[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----LA., TENN., NEB., S.DAK., UTAH, NEV., USA

[Rick Halperin]

August 9



LOUISIANA:

Man sentenced to death for 1995 slaying of Metairie cab driver to get new trial


The stage is set for a man who was sentenced to death for the 1995 slaying of a 
cab driver in Metairie to receive a new trial later this year.

Teddy Chester did not have adequate legal representation when he was convicted 
for the killing, so he needed to be either retried or set free by Oct. 9, a 
federal judge in New Orleans ruled on June 11.

Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick's office had until Friday to 
appeal U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan's decision. But the office indicated 
Wednesday that it will not exercise that option, according to both the agency 
and Chester's attorney, Cecelia Kappel.

Kappel said her client is due at Gretna's 24th Judicial District Court on 
Thursday for a preliminary hearing ahead of the new trial. She maintains 
Chester's innocence, reiterating that convicted co-defendant Elbert Ratcliff 
was the killer. Ratcliff is serving a life sentence without the possibility of 
parole after exhausting his appeals.

"It's our position justice has been served and that this case should be 
closed," said Kappel, with the Promise of Justice Initiative.

Connick's office declined to elaborate on how it may move forward with 
Chester's case.

Chester, who lived in Kenner, was found guilty in 1997 of 1st-degree murder and 
sent to death row for the killing of 34-year-old John Adams 2 days after 
Christmas in 1995, when Chester was 18.

Authorities found Adams in his taxi on Calhoun Street in Metairie. He had been 
shot once in the back of the head. His business cards were scattered around 
him, and he had $300 in his pockets.

Fingerprints on the business cards led authorities to Ratcliff, who had fled 
with Chester. Ratcliff was later convicted of 2nd-degree murder and sentenced 
to life.

In turn, Ratcliff led investigators to Chester, with each of the men claiming 
they had climbed into Adams' cab to try to sell him something when the other 
man killed the victim to rob him.

Chester, now 40, pursued an appeal in Louisiana's state court system 
reluctantly. He repeatedly expressed a desire to end his appellate efforts and 
face execution before the state Supreme Court upheld his conviction in late 
2016.

In extraordinary remarks, Supreme Court Justice Scott Crichton wrote that if it 
were solely up to him, he would have granted Chester his wish.

But, with help from Kappel's team, Chester soon filed for what is known as 
post-conviction relief in the federal court system, which sent the case to 
Morgan.

According to Morgan's ruling, Chester's team of court-appointed attorneys 
deprived him of his constitutional right to effective legal representation by 
missing key opportunities during the trial to undermine the prosecution's 
theory that Chester fired the gun that killed Adams.

A man named Anthony Curtis said he was driving down the street when he heard 
Adams' shooting and saw Ratcliff emerge from the cab. Ratcliff, who had just 
rummaged through the cab, tucked a gun in his waistband, Curtis said in filings 
presented to Morgan.

But the defense team led by attorneys Graham da Ponte and Cesar Vazquez did not 
call Curtis to testify about what he saw, which would likely have been 
favorable to Chester's defense, Morgan said.

Furthermore, the defense didn't call a blood spatter expert to challenge the 
state's theory that 2 drops of blood on Chester's cap proved he was the 
shooter. A blood spatter expert consulted during the appellate process 
testified that the blood on the cap actually supported Chester's claim that he 
was a bystander and not the triggerman, Morgan noted.

The defense team also didn't challenge the prosecution's assertion that it had 
used a DNA test to establish that the blood on the cap belonged to Adams. In 
fact, the test showed it was possible but "highly unlikely" that Adams was the 
source of the blood drops.

The defense team didn't call any witnesses during the trial. It called 1 
witness during the sentencing phase: Darren Chester, whose testimony 
essentially was that his brother Teddy didn't say anything to him about a 
killing.

Da Ponte on Wednesday said she was pleased to learn Chester would get a new 
trial. Vazquez couldn't be reached Wednesday.

The team that prosecuted Chester was led by Ronald Bodenheimer, who went on to 
become a Jefferson Parish judge and later to serve time in federal prison 
following a corruption scandal at the Gretna courthouse.

Bodenheimer on Wednesday said Vazquez and da Ponte were good attorneys and that 
his devout Catholic faith made pursuing the death penalty against Chester a 
difficult task.

"My whole career, I never sought the death penalty without talking to a priest 
first," Bodenheimer said.

Former Judge Martha Sassone presided over Chester's trial.

(source: The Advocate)






TENNESSEE----impending execution

Death watch inmate gets new attorneys for appeal to federal courts, days before 
execution date


Death watch inmate Billy Ray Irick is asking the U.S. Supreme court to delay 
his execution and review the evidence in his murder conviction.

A new team of attorneys is claiming that Irick was severely mentally ill at the 
time of his offense. They argue that executing a mentally ill person is cruel 
and unusual punishment and violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the 
U.S. Constitution.

Federal public defender Kelley J. Henry from Nashville is now representing 
Irick before the U. S. Supreme Court.

Irick's motion for a new attorney to argue his case in federal court was 
approved earlier Tuesday by a federal judge from the U.S. District Court of 
Middle Tennessee.

Unless the Supreme Court intervenes to delay his execution, Irick is scheduled 
to die at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison on Thursday at 7 p.m.

(source: WKRN news)

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

Former Tennessee Supreme Court justice shares history of death penalty


Former Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Gary Wade says the decision to put 
someone to death is not an easy one. The state carried out 4 executions during 
his time in office. "I remember all 4 vividly," he said.

But upholding a death sentence does not come without moral conflict.

