Dec. 7
USA:
Lethal Injection: 30 Years of Hypocrisy
TEXAS CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, Art. 43.24. TREATMENT OF CONDEMNED. No
torture, or ill treatment, or unnecessary pain, shall be inflicted upon a
prisoner to be executed under the sentence of the law.
Hypocrisy: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not;
especially: the false assumption of an appearance of virtue.
30 years ago, just after midnight, Dec. 7, 1982, Texas executed Charlie Brooks
with a lethal cocktail of 3 drugs. Texas had been execution-free for 18 years,
since 1964. The 1st African American executed in the U.S. since reinstatement
of the death penalty in 1976, Brooks' final words were an Islamic prayer
("There is no God but Allah. Verily do we belong and verily unto Him do we
return.") followed by a "stay strong" to his girlfriend.
He had been sentenced to death for murdering an auto mechanic named David
Gregory, but it was unclear if he or his accomplice had pulled the trigger, and
the prosecutor had tried to stop the execution. The courts and the Governor had
declined to intervene. A needle had already been inserted into Brooks' arm when
an unseen prison employee behind a curtain started the flow of lethal drugs. In
seven minutes, after a period of gasping and wheezing, 2 doctors examined him
and Dr. Ralph Gray pronounced him dead.
This was also the 1st lethal injection execution in the U.S. Amnesty
International said it was "especially repugnant" because "medical techniques
and personnel are meant to sustain life, not take it." There have been over
1,100 lethal injection executions in the U.S. since then, and every state that
still executes uses lethal injection as its primary killing method.
Designed to make executions look humane (like pet euthanasia), and to make
witnesses to the killings more comfortable, lethal injection has nevertheless
run into problems.
1. There have been dozens of botched executions. There have been bad reactions
to the drugs used - spasms, coughing, moans, extreme pain - and execution
personnel have had difficulties finding suitable veins, particularly in
prisoners who were IV drug users; in some cases inmates have tried to assist
executioners in their own death. Just this week, Arizona executioners cut into
a leg artery of a condemned prisoner in order to insert the needles.
2. The medical profession has recoiled from participation in executions, which
is a fundamental violation of ethical responsibilities as laid out by the AMA.
In addition to doctors, anesthesiologists, nurses, and EMTs have all
emphatically stated their opposition to participation in capital punishment.
3. The pharmaceutical profession and countries exporting drugs used in
executions have also tried to disentangle themselves from the degrading world
of executions. Large, well-known transnational pharma companies like Hospira,
Novartis, Lundbeck and Fresenius Kabi have spoken out and taken steps to
restrict access to their drugs by US executioners. Both the European Commission
(the European Union's executive governing body), and the government of the UK
have imposed strict export controls on drugs that could be used in the US to
kill prisoners. Even US authorities have intervened in shadier drug acquisition
efforts in places like Georgia and Nebraska.
4. As objections to executions have mounted, the transparency of the process
has correspondingly diminished. From the outset, one of the drugs used in
lethal injections (pancuronium) was included for the purpose of paralyzing the
prisoner, effectively masking or concealing any severe pain he might be feeling
as he is put to death. For this reason, pancuronium has been banned for use in
animal euthanasia, and it is only recently that some states have switched to a
one drug protocol that skips this paralytic step. At the same time, states like
Missouri and Florida have resorted to so-called "hooded executioner" laws,
concealing the identities of those who participate in executions, resulting in
a lack of accountability for botched executions or unethical medical
participation (or both). This is a government agency killing people, which
should require a maximum level of transparency, not masks and hoods.
The result of 30 years of lethal injection has been the perpetuation of a
massive hypocrisy. We are killing with drugs and medical professionals who are
supposed to heal, while pretending that this deliberate act of violence is
peaceful. Politicians spout "tough on crime" rhetoric while someone else
carries out the "tough" punishment behind walls and shields of anonymity. We
pretend that these staged killings are for victims' families while ignoring
families that don't want it, and ignoring the fact that the condemned has a
family too. Take your pick; the hypocrisy is widespread. And all this is just a
subset of the death penalty's grand hypocrisy: calling for death in order to
show our reverence for life.
