stephen K. Harper, a former defense attorney now on the law 
school faculty at Florida International University.

“The facts of the cases are never good,” said Harper, the former head of the 
juvenile division at the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office. “But kids are 
significantly and constitutionally different from adults, and the Supreme Court 
has found kids clearly deserve a second chance.”

(source: Sun-Sentinel)




OHIO:

Too Old and Too Sick to Execute? No Such Thing in Ohio.


The famous appellate judge Richard Posner once wrote, “A civilized society 
locks up [criminals] until age makes them harmless, but it does not keep them 
in prison until they die.” The state of Ohio apparently hasn’t heard of Judge 
Posner, as they went one step further and tried to execute an elderly Alva 
Campbell and failed.

Ohio’s lethal injection team spent more than 30 minutes poking Alva Campbell’s 
decrepit body in search of any decent vein into which they could inject their 
lethal cocktail to no avail. They finally relented — but only temporarily.

Hours later, Gov. John Kasich announced not a commutation — or a plan to 
investigate what went wrong — but that Campbell’s execution would be 
rescheduled for 2019.

It’s a travesty of justice that Ohio’s bungled attempt at executing Alva 
Campbell was both predictable and avoidable. Campbell’s attorneys had in fact 
informed the governor and courts that their client’s abysmal health made him a 
uniquely poor candidate for lethal injection.

Campbell has severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, uses a walker, 
relies on an external colostomy bag, requires four breathing treatments a day, 
and may have lung cancer. In a medical examination of Campbell before the 
execution attempt, doctors failed to “find veins suitable for inserting an IV 
on either of Campbell’s arms.” Ohio’s only answer to the concerns of Campbell’s 
lawyers was to give Campbell a “wedged shape pillow” to keep him slightly 
upright through the execution.

It was predictable and avoidable not only because of information furnished to 
the state by the defense, but because Ohio had already committed a similar 
bungle in 2009 when it failed to find a suitable vein to execute Rommell Broom 
after sticking him with needles for over two hours.

The ability to find a suitable vein is basic to lethal injection. When it 
cannot be done — because of lack of training and qualifications of the 
lethal-injection team or the health of the prisoner — the process becomes 
impossible and the risk of a failure or botch undeniable.

The state’s lethal-injection team’s inability to find a suitable vein led to 
the botched execution of Joseph Clark in 2006, who raised his head from the 
gurney during the execution to say, “It don’t work. It don’t work.” Ohio 
persisted, working for another 30 minutes to find another vein before resuming 
the execution. Media witnesses heard “moaning, crying, and guttural noises” 
before the deed was finally done 90 minutes after it had begun.

The botched 2-hour execution of Christopher Newton in 2007 also stemmed from 
the execution team’s inability to access a suitable vein. The state’s botched 
execution of Dennis McGuire in 2014 has been attributed to the use of midazolam 
— great if you need a sedative for a medical procedure but unsuitable for 
executions.

The takeaway should be clear. Ohio cannot be trusted to use the death penalty, 
as time and time again the state fails and causes needless pain and 
unconstitutional torture. But Ohio is forging ahead.

The state’s schedule of more than two dozen lethal-injections through 2022 
gives Ohio the dubious distinction of maintaining the longest list of upcoming 
executions in the nation. A second attempt to take Campbell’s life is now set 
for 2019, while Rommell Broom’s new date is in 2020. Last year, a divided Ohio 
Supreme Court ruled that Ohio could attempt to execute Broom, yet again, over a 
powerful dissent pointing out that the U.S. Supreme Court more than a century 
ago made clear that executions involving “torture or lingering death” would 
violate the Eighth Amendment.

With its record of three botched executions and two bungled attempts, it’s time 
for Ohio to stop its unjust assembly line of death. It should reconsider 
whether it needs to execute prisoners so old and infirm that they can be safely 
imprisoned until they pass naturally. It should reconsider whether it is even 
possible to carry out executions without an unacceptable risk of torture or 
lingering death.