"I have concerns, as I think many other judges do," Judge Wade said. "And the 
question in their own minds is whether they can continue to be fair and 
impartial and impose the penalty of death even if their inner feelings suggest 
otherwise."

The history of capital punishment in Tennessee dates back to 1796. The 1st 
method of execution: by hanging. It wasn't until the 1900s when electrocution 
became the law of the land for death penalty cases in Tennessee.

In 1986, convicted killer and child rapist Billy Ray Irick was ordered to be 
put to death by this method, but it was during a period when death penalty was 
not administered in the state.

"At that time, there were unusual delays in the middle district of Tennessee 
and for whatever reason, many believe that the federal judge at that time 
closest to Riverbend was opposed to the death penalty," Wade said.

Tennessee resumed capital punishment in 2000, and by then, lethal injection was 
the new method of execution. It continues to be used today despite moral 
challenges.

"It's always been upheld and more recently, the opinions suggest that a little 
pain whether it's lethal injection or electrocution is not a basis in which to 
find the penalty is cruel and unusual," Wade said.

The most recent state-ordered date with death was in 2009.

"In my view, the reason for the delay has been nothing more than the lack of 
availability of the drug and that's become an increasing problem for states 
that maintain the death penalty," Wade said.

And now, if all goes as planned, Billy Ray Irick will be the 1st person in 
Tennessee to die by death penalty in nearly a decade, bringing justice to a 
high profile case after 32 years.

"It sends the message of accountability," Wade said, "that should a jury return 
a sentence of death, that it is likely to happen."

Irick is scheduled to be put to death Aug. 9 in Nashville at 8 p.m. Eastern 
time.

(source; WATE news)

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

First conservative TN Supreme Court in decades changed rule, paving way for 
Irick execution


A Tennessee Supreme Court with a conservative-leaning majority for the 1st time 
in decades took direct aim at death penalty opponents in its refusal to block 
convicted killer Billy Ray Irick's scheduled execution.

The high court earlier this week turned aside Irick???s last-minute bid to 
avoid death in the 1985 rape and murder of 7-year-old Paula Dyer in Knox County 
via a challenge of the state Department of Correction lethal injection protocol

'Convincing drug companies'

In a footnote in a decision by a majority of Republican appointees, the high 
court blamed "anti-death-penalty advocates" for robbing TDOC of sources of 
supply for lethal injection drugs and creating legal battles as a result.

"It bears noting at this point that TDOC's revisions of its lethal injection 
protocol since 2010 have been necessitated by the success anti-death-penalty 
advocates have had in convincing drug companies not to provide certain drugs 
for use in executions," the panel's majority opinion stated.

Stacy Rector, executive director of the Tennesseans Against the Death Penalty 
advocacy group, said death penalty opponents she works with don't lobby drug 
makers or suppliers.

"We don't do that," she said.

Instead, Rector said, they lobby voters and policymakers.

"Our focus is education," she said. "We think the whole policy is broken and 
dysfunctional, and not working in Tennessee. Regardless of the method of 
execution, we are working to end the death penalty as a policy, period."

Ideological shift

The make-up of the state Supreme Court changed in 2015 when Democratic 
appointee Gary Wade stepped down as justice. That was the same year the high 
court enacted a rule that the now conservative-leaning majority is using to bar 
Irick from a reprieve.

The panel changed the rule without inviting public comment by approaching it as 
an amendment. The change created a legal barrier for last-minute reprieves for 
the condemned for matters that have nothing to do with whether they are guilty 
or should be executed for their crime.

The condemned now must prove they can win an appeal of their "collateral" legal 
argument using a "likelihood of success" standard, which mirrors current U.S. 
Supreme Court case law and streamlines the appellate process for the condemned 
in Tennessee.

"The present case is the first case presented to this Court governed by the 
amended version of (the rule)," the majority wrote in its denial of the stay.

"Consequently, to obtain a stay at this time, Mr. Irick must establish a 
likelihood of success, and he has failed to satisfy this standard."

Justice Sharon Lee was the lone dissenter in denying Irick, 59, a stay. She and 
Justice Cornelia A. Clark are the sole Democratic appointees on the 5-judge 
high court panel.

She conceded she was on the panel that approved the rule change. But she 
accused the majority of a "rush to execution" and pushed for a brief delay - to 
allow Irick to live long enough for a full appellate review of the lethal 
injection drug protocol he and 32 other condemned inmates are challenging as 
too painful to pass constitutional muster.

The majority pushed back.

"In fact, this suggestion is astonishing, actually, given that Mr. Irick was 
convicted and sentenced 32 years ago and has obtained multiple stays over the 
years," the majority wrote.

The majority opinion does not bear the name of the author and is supposed to 
reflect the collective opinion of the 4 justices in the majority - Chief 
Justice Jeffry S. Bivins and Justices Holly Kirby, Roger Page and Clark.

More powers, less precedent

The majority - with Lee often the sole dissenter - has been tilting in its 
decisions and rulemaking toward drawing Tennessee law into line with U.S. 
Supreme Court decisions and standards - even when the state's Constitution has 
been interpreted by liberal-leaning Tennessee Supreme Court panels as providing 
greater protections for the accused than its federal counterpart.

In the past 2 years, the high court has approved the limited use of a federal 
exception for law enforcers who make mistakes in drafting or executing search 
warrants, overturning the court's own decades-long precedent that afforded no 
such break.

The court has broadened law enforcers' authority to carry out warrantless 
searches and - as shown in Irick's case - raised the hurdle for the condemned 
trying to outrun execution.

Veteran defense attorney Stephen Ross Johnson has watched high courts tilt - in 
Tennessee and across the country - in recent years toward what he called a 
reverse federalism.

