Jan. 17
FLORIDA:
Supreme Court upholds Florida's lethal injection procedure
A 2005 study indicating condemned inmates may suffer pain when being put
to death by lethal injection is inconclusive and no reason to delay the
scheduled execution of a convicted killer from Alabama, the Florida
Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The 6-1 opinion rejected a request for an evidentiary hearing on the study
sought by Clarence Edward Hill, who is set to die Jan. 24. Hill, 47, of
Mobile, Ala., fatally shot Pensacola police officer Stephen Taylor during
a 1982 bank robbery.
Hill's lawyer, D. Todd Doss, did not immediately return a call seeking
comment. Doss had argued Florida's procedure was unconstitutional because
it constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
Assistant Deputy Attorney General Carolyn Snurknowski said death cases
usually are further appealed to the federal courts.
Another death row inmate, Arthur D. Rutherford, who is scheduled for
execution Jan. 31, has raised the same claim, among others, in an appeal
the Supreme Court is set to hear Jan. 26.
The Hill ruling would render Rutherford's lethal injection argument moot
"unless they come up with a new idea," Snurkowski said.
Rutherford, 56, killed Stella Salamon at her Santa Rosa County home in
1985. Rutherford had done some repair work for Salamon, whose body was
found submerged in a bathtub where she had been drowned or asphyxiated.
Condemned prisoners are injected with three drugs, one to deaden the pain,
another to paralyze their bodies and then potassium chloride to cause a
fatal heart attack. The study published in the Lancet medical journal
indicates the pain killer, sodium pentothal, can wear off before an
inmates die.
"As it clearly admits, the study is inconclusive," the high court wrote in
an unsigned opinion. "It does not assert that providing an inmate with `no
less than 2 grams' of sodium pentothal, as is Florida's procedure, is not
sufficient to render the inmate unconscious."
Justice Harry Lee Anstead dissented, writing that granting a hearing
"would present a win-win situation for all. The state would undoubtedly
benefit from the opportunity to demonstrate the efficacy of its present
protocol for lethal injection executions, and to rebut the conclusions of
the scientific study."
The study was conducted by Dr. David A. Lubarsky, chairman of the
Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative Medicine and Pain Management
at the University of Miami School of Medicine. It was based on autopsy
data from Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina and
protocols from Texas and Virginia, which all use the same lethal injection
procedure as Florida. Anstead added that it is ironic to deny a hearing in
Hill's case while a trial court has agreed to hold one on the same issue
for Ronald Knight, who killed 2 gay men in Palm Beach County in 1993,
although Knight is not yet under death warrant.
"Hill, of course, will not be around to benefit if the trial court in
Knight determines that Florida's protocol requires modification," he
wrote.
Anstead, however, agreed with the majority in rejecting other claims by
Hill including the argument his execution also would be cruel and unusual
punishment because he suffers from brain damage and is mentally retarded.
The high court ruled he should have raised that issue during an earlier
appeal and a new psychological evaluation in December provided no new
information. It found Hill is mildly retarded with an IQ of 86, which is
16 points above the level required for mental retardation in Florida.
(source: Associated Press)