If the state of Ohio actually reckons with this question, they will find the 
answer to it is no. It is not possible to carry out executions without risking 
torture or unlawful killing. To paraphrase Joseph Clark’s last words, it just 
doesn’t work.

(source: aclu.org


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

Pastor joins cause denouncing death penalty


If God could use murderous Saul as Apostle Paul, “Who are we to snuff out the 
life of someone ... and not give them the chance toward redemption?”

That’s the argument made by the Rev. Jack Sullivan Jr., senior pastor at 
Findlay’s First Christian Church, in summing up his feelings against the death 
pentalty.

Another strong argument? Sullivan’s sister, Jennifer, was shot to death in 
Cleveland 20 years ago in what remains a cold case. And while he’s always been 
a strong advocate for accountability and retribution, being a survivor of a 
murder victim, he can’t bring himself to support more bloodshed.

“Rightfully so, we’re angry when people commit murder,” Sullivan says. “The 
question becomes, what is the best way for us to respond to these horrific 
crimes, as angry and upset as we may be?”

Sullivan posed this question to crowds of lawmakers, churchgoers and college 
students as a keynote speaker with this year’s Journey of Hope: From Violence 
to Healing. The restorative justice organization pairs murder victim family 
members with death row family members, family members of the executed, people 
who have been exonerated from death row and activists dedicated to spreading a 
message of nonviolence and forgiveness.

Sullivan joined the tour for a week this October in San Antonio, Texas, where 
he repeatedly relived the horror of his sister’s death at just 21 years old.

“Telling the story has put me back in touch with losing my sister. I call her 
my baby sister - she’s 15 years younger than me,” he says.

While the experience brought back acute memories of loss, it also intensified 
Sullivan’s conviction for denouncing the cycle of death perpetuated by capital 
punishment.

“I saw literally the face of death and what gunfire does to a person. And after 
you’ve seen that you can’t unsee it,” he says.

But while many think the death penalty brings closure and healing to a grieving 
family, or acts as a deterrent to crime, the pastor dismisses both theories as 
“mythology on parade,” adding there is no evidence to support either claim. In 
this Christian country, he believes Americans can and should respond to 
violence in a more civil, evolved manner.

Life without parole is one alternative, as is life with the possibility for 
parole. But Sullivan’s strongest push is for “restorative justice,” the concept 
of putting convicted persons in an environment where they are redirected and 
rehabilitated, rather than simply thrown away.

Citing a study by the Dayton Daily News, he says Ohio spent $16 million on 
maintaining the death penalty system in 2014. Rather than using that money to 
arbitrarily end human lives, Sullivan suggests it could be better spent on 
prison rehabilitation efforts; programs that put young people’s lives on 
wholesome paths; increases in police officers, social workers and case workers; 
and services to assist grieving murder victims’ families.

“It’s (the death penalty) just a hollow instrument of death, whereas 
rehabilitation uplifts all of us. And redemption uplifts all of us,” he says.

In his advocacy against the death penalty, he’s met some whose minds have been 
changed and some who are still deciding. And that’s good, he says, as long as 
people are thinking about the subject and examining their own belief system. 
Sullivan notes that capital punishment is not a liberal versus conservative 
issue, as many conservatives view the death penalty as a waste of the states’ 
resources.

One example, provided by the Death Penalty Information Center, states that 
enforcing the death penalty costs Florida $51 million a year above what it 
would cost to punish all 1st-degree murderers with life in prison without 
parole. A Texas death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million - triple 
the cost of imprisoning someone at the highest security level for 40 years.

Further, the center notes that in 96 % of states where race and the death 
penalty have been reviewed, a pattern of race of victim or race of defendant 
discrimination emerged.

Sullivan also points out that the death penalty is legal in 31 states, and it’s 
a conviction often arbitrarily sentenced by juries. Some advocates argue the 
death penalty is "reserved for the worst of the worst,” he says. “Well, 
Jennifer’s death was the worst to me."

(source: thecourier.com)


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

Execution in Ohio Is Halted After No Usable Vein Can Be Found

Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio delayed the execution of a convicted murderer for 
19 months on Wednesday after an attempt to end his life failed because 
executioners were unable to find a vein they could use for lethal injection.