"The modern trend is for state courts to adopt federal constitutional standards 
in interpreting state constitutions and other legal standards," he said. "In 
relatively recent times, Tennessee has followed suit."

Swinging pendulum?

Johnson said when the U.S. Supreme Court decades ago began tilting in its 
rulings toward broader police powers and fewer protections for accused, state 
supreme courts and state legislatures across the country beefed up protections 
in their own laws.

"The pendulum has now swung the other way in Tennessee and elsewhere," he said 
Wednesday. '... in an effort to have uniformity of law, many state courts are 
reversing decades of their precedent and tacking to federal decisions.

"In my opinion, this trend is not a positive one, since it concentrates too 
much power in too few decision makers - namely nine judges in Washington, DC - 
and further removes the states from the individual laboratories of democracy 
they were intended to be by our nation's founders," he said.

Irick is now under death watch. He is scheduled to be executed Thursday evening 
in Nashville.

(source: Knoxville News Sentinel)

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

Death Penalty In Tennessee - The Cost To Us And A Solution


I am going to wade off into the deep waters of public discourse for the 1st 
time. Favor me with a few moments.

Billy Ray Irrick is scheduled to die by the hand of the Tennessee state 
government Thursday night August 9, 2018. There is much debate regarding this 
case on a state and national level as well as others waiting in the wings for 
the same fate.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this case there is more information on 
the 11alive website. Please, only read this if you have a strong stomach. I 
studied it last night. I wish I hadn't, I did not sleep well.

In reading the information, if you are so inclined, you will see enough blame 
to go around, poor decisions by the family of the child, less than stellar 
living conditions, human suffering and yes, a tragic end to the life of a very 
young girl. Ultimately though, Mr. Irrick is responsible as has been determined 
repeatedly.

For over 30 years he has dodged the reaper, now his time is 'nigh. And still 
there are those who fight for this person. The legal arguments in his defense 
have ran the gamut from 'mental incompetence', poor upbringing, drug, and 
alcohol addiction and finally in the world we live in today, the fear he will 
suffer due to an ineffective mixture of drugs to be administered to him.

While I understand the Constitution and the prohibition of 'cruel and unusual 
punishment' rule I do not understand the misplaced compassion for this person. 
Yes, he is a human, Yes, he deserves careful debate in the court of law as to 
his fate. But he has had all of that. And then some.

I'll not go into the old 'eye for an eye' chestnut, just too Old Testament for 
me. What I will say is this: he has had more than his share of 'days in court', 
he has been found and verified guilty time and again. His time has run out. Now 
he must pay.

Be that right or wrong is irrelevant to my opinion here, what matters to me, 
and should to you, whichever side you take is this simple thing. The relevance 
of the debate over the drugs used to kill him. We are not talking about a short 
rope and a tall tree here, but a lethal dose of drugs, some may say 'cobbled 
together at the whim of a power that is'. That is fair enough. Suffering at the 
end, whether you say, 'too bad' or 'oh no', matters not. Quite simply it 
doesn't have to be. And I'll tell you why.

There is a much simpler solution, readily available to us in bulk. It is so 
simple in fact I'm surprised others who are much smarter than me haven't 
thought of it. It is staring us in the face.

Fentanyl.

Each year the state of Tennessee spends several millions of dollars combating 
this drug, every year people die from it, each month it is seized in quantity, 
not only in this state but others. It is everywhere. Each year some tens of 
thousands of people die nationwide from it. It is deadly, it has a proven track 
record.

It works.

So, put it to use.

Instead of the last-minute arguments over this drug mixture or that. Just 
choose the obvious substance that has been proven beyond a doubt to absolutely, 
without fail, work every time. It's just that easy. There has been an abundance 
of it seized. It will be burned or disposed of somehow, so use it.

We are spending money hand over fist on interdiction, seizure, prosecution, and 
Narcan. It's time we finally found a way to save money on both execution drugs 
and lawsuits. I can't see anyone saying, 'It may not be effective!'. It is. 
It's time.

Stop wasting money and use the best tool available.

Russ Donegan

(source: Opinion, The Chattanoogan)






NEBRASKA----impending execution

Drugmaker seeks to block Nebraska from using execution drugs


A German pharmaceutical company has filed a lawsuit to prevent Nebraska from 
using lethal injection drugs next week in what would be the state's 1st 
execution in more than 2 decades.

The federal lawsuit filed late Tuesday could delay the Aug. 14 execution of 
Carey Dean Moore, who was sentenced to death for killing 2 Omaha cab drivers in 
1979. The company, Fresenius Kabi, opposes the use of its drugs in executions 
and alleges that the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services' supply of 
potassium chloride was made by the company.

Moore has stopped fighting the state's efforts to execute him , leaving death 
penalty opponents with no real options other than to hope a drug manufacturer 
challenged the state's use of its products. In Nevada, a judge indefinitely 
postponed an execution last month after drugmaker Alvogen filed a similar 
lawsuit over one of its products.

Nebraska state officials have refused to identify the source of their drugs, 
but Fresenius Kabi alleges the state's supply of the drug is stored in 30 
milliliter vials. Fresenius Kabi said it's the only company that supplies 
potassium chloride in vials that size. The company said it may also have 
manufactured the state's supply of cisatracurium, and that Nebraska's use of 
its drugs would damage its reputation and business relationships.

"While Fresenius Kabi takes no position on capital punishment, Fresenius Kabi 
opposes the use of its products for this purpose and therefore does not sell 
certain drugs to correctional facilities," company attorneys wrote in the 
lawsuit.

The company said it only sells those products to wholesalers and distributors 
who sign a contract agreeing not to supply the drugs to correctional 
departments.