The history of executions in the US - from hangings and firing squads to the
electric chair to lethal injection - is a history of attempting to placate an
increasingly squeamish public that is morally unsure about the death penalty.
Lethal injection is designed to anesthetize and paralyze the prisoner while
also putting critics of the death penalty to sleep.
Lethal injection is also set up to enable evasion of responsibility. Doctors
don't actually kill the prisoner (they just pronounce death or administer
anesthesia), drug companies don't supply the drugs directly (they are acquired
through 3rd parties), judges and juries don't take part in the killings (they
just issue the sentences). Prison guards, chaplains and wardens don't kill
prisoners either; they merely restrain and/or comfort them. Someone inserts the
needles, but someone else (or, at one point in some states, a machine designed
by Holocaust denier Fred Leucther) may inject the poison.
The reason states go to such lengths to make it look like no one is getting
blood on their hands (literally and figuratively) is because most of us
believe, to put it simply, that killing is wrong. And no amount of anesthesia
or secrecy legislation can cover up that basic fact.
So, ultimately it's all untenable. A public that believes in basic human rights
won???t stand forever for state killing, no matter how sanitized or hidden from
view or distant from their personal involvement. Those closest to executions
(wardens, medical professionals, drug companies) are objecting. Juries are
declining to issue death sentences. And public opinion at large is dropping.
People are waking up. And as the illusion of lethal injection is exposed and
the repugnance of executions revealed, the public is realizing there is simply
no humane way to kill.
(source: Brian Evans, blog, Amnesty International USA)
UTAH:
Prosecutors to seek death penalty for Nathan Sloop
The Davis County Attorney's Office intends to seek the death penalty for Nathan
Sloop.
The attorney's office filed their notice of intent to seek the death penalty
Thursday in 2nd District Court, where Sloop, 34, is accused of aggravated
murder in connection with the 2010 death of his 4-year-old stepson, Ethan
Stacy. Sloop's wife, Stephanie Sloop, 29, is also charged with aggravated
murder in Ethan's death, though the attorney's office has not filed the same
intent in her case.
Charging documents allege the Layton couple engaged in multiple acts of "severe
abuse" between April 29 and May 8 in 2010, which led to Ethan's death,
including "beatings, burning, drugging, isolating, malnourishing, leaving the
child alone and unattended while suffering, and refusing to seek vital
life-sustaining medical attention."
Nathan Sloop pleaded not guilty to the charges in July. Prosecutors had until
Dec. 14 to file their notice of intent to seek the death penalty after Sloop's
attorneys agreed to give prosecutors an extension to the 60-day deadline.
Nathan Sloop's next court appearance is scheduled for Dec. 11. Stephanie Sloop
is scheduled to appear in court 3 days later.
According to the police probable cause statements, Stephanie Sloop said she
knew Ethan needed medical attention after an initial May 5 disciplinary beating
by Nathan Sloop, but that she was afraid Sloop would harm her, too, if she
acted.
She told police that Ethan became "extremely ill," would not eat and was given
Benadryl to keep him quiet. She also told police that on May 7, Nathan Sloop
told her Ethan had burned himself in the bathtub on his feet, legs and buttocks
by turning up the hot water when Nathan Sloop left the bathroom.
The couple - who said they left the injured boy in a locked bedroom while they
got married May 6 - reported Ethan missing to police on Mother's Day, May 10,
after discovering the boy was dead.
But after a 12-hour search, police say the couple confessed to burying the boy
off a trail near Powder Mountain Ski Resort in Weber County.
Nathan Sloop, who led officers to the body on May 11, told police he used a
hammer to disfigure the boy's face and teeth in an effort to hinder his
identification.
(source: Salt Lake Tribune)
CONNECTICUT:
Killer's Brain Focus Of Death Penalty Testimony; Doctor Says Jusino, Convicted
Of A Second Murder, 'Wired' Differently Than Other People
Scans of 2-time killer Jose Jusino's brain show that he is wired differently
from other people, a doctor testified Thursday.