The failed execution of Alva Campbell, a 69-year-old inmate with health 
problems, was the 3rd time in 7 decades that a death row inmate in the United 
States has survived the initial attempt to take his life and the 2nd time in 
recent years that it has happened in Ohio, according to The Associated Press.

"Attempts by the medical team this morning to gain intravenous access were 
unsuccessful," JoEllen Smith, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of 
Rehabilitation and Correction, said in an email.

A warrant of reprieve issued by Mr. Kasich on Wednesday afternoon said the 
state would try to execute Mr. Campbell again on June 5, 2019. Ms. Smith did 
not respond to an email asking how the new date had been chosen.

Earlier in the day, Gary Mohr, head of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation 
and Correction, told reporters that the state would take its time planning for 
the next execution attempt.

"We're not going to rush to execute," he said, according to The Toledo Blade. 
"We're just taking our time and I think that's fine."

An inability to find a usable vein also led to an unsuccessful attempted 
execution of Romell Broom in 2009; he has remained on death row in Ohio since 
his execution was called off 2 hours after it was scheduled to begin. He was 
convicted of raping and murdering 14-year-old Tryna Middleton in 1984.

The 1st modern case of a botched execution attempt happened in Louisiana in 
1946 when a malfunctioning electric chair failed to take the life of Willie 
Francis, 17, a convicted murderer, according to The A.P. The United States 
Supreme Court allowed the state to make a 2nd attempt, and Mr. Francis was 
executed by electric chair in 1947.

A reporter for The Associated Press, who was at the Southern Ohio Correctional 
Facility in Lucasville as a news media witness to the execution that had been 
planned for Wednesday morning, said the process was called off roughly 80 
minutes after it had been scheduled to begin.

Members of the execution team, as it is known, spent about 30 minutes trying to 
find a usable vein in Mr. Campbell's arms and then tried to find a vein below 
his right knee.

The executioners tried to comfort Mr. Campbell as they searched for a way to 
execute him, The A.P. said, by patting him on the arm and shoulder. They also 
brought a wedge pillow for him to use on the gurney because he has breathing 
problems related to a longstanding smoking habit.

The A.P. said Mr. Campbell shook hands with 2 guards about 80 minutes into the 
execution process when it appeared they had successfully found a vein. But 2 
minutes later reporters were abruptly ushered out of the viewing area without 
being told why they had to leave.

Last week, Governor Kasich rejected an appeal for clemency from Mr. Campbell, 
who was convicted in 1997 of the murder of Charles Dials, a teenager he killed 
during a carjacking. He used a gun stolen from a Franklin County sheriff's 
deputy, whom he had overpowered. The Ohio Parole Board said in October that it 
did not support Mr. Campbell’s request for clemency.

Mr. Broom, whose execution was halted in 2009, has spent the last 8 years 
arguing that the state should not be allowed a 2nd chance to execute him. In 
March 2016, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in a 4-to-3 decision that it would not 
be unconstitutional for the state to make a 2nd execution attempt. The United 
States Supreme Court rejected his appeal last December.

(source: New York Times)




NEBRASKA:
Neb. quiet on identity of drugs supplier

A major pharmaceutical company demanded in a letter a month ago that the State 
of Nebraska return any lethal injection drugs it might have that were 
manufactured by the company or its affiliate.

Pfizer adopted a policy in 2016 banning the use of its products in an execution 
as a "misuse" of drugs intended to save lives.

"Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we 
serve. Consistent with these values, Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its 
products as lethal injections for capital punishment," stated the Oct. 4 
letter, signed by Robert Jones, a public relations director with Pfizer.

Officials with the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services and the office 
of Gov. Pete Ricketts declined to say Thursday if the state had obtained any 
Pfizer drugs.

"We are not disclosing the identity of the supplier at this time," said 
corrections spokeswoman Dawn-Renee Smith.

But Smith said the state spent $10,500 on the four lethal injection drugs 
purchased last month.

This comes 2 years after Nebraska spent $54,000 on similar drugs that it never 
received.