"These drugs, if manufactured by Fresenius Kabi, could only have been obtained 
by (the corrections department) in contradiction and contravention of the 
distribution contracts the company has in place and therefore through improper 
or illegal means," the company said in the lawsuit.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said 
the lethal injection drugs were purchased lawfully "and pursuant to the state 
of Nebraska's duty to carry out lawful capital sentences."

A spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services did not 
immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nebraska has never carried out an execution by lethal injection, and the state 
plans to use an untried combination of four drugs during Moore's scheduled 
execution. The state's last execution, in 1997, used the electric chair, which 
the Nebraska Supreme Court later declared unconstitutional.

Nebraska's current execution protocol calls for 4 drugs: the sedative diazepam, 
commonly known as Valium, to render the inmate unconscious; fentanyl citrate, a 
powerful synthetic opioid; cisatracurium besylate, which induces paralysis and 
halts the inmate's breathing; and potassium chloride to stop the heart.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, a leading death penalty 
opponent, praised the company's intervention and chastised the state for 
refusing to release documents identifying the supplier. State officials have 
done so in the past without objection.

"While more states are turning away from the death penalty, Nebraska officials 
are rushing to carry out an execution cloaked in secrecy with an untested 
4-drug scheme that carries immeasurable risks for unnecessary pain and a 
botched execution," said Danielle Conrad, the group's executive director.

The lawsuit is not Nebraska's 1st run-in with Fresenius Kabi. Last year, a 
company spokesman told The Associated Press that state officials had obtained a 
batch of its potassium chloride in 2015 because one of its distributors made a 
mistake.

A company spokesman said at the time that Fresenius Kabi discovered the sale 
through an internal audit and requested that the Department of Correctional 
Services return the drugs, but state officials never did. Those drugs expired 
in January 2017.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Ex-public defender: Nebraska death row inmate's sentencing may have been 
unconstitutional


Former public defender Robert Dunham thinks the sentencing of Nebraska's 
longest-serving death row inmate, Carey Dean Moore, may not have been legal.

Dunham, who is the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, 
says Nebraska's death penalty system is not like those in some states - judges 
rather than juries decide whether a defendant should be sentenced to die - and 
that could raise grounds for a constitutional challenge.

"In Nebraska, the sentencing is done by a 3-judge panel and the United States 
Supreme Court has ruled that a defendant in a death penalty case has a 
constitutional right to have a jury determine the facts that make him eligible 
for the death penalty, and that didn't happen in his case," Dunham told Hill.TV 
co-hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on "Rising."

Dunham is referring to the 2002 case Ring v. Arizona.

In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Arizona's capital sentencing 
procedure violated the Sixth Amendment's jury trial guarantee by entrusting a 
judge to find the factors necessary for imposing the death penalty.

But since Moore has not authorized his lawyers to attack this particular aspect 
of the state's system, Dunham said, "it's probable that he was unconditionally 
sentenced to death."

Moore has tried to challenge his death row sentence on multiple occasions, and 
also tried to escape death row by attempting to swap clothes with his 
then-incarcerated twin brother.

But the 60-year-old inmate has since accepted his punishment and has made it 
clear to his lawyers that he doesn't want to fight his scheduled execution on 
August 14.

Moore was sentenced to death for the murder of two Omaha cab drivers in 1979. 
If the state follows through, it would mark the state's f1st execution in more 
than 2 decades.

Nebraska, like many states, has been struggling with the financial and moral 
obligations of the death penalty for some time. The Nebraska Legislator 
overrode Gov. Pete Ricketts???s (R) veto and repealed the death penalty in 
2015. But it was reinstated a year later after Ricketts personally bankrolled a 
referendum to bring it back.

(source: thehill.com)

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

Ricketts: State will move forward with execution


Gov. Pete Ricketts on Wednesday said he expects the state's Department of 
Corrections will carry out the execution of Nebraska's longest serving death 
row inmate on schedule next week.

"I'm not aware of anything that will delay the execution," Ricketts said 
Wednesday after acknowledging a lawsuit filed Tuesday by a pharmaceutical 
company seeking to prevent Nebraska from using its drugs as part of a lethal 
injection.

"Our plan is to continue to move forward," Ricketts added.

Carey Dean Moore, sentenced to death for the 1979 slayings of Omaha cab drivers 
Reuel Van Ness Jr. and Maynard Helgeland, would be the 1st Nebraska inmate to 
be executed since 1997.

Last week, Pope Francis changed the Catholic Church's stance on capital 
punishment, calling it "inadmissible because it is an attack on the 
inviolability and dignity of the person."

Protesters gathered outside of St. Margaret Mary Parish in Omaha, where 
Ricketts is a parishioner, on Sunday, 12 days before Moore's scheduled 
execution date of Aug. 14.

Ricketts said he wasn't bothered by the protests or the communication appealing 
to his faith, saying he swore an oath to uphold the constitution and laws of 
the Nebraska.

He also said he doesn't have any control over the decisions made by the church 
or its officials, but that his "conscience is that we need to have capital 
punishment in this state."

"There's a number of people expressing their difference of opinion with regard 
to this, but the people of Nebraska have been very clear," the governor said.

A statewide referendum in 2016, funded in part by $300,000 of the governor's 
personal money, reinstated the death penalty in Nebraska a year after the 
Legislature had abolished it over a veto from Ricketts.

The repeal of the death penalty was rejected by a 61 to 39 percent margin, 
which Ricketts called "absolute proof" of the state's will to protect citizens, 
law enforcement and corrections officers and even other inmates.

"The people of Nebraska spoke loud and clear that they wanted to retain capital 
punishment as part of our overall state laws to protect public safety," 
Ricketts said. "Our job is to carry that out."

