[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., NEV., CALIF., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

January 8



OKLAHOMA:

In 2019, Questions Of Efficacy, Morality Continue Over New Execution Protocol



State officials have been working to replace lethal injection with nitrogen gas 
now going on 4 years. As time has gone on and inmates continue to wait 
questions are mounting about the process and whether Oklahoma will even have 
another execution.

Oklahoma has been working to start using nitrogen hypoxia, the process of 
replacing oxygen with nitrogen until an inmate dies. Executions have been on an 
indefinite hold since 2015 following the problematic executions of Clayton 
Lockett, Charles Warner and Richard Glossip, which became national news and a 
statewide embarrassment.

The executions of Lockett and Warner, while completed, are generally considered 
to have been botched. Lockett writhed in the execution chair for nearly 45 
minutes, moaning and straining against his restraints. Warner could be heard 
saying his body felt as if it were on fire. It was later discovered the wrong 
drug was used as a part of the lethal 3-drug cocktail to execute Warner.

Glossip, who was sent to the execution chamber 3 times, has been waiting to be 
put to death after the state discovered the same incorrect drug was about to be 
used in his execution. At the time Gov. Mary Fallin’s then attorney Steve 
Mullin told Fallin she should move forward with the execution to avoid the 
exposure of problems with Warner’s execution.

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesman Matt Elliot says the DOC is 
still working with the Attorney General's office to write the new hypoxia 
protocol saying "That process is ongoing. We will update the public once it is 
complete..."

Supporters of the new method say it's more humane than previous methods of 
execution, akin to falling asleep and used by prominent self-euthanasia groups 
nationwide which promote it as a painless process of death.

Opponents, point to warnings from national veterinary associations which advise 
against killing animals this way and that nitrogen use is still experimental, 
not used officially anywhere in the world. Oklahoma is the only state to make 
hypoxia the primary method. Alabama and Mississippi both have it listed as an 
alternative but none of the three states has a working protocol.

There are also still many unknowns to using nitrogen, including how the state 
will administer the gas. Some methods suggest building a chamber in which gas 
is exchanged or by using a "death mask," likely like those used in hypoxia 
training for pilots.

Then there's whether it's effective or can be repeated exactly. When done in 
training, the Federal Aviation Administration warns symptoms can differ widely; 
generally, not something seen as a positive in a process meant to be done with 
accuracy.

“The rate of individual onset will vary day-to-day due to other physiological 
or psychological stressor,” a narrator can be heard saying during an FAA 
training video about hypoxia.

“Oklahoma kind of acted 1st and thought 2nd when it came to nitrogen hypoxia,” 
said Robert Dunham.

Dunham is the Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a 
non-partisan group focused on executions. He said lawmakers' rush to have a new 
method in place and lack of evidence it will work could mean Oklahoma will 
remain without the death penalty for quite a while.

“The issue just zipped through the legislature without any scientific 
examination. So, the question is, is it going to work? Is it something that's 
going to be acceptable for killing human beings and nobody really has the 
answer to that,” Dunham said.

Support of the death penalty using any method has been on the decline both 
nationwide and in Oklahoma for several years. Support in Oklahoma officially 
dropped below 50 % in 2016. Likewise, Dunham said the use of the death penalty 
as a sentence has waned.

Both Attorney General Mike Hunter and Governor-Elect Kevin Stitt have said 
despite concerns of efficacy and a decline in public support they plan to 
continue to move forward with executions in Oklahoma once the protocol is 
finished.

(source: news9.com)








NEVADA:

After Years of Delays and No Execution Date in Sight, a Death Row Inmate Takes 
His Life



Unlike most death row inmates, Scott Raymond Dozier wanted to die.

Convicted of the 2002 killing and dismemberment of a Las Vegas man, Mr. Dozier 
waited for years while his lawyers appealed his death sentence. But he found 
the wait more agonizing than the prospect of execution. 2 years ago he 
abandoned their efforts and urged a judge to set a date.

The state of Nevada pressed to execute him, too, in a new lethal injection 
chamber. Still, the delays continued, the last 6 months ago. Mr. Dozier grew 
increasingly despondent, those who knew him said Monday.

On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Dozier, 48, threaded a bedsheet through an air vent 
in his cell at the state prison in Ely, Nev., and hanged himself, prison 
officials said, ending one of the most significant and bizarre death penalty 
cases in recent years, one that highlighted the contradictions and shifting 
politics of modern capital punishment in America.

“The prospect of eking out his existence on death row for the rest of his life 
was unfathomable to him,” said Edgar Barens, a filmmaker who had spent time 
with Mr. Dozier for a documentary that is still in progress about families 
affected by death penalty cases.

Instead, Mr. Dozier had insisted he wanted to die even if it meant a long and 
potentially excruciating death from a cocktail of lethal-injection drugs that 
included fentanyl. But in the end, his execution was delayed after a drug 
company intervened, saying that it would suffer grave reputational harm if its 
products were used in the execution against its wishes. A lawyer representing 
Nevada warned that if these sorts of lawsuits could be filed, it could end the 
state’s death penalty altogether.

