[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., PENN., FLA., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 18




TEXAS:

Supporters Rally for New Trial for Rodney Reed, Sentenced to Death by All-White 
Jury in ?‘Jim Crow Trial’ in Texas



Supporters of Rodney Reed are calling for a new trial for the Texas death-row 
prisoner sentenced to death in 1998 by an all-white jury in a racially charged 
trial. On September 10, 2019, Reed’s family and supporters protested Texas’ 
death penalty outside the governor’s mansion in Austin. Their plea for a new 
trial based on evidence of his innocence has been joined by a growing chorus of 
supporters, which include the Innocence Project, the victim’s cousin, Texas 
state representative Vikki Goodwin, and Sister Helen Prejean.

Reed, who is black, faces a November 20, 2019 execution date for the 1996 
murder of a 19-year-old white woman, Stacey Stites, with whom he was having a 
secret affair. He has consistently maintained his innocence. Reed has argued 
that Stites was murdered and that he was framed by her fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, 
an Austin-area police officer who was later fired and jailed based on 
allegations that he had kidnapped and raped a woman while on duty. In August, 
the Innocence Project filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court seeking DNA 
testing of evidence from the crime, including the belt that was used to 
strangle Stites.

Sandra Reed, Rodney’s mother, has been advocating on his behalf for years. “He 
never had a chance,” she told the supporters at the rally. In an interview with 
The Guardian, she said “[r]ace was a big factor in this case. A ‘Jim Crow 
trial’, an all-white jury, none of his peers.” Rodney Reed has said he and 
Stites had kept their affair secret because it would have caused a scandal in 
their small Texas town and because Stites feared Fennell’s reaction if he found 
out.

According to the Innocence Project court filing, witnesses said they had heard 
Fennell on several occasions threaten to kill Stites if she cheated on him, 
including saying “he would strangle her with a belt.” The lawsuit says that, in 
addition to the sexual abuse charges that led to his conviction, Fennell had 
been the subject of several complaints about “racial bias and use of excessive 
force at the Giddings police department where he worked.” The Innocence Project 
pleading says Fennell gave “inconsistent statements” about his activities on 
the night of the murder. According to the pleading, “prominent forensic 
pathologists” have concluded Fennell’s testimony that Stites was abducted and 
killed on her way to work is “medically and scientifically impossible.”

As Reed’s scheduled execution date approaches, he has received support from 
some prominent and unusual sources. Heather Campbell Stobbs, a cousin of Stacey 
Stites, has publicly expressed doubts about Reed’s guilt. “Too many things 
point to the ineptitude of law enforcement when they first started working the 
case,” she said.

Texas state representative Vikki Goodwin is calling for a retrial, or for Reed 
to be removed from death row. “I don’t think anyone can say he is guilty 
without a shadow of a doubt,” Goodwin said. “I don’t believe we should carry 
out the death penalty when there’s doubt about the truth of the case.” She 
pointed to other cases of innocence, saying, “I believe history has shown that 
in too many cases what seems to be true and just has turned out not to be so 
when new information or new scientific advances occur.”

Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and the recently released 
River of Fire, has also spoken out on Reed’s behalf. “Racial discrimination 
infects the death penalty system as a whole and we see it in this case,” her 
spokesperson, Griffin Hardy, said. “It’s disturbing to see these kind of biases 
and prejudices that can ultimately cost someone their life.”

(source: Death Penalty Information Center)

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

Goliad County grand jury returns murder indictments for 2 accused of fatal 
shooting



A Goliad County grand jury has returned murder indictments for 2 people 
arrested in connection with the shooting of a vehicle carrying a mother, a 
father and their infant child.

Arrested on capital murder charges, Goliad residents Daniel Mendoza, 18, and 
Jade Ayana Culpepper, 26, are now charged with murder among other charges 
returned during a Sept. 6 grand jury, said Assistant District Attorney Tim 
Poynter.

In Texas, capital murder can carry the death penalty or life in prison without 
the possibility of parole. It is defined, among other criteria, as the murder 
of a person during the commission of a kidnapping, burglary, robbery, 
aggravated sexual assault or arson.