A week ago, the state informed a death-row inmate that it had obtained the 
substances it planned to use in carrying out the inmate's death sentence.

3 of the drugs are on Pfizer's list of substances it prohibits for use in 
executions.

If Nebraska obtained drugs made by Pfizer, it risks a lawsuit from the company 
or 1 of its distributors claiming that it violated the company's ban on using 
drugs on its list of "restricted products" for a lethal injection, according to 
a national authority on the death penalty.

"The question is: Is there someone who is violating their contract with 
Pfizer?" asked Robert Dunham of the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty 
Information Center on Thursday. "Or is a distributor being misled about the use 
of the drug?"

Dunham said Pfizer typically doesn't send such "demand" letters unless it 
suspects that a state has obtained drugs manufactured by it.

The Pfizer letter was among several documents released by corrections this week 
in response to public records requests from The World-Herald and the ACLU of 
Nebraska. The newspaper and the civil rights group each independently requested 
information about the state's efforts to obtain lethal injection drugs.

The records show that the state on Sept. 19 received federal approval, if 
necessary, to import controlled substances. On Oct. 12, records indicated that 
4 lethal injection drugs were being stored at a prison in Lincoln.

The documents also list expiration dates for the drugs. 2 of the drugs expire 
in July and August 2018.

That raises doubts about whether Nebraska could set an execution date before 
the drugs expire, according to a leading death penalty opponent, State Sen. 
Ernie Chambers of Omaha.

While the state has declined to identify the source of the four drugs, Smith, 
the corrections spokeswoman, said last week that they came from a source in the 
U.S.

Dunham said the information released so far seems to indicate 2 possible 
sources: either a private, compounding pharmacy or a distributor that handles 
Pfizer products.

The records released by the state indicated that at least 2 of the drugs had 
been sent to a laboratory in Minnesota for testing. Such testing is required by 
state law before the drugs can be used in an execution, Smith said.

The 4 drugs that the state obtained included 3 on Pfizer's list of 13 
"restricted products" the company has said cannot be used in lethal injections.

The 3 are diazepam, fentanyl citrate and potassium chloride. A 4th drug 
obtained by the state, cisatracurium besylate, is not manufactured by Pfizer, a 
company spokesman said Thursday.

The Pfizer letter said the company would reimburse the state for any drugs it 
returned that were made by Pfizer or Hospira, a Pfizer company. A company 
spokesman declined to say if Nebraska had returned any drugs, referring 
questions to state officials.

Nebraska, as well as several other states, have scrambled to obtain lethal 
injection drugs in recent years, in part because companies like Pfizer have 
banned their use for executions.

Some documents released to the ACLU illustrated that. Included were pleas from 
corrections officials in Nevada and Mississippi who were seeking help to obtain 
lethal injection drugs for their states.

Danielle Conrad, who heads the ACLU of Nebraska, said Thursday that the 
information released to the ACLU raises more questions than they answer.

"Every attempt to tinker with the machinery of death doesn't bring us any 
closer to an execution,"  Conrad said. "It just raises a new set of questions."

Almost half of the records request by the group produced a state response that 
"no records" exist. Conrad, a former state senator, said the ACLU is reviewing 
whether their request was fully complied with, adding that she expects more to 
be released next week.

Nebraska has yet to seek an execution warrant for the inmate, Jose Sandoval, 
who was sentenced to die for his role in the murders of 5 people inside a 
Norfolk bank in 2002. Last week's notice was a required step before an 
execution date is requested.

There has not been an execution in Nebraska for 20 years, since the electric 
chair was in use. Electrocution was ruled unconstitutional as cruel and unusual 
punishment by the Nebraska Supreme Court, so the state switched to lethal 
injection.

But the state has stumbled in past attempts to obtain the drugs.

In 2011, a Swiss manufacturer demanded the return of a lethal injection drug 
purchased through a broker in India, saying it had been improperly obtained by 
the broker. 2 years ago, Nebraska spent $54,000 through the same broker, Chris 
Harris, for drugs it never received. That shipment was blocked by federal 
authorities.