(source: Lincoln Journal Star)

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

Son of Carey Dean Moore victim speaks ahead of scheduled execution


Steve Helgeland was 13 years-old when he was pulled out of his junior high 
classroom and told his father had been murdered.

His father, Maynard Helgeland, was 1 of the 2 taxi cab drivers murdered by 
Carey Dean Moore in August of 1979.

Steve Helgeland remembers arriving in Omaha and learning the news.

"One thing I recall vividly is the gurney with my dad's body on the news as 
they wheeled it away," Helgeland said.

Helgeland says his father, an Air Force veteran, struggled for years with 
alcoholism and depression.

At one point, he lost both his feet to frostbite after drunkenly passing out in 
his cab.

But Helgeland says his father was starting to turn his life around when he was 
shot several times by Moore who allegedly was looking for drug money.

"It was just a straight up act of evil," Helgeland said.

Nearly 4 decades have passed since, along with seven scheduled executions for 
Moore which have failed to materialize.

Those years have been frustrating for Helgeland and his family.

He says it's "ridiculous" that the state hasn't taken action in the case.

Moore faces execution once again on Tuesday, but Helgeland thinks the result 
will be the same as it's always been.

"I just don't have any faith in the state of Nebraska for making it happen," he 
said. "They haven't been able to do it in 38 years."

Helgeland says time hasn't healed the pain of his father's murder.

He says he's angry and that he just wants that horrific chapter of his life to 
finally be over, whether that be by Moore's execution or a decision to keep him 
imprisoned for life.

Helgeland will be in Lincoln the day of Moore's execution, but says he doesn't 
want to watch it.

"I don't have any interest in watching another human being die," he said. "It 
won't provide me with any... closure as people like to say."

(source: KLKN TV news)

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

German drug maker claims US state illegally obtained its product for execution


German drug maker Fresenius Kabi is suing to halt a planned execution in 
Nebraska, claiming the US state illegally obtained the company's drugs to use 
for the lethal injection procedure.

Fresenius Kabi filed the lawsuit Tuesday evening, saying the state was planning 
to use two of its drugs on August 14th to put to death convicted killer Carey 
Dean Moore.

Moore is sentenced to death for the 1979 murder of 2 taxi drivers. He is not 
contesting his execution order, but it could nevertheless be delayed by the 
lawsuit.

If carried out, the execution would be Nebraska's 1st in 21 years and its 1st 
ever lethal injection.

The state plans to use 4 drugs - the sedative Diazepam, the powerful narcotic 
painkiller fentanyl citrate, the muscle relaxer cisatracurium and potassium 
chloride, which stops the heart.

Fresenius Kabi believes it is the source of the latter 2 drugs and is asking a 
federal judge to issue an order either temporarily or permanently blocking the 
state from using the injectable medications.

"While Fresenius Kabi takes no position on capital punishment, Fresenius Kabi 
opposes the use of its products for this purpose and therefore does not sell 
certain drugs to correctional facilities," the company said in its civil 
complaint.

"These drugs, if manufactured by Fresenius Kabi, could only have been obtained 
by defendants in contradiction and contravention of the distribution contracts 
the company has in place and therefore through improper or illegal means."

The drug maker claims that with state executions regarded negatively among the 
majority of the European public, it could suffer "great reputational injury," 
if its drugs are used for capital punishment.

The state of Nebraska has released limited information about the drugs and has 
not disclosed their source -- reflecting a general dilemma for US states that 
continue to carry out the death penalty via lethal injection.

Injectable drugs have become harder to acquire amid public opposition and a 
reluctance -- or outright hostility - among drug manufacturers to sell their 
products to prisons for use in executions.

"Nebraska's lethal injection drugs were purchased lawfully and pursuant to the 
State of Nebraska's duty to carry out lawful capital sentences," the state 
attorney general's office said in a curt statement.

Last month, a similar lawsuit by drug maker Alvogen at least temporarily halted 
an execution in Nevada.

(source: thelocal.de)






SOUTH DAKOTA----new execution date

Rodney Berget to be executed this fall for killing prison guard R.J. Johnson


Rodney Berget, 1 of 2 men convicted of murdering a South Dakota State 
Penitentiary guard in 2011, is scheduled to be put to death this fall.

Attorney General Marty Jackley said Berget is slated to face execution by 
lethal injection during the week of Oct. 28-Nov. 3, 2018. The exact date and 
time will be announced by the penitentiary warden 48 hours before the 
execution.

Berget, 55, pleaded guilty in 2012 to killing Ronald "R.J." Johnson in a failed 
prison escape attempt in 2011 with fellow inmate Eric Robert. Berget was 
scheduled to face execution in 2015, but his execution was stayed.

Robert was executed in 2012.

A 3rd inmate, Michael Nordman, was sentenced to life in prison for providing 
plastic wrap and a pipe used to kill Johnson.

Berget's mental status and eligibility for capital punishment have played a 
central role in delaying the court process. Berget in August 2016 appealed his 
death penalty sentence, but in September 2016 asked to withdraw his appeal.

"I want this to be the last day I appear in court," Berget said in court in 
September 2016.

Berget's attorney, Eric Schulte, disagreed with his client's decision to drop 
the appeal. Schulte told the court he wanted to review Berget's functionality 
and mental capacity to see if he was eligible for the death penalty.

Berget in 2017 sent a letter to the court saying he wants his death sentence to 
be carried out because he was worried the death penalty will be repealed in 
South Dakota, and he didn't want to spend the rest of his life "in a cage."

A judge ruled in February that Berget does not have an intellectual disability 
and is eligible for his original death penalty sentence.

Delays are still a possibility in the case: issues or questions could be filed 
- either from Berget's attorneys or questions from the Governor's Office, state 
or federal judges - between now and October.