Grand jury proceedings and testimony are confidential, and Poynter declined to 
specify why jurors may have decided against capital murder indictments.

“It just wasn’t supported by the evidence,” he said.

Goliad County sheriff’s deputies and investigators arrested Culpepper and 
Mendoza, initially charging them with the June 13 capital murder of Nathan 
Cortinas, a 19-year-old Goliad father.

Cortinas was shot days before his 20th birthday as he was waiting inside a 
vehicle parked near the intersection of South Mt. Auburn and West Franklin 
streets in Goliad. Also inside the vehicle were Brianna Bexley, 18, and their 
infant son.

Bexley was severely injured by a gunshot wound.

Sheriff’s officials have said the violence was motivated by an ongoing dispute 
but have not revealed the reason for it.

Although sheriff’s deputies have said Mendoza pulled the trigger, in Texas a 
person can be charged with a crime for assisting, encouraging or failing to 
prevent it.

Poynter declined to reveal the depth of Culpepper’s suspected involvement in 
Cortinas’ killing.

Grand jurors also indicted Mendoza on an aggravated assault with a deadly 
weapon charge, which stems from the injuries to Bexley, and endangering a 
child.

Although Mendoza and at least four others were arrested for engaging in 
organized criminal activity, grand jurors ultimately declined to hand down 
indictments for that charge.

A sheriff’s official had said that Cortinas appeared to have been “baited to 
the residence where the shooting occurred.”

Poynter said those suspected of being involved simply did not display the 
necessary amount of coordination to warrant such an indictment.

“It wasn’t that organized,” Poynter said.

But the grand jury did return indictments for Mendoza and others, accusing them 
of burglarizing property for a gun and then participating in a drive-by 
shooting the day before Cortinas’ death.

During their investigation, sheriff’s investigators recovered a .22 revolver 
that is suspected of killing Cortinas. That gun was reported stolen the day 
before from a Goliad home several blocks from the scene of the shooting.

Prosecution of 2 unidentified juveniles detained and charged in connection with 
shooting that killed Cortinas is being handled by Goliad County Attorney Rob 
Biamonte.

Biamonte could not be reached for comment.

Joseph Brian Segura, 27, of Goliad, who was charged with aggravated assault 
with a deadly weapon, was cleared of all charges.

Those indicted will be arraigned and begin the path toward trial.

(source: Victoria Advocate)








CONNECTICUT:

Supreme Court sets October date for Cheshire murderer’s request for new trial 
in Petit case



The state Supreme Court will hear arguments in October on whether convicted 
Cheshire triple murderer Joshua Komisarjevsky should get a new trial based 
partly on taped police calls from the morning of the 2007 murders that were 
never turned over to the defense.

Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes were convicted of murder in the July 23, 2007 
home invasion slayings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters Hayley Petit, 
17, and Mikaela Petit, 11. Both men were originally sentenced to death, but 
re-sentenced to life in prison without parole after the legislature abolished 
the death penalty.

John Holdredge and Moira Buckley, lawyers for Komisarjevsky, filed an appeal in 
2017 based mostly on new evidence that a number of taped calls that came into 
the police dispatch center the day of the murders were never disclosed to the 
defense. Among the 41 calls they claim not to have heard previously were calls 
from SWAT officers told not to respond to Sorghum Mill Road and a call from the 
officer it turns out was only a minute away from the Bank of America where 
Hawke-Petit was driven to withdraw $15,000.

The lawyers are expected to argue that the tapes, whose existence was first 
revealed by the Courant, could have helped bolster the defense argument that 
the Cheshire police response to the home invasion was “woefully inadequate” and 
would have provided fodder for cross examining officers.

Town officials initially said several dispatch tapes from the morning of July 
23, 2007 had been destroyed by a lightning strike but later revealed they had 
discovered backup tapes years later in a filing cabinet labeled “police 
department offsite storage” in a locked filing cabinet at Town Hall.

The Supreme Court has set October 17 at 11 a.m. for arguments.

The state has argued the calls were irrelevant to the final verdict in the 
case. In her rebuttal brief Assistant State’s Attorney Marjorie Allen Dauster 
said the defense had plenty of evidence to raise questions about the police 
response to the Petit home.