Dr. Peter Christopher Henry Gottschalk, a neurologist, was on the witness stand
in Superior Court in Rockville as part of the defense's efforts to keep Jusino
from getting the death penalty in the second murder.
Jusino, 25, was found guilty of the 2009 murder of cellmate Reynaldo Robles and
of capital felony last month. According to testimony, Jusino was tired of
hearing about Robles' problems, so he knocked him out, hog-tied him and
strangled him at the Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, carving "King
Guala" into Robles' chest.
The trial is now in its penalty phase, and the state has been trying to prove
that there are aggravating factors in the case - that Jusino committed the
murder in an especially cruel, heinous or depraved manner.
The defense is trying to show that there are mitigating factors, or evidence
that would make the jury opt for a lesser sentence.
To that end, Gottschalk, an expert witness, was put on the stand Thursday
afternoon.
Gottschalk, with help from defense attorney Leslie Cavanagh, showed the jury
three sets of brain scans. One showed more activity in Jusino's brain than in
the brains of control group members when participants in the study were at
rest.
Another set showed that when given a simple task that required Jusino to make a
decision, the same part of his brain was again "overactive" compared to the
others, he said.
The doctor also testified that Jusino's brain responded differently in yet a
third test, and that part of his brain is thicker than similar brain areas of
the people in the control group.
To sum up, Gottschalk testified, the information "shows significant differences
in the size, shape and ... function. It says something about the way this brain
is wired."
Prosecutor Reed Durham asked questions about how the members of the control
group were selected. He suggested through other questions that any stress
Jusino experienced over his role in the study could have affected the results.
Earlier, the defense tried to inject doubt in jurors' minds about Jusino's 1st
murder conviction. He was serving a 30-year sentence for a fatal shooting in
New Haven when he killed Robles. The prior murder conviction is what triggered
the capital felony charge.
His defense attorney from that case, Glenn Conway, testified that he felt the
facts of the shooting more closely fit a charge of manslaughter. But when the
state offered his client a 30-year sentence for murder, he advised Jusino to
take the deal, he said, in part because the prison term could have been much
longer after a trial.
During questioning by defense attorney Michael Fitzpatrick, Conway also
testified that a pre-sentencing report showed that Jusino had a history of PCP
use at the time of the shooting.
Fitzpatrick had Conway read the statement of apology Jusino read to the court
when he was sentenced: "I was smoking. I wasn't thinking of what I was doing."
(source: Hartford Courant)
ALABAMA----inmate removed from death row
Judge changes sentence of Mobile County's longest-serving death row inmate to
life
A man who shot a cabbie to death during a robbery more than 30 years ago
officially got off death row today after a judge carried out a federal court
order to change the defendant's death sentence.
Mobile County Circuit Judge Robert Smith had no choice: A federal judge in
September ruled that Bobby Tarver, 52, cannot be executed because he is
mentally retarded. The U.S. Supreme Court declared execution of the mentally
retarded unconstitutional in 2002.
Smith changed Tarver's sentence to life in prison without the possibility of
parole. Today's anticlimactic hearing caps a years-long legal battle over
whether Tarver's mental abilities qualified as retardation.
Then-Mobile County Circuit Judge Ferrill McRae ruled in 2005 that Tarver's IQ
was 72, placing him above the range of defendants protected under the Supreme
Court precedent. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals later upheld the ruling,
over the objection of then-Judge Sue Bell Cobb, who wrote a dissent arguing
that the trial judge had abused his discretion.
Cobb predicted the Alabama Supreme Court of the federal courts eventually would
overturn it. That is precisely what happened. In September, U.S. District Judge
Ginny Granade issued a 39-page ruling overturning the death penalty.
She expressed concern that McRae had focused on Tarver's highest IQ score while
ignoring 3 tests that clearly put him below the legal threshold for
retardation. Those IQ scores were 61, 61 and 59.
"The court is concerned about the circuit court's disregard for the substantial
amount of evidence that undermined its conclusion," the judge wrote.
In addition, Granade pointed to an Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles report
that the defendant's 72 IQ should have been adjusted downward by 10 points.
Tarver was Mobile County's longest serving death row inmate, having been among
the condemned since Sept. 24, 1982.