Jackley said he is confident in the timing of the warrant of execution. There 
are no pending actions in the case, and the conviction and sentence have been 
deemed appropriate by the trial judge, state Supreme Court and habeas court.

Jackley, who also prosecuted Robert's case and witnessed Robert's execution, 
has been in communication with Johnson's family throughout the process and 
consulted with them before issuing the warrant of execution.

"I've seen firsthand the struggles and challenges RJ Johnson's family - wife, 
children and grandchildren - have gone through," Jackley said Wednesday. "It's 
important to continue to move this case forward to help bring some level of 
closure for RJ Johnson's family."

At a February hearing in Minnehaha County, Lynette Johnson, RJ Johnson's widow, 
shared the anguish over her family's ordeal.

"It has been an emotional, torturous roller coaster," she said at the hearing. 
"We just try to get through it the best that we know how."

(source: Sioux Falls Argus Leader)

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

South Dakota sets execution for man in prison guard's death


A man who pleaded guilty to the 2011 killing of a South Dakota prison guard is 
set to be executed in the fall, the state's attorney general said Wednesday.

Attorney General Marty Jackley said in a statement that Rodney Berget, 56, is 
scheduled to be executed between Oct. 28 and Nov. 3. Jackley's office said the 
warden of the state penitentiary will choose the specific time and date, which 
will be announced within 48 hours of the execution.

Circuit Court Judge Bradley Zell issued a warrant of execution for Berget, who 
would be the 1st person put to death in South Dakota in roughly 6 years.

"We will be ready to carry out the order of the court," Department of 
Corrections Secretary Denny Kaemingk said in a statement.

Berget pleaded guilty in April 2012 to killing Ronald "R.J." Johnson in a 
failed prison escape attempt in April 2011 along with fellow inmate Eric 
Robert, who was executed in 2012.

An attorney for Berget wasn't immediately available to comment to The 
Associated Press. Berget's mental status and death penalty eligibility have 
played a key role in court delays.

Berget in 2016 appealed his death sentence, but later asked to withdraw the 
appeal against the advice of his lawyers, the Argus Leader reported .

"I want this to be the last day I appear in court," Berget said at a September 
2016 hearing.

The last execution in South Dakota was the lethal injection of Donald Moeller 
on Oct. 30, 2012, for the killing of Becky O'Connell.

State Department of Corrections policy says lethal injections involve 1 to 3 
drugs, depending on drug availability and the date of the prisoner's 
conviction. State law makes a drug supplier confidential.

(source: Associated Press)






UTAH:

Funds authorized for defense of Ogden couple in death penalty case


Weber County commissioners have agreed to continue covering the cost of public 
defenders for 2 Ogden parents charged with murdering their toddler in a 
potential death penalty case.

The county's 3-member commission unanimously approved new contracts for the 
attorneys at its Tuesday meeting, but not without some reluctance.

"This is frustrating," said Commissioner Jim Harvey. "People in the community 
make horrible decisions each county taxpayer, their property tax, has to pay 
for, because of state code. That bothers me."

A judge early in the case decided Brenda Emile, 23, and Miller Costello, 26, 
could not afford to hire lawyers and appointed them public defenders. State law 
requires the county to foot the bill.

But Weber's existing contracts with defense attorneys do not cover death 
penalty cases, because of the vast amounts of time and work they can take, so a 
new deal was needed, deputy Weber County attorney Bryan Baron told the board.

The contracts provided by the county show a lead attorney for each parent will 
receive $170 per hour, and a second attorney will make $140 an hour. Attorney 
fees for each defendant are capped at $100,000, or $70,000 if prosecutors 
decide before a trial to no longer pursue a death penalty.

Baron said the total cost of the case is a "shot in the dark." But he reviewed 
the cost of defense in nine other capital cases in Utah and found they cost an 
average of $220,000 apiece, he said.

Weber County officials previously decided not to contribute to a statewide 
defense fund that helps local government covers such costs because of the price 
tag, Baron said Tuesday, but he didn't know the exact fee.

The new contracts will help inform the commission's decision when it next 
considers whether to buy into a state indigent defense fund, but no immediate 
decision has been made, Harvey said Wednesday.

Prosecutors have said they would seek the death penalty if the couple accused 
of beating, burning and not feeding their daughter Angelina is convicted of a 
charge of aggravated murder, a 1st-degree felony. The pair has pleaded not 
guilty and is due back in court in Ogden Aug. 13.

(source: Deseret News)






NEVADA:

Nevada death-row inmate: 'Just get it done'


A Nevada death-row inmate whose execution has been postponed twice said a legal 
fight over his fate is taking a tortuous toll on him and his family and he just 
wants his sentence carried out.

The state should "just get it done, just do it effectively and stop fighting 
about it," Scott Raymond Dozier told The Associated Press.

"I want to be really clear about this. This is my wish," Dozier said in a brief 
telephone call from Ely State Prison. "They should stop punishing me and my 
family for their inability to carry out the execution."

Dozier's comments Wednesday came a month after a judge in Las Vegas postponed 
his execution at nearly the final hour.

Nevada law calls for capital punishment by lethal injection. But pharmaceutical 
companies nationwide have objected to their medicines being used in executions.

On Thursday, a 3rd drug company is due to ask Clark County District Court Judge 
Elizabeth Gonzalez to let it join with 2 other firms suing to block the use of 
their products for a 3-drug lethal injection.

State Attorney General Adam Laxalt's office is expected to ask Clark County 
District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez on Thursday to reject the Sandoz Inc. 
bid to join case.