(source: The North Platte Telegraph)





UTAH:
Austin Boutain charged with aggravated murder in death of U of U student

Austin and Kathleen Boutain hatched a plan to kidnap someone in Salt Lake City 
and travel to Tennessee.

That's according to prosecutors in charging documents against the couple. The 
Salt Lake District Attorney's office filed multiple felony counts against 
Austin Boutain. The most serious of the charges include aggravated murder and 
attempted aggravated murder. The crime is death penalty eligible.

In a surprise move, his wife Kathleen Elizabeth Boutain was charged with 
criminal solicitation to commit murder, kidnapping and robbery.

They're accused of killing Chen Wei Guo, a University of Utah student October 
30th.  He is also charged with attempting to kill his friend who was in the 
vehicle at the time of the shooting.

"They hatched a plan. Their plan was they would look at the parking lot in Red 
Butte Canyon and kidnap somebody," said Salt Lake District Attorney Sim Gill.

"And they wanted to kidnap somebody to help them go to Tennessee. They would 
keep them alive  and use their credit cards to get food and gas. Their plan was 
to get to Tennessee but they would kill that person that they had kidnapped."

According the the charging document, the Boutains were camping in the Red Butte 
Canyon after leaving Colorado where they are also suspects in the murder of a 
man they befriended at an RV trailer camp. Gill said the Boutains confessed to 
that crime. He said they also stole his pickup truck, guns and knives. But once 
they got to Salt Lake City, Gill said the were running out of money. Early in 
the investigation, University of Utah police said the Boutains gave the truck 
an a homeless couple they had met.

The probable cause statement claimed the couple were scoping people to kidnap. 
Kathleen Boutain went to their tent to retrieve clothes for their getaway and 
when she returned to where Austin was, Gill said she was growing impatient and 
wanted Austin to confront someone immediately.

"He was nervous about doing this in daylight," Gill said. "He was worried about 
that and she was encouraging him that it was taking too long and it led to a 
fight over allegedly that it was taking too long to execute their plan, which 
led to the fight and she ran away from him."

Gill said she was pistol whipped and Austin attempted to pursue her when he saw 
a black Camaro coming into the parking area of the Red Butte Canyon hiking 
trail. He said Austin wanted to ask the driver if they had seen Kathleen but 
the driver, Chen Wei Guo wouldn't roll his window down.

"That enraged him," Gill said "So at that point he decided to fire into the 
vehicle, firing multiple shots and the vehicle came to rest to the side of the 
embankment."

Gill said Austin was leaving the scene and reloaded his gun and could hear a 
female speaking inside the vehicle. He said Guo's friend was calling 911.

"He pulled her out and tried to take the phone away and was going to kill her 
there because he didn't want to leave her body on the side of the road," Gill 
said. "He opened the door and what happened is he told her to hand over the 
phone or turn it off and  (friend) decided to do something that was very smart. 
She took the phone and threw it on the ground."

Gill said Austin went over to pickup the phone and that's when the friend took 
off running. He said Austin began firing several times but she managed to 
escape.

The aggravated murder charges against Boutain are death penalty eligible but 
Gill said they will not make a decision on that until later in the process. He 
said Colorado authorities will wait to try the Boutains for their murder. He 
said once the case is over and they are sentenced then they will be extradited 
to Colorado.

(source: good4utah.com)




NEVADA:

Nevada won't return execution drug to Pfizer


An official says Nevada doesn't plan to return one of the drugs obtained for 
use in an upcoming execution, despite a demand by pharmaceutical company Pfizer 
that its drugs not be used for lethal injections.

A spokeswoman acknowledged the Nevada Department of Corrections received a 
letter Oct. 4 similar to one received by officials in Nebraska and reported by 
the Omaha World-Herald.

The Nevada letter, obtained by The Associated Press, seeks the return of the 
sedative diazepam or the opioid painkiller fentanyl if it was manufactured by 
Pfizer.

Nevada prisons spokeswoman Brooke Keast says the state is under no obligation 
to return Pfizer-made diazepam that the state obtained last May through its 
normal pharmacy supplier, Cardinal Health.