“To the contrary, the nexus between the evidence of police response and motive 
to fabricate is weak, and the undisclosed evidence was cumulative to that used 
by the defendant at trial during cross examination and closing argument,” 
Dauster wrote. “Where the purpose of impeachment evidence is to have the jury 
aware of facts which might motivate state witnesses to testify falsely, the 
defendant had ample facts to make his arguments about the police motives in 
this case.”

Most of the calls came into a second dispatch line at the police station and 
were made to or from officers’ cellphones. One call provided new information on 
how close an officer was to a bank where Hayes took Jennifer Hawke-Petit hours 
into the home invasion.

That call shows that police Sgt. Chris Cote was within blocks of Bank of 
America at about 9:25 a.m. or slightly more than one minute after Hawke-Petit 
left the bank with $15,000 in cash. Hayes forced her to drive to the bank and 
withdraw money. He waited outside the bank in the family’s Chrysler Pacifica 
and drove the pair back to the Petit home, where Komisarjevsky was with the two 
girls. The girls’ father, Dr. William Petit Jr., now a state legislator, had 
been beaten and left tied up in the basement.

Hawke-Petit alerted a bank teller that her family was being held hostage. The 
calls withheld from the defense also showed officers Donald Miller and Robert 
Regan called Cote on his cellphone at just after 9:25 a.m, before an all-points 
bulletin had been issued, to tell him that Hawke-Petit had “just left the bank, 
possibly with the captors in a Chrysler Pacifica” and that they were heading to 
the Petit home.

Cote responded he was not too far from the bank. The calls do not make it clear 
if Cote saw the Pacifica.

Other calls showed that one of the department's hostage negotiators called into 
the station to see if he was needed and was told no and that 2 SWAT team 
members on a private job also called to see if they were needed and were told 
not to come in. They eventually ignored that order and responded to the scene.

In their brief, defense attorneys argue by failing to "disclose these critical 
calls, the state corrupted the truth-seeking function of the trial and violated 
Komisarjevsky's rights."

“The calls withheld from trial counsel would have provided substantial 
additional power to the defendant’s contention that the police, because of 
their woefully inadequate response to the 911 call, were motivated by guilt, 
anger and embarrassment to undermine the credibility of his (Komisarjevsky’s) 
police statements,” the brief concluded.

Hayes and Komisarjevsky were convicted at separate trials and originally 
sentenced to death, Their sentences were changed to life without parole when 
the state did away with the death penalty.

Komisarjevsky was transferred to a Pennsylvania prison for security reasons and 
attempted to kill himself in August of 2016. He is still being held out of 
state, records show.

Komisarjevsky’s initially went to the Supreme Court in 2013 but the court 
remanded the issue back to Superior Court Judge Jon Blue, who oversaw both 
murder trials, for a hearing.

Blue held a hearing and ruled that Komisarjevsky’s trial lawyers did not 
receive recordings of at least four calls from the morning of the home 
invasion.

Blue said prosecutors’ failure to disclose the calls showed no wrongdoing but 
was the result of human error. He said the defense had “plenty of clues” that 
the calls existed – testimony showed the calls were turned over to defense 
attorneys for Hayes — but that there was “no witness” who saw the compact discs 
with the calls handed over.

Blue ruled the missing calls didn’t rise to the level of overturning the 
conviction. Komisarjevsky’s attorneys appealed that ruling.

(source: Hartford Courant)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Capital punishment about crime, not race----Murder statistics explain racial 
disparity on death row.



Editor:

“Death penalty's demise courted” (Reading Eagle, Sept. 12) tells of an appeal 
to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to eliminate the death penalty.

One of the reasons given was that about half the current death row inmates are 
black, while only 11% of the Pennsylvania population is black. This is a bogus 
argument.

Suppose the argument was made that the death penalty was unfair because 99% of 
the death row inmates were male, but men are only 50% of the population? Most 
people would rightly say the reason there are more men on death row than women 
is because more men commit murder than women.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, between 1980 and 2008, blacks 
committed 52.5% of murders. So if 12% of the U.S. population is committing 52% 
of the murders, then it stands to reason that more members of that group would 
be on death row. It has nothing to do with race; it has to do with who commits 
murders.