According to court records, Tarver planned to rob a Mobile convenience store on
Dec. 1 of the previous year when he was 21 years old. He left, though, after
determining that the store was too crowded.
Instead, according to court documents, Tarver walked over to a taxicab and
demanded money driver Percy Gibson. When Gibson told Tarver he had only 40
cents, the defendant ordered him out of the car and led him to the side of the
store.
Tarver shot Gibson to death, according to court records. Although Tarver
maintained that the gun had discharged after he dropped it, expert testimony
indicated that the muzzle of the shotgun had been touching the victim's skin or
clothing, according to records.
(source: Press-Register)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Terrance Williams on death row
A reader wrote (edited):
Recently I saw a newspaper item that troubled me deeply. I'm asking you
[directed to the reader's friends] to write to the governor of Pennsylvania to
ask for clemency for Terrance 'Terry' Williams, currently on death row. I've
never written about a thing like this before, and I'm not opposed to the death
penalty in all cases. But I believe Williams in no way deserves this awful
punishment.
Williams is facing execution for fatally beating Amos Norwood with a tire iron
in 1984 (when Williams was a teenager); however, federal public defender Shawn
Nolan wrote in a petition that 'Williams and the victim ... were involved in a
conflicted sexual relationship in which Norwood paid teenaged Terry for sex.
Norwood escalated the violence of their sexual encounters, despite Terry's
attempts to stop [it].'
Williams also says he had been physically and sexually assaulted throughout his
childhood and gang-raped at a juvenile facility. Defense lawyers contended that
newly discovered evidence of Norwood's sexual orientation supported their claim
that Williams, who was 18 at the time, killed Norwood because Norwood, who was
56, had abused Williams from the age of 13 - not because of a robbery, as
prosecutors argued at the trial.
According to The New York Times, just before Williams' scheduled execution in
October, Judge M. Teresa Sarmina of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas
issued a stay and ruled that Williams should be spared. The judge said
prosecutors had withheld evidence from the defense showing Norwood had
homosexual relationships with minors, including Williams. Such evidence, the
judge ruled, could have led the jury at Williams' 1986 trial to vote for a
penalty other than death.
I believe Williams' sentence should be reduced to life in prison because:
The Williams case is clearly not one of pre-meditated murder, but a crime of
the moment.
The relationship between the murdered man, Norwood, and Williams was almost
certainly abusive.
Prosecutors suppressed mitigating factors at the trial which probably would
have resulted in a lesser penalty.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 2267):
Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully
determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to
the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending
human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's
safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these
are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are
more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for
effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense
incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the
possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the
offender is an absolute necessity 'are very rare, if not practically
non-existent.'
I agree that Terry Williams should get his death sentence commuted to life in
prison (without parole).
What about you?
Matt C. Abbott
(source: renewamerica.com)
CALIFORNIA:
Jury recommends death penalty in Hirschfield murder trial
A Sacramento Superior Court jury recommended the death penalty Thursday for
Richard Joseph Hirschfield, who was convicted of murder last month in the
deaths of UC Davis sweethearts more than 30 years ago.
The panel announced its verdict before Judge Michael W. Sweet in a crowded
downtown Sacramento courtroom.
Last month, the jury had convicted Hirschfield in the Dec. 20, 1980, murders of
John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves, both 18. They had been abducted after
working as volunteers on The Davis Children's Nutcracker. Their bodies were
found 2 days later in a ditch 30 miles away near Lake Natoma. Their throats had
been slashed, and Gonsalves had been sexually attacked.
It took the jury 3 1/2 hours to deliberate before reaching its decision in the
guilt phase of the Hirschfield trial. The panel informed Sweet's courtroom
today at 10:30 a.m. that it had a verdict on whether Hirschfield should be
executed or sentenced to life in prison without parole. Their deliberations on
whether to recommend death or life without parole for Hirschfield began
Wednesday and lasted a total of 2 1/2 hours.
(source: Sacramento Bee)
_______________________________________________
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/deathpenalty@lists.washlaw.edu/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A free service of WashLaw
http://washlaw.edu
(785)670.1088
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