Pfizer in May 2016 said it would block distribution of its drugs for executions 
in the 31 states in the U.S. with the death penalty.

(source: Associated Press)





USA:
The Latest Botched Execution Shows There's No Good Way to Kill Someone

What must it be like to survive your own execution?

It happened this week in Ohio. And it's not the 1st time.

On Nov. 15, Ohio was set to execute Alva Campbell. Campbell is terminally ill. 
He's had organs removed and lives with a colostomy bag. He can't breathe or 
walk on his own. The medical personnel had prepared a special pillow-wedge for 
him that would allow him to sit up at a 40-degree angle so that he could 
breathe, during his execution. It was as if they wanted him to be as 
comfortable as possible as they killed him.

Campbell had feared all the complications and asked to be killed by firing 
squad. His request was denied.

After a torturous 80 minutes and multiple failed attempts at finding a suitable 
vein, the death team gave up. Alva Campbell is still alive. At least for now, 
he's beaten the death machine in one of the few states that is still executing 
people.

Campbell is not the 1st person to survive his execution. Romell Broom also 
survived an Ohio execution.

In 2009, Broom laid on the gurney for 2 hours as the execution team stuck 
needles in his body. At one point, Broom even offered to help with his 
execution, no doubt tired of all the poking. After more than a dozen attempts 
to kill him, they gave up.

Broom is alive today. He wrote a book aptly titled Survivor on death row. In 
fact, his lawyers took his case to Ohio's Supreme Court, arguing that it is 
cruel and unusual punishment to face your execution twice. Perhaps Campbell 
will do the same. It seems like a strong argument to me. If the state fails to 
kill you on the 1st attempt, maybe they shouldn't get another chance?

Surviving an execution is unusual. It's hard to imagine what it must be like - 
for the one being executed, for the victims family, the execution team ... all 
the additional trauma.

One young man in Louisiana named Willie Francis survived an attempted execution 
by electric chair. He was only 17 at the time the electric chair malfunctioned. 
He was taken back to prison, and after a series of unsuccessful legal battles, 
he returned to the electric chair almost exactly a year later to meet his 
gruesome death, at the age of 18.

While surviving an execution is exceptional, botched executions are not. They 
are very disturbingly common.

In April 2014, Clayton Lockett's Oklahoma execution made national news. As 
things went wrong, his execution was stopped while he was still alive, and he 
later died of a heart attack, still strapped to the gurney.

In the case of Richard Glossip in Ohio, the state ordered the wrong drugs. 
Instead of potassium chloride, which stops the heart, they ordered potassium 
acetate, a food preservative. He's still alive, which is great since many 
pieces of evidence point to his innocence anyway.

Some folks facing execution consider ending their own lives rather than leaving 
it in the hands of the state.

While on death row in Georgia, Brandon Rhode tried to commit suicide before his 
execution. The prison treated him, and brought him back to health, only to get 
him healthy enough to face his executions. There is something quite sickening 
about it all.

You start to wonder what it does to the people who have the terrible job of 
executing someone. What must be going through the minds of those on the 
execution team as they try so desperately to carry out a "successful" 
execution? They each have a conscience and a soul.

It is not surprising that doctors in North Carolina have refused to participate 
in executions, insisting that it is a violation of their medical oath, to "do 
no harm." They have been instrumental in helping halt executions, at least for 
now. And the medical community has backed them up.

As I wrote my death penalty book, Executing Grace, I talked with one of the men 
responsible for overseeing executions in the state of Florida - Ron McAndrew. 
He was a prison warden in Florida in the 90s, and one of his duties was 
supervising executions by electric chair. He also experienced a botched 
execution.

During the execution of a young man named Pedro Medina, things went terribly 
wrong. As Pedro sat in the electric chair, flames shot from his head, and smoke 
came from his eyes, nose, and ears. The execution took nearly half an hour. In 
Ron's words, "We burned him to death."

Ron was haunted.

The men whom he had killed, literally began to visit him in his sleep.