It's a shame that one man, our governor, can overturn the verdicts of juries 
across the state and deny justice to the victims of murder and their families.

Randy Gartner

Robesonia

(source: Letter to the Editor, Reading Eagle)








FLORIDA:

DNA cold case: Suspected Florida serial killer charged in 2016 death, tied to 3 
more



A Florida man suspected of being the "Daytona Beach Serial Killer," who killed 
at least 4 women over the span of a decade, has been charged with the 2016 
homicide of a Palm Beach County woman, and genetic genealogy is being credited 
with his capture.

Robert Tyrone Hayes, 37, was arrested Sunday at his West Palm Beach home. He is 
charged with 1st-degree murder in the strangulation death of Rachel Elizabeth 
Bey.

Hayes has also been tied by DNA and ballistics to the 2005 and 2006 shooting 
deaths of Laquetta Mae Gunther, 45, Julie Ann Green, 34, and Iwana Patton, 35, 
more than 200 miles away in Daytona Beach, according to authorities. He has not 
been charged in the Daytona Beach slayings, but charges are expected.

"We have been able to take what we believe is a serial killer off the streets," 
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said Monday during a news conference. 
"Had we not done this, we're pretty sure that he would have killed again."

Daytona Beach police officials said detectives there are looking into the 
possibility that Hayes was responsible for the Jan. 2, 2008, killing of Stacey 
Gage. No physical evidence links him to that crime.

Authorities also believe there may be additional victims Hayes has not yet been 
tied to.

"I believe you'll be hearing a lot about Robert Tyrone Hayes in the months to 
come," Special Agent Troy Walker, of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, 
said Monday.

Hayes' neighbors were stunned by the arrest, according to The Associated Press. 
Hayes, a cook who graduated from Bethune-Cookman University in 2006 with a 
criminal justice degree, lived in an apartment in the Pinewood Park 
neighborhood with a woman and their toddler daughter. It was not immediately 
clear if the couple is married.

An April 2019 Street View image shows the West Palm Beach, Fla., apartment 
building where suspected serial killer Robert Hayes, 37, lives. Hayes was 
arrested Sunday, Sept. 15, 2019, in connection with the March 2016 slaying of 
Rachel Bey.

"He was always friendly with me," neighbor Craig Brown told the AP.

Authorities believe Hayes, who is being held without bond, targeted prostitutes 
and drug users.

The AP reported that the shootings in Daytona Beach caused a panic that led 
some of the area's prostitutes to help detectives. They memorized license plate 
numbers and vehicle descriptions of anyone they deemed to be suspicious, the AP 
said. Volunteers from a local ministry also worked to warn people of the 
apparent danger lurking on the streets.

The known killings stopped for a decade -- until Rachel Bey. Court records show 
that Bey, a 32-year-old known prostitute who worked an area of West Palm Beach, 
was strangled March 7, 2016, and dumped on the side of a highway.

A close friend told police she'd last seen Bey walking toward the intersection 
she usually worked around 2 a.m. the day she was killed. Bey was fully clothed 
at the time and carried her cellphone.

A poster seeking information in the March 2016 slaying of Rachel Bey, 32, of 
West Palm Beach, Fla., is pictured. Authorities on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2019, 
arrested suspected Daytona Beach serial killer Robert Hayes and charged him 
with Bey's death.

Her naked body was found about 6 hours later by a road worker along Beeline 
Highway just west of Jupiter, several miles from where she was last seen alive. 
Her clothes and cellphone were missing.

Bey's autopsy showed that, besides being strangled, she had been severely 
beaten. She had fractures to her jaw, multiple broken teeth and defensive 
injuries to her arms and hands that showed she fought for her life.

DNA evidence was found during a rape examination, and DNA was also found on the 
back of Bey's left hand, where her killer would have grabbed her to drag her to 
the spot where her body was found, the affidavit says.

Lab workers were able to obtain a complete DNA profile from the semen, the 
affidavit says.

In December 2016, detectives assigned to Bey's case were notified that there 
was a DNA hit in CODIS, or the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, tying the 
genetic profile in Bey's case to that obtained in the Daytona Beach case.