State Deputy Solicitor General Jordan T. Smith has argued that the maker of a 
muscle paralytic agent that officials plan to use as the 3rd drug didn't object 
before Dozier's execution was postponed in November and is now jumping on a 
public relations wave with drugmakers Alvogen and Hikma Pharmaceuticals.

Gonzalez last week allowed Hikma, a maker of the powerful opioid fentanyl, to 
join Alvogen, producer of the sedative midazolam, in a lawsuit on a speedy 
track toward a Sept. 10 hearing.

The companies say they publicly declared they didn't want their products used 
in executions and allege that Nevada improperly obtained their drugs.

Nevada, which hasn't executed an inmate since 2006, has become a model of the 
trouble that death penalty states have had in recent years obtaining drugs for 
lethal injections.

Prison officials want to reschedule Dozier's execution for mid-November, and 
are asking the Nevada Supreme Court to quickly consider and overturn Gonzalez's 
temporary order not to use midazolam.

15 states are siding with Nevada before the state Supreme Court in a battle 
pitting prominent pharmaceutical firms against more than 1/2 the 31 states in 
the U.S. with the death penalty.

Dozier, 47, called the fight over his fate a legal "maelstrom."

He said he wants to go through with his lethal injection and he really doesn't 
care if he feels pain. Critics have said he's seeking state-assisted suicide.

"I don't even really want to die," Dozier said, "but I'd rather die than spend 
my life in prison."

The inmate said he was not contesting his convictions and sentences. But he 
also denied committing the 2002 drug-related murders in Phoenix and Las Vegas 
for which he was convicted and sentenced in 2007 to death.

"For the record, I'm asserting my innocence," Dozier said. But, "I'm not going 
to be the guy in prison who is going to complain, 'This is an injustice.' 
That's over. I had my chance."

(source: ajc.com)






USA:

Allowing death penalty is Catholic doctrine and cannot be overturned: 2 
Catholic profs


2 U.S. Catholic professors who authored what many consider to be a rigorous 
defense of Catholic teaching on capital punishment say that Pope Francis' new 
teaching on the subject appears to be "contradicting scripture, tradition, and 
all previous popes." And, he may be "committing a doctrinal error."

It's been a busy week for Edward Feser and Joseph Bessette, joint authors of By 
Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment. 
Published by Ignatius Press in May 2017, the work is a comprehensive guide to 
the teaching of the Catholic Church on the death penalty. Thanks to Pope 
Francis' surprise alteration to the Catechism of the Catholic Church last week, 
both men are now in the spotlight.

Feser, an assistant professor of philosophy at Pasadena City College, told 
LifeSiteNews that the new teaching, "like many of Pope Francis's doctrinal 
statements, is obscure."

"On the one hand, the CDF letter announcing the change asserts that the new 
teaching 'is not in contradiction' with previous teaching. On the other hand, 
the pope is saying that the death penalty should never be used -- which goes 
beyond John Paul II's teaching that it should be 'very rare' -- and Francis 
justifies this claim on doctrinal grounds, rather than the prudential grounds 
that John Paul appealed to," he said.

"Moreover, Pope Francis claims that the use of capital punishment conflicts 
with 'the inviolability and dignity of the person,' which makes it sound like 
it is intrinsically contrary to natural law. So, the actual substance of the 
teaching seems to be that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong. If that is 
what the pope is saying, then he is contradicting scripture, tradition, and all 
previous popes, and is therefore committing a doctrinal error, which is 
possible when popes do not speak ex-cathedra [from the chair]," he added.

To believe that the Church can contradict its doctrines, whether concerning 
artificial contraception or capital punishment or other moral teachings, is 
"not compatible with what the Church says about herself."

'We are defending the integrity of the Church'

Feser said that when their book came out, he and Joseph Bessette received a 
torrent of personal attacks, criticism he calls "childish nonsense."

"We are defending the integrity of the Church," he said.

Feser pointed out that many defenders of the Church's perennial doctrine, like 
the late Cardinal Avery Dulles and Cardinal Charles J. Chaput, are themselves 
personally opposed to the death penalty. Nevertheless, they do not deny the 
teaching.

"I't's so odd that so many people want to make it personal," the philosopher 
said. "Just look at the arguments."

Feser sees Pope Francis's change to the catechism as highly problematic.

"As in other instances in the past 5 years, ambiguity is a factor," he said. 
"But I think it is worse than that."

He notes that Cardinal Ladaria presented an introductory letter stating that 
Francis's change is "not in contradiction with the prior teachings of the 
Magisterium' but not explaining how it isn't a rupture. And if it is true that 
capital punishment is inadmissible because it is "an attack on dignity", then 
it follows, Feser said, that the Law of Moses was "an attack on dignity" and 
that Pope John Paul II's assertion that capital punishment was legitimate in 
rare circumstances was an "attack on dignity."

In Pope Francis's defense, the philosopher said that it was possible that the 
pontiff was just not interested in doctrine. Feser was unsure this was a 
defense, however, as "safeguard of doctrine is the pope's job." However, given 
remarks Pope Francis made last October, when he said that capital punishment 
was "per se contrary to the Gospel", the change to the catechism is "less bad 
than what it looked like we were getting", Feser believes, as this earlier 
formulation made it sound as if capital punishment were "intrinsically evil."

In terms of a truly authentic development on Church doctrine on capital 
punishment, Feser argues Pope John Paul II took it as far as he could take it, 
and moreover that he didn't take it as far as people think. Although many 
people believe JP2 restricted it to only to prevent the direct endangerment of 
the innocent, "if you actually read [Evangelium Vitae], it's not really there," 
the philosopher said. The perennial doctrine of the Church is that capital 
punishment is legitimate also as a deterrent and as retributive justice.