And a state judge chastised the state officials for operating in bad faith, 
finding that prison officials had used “subterfuge” to get those drugs in the 
first place, after failing to obtain them legitimately.

During all of this, as Mr. Dozier sat in prison, Nevada voters elected a new 
attorney general, a Democrat who was sworn in on Monday, who has declined to 
say whether he would even continue the state’s legal fight to execute Mr. 
Dozier.

To some experts, Mr. Dozier’s case highlighted an aspect of the modern death 
penalty as its popularity wanes in many quarters: The relative frequency of 
executions of so-called volunteers, or those who abandon their appeals and 
embrace their sentences.

Nearly nine of 10 condemned inmates who agree to forgo their appeals have shown 
substantial evidence of mental illness, according to Robert Dunham, the 
executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington 
nonprofit that tracks executions.

Mr. Dozier’s case was concerning, he said, because any decision by an inmate to 
waive death-penalty appeals is not voluntary if they are mentally ill or if it 
came about because of the effect of the conditions of confinement. Mr. Dozier’s 
competency did not appear to be an issue in the court process.

“By his volunteering for execution and forcing the issue, Nevada had to come up 
with execution drugs, and they engaged in a pattern of lies and subterfuge in 
order to do that,” Mr. Dunham said.

A prison spokeswoman said Mr. Dozier was alone in his cell and not on suicide 
watch at the time of his death, but state officials said he had threatened to 
kill himself before and had tried to obtain drugs or razors that he could use 
to take his life.

Still, some who knew him said they were surprised that he would do so, 
particularly since a botched attempt more than a decade ago had left him in a 
coma.

“He was concerned that he wouldn’t do it properly, so that’s why he was pretty 
set in the state following through with the execution,” said one of his 
lawyers, Tom Ericsson of Oronoz & Ericsson, a Las Vegas firm.

That Nevada might never set an execution date weighed heavily on Mr. Dozier in 
recent months, Mr. Ericsson continued, adding that his client’s mental health 
had deteriorated after the delays and after being frequently kept in isolation 
or on suicide watch.

“He was just beat down by the prison system,” he said, “and ready to call it a 
day.”

Maurice Chammah, a staff writer at The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news 
organization that covers criminal justice, agreed that it was surprising that 
Mr. Dozier would take his own life.

“The experience was so awful he could never fathom doing it again,” said Mr. 
Chammah, who interviewed Mr. Dozier many times and wrote a profile about his 
case last year. But, he continued, “there’s definitely a part of me that feels 
like he got the last word in all of this.”

(source: New York Times)

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

Apparent Suicide Of Nevada Death-Row Inmate Spurs Questions



The apparent suicide of a Nevada death-row inmate who had tried several times 
to kill himself after his execution was postponed is sparking 2nd-guessing 
about his treatment and the death penalty itself.

A prison spokeswoman said Monday that 48-year-old Scott Raymond Dozier wasn't 
on suicide watch when he was found dead Saturday in his cell at Ely State 
Prison. He was housed alone.

White Pine County Sheriff-Coroner Scott Henriod says there's no evidence of 
foul play.

Dozier was a twice-convicted murderer who declared he wanted to die. But he let 
lawyers challenge an untried 3-drug combination that Nevada planned to use for 
his lethal injection.

Drug companies also sued to block use of their products in an execution.

Defense attorney Scott Coffee compares Dozier's case to mental torture.

(source: Associated Press)








CALIFORNIA:

Business partner faces death penalty in murder of Fallbrook family of 4



A man accused of killing his business partner, his wife and 2 children in 
Fallbrook more than 8 years ago murdered the family so he could steal their 
money, prosecutors argued Monday.

Chase Merritt, 61, is charged with 4 counts of murder. His trial began Monday 
in San Bernardino Superior Court.

Merritt’s business partner, Joseph McStay disappeared from his home in 
Fallbrook in 2010 along with his wife and 2 young sons. Their whereabouts 
remained a mystery until 2013 when a motor-cross rider came across their 
remains in shallow graves in the desert in Victor Valley in San Bernardino 
County.

In opening statements, prosecutors said Merritt killed the family for financial 
gain, hacking McStays' Quickbooks account and writing 3 checks totaling around 
$15,000 for himself. According to search warrants filed in the case, Merritt 
also owed McStay $30,000, which he had borrowed to pay a gambling debt.

“He mislead investigators. He talked in circles and he played the victim,” said 
San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Sean Dougherty.

Prosecutors allege Merritt beat the 4 members of the McStay family to death 
with a sledgehammer and then hid their bodies in the high desert. They said 
they will present cell phone evidence during the trial that places Merritt at 
the location in the desert where the bodies were buried.

“Between 10:46 and 1:30 p.m., the defendant's cellphone contacted towers in 
Victor Valley,” said Dougherty

But Merritt's defense attorneys said that the investigation was botched from 
the start and that Merritt would never have hurt his business partner, a man he 
called his best friend.