According to the court records, the profile found on Bey's body matched that 
left on two of the three women killed in Daytona Beach. Authorities there said 
DNA evidence linked Bey's killer to the slayings of Gunther and Green.

Additionally, ballistic evidence at the scene of two of those killings showed 
the women had been killed with the same .40-caliber weapon. Daytona Beach 
officials said Patton's killing was linked to the others through that forensic 
evidence.

Hayes was developed as a potential suspect in the killings through genetic 
genealogy, the same technique that resulted in the arrest of the suspected 
Golden State Killer in California last year. Since then, dozens of other cold 
cases have been solved using public genealogy databases that contain thousands 
of customers' DNA profiles.

4 of those case have taken place in Florida, according to Lori Napolitano, the 
FDLE's chief of genetic genealogy.

Lori Napolitano of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement speaks during a 
news conference Monday, Sept. 16, 2019, in West Palm Beach, Fla. Authorities on 
Sunday arrested suspected serial killer Robert Hayes in the 2016 slaying of 
Rachel Bey.

Napolitano explained that cold case suspects are identified by comparing their 
DNA profiles to those of potential family members found in the databases.

"Investigators upload the crime scene DNA profile of the suspect and receive a 
list of matches," Napolitano said. "Those matches are people who share DNA with 
the suspect. The more DNA they share, the more closely they're related."

2 companies allow law enforcement to use their databases: GEDMatch and Family 
Tree DNA.

"Killers like Robert Tyrone Hayes are the reason genetic genealogy is so 
important to public safety," Walker said Monday. "Without genetic genealogy, 
predators like Mr. Hayes will continue to live in our neighborhoods, visit our 
parks, our libraries (and) restaurants and go to our nightlife and 
entertainment districts to continue to hunt for victims."

Napolitano offered condolences to Bey's brothers, who attended Monday's news 
conference.

"Please know that we worked countless hours on her case to bring it to 
resolution and to give Rachel the voice that she lost," Napolitano said.

One of Bey's brothers, Aliahu Bey, described his sister in 2016 as a "loving 
and caring girl" who got caught up with the wrong crowd as a teen. At one time 
a certified nursing assistant, she ended up working on the street after getting 
deeper into drugs.

"We all wanted to rescue and steal her away (from Florida)," Bey told The Palm 
Beach Post at the time. "But we knew that choice had to be hers. And she wanted 
to have that kind of change."

In their last phone conversation, Bey told the Post, his sister asked when she 
would get to meet his children. She told him "life was hard, but that she was 
trying."

The probable cause affidavit states that Hayes lived in Daytona Beach when the 
initial three killings took place in late 2005 and early 2006. His home was in 
the same area in which all three women were last seen before they were killed.

In March 2016, when Bey was slain, Hayes lived about a mile from where she was 
last seen alive in West Palm Beach.

"Hayes was questioned twice during the initial stages of the Daytona Beach 
murders due to him owning a .40-caliber firearm," the affidavit states. "Hayes 
purchased the firearm at the beginning of December 2005, with 1 of the murders 
then occurring Dec. 26, 2005."

Hayes told Daytona Beach investigators the following March that he had given 
the gun to his mother, who lived in West Palm Beach.

"However, Hayes also reported a 40-caliber firearm as being stolen from his 
vehicle in Riviera Beach, Florida, in December 2006," the affidavit states.

Phone records showed that Bey's missing cellphone remained sporadically active 
in the days after she was killed, the court records show. The cell tower that 
facilitated the majority of that activity was the cell tower that also covered 
Hayes' home.

Agents with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office's Fugitive Task Force were 
watching Hayes Friday when they spotted him smoking a cigarette as he waited 
for a bus near his home. After he discarded the cigarette butt and left, they 
collected it and sent it for DNA testing, the affidavit says.

The DNA obtained from the butt matched the profile found on Bey and from two of 
the Daytona Beach victims, the document states.

The AP reported that Gunther was the 1st of the Daytona Beach victims killed. 
Her body was found the day after Christmas 2005 in a gap between an auto parts 
store and a utility building.

Green was found Jan. 14, 2006, on a dirt road at a construction site and Patton 
was found Feb. 24 on a separate dirt road. All 3 women were shot in the head 
and left naked and lying face down.