"The only thing that can be done is recommending against [the death penalty] in 
practice," Feser said. The principle, however, must remain.

He underscored that these are not just his "assertions."

"We analyse this in painstaking fashion in our book," Feser said and voiced 
some frustration with how little his and Bessette's critics are willing to 
engage with their arguments. They are not only unable to grasp the evidence, 
not only that the Church has never decreed that capital punishment is 
intrinsically evil, but that many social scientists do believe it has a 
deterrent value. Feser said that it was "rash" and "irresponsible" for 
Churchmen with no sociological expertise to "throw out bromides" about human 
dignity. If the death penalty is a deterrent, then those who wish to abolish it 
are "risking the lives of the innocent."

'Pro-life' is not a 'magic theological bullet'

Impatient of sentimentality and anti-intellectualism, Feser is similarly 
dismissive of those who say that people who are against abortion but support 
the death penalty aren't really pro-life.

"'Pro-life' is a modern American political slogan," Feser declared. "It has no 
philosophical or theological content at all."

The word is not a "magic theological bullet," he stressed. He pointed out that 
one could just as easily tell someone that they aren't "pro-freedom" because 
they support the incarceration of people guilty of crimes. Scripture is very 
clear that one can lose the right to life through murder; there is a difference 
between protecting the right to life of the innocent and that of the guilty, 
just as there is a difference between unjustly depriving the innocent of their 
freedom and justly locking up the guilty in prison.

Feser was raised a Catholic, but his philosophical studies gradually led to 
atheism. However, the history of philosophy, ancient and medieval, brought him 
back to the faith.

The philosopher's interest in the death penalty was prompted by Pope John Paul 
II. Feser had supported the use of capital punishment, both as an atheist and 
as a Catholic, but he noticed that John Paul II's personal opposition was 
changing people's perceptions of what the Church actually taught.

"I saw people being pushed to an extreme [abolitionist] position," Feser said.

He was troubled by what he saw as "an attack on the rationality and 
consistency" of the Catholic Church, when it was that very rationality and 
consistency that he admired. He had previously been looking for "wiggle-room" 
on the teaching against artificial contraception, but had been impressed that 
Paul VI had affirmed the teaching "when the whole world was against him."

"I was impressed by the sheer intransigence," he chuckled.

Feser's co-author Joseph Bessette, a professor of government and ethics at 
Claremont McKenna College in California, told LifeSiteNews via email that he 
first became interested in capital punishment while growing up in 
Massachusetts, where it was a "hotly debated topic" in the 1950s and 1960s.

"Later, in the early 1980s I worked in the prosecutor's office in Chicago. 
That's where I first learned from prosecutors of the gruesome details of the 
relatively few murders that resulted in a death sentence," Bessette recalled.

When he began to teach a course on "Crime and Public Policy" in the early 
1990s, Bessette devoted three weeks to the death penalty, but didn't pay close 
attention to Church doctrines on the topic, as he knew the Church had "always 
taught that the death penalty could be a legitimate punishment for heinous 
crimes if necessary to secure public safety."

But a student's remark inspired him to take another look.

"One day a student in my course said, 'Well, I am a Catholic. So I am against 
the death penalty.' I affirmed the Church's traditional teaching and then 
sought to learn more about the Pope John Paul II's encyclical Evangelium Vitae 
(1995) and the revision in the language in the Catechism between 1992 and 
1997."

'The simple fact is that the death penalty saves lives'

Bessette believes that in revising the Catechism to state the death penalty is 
"inadmissible", Pope Francis has attempted to "overturned" 2 millennia of 
Church teaching.

"Moreover, by strongly implying that Catholics must support the abolition of 
the death penalty, he has allied the Church with a public policy that would 
undermine just punishment and cost the lives of innocent human beings," he 
asserted. "The simple fact is that the death penalty saves lives."

Bessette says that he and Feser present a "large body of evidence" in their 
book to support this conclusion.

"Unfortunately, Pope Francis and many Catholic clerics simply presume that 
public safety would not be jeopardized if capital punishment were abolished," 
he continued.

He said he did not expect Catholic priests "no matter what their rank" to be 
experts in criminal justice, and that unless a public policy is intrinsically 
evil, it is up to citizens and government "to decide how best to promote the 
common good."

"This is what the Church has always taught," Bessette stressed. "By falsely 
claiming that the principles of Catholicism call for rejecting the death 
penalty in all circumstances, the pope undermines the authority of the 
Magisterium, preempts the proper authority of public officials, and jeopardizes 
public safety and the common good."

In defense of those who seek to protect the unborn while supporting capital 
punishment, Bessette said there was no contradiction.

"There is absolutely no inconsistency between being pro-life and pro-death 
penalty," he said. "The Church has always taught that it is never licit to take 
an innocent human life."

Bessette cited John Paul II, saying the pope affirmed this principle 
unambiguously in Evangelium Vitae.

The late pontiff wrote: "[T]he commandment 'You shall not kill' has absolute 
value when it refers to the innocent person. . . . [T]he absolute inviolability 
of innocent human life is a moral truth clearly taught by Sacred Scripture, 
constantly upheld in the Church's Tradition and consistently proposed by her 
Magisterium... Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter 
and his Successors, and in communion with the Bishops of the Catholic Church, I 
confirm that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is 
always gravely immoral (EV 57)"

"Similarly," Bessette added, "the current Catechism says, 'The inalienable 
right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a 
civil society and its legislation' ([CCCC] 2273)."

"Killing in self-defense or killing a vicious murderer has absolutely no 
relationship to this prohibition of intentionally killing the innocent, and the 
Church has always understood and taught this."

(source: lifesitenews.com)