“{Investigators] treated this as a missing persons case. They didn’t grill 
anybody. They didn’t execute the search warrants on time and opportunities 
floated away." Merritt's attorney, Rajan Maline, said.

If convicted on all counts Merritt is facing the death penalty.

(source: Fox News)








WASHINGTON:

Abolish death penalty once and for all----The Supreme Court left open the 
possibility that the Legislature could fix the death penalty. No current or 
future Legislature should be permitted to do so.



Although the Washington Supreme Court ruled in October that Washington’s use of 
the death penalty was unconstitutional, the court’s action did not completely 
eliminate capital punishment in the state.

The Legislature still needs to vote this year to repeal.

Washington’s death penalty was racially based, arbitrary and lacks fundamental 
fairness, the justices ruled and opponents have been saying for years. Research 
quoted in the Supreme Court decision found that, in this state, “black 
defendants were 4 1/2 times more likely to be sentenced to death than similarly 
situated white defendants.”

Attorney General Bob Ferguson is working with 2 lawmakers, Sen. Reuven Carlyle, 
D-Seattle, and Rep. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines, to close the door on the death 
penalty once and for all. Lawmakers have tried and failed for years to pass 
similar legislation.

The death penalty is not a deterrent to crime and is unnecessary for public 
safety. It is not worth the cost to taxpayers or the emotional energy required 
from victims’ families.

Since Washington reinstated the death penalty in 1981, 33 people were sentenced 
to die, although some had their sentences changed on appeal, and f5 have been 
executed. Gov. Jay Inslee declared a moratorium on executions in 2014. The 
Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling converted the sentences for the state’s 
remaining eight death-row inmates to life in prison without release.

In the past 15 years, seven states have ended their death penalties and 
Washington, Colorado and Oregon adopted moratoriums. Only a few states are 
still executing prisoners, including Texas, Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma, but 
nationally death sentences have decreased dramatically.

In Washington, one of the best arguments for eliminating the death penalty is 
the disproportionate way it has been used, both geographically and racially.

“The death penalty is unequally applied — sometimes by where the crime took 
place, or the county of residence, or the available budgetary resources at any 
given point in time, or the race of the defendant,” Chief Justice Mary 
Fairhurst wrote in the lead opinion.

Prosecutors seek the death penalty only in the most populous counties, because 
those are the municipalities that can afford the cost of trial and 
death-penalty appeals. Seeking the death penalty adds at least $1 million to 
the cost of prosecution — money that could be better used toward other law and 
justice work.

This is the year to eliminate the death penalty in Washington state.

(source: Editorial; The Seattle Times editorial board members are editorial 
page editor Kate Riley, Frank A. Blethen, Donna Gordon Blankinship, Brier 
Dudley, Mark Higgins, Melissa Santos, and William K. Blethen (emeritus).








USA:

Kroger shooting suspect to be in U.S. court on hate crime charges



Gregory Bush, the man accused of shooting and killing 2 black shoppers at a 
Louisville-area Kroger grocery last fall, is scheduled to make his first 
appearance Monday in federal court, where he has been charged with federal hate 
crimes that could bring the death penalty.

Bush, 51, who is white, has already pleaded not guilty to state charges in the 
murders of Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vickie Lee Jones, 67 — at the Kroger in 
Jeffersontown on Oct. 24.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Colin Lindsay is expected at the 2 p.m. hearing to read 
the charges to Bush, who is facing three federal hate crime charges and three 
federal gun charges. He will likely enter a plea at a later date.

U.S. Attorney Russell Coleman has not said if he has recommended seeking the 
death penalty to the U.S. attorney general, who makes the decision.

Bush was arrested minutes after police say he entered the Kroger and walked 
past white shoppers before shooting Stallard, who was shopping for poster board 
with his grandson.

Bush is accused of later shooting Jones in the store's parking lot. There, Bush 
reportedly told an armed bystander not to shoot him, because "whites don't 
shoot whites.”

Just before the shooting, police say Bush attempted to enter the predominantly 
black First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown.

"Federal, state and local law enforcement stand united to ensure that 
Kentuckians can shop, worship, or attend school without the specter of fear," 
Coleman said in a written statement after the hate crime charges were filed.

Bush's federal and state public defenders did not respond to messages seeking 
comment.

Bush's son, Greg Bush II, said his father had been diagnosed with 
schizoaffective disorder — schizophrenia with a mood disorder, such as bipolar 
disorder. Bush, who was living with his elderly parents, had expressed 
irrational fears, said his son, Greg, whose mother, Bush's ex-wife, is 
African-American.

One of his longtime neighbors, Barbara Waller, said that about a month before 
the shooting Bush’s mother confided that her son had expressed fears that he 
was being targeted, saying, “Can’t you smell that? They’re trying to gas me."

Former U.S. Attorney Kerry Harvey said a suspect's mental illness could factor 
into the Department of Justice's decision on whether to seek the death penalty. 
Such a decision can take months, he said.

(source: Louisville Courier Journal)