Daytona Beach Police Chief Craig Capri credited Volusia County Sheriff Michael 
Chitwood, who was police chief in Daytona Beach at the time of the killings, 
with pushing the department to embrace the type of technology that led to 
Hayes' arrest.

"Before that, we didn't really know much about technology or embrace 
technology," Capri said. "Without that type of forward thinking, we might not 
be here today."

Chitwood said solving the slayings of Gunter, Green and Patton was the only 
thing left undone when he left the position of police chief.

"I just can't tell you how proud I am of Chief Capri and how proud I am of the 
men and women of the Daytona Beach Police Department," Chitwood said.

Bradshaw said during his own news conference that it was a "fantastic team 
effort" that led to Hayes' arrest.

Florida 7th Circuit State Attorney R.J. Larizza said charges against Hayes 
would be forthcoming in the three Daytona Beach homicides. No decision had been 
made as of Monday on whether authorities would seek the death penalty.

"These were brutal crimes and the State Attorney's Office is very fortunate to 
have the caliber of law enforcement folks that we have working these cases," 
Larizza said. "It's not just working the streets anymore. It's working with 
DNA. It's working with technology.

"We are truly in a brave new world."

(source: WSOC TV news)








OHIO:

Motions for both Billy and Jake Wagner heard in a Pike County courtroom----Both 
Billy Wagner and his son Jake appeared in a Pike County courtroom for the 
latest round of hearings



Billy Wagner, his wife, Angela, and their sons Jake and George are charged with 
the murders of 7 members of the Rhoden family and Hannah Gilley in 2016.

They could face the death penalty if they're convicted.

Motions are expected to be heard for both during their hearings.

Those motions included the defense effort to get a list of grand jury witnesses 
and what they testified about. The defense mentioned that Sheriff Charlie 
Reeder is facing legal trouble and a BCI investigator has been put on leave 
since the investigation. Assistant Attorney General Angela Canepa replied that 
neither testified for the grand jury. She's fighting the defense's request.

There are also confidential informants on the list.

They've also filed motions trying to get the death penalty taken off the table, 
which is standard during death penalty cases.

Judge Randy Deering heard arguments for Billy Wagner's 41 motions and Jake 
Wagner's 47 motions. He'll rule on them at a later date.

On Monday, a judge revoked Angela Wagner's phone and mail privileged while in 
jail. She was talking to her mother and her son on recorded calls, which the 
judge ordered her not to do. She's also accused of urging her mother, Rita 
Newcomb, not to testify.

(source: WKRC news)

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

Ohio went around drugmaker restrictions on executions despite warnings



State officials went ahead with executions in recent years even after 
manufacturers threatened to cut off the supply of their drugs to millions of 
Ohioans who rely on the state for needed medications, records obtained by The 
Dispatch show.

Going back to at least 2015, drugmakers warned Ohio officials not to use their 
products in executions. Gov. Mike DeWine and his administration have said some 
have gone so far as to threaten not to supply Ohio medicine for any use, 
including in state veterans homes, psychiatric hospitals and prison infirmaries 
— and for the nearly 3 million residents receiving Medicaid benefits.

DeWine has delayed all executions since becoming governor early this year, as 
state leaders look for an execution method that doesn’t use intravenous drugs. 
But based on partial responses to records requests from The Dispatch, between 
2016 and the end of 2018, Ohio already disregarded warnings from two drugmakers 
— including one that said misuse of its products could put future medicine 
supplies in doubt.

“In the event that we were forced to implement additional controls to prevent 
(death penalty) uses, it may have the unintended consequence of preventing 
certain patients from receiving these medicines despite having a genuine 
medical need,” Hikma Pharmaceuticals wrote former Ohio Department of 
Rehabilitation and Correction Director Gary Mohr on Dec. 20, 2016.

Hikma sent Mohr an identical letter Dec. 12, 2017, and Hikma subsidiary West 
Ward sent an admonishment of its own July 7, 2017.