"I started to have some horrible nightmares," he said. "It was the faces of the 
men that I executed. I woke up and saw them literally sitting on the edge of my 
bed."

He was done with the electric chair. But he wasn't done with the death penalty, 
not yet anyway.

He went to Texas and was trained in lethal injection, hoping to bring a more 
humane means of execution to Florida. But as he supervised executions by lethal 
injection, he was still tormented. It never felt right. Eventually he was done 
with the death penalty. He realized that there is just no good way to kill 
someone.

Now Ron McAndrew has a new vocation. He is an abolitionist. He is an expert 
witness, testifying in more than 100 cases about what he knows. One of those 
things is this: The death penalty is wrong.

The recent failed execution in Ohio is a reminder that the death penalty is a 
failed experiment in America.

The death penalty does not deter crime. It costs more, usually 3 times more, 
than the alternatives like life in prison. And perhaps worst of all, it mirrors 
the very violence it seeks to denounce. The "cure" is as bad as the disease.

It's worth noting that the death certificate of an executed person lists the 
"manner of death" as "homicide." How can we condemn killing when it is done by 
an individual but condone it when it is done by the state? No one is defending 
the heinous, evil crimes that landed Alva Campbell on death row. But killing 
him makes us killers.

Killing is the wrong - no matter whether it is done by a criminal or by the 
state.

When it comes to executing our own people, we are not in the best company. 
China leads the world in executions. Next is Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. The 
U.S. is usually 5th. These countries are not known as the champions of human 
rights - not the best company to keep.

We can do better than killing to show that killing is wrong. Most of the world 
has found ways to deal with dangerous people without killing them.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich claims to be a man of deep faith. I've sent him my book, 
and reached out to him, as have many other pastors and clergy. It becomes hard 
to reconcile execution with the Gospel of Jesus who said, "Blessed are the 
merciful for they will be shown mercy."

Gov. Kasich calls himself pro-life. But abortion is not the only life issue. We 
need leaders today who stand consistently for life, and denounce violence in 
all its ugly forms. We can't be pro-life on 1 issue and pro-death on another.

Killing an old man with a colostomy bag who cannot walk or breathe on his own 
is not pro-life. We can do better.

As for Romell Broom and Alva Campbell, they both have new execution dates. Alva 
Campbell is scheduled for execution on June 5, 2019.

Hopefully, we will have pulled the plug on the death penalty before then.

(source: Commentary; Shane Claiborne is a Red Letter Christian and a founding 
partner of The Simple Way community, a radical faith community in Philadelphia. 
His newest book is Executing Grace: Why It is Time to Put the Death Penalty to 
Death----Sojourners)


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


Dylann Roof's attorneys file motion to delay schedule in death penalty 
appeal----Attorneys representing convicted Charleston church shooter Dylann 
Roof asked a federal judge for more time to find missing documents and prepare 
their brief for the appeal of his death penalty case.

In a motion filed Thursday, attorneys for Dylann Roof asked for the court to 
suspend the briefing schedule for 90 days.

The defense team's legal brief is due on Monday based on the original schedule.

The purpose of the brief is to present the reasons Roof's attorneys believe he 
is entitled to have his conviction overturned. Once the defense team presents 
its brief, the government would have 30 days to answer those arguments.

But Roof's attorneys say they are missing "a significant number of pleadings 
and other essential documents" and are "unable to proceed with the briefing 
process while important items are missing from the record or unavailable to 
us."

Their motion states they are missing 221 sealed pleadings filed in district 
court, at least 1 transcript, and may be missing exhibits presented during 
Roof's trial. The motion states they also do not know whether they have a 
complete and legible set of juror questionnaires as they only obtained them 
from district court last week and have not had time to review them.

Other documents missing include jury commissioner and jury composition files, 
billing records and transcripts from the state trial against Roof.

The motion states the requested 90-day delay would allow them finish collecting 
missing documents and complete a review of the more than 5,000 pages of 
existing transcripts.

Roof was sentenced to death in January after being convicted on 33 federal 
counts in fatal shooting at Mother Emanuel Church on June 17, 2015.

(source: WCSC news)