[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 28



USA:

Killing in Secret: Death by Lethal Injection


"The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of
freely communicating thereon... has ever been justly deemed the only
effectual guardian of every other right."-- James Madison

In our post-9/11 world, government secrecy has become an accepted norm,
whether the topic is national security, government spending or
constitutional protocols for executions. (Consider that Americans barely
protested at the news that President Bush had authorized government agents
to secretly listen in on our phone calls and read our emails.)

Yet transparency in government is critical to maintaining a democracy.
Meaningful public review enables citizens to hold their elected officials
accountable, which ensures an open and free government. Without
transparency in government, those in power fall prey to corruption and
general incompetence. The present controversy over lethal injection
protocols is a prime example of this.

For 3 decades, prison employees in states across the nation have
implemented virtually every aspect of lethal injection executions, largely
outside of public view and without legislative or executive oversight.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court dodged the issue of government
secrecy and its impact on lethal injection procedures and executions when
it recently handed down its ruling in Baze v. Rees.

The case challenged Kentucky's lethal injection protocol, which uses a
three-drug injection sequence that has been shown to carry an unnecessary
risk of inflicting pain on the condemned. Currently, 36 of the 37 states
that have the death penalty use lethal injections and have protocols
similar to Kentucky's. This method of execution was first used in Oklahoma
and then adopted by other states with no scientific study as to its
effects on those executed.

However, studies have since indicated that the risks of torturous death
are real and significant. In fact, the possibility exists than an inmate
executed by lethal injection could remain conscious, experiencing severe
pain as he slowly dies. For example, Angel Diaz took more than twice the
usual time to die and had to be given a rare second dose of deadly
chemicals. Consequently, a medical examiner reported that Diaz had
chemical burns on both arms. "It really sounds like he was tortured to
death," said Dr. Jonathan Groner of the Ohio State Medical School. Diaz's
botched execution led Florida Governor Jeb Bush to suspend all executions.

Regrettably, incompetence resulting in botched executions has become a
hallmark of many state and federal executions. Even so, states continue to
cloak their lethal injection protocols and executions in secrecy.

For example, some of the most closely guarded secrets relate to the
qualifications and training (or lack thereof) of those administering
lethal injections, often to the detriment of death row prisoners. In
Missouri, for example, when the media uncovered the identity of the
state's lethal injection supervisor, they also learned that he had
confused dosages during executions and had lost his privileges to practice
in two hospitals. Incredibly, after a federal court barred him from
participating in Missouri executions, he was hired as part of the federal
government's execution team.

Incredibly, the responsibility for creating lethal injection procedures is
often delegated to prison employees without discussion, meaningful study
or oversight by elected representatives. In California, in response to a
federal court order, corrections officials agreed to reexamine their
policies but then sought to keep the review process secret. Although the
judge denied that request, the construction of a new death chamber began
without the public, their elected representatives or even the governor
knowing anything about it. Many states even refuse to disclose information
about their execution procedures to lawyers whose clients will be
subjected to lethal injections.

The shroud of secrecy remains even after an inmate's death, preventing a
final assessment of the lethal injection procedure. All but 2 states
maintain complete secrecy regarding post-execution records and autopsies.
These records contain data that is critical to evaluating whether inmates
were conscious during execution, but government officials refuse to
release this information. However, scientists who have studied
post-execution materials in the 2 states where they are available, North
Carolina and California, have concluded that lethal injection is not
working the way states claim.

The manner in which capital punishment is meted out in this country is
nothing less than a travesty of justice. And lethal injections, with their
shroud of secrecy, are just one part of the problem. We must hold our
government accountable, especially when it comes to the state executing
citizens. If we are going to allow the government to kill us, then we
certainly need to know all the facts beforehand. Clearly, we are in need
of a nationwide moratorium on executions until these matters are sorted
out and opened up to public review.

As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once observed, "Sunlight is the
best disinfectant."

(source: John Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute)





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

Exonerated Ex-Inmates Struggle to Shed Stigma


Tabitha Pollock was asleep when her boyfriend killed her 3-year-old
daughter. Charged with first-degree murder because prosecutors believed
she should have known of the danger, Pollock spent more than 6 years in
prison before the Illinois Supreme Court threw out the conviction.

"Should have known," the high court ruled, was not nearly enough to keep
Pollock behind bars.

5 years later, Pollock remains in limbo, freed from prison but not free
from the snags of a wrongful conviction that upended her life. With a
felony record, she cannot become a teacher, as she wants. She cannot
collect damages from the Illinois government. On a trip to Australia,
where customs officials questioned her when she arrived, she learned that
the murder conviction always follows her.

To fully clear her name, Pollock -- as well as a dozen or so other former
Illinois inmates who have been exonerated -- needs an official pardon,
which only the governor can give. She applied in 2002 but has received no
word.

"I was raised to believe America is a wonderful country, but I have
serious doubts about Illinois now," said Pollock, 37. "This whole
experience has taught me not to have any hopes or dreams."

