[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN.

[Rick Halperin]

April 23



TEXAS:

Texas prison system stalls release of public information on 
executions----Earlier this month, defense lawyers claimed Texas was botching 
its executions with old drugs. Now, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice 
has stalled the release of information on how many lethal doses the state has 
and when they expire.



The cloud of secrecy surrounding Texas executions has grown a little darker 
lately.

After death penalty defense lawyers claimed the state's first 2 executions of 
the year were botched because of old lethal injection drugs, the Texas 
Department of Criminal Justice has stalled the release of public information 
regarding the state's supply of lethal doses. Without providing a reason, the 
department told a Texas Tribune reporter last week that it would take an 
estimated 20 business days - until the day before the state's next scheduled 
execution - to provide information on how many lethal doses the state has and 
when they expire.

In the past, the records have been provided in 1/2 the time, and even that 
could be unlawful. The Texas Attorney General's Office handbook on the state's 
public information law says that a governmental body must produce public 
information promptly, without delay. The handbook says it is a "common 
misconception" that agencies can wait 10 business days before releasing the 
information, as the Department of Criminal Justice has regularly done in the 
past regarding execution drugs.

"There's absolutely no excuse," said Joe Larsen, a lawyer who serves on the 
board of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. "The only reason 
they're doing it is to cause problems ... to delay the story."

Asked for comment about the prolonged waiting period, TDCJ spokesman Jason 
Clark said Wednesday that the department fully complies with the Texas Public 
Information Act and that inventory logs of execution drugs are expected to be 
released this week, instead of the previously estimated date of Feb. 21. The 
Tribune requested the information Jan. 23.

9 days later, lawyers for death row inmate John Battaglia filed a last-minute 
appeal before his execution claiming that the state's previous 2 executions 
used old, relabeled drugs for the lethal injection that likely caused one 
inmate to say he felt burning and the other to jerk on the gurney. Clark denied 
the executions were botched, saying both men lost consciousness almost 
immediately and were pronounced dead 13 minutes after being injected with 
pentobarbital, the drug Texas currently uses in executions.

Battaglia lost the appeal, and during his execution he sighed and said, "Oh, 
here, I feel it," according to The Dallas Morning News.

The defense lawyers said in the appeal that the drugs used this year were more 
than a year past their "beyond-use date," similar to an expiration date. (The 
lawyers also claim the beyond-use dates set by the state are "unscientific" and 
not viable). One batch of drugs was previously set to expire on Jan. 22, but 
more than a month ago, the drugs were re-tested and given a new expiration date 
of November, according to the Battaglia appeal. The TDCJ has said it doesn't 
discuss specifics on the current inventory of its execution drugs, but this 
testing has happened at least one other time in the past year, since it last 
reported a purchase of pentobarbital.

According to TDCJ records received by the Tribune last year, drugs set to 
expire in July were removed from stock, and, on the same day, the same number 
of vials were added back to the inventory with an expiration date set for 
exactly 1 year in the future.

"They haven't gotten any new drugs, and they just appear to keep extending the 
beyond-use date," said Maurie Levin, one of the lawyers on the Battaglia filing 
who is involved in multiple lawsuits regarding Texas execution drugs. "The 
thinking is they're only getting older; it's only going to get worse."

Now, the public release of information on the drugs has been stalled. For a 
year, the prison system provided inventory logs and expiration dates to the 
Tribune regularly, releasing the information exactly 10 business days after it 
was requested, often just before 5 p.m.

Justin Gordon, head of the attorney general's office's open records division, 
said government bodies can't wait out the clock to release public information. 
Agencies must release the information "promptly," which in most cases is sooner 
than 10 days, he said. He said the most common reasons agencies give for a 
delay is because a large request requires a lot of time and compilation or 
because the department is handling requests chronologically and has not yet 
gotten to a request yet, even if it's straightforward.

Gordon said his division hammers home to those who repeatedly wait until the 
last minute to provide records that they aren't giving good customer service 
and can't expect requesters to cooperate with them. He said an unnecessary 
delay "just ends up backfiring, in our experience."

The Tribune filed a complaint to the Attorney General's Office against TDCJ's 
repeated delays Monday.

State Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and chairman of the chamber's 
Criminal Justice Committee, said through his chief of staff that he has 
questioned TDCJ about delays in execution information in the past and that the 
department has cited security reasons.

The chairman of the Texas House Corrections Committee, state Rep. James White, 
R-Hillister, said he has no reason to believe the department would delay the 
release out of hostility or without legal advice.

"I don't see any reason why they would purposefully wait until the 11th hour or 
withhold this unless they have a lawful reason to do it," White said.

A precedent of secrecy

The Tribune has tracked Texas' execution drug supply for about a year while 
states around the country struggle to find lethal doses to carry out 
executions. Though there has not been a shortage of drugs reported in Texas in 
several years, the state is always looking for new doses. The prison system is 
currently embroiled in a legal fight with the federal government over the 
attempted overseas import of another drug used in executions.

In 2015, state legislators passed a law to cement an existing practice of 
shielding the identities of all people involved in executions, from the drug 
supplier to the one who inserts the needle. In lobbying for the law, the 
attorney general's office said suppliers reported being threatened by death 
penalty opponents and wouldn't sell to the state anymore unless their 
identities were kept confidential. The existence of any such threats has been 
disputed.

White opposed the new secrecy law, one of only two Republicans to do so during 
the 2015 session. He said Tuesday that he wasn't known as a cheerleader for the 
press, but transparency in government is important. In a statement in the House 
Journal explaining the reason for his 2015 vote, he said potential threats 
against drug suppliers do not mean the government can butcher accountability 
and transparency.

"What if there is an abortion provider or someone connected to an abortion 
provider doing indigent women's health services that receives threats?" he 
wrote. "Could they also ask for anonymity?"

The state is now appealing to the Texas Supreme Court lower court decisions 
that called for the release of supplier information before the secrecy law was 
enacted. Texas' most recent order of compounded pentobarbital came from an 
unknown supplier last February, and it's unknown how long the same supplier had 
been providing drugs to the department.

The most recent records on Texas' inventory came from legal filings from 
lawyers with clients facing imminent execution. If the drugs set to expire in 
January were all given a new beyond-use date, there would likely be 12 lethal 
doses in the state's supply, more than enough for the four executions scheduled 
through May. But that number can't be confirmed because the department has yet 
to provide the inventory logs.

(source: Texas Tribune)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Death Penalty Sought In Girlfriend Slaying, Mother Assault



Prosecutors say they plan to seek the death penalty in the case of a man 
accused of killing his girlfriend and beating her elderly mother earlier this 
year in northeastern Pennsylvania.

52-year-old Joseph Marchetti Jr. is charged with criminal homicide and 
aggravated assault in the Jan. 28 death of 46-year-old Antoinette Wilkinson.

Investigators allege that he beat and shot the victim in their Foster Township 
home and then beat her 72-year-old mother with a lead-filled club before 
shooting himself in the face.

Luzerne County prosecutors cited the nature of the homicide and the attack on 
the older woman as factors that would warrant execution if Marchetti is 
convicted of 1st-degree murder.

A public defender representing Marchetti didn't immediately return a call 
seeking comment Sunday.

(source: Associated Press)