[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 23



USA:

LETHAL-INJECTION CASE ---- After Court Ruling, States to Proceed With
Executions


States began moving forward with plans for executions this week after the
Supreme Court declined last Wednesday to review the appeals of death row
inmates who had challenged lethal-injection methods in nearly a dozen
states.

The court had issued orders staying several executions last year and
earlier this year while it weighed whether Kentucky's lethal-injection
procedure constituted cruel and unusual punishment. States had postponed
at least 14 scheduled executions pending the high court's decision,
creating a de facto moratorium on capital punishment, according to the
Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.

In a 7 to 2 vote last week, the justices said the three-drug cocktail used
by Kentucky, which is similar to the one employed by the federal
government and 34 other states, does not carry so great a risk of pain
that it violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

With three executions already scheduled for this summer, Virginia could be
the 1st state to carry out the punishment after the resolution of the
Kentucky case. The state has scheduled a May 27 execution date for Kevin
Green, who killed a couple in Brunswick County; June 10 for Percy L.
Walton, who killed three neighbors in Danville; and July 24 for Edward
Nathaniel Bell, who shot a police officer in Winchester.

"I actually expect to see a spate of scheduled executions," said Richard
Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Dieter said that despite its approval of Kentucky's lethal-injection
procedure, the Supreme Court left room for lawyers to contest other
states' procedures. "That sets the stage for a state-by-state resolution
of this conflict," he said.

Attorneys contesting lethal injections have focused on training and
procedures as ways to challenge them.

In numerous cases before federal and state courts, attorneys have argued
that people who deliver anesthesia do not know how to insert a needle
properly into a vein. They have contended that lighting has been poor
during some executions, limiting the ability to see mistakes. And they
have argued that some technicians hired to conduct medical procedures are
not qualified.

Opponents said court arguments over these subjects are likely to continue.

Ty Alper, associate director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University
of California at Berkeley's law school, said the Supreme Court's ruling in
the Kentucky case means nothing has changed: State officials will try to
carry out executions and opponents will question their procedures.

"It's going to be like it was before," Alper said. "In some states, prison
officials are going to be pushing for round-the-clock injections -- there
are 40 or 50 in Texas. The open question will be whether those states can
reach the standard that the court has set for lethal injection."

After the Supreme Court declined to step in yesterday, some state courts,
governors and corrections boards vowed to press forward with their
execution plans. Texas will attempt to reschedule the execution of Carlton
Turner Jr., who killed his parents and hid their decomposing bodies.

Mississippi will try to schedule the execution of Earl Wesley Berry, who
kidnapped a woman and beat her to death after she left choir practice. And
Alabama will seek to schedule the lethal injection of Thomas Arthur, who
fatally shot a man through the eye as he slept.

Clay Crenshaw, chief of the capital litigation division in the Alabama
attorney general's office, said a motion will be filed with the state
Supreme Court to set an execution date. Shortly after the Supreme Court
decided the Kentucky case, the attorney general asked the state's highest
court to schedule executions in 3 other cases.

Crenshaw said challenges to the executions are likely to fall on deaf
ears. "I think all nine justices basically say that based on what they've
seen, there is no question that if the anesthesia goes in the bloodstream,
the execution will be painless," he said. "The problem with their argument
is there is just nothing to it."

Mississippi was awaiting the high court's decision to move forward with
Berry's execution, said Jan Schaeffer, a spokeswoman for the state's
attorney general. Texas, the state with the largest number of inmates on
death row and stayed executions, said the discretion of rescheduling
lethal injections is left to state district courts.

Tennessee corrections officials said stays on three executions set for
December and January might soon be lifted by the state attorney general
and the executions rescheduled. Oklahoma requested execution dates for
Terry Lyn Short, who was convicted of killing a man in a fire, and Kevin
Young, who was convicted of killing a man during a bungled robbery.
Arkansas is reviewing the court's ruling before deciding how to proceed
with three stayed executions.

In Florida, where the error-plagued execution of Angel Diaz took twice the
normal time and led to a change in protocols, officials said no lethal
injections have been scheduled. Diaz, the last man to be executed in the
state, made facial expressions and gasped on his deathbed when he should
have been unconscious, according to witnesses.

There were no scheduled executions in Ohio, officials said last week. The
state changed its procedures after an execution in 2006, when Joseph Clark
awoke in the middle of his lethal injection and said, "It don't work." As
officials fumbled with attempts to deliver more anesthesia, he said, "Can
you just give me something by mouth to end this?"

(source: Washington Post)






NORTH DAKOTA----federal death penalty

Death penalty appeal filed in slain student case


Lawyers for a man sentenced to death for killing a University of North
Dakota student say the verdict should be thrown out because the federal
trial was unfair and was held in a community "contaminated by prejudice."

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 55, of Crookston, Minn., was convicted two years
ago of kidnapping resulting in the death Dru Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes,
Minn. Rodriguez is awaiting execution at a federal prison in Terre Haute,
Ind.

A 202-page appeal by defense attorneys, made public Tuesday, says the jury
pool was biased and mistakes were made by U.S. District Judge Ralph
Erickson and federal prosecutors. The appeal will be heard by a 3-judge
panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"Tried in a community so contaminated by prejudice and subjected to a
trial beset with misconduct by the prosecutor and error by the trial
court, Alfonso Rodriguez's conviction and the sentence of death imposed
upon him should not stand," Rodriguez's attorneys argue in the appeal.

U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley said he anticipated the arguments.

"I know the public and others may get weary about it, but we know this is
part of the appellate process," Wrigley said. "It's lengthy and it can be
grueling, but the United States is going to fight for the verdict to the
very end."

Defense attorney Richard Ney, a death penalty specialist from Wichita,
Kan., had no comment on the appeal.

Sjodin, 22, disappeared from a Grand Forks shopping mall in November 2003.
Her body was found in a ravine near Crookston the following April. Defense
attorneys filed a formal appeal after Rodriguez was sentenced to death in
February 2007.

The 40,000-word document said the trial should have been moved because of
a lack of racial diversity in the jury pool and opinions by potential
jurors that Rodriguez was guilty.

"Despite this climate of prejudice, the trial court denied the defense
funds to conduct a complete venue study in this case, and ultimately
denied Mr. Rodriguez' pleas for a change of venue," the appeal said.

Joseph Daly, a law professor at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., who
is a former prosecutor and defense attorney, also believes the trial
should have been moved out of Fargo.

"I thought that from the beginning," Daly said Tuesday. "I thought it
would be difficult to find people who didn't know a whole lot about the
case or didn't have strong feelings about it. I think if I was on the
court of appeals, I would look carefully at that particular issue."

Wrigley said the trial was decided by "an impartial and fair-minded jury."

It is less likely that the appeals panel will find the judge or
prosecutors made mistakes that would overturn the verdict, Daly said.

"There's no such thing as a perfect trial," Daly said. "There are mistakes
that are made because human beings are doing this. It has to be a pretty
serious error."

The appeal raises 20 issues, including claims that the death penalty was
imposed under an unconstitutional law and the grand jury was misinformed
when it handed down the indictment.

The government response is due on May 19.

If Rodriguez loses the appeal, defense attorneys can ask the U.S. Supreme
Court to hear the case. Daly said the high court agrees to take on about
90 out of 11,000 cases a year. Justices turned down 11 death row appeals
earlier this week.

"The chances of it getting to the Supreme Court are really pretty low,"
Daly said. "This could really be Rodriguez's last shot."

(source: Associated Press)