A spokesman for Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) said last month that the governor
is flooded with petitions and has not had time to focus on Pollock's case.

Pollock's predicament is becoming more common across the country as more
people are exonerated. The New York-based Innocence Project has tallied
215 wrongful convictions in the United States that have been reversed on
the basis of DNA evidence.

Many of those former prisoners are seeking redress from the governments
that mistakenly jailed them -- but they are kept waiting, whether because
of the slow pace of bureaucracy or a lack of procedures or political will
to handle their cases.

When the authorities do not certify innocence, "in effect, the sentence
just goes on," said Stephen Saloom, policy director of the Innocence
Project. Noting that legislators are recognizing "the lingering problems"
of the exonerated after their release, he said 22 states and the District
provide official compensation in one form or another.

"A recent trend is not only to compensate at a monetary value per year
incarcerated, but also to provide immediate services upon release," said
Saloom, who said the project's clients spent an average of 11 years in
prison. Advocates say the exonerated need help making the transition back
into society, especially finding a job.

"It's not enough to let the person out of prison," Saloom said.

Alabama pays exonerated ex-prisoners $50,000 for each year they were
incarcerated. New Jersey pays $40,000 or twice the inmate's previous
annual income. Louisiana offers $15,000 a year plus counseling, medical
care and job training, according to Northwestern University's Center on
Wrongful Convictions.

In Illinois, to regain a certifiably clean record and collect compensation
-- a lump payment of $60,150 for 5 years or less in prison, or $120,300
for six to 14 years -- an exonerated inmate must obtain a "pardon based on
innocence" from the governor. A 15-member state review board interviews
the petitioners and makes a recommendation, but the governor is not
obligated to make a decision.

"The governor is not acting on them," said Karen Daniel, senior staff
lawyer with the Center on Wrongful Convictions, which is pressing
Blagojevich to decide on Pollock's case and others. "In most of these
cases, it's really not a hard decision. Sometimes there's still some
controversy left after the conviction is thrown out, but in most of these
cases there is no disagreement."

Illinois law gives exonerated former prisoners fewer services than paroled
convicts. A bill recently passed by the Illinois House and now under
consideration by the Senate would change that, while allowing cleared
inmates to receive a "certificate of innocence," which would have the same
power as a pardon, without going to the governor.

Robert Wilson's experience with the Chicago courts was a case of mistaken
identity. He spent nine years behind bars for another man's crime, and it
haunts him still.

On Feb. 28, 1997, someone slashed June Siler, 24, with a box cutter as she
waited for a bus on Chicago's South Side. The next day, at the same bus
stop, police arrested Wilson. Interrogated for nearly 30 hours, he signed
a written confession and was charged with attempted murder.

Wilson pleaded not guilty, but Siler pointed him out in court as the man
who cut her face and throat. What the jury did not know was that 5 other
victims -- all white, as Siler was -- were attacked and slashed at Chicago
bus stops in the 2 weeks after Wilson's arrest. The slasher was caught and
confessed, but police never asked him about the Siler case.

Nine years later, on an appeal filed by the Northwestern team, a court
ruled that the jury should have been told about the other cases. Siler
came forward and said she had fingered the wrong man.

Wilson, at long last, was free. Yet he left prison with few prospects and
deeply in debt because he was assessed child support for his 3 boys while
behind bars. These days, his boys are teenagers and he is "barely making
it."

"I feel so bad, I figure I would be better off back in the penitentiary,"
said Wilson, 52. "Whenever I apply for a job, they see the criminal record
and say no. I'm not asking for welfare or a handout; just give me what I
deserve."

Marlon Pendleton is also bitter. In 1993, a rape and robbery victim picked
him from a police lineup. His attorneys believe that the victim was
influenced by seeing Pendleton in handcuffs before she viewed the entire
group. Although he repeatedly asked for DNA testing, he was told it would
be impossible.

In 2006, a DNA test established his innocence and Pendleton went free. But
he has not been pardoned, has not received compensation and has not seen
the conviction wiped off his record. Unable to meet the mortgage, his
family lost his late mother's home in Gary, Ind. He says his children are
suffering.

"I can't get a job," Pendleton said. "Every time I fill out an
application, it comes up. What can you do with a prison record and a not
very good education? Life has been a living hell."

Daniel, the Northwestern lawyer, said the number of exonerated inmates
"probably seems small" in a nation with 2 million people behind bars. "But
to me, it's important."

"It's just an enormous wrong we've inflicted on these people, not
necessarily intentionally," Daniel said. "His possessions are gone, job is
gone, family members are often gone. There's little worse a government can
do to a person. We can't in good conscience have a so-called criminal
justice system unless we make people whole when we screw up."

One of Daniel's clients is Marcus Lyons, a former Navy Reservist and
aspiring computer programmer who spent 3 years in prison on an erroneous
sexual assault conviction.

Lyons was so distraught that after his release in 1991, he tried to nail
himself to a cross outside the DuPage County Courthouse.

DNA evidence cleared him last year. He is still waiting for the Illinois
government to make amends.

(source: Washington Post)