But that didn’t stop the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction 
Services from purchasing Hikma-made Midazolam — the 1st of 3 drugs in the 
state’s execution protocol — through a distributor twice in 2017 and once in 
February 2019, according to purchase orders supplied to The Dispatch. Invoices 
from Mental Health and Addiction Services show that the Midazolam was 
transferred to to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, where Ohio’s death 
chamber is located, shortly thereafter.

Likewise, drugmaker Pfizer wrote Mohr, once in 2016 and twice in 2017, with a 
list of restricted products and said, “Under our policy, these products will 
not be sold to correctional facilities or other affiliated organizations where 
they may be misused for lethal injection.”

Even so, in 2017, 2018 and 2019, the Department of Correction invoiced the 
Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services for quantities of potassium 
chloride for use in the death chamber as the third, heart-stopping drug in 
Ohio’s intravenous execution protocol.

In an Aug. 7 deposition on behalf of the Department of Mental Health and 
Addiction Services, Steven Knight testified that the Department of Correction 
doesn’t notify his agency when the drugs being ordered are intended for the 
death chamber. A person referred to in the deposition only as “DRC Employee No. 
1” simply orders them and then picks them up, Knight said.

Such orders appear to be a violation of the Pfizer policy against selling drugs 
to correctional facilities. Transferring the drugs to the Ohio prison system 
might violate other Pfizer requirements as well.

“Government purchasing entities must certify that products they purchase or 
otherwise acquire are used only for medically prescribed patient care and not 
for any penal purposes,” spokeswoman Jessica Smith said in an email.

Asked if DeWine would investigate whether state officials falsely promised not 
to use Pfizer drugs in executions, his press secretary, Dan Tierney, said, “If 
Pfizer has information they want to bring to our attention, we will look into 
it.”

In response to The Dispatch’s records request, the state provided 12 letters 
from drugmakers dating back to 2015 with such warnings. The response did not 
include two letters that Pfizer said it sent in 2016 and 2017. It also didn’t 
include any responses from the state; Tierney said none of the letters received 
by the DeWine administration required a response, and “I cannot speak as to 
response decisions in prior administrations.”

Several companies said they sent the letters to many states performing 
executions because they had no idea whether their products were being used in 
them. One was Hikma. A spokesman, Steven Weiss, said its admonishment was not a 
threat to stop selling all drugs to the state. Rather, he said, if the state 
ignored Hikma’s demand that its products not be used in the death chamber, that 
could lead to greater restrictions and less availability, he said.

“Our medicines are intended for use in treating patients and we strongly object 
to their use in lethal injection, and we have shared this position with Ohio 
and multiple other states,” Weiss said.

Letters from other drugmakers say that executions are not a use for their 
products that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved, and one said 
it might be a violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act. Another one 
said use in executions could prompt the European Union to block supplies of a 
common anesthesia drug to the entire country.

“As it has already done with other medicines, the EU has stated it will add 
propofol, a drug we and others manufacture in Europe, to its list of trade 
restricted products if the drug is used in an execution,” John Ducker, 
president and CEO of Fresenius Kabi USA wrote to DeWine in a March 13 letter. 
Ducker noted that it’s the most widely used drug in anesthesia — more than a 
million times a year in Ohio alone.

Propofol is not part of Ohio’s current lethal injection protocol, but the 
receipt of such letters might have helped convince DeWine that lethal injection 
is no longer workable. Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty 
Information Center, said it would be unwise for state officials to jeopardize 
drug supplies in that way.

“It doesn’t strike me that this is a game of chicken the state wants to play,” 
he said.

(source: Columbus Dispatch)

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

New twist in Ohio death penalty



Vicki Williams of Lima believes Cleveland Jackson showed little regard for her 
daughter, Leneshia, when he killed her in 2002. As for his death sentence, the 
only thing she sees as being “cruel and unusual punishment” are the 17 years 
she’s waited for his execution.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with her last week. It said a 
federal judge in Dayton was wrong when he ruled in January that Ohio’s 
execution protocol was cruel because it created a sensation of drowning.

Now the big question is what will Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine do? He delayed 
executions following the Dayton judge’s ruling, saying “Ohio is not going to 
execute someone under my watch when a federal judge has found it to be cruel 
and unusual punishment.” That’s no longer a factor.

(source: Hillsboro Times Gazette)