April 13
ALABAMA:
Anthony Ray Hinton among small club of exonerated death row inmates
That's the number of American death-row inmates who have been exonerated while
still alive since 1973, according to an anti-death penalty editorial by the New
York Times Editorial Board.
The latest member of that "macabre club," wrote The Times, is Anthony Ray
Hinton of Birmingham, who was released April 3 after a gun found in Hinton's
home was retested and found not to match the bullets that killed 2 fast-food
managers in 1985. He had been in prison for 30 years.
"His prosecutor at the time said he knew Mr. Hinton was guilty and 'evil' just
by looking at him. And later prosecutors continued to insist on his guilt even
when expert testimony clearly refuted the case against him,' the New York Times
editorial states.
The Times' editorial cited 1 study that showed that 4 % of all death row
inmates have been wrongfully convicted.
"That is far more than often enough to conclude that the death penalty --
besides being cruel, immoral, and ineffective at reducing crime -- is so
riddled with error that no civilized nation should tolerate its use," the
editorial states.
An AL.com editorial after Hinton's release demanded more accountability from
Alabama's justice system, which delayed retesting the gun for years after
Hinton's lawyers raised serious questions about the evidence.
(source: al.com)
TENNESSEE:
Tennessee Puts Remaining Executions on Hold
The Tennessee Supreme Court has officially halted executions in the state,
vacating four remaining execution dates amid legal challenges over Tennessee's
death penalty protocols.
In February 2014, the state set execution dates for 10 men, all scheduled to be
put to death between April 2014 and November 2015. But since then death row
inmates have been challenging the state's lethal injection protocols in court.
Next month, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether inmates can also
challenge the electric chair, which is now Tennessee's official Plan B for
executions if lethal injection drugs are not available.
Most of the scheduled executions had been called off pending the resolution of
those legal challenges, but 4 men - Abu-Ali Abdur'rahman, Lee Hall, Donald
Strouth, and Nicholas Sutton - remained on the calendar. With an order Friday,
the high court also vacated their execution dates.
The court will set new execution dates once the legal cases are resolved.
(source: Nashville Scene)
USA:
This Is What It Feels Like To Spend Your Life Working On Death Row
In the polarizing debate over whether the death penalty should be allowed in
the United States, so much of the conversation, whether sympathetic or hostile
in tone, focuses on the inmates facing execution -- their crimes, their
appeals, their last meals. But less is known about a host of other people who
are involved whenever an inmate is put to death, none of whom are immune from
the emotional stress that can come from performing such a difficult and
irrevocable task.
The Huffington Post spoke to a variety of individuals who have spent their
lives working on death row. Each person has since retired from corrections
work, but offers a glimpse into how these careers both shaped their outlooks on
capital punishment and affected their lives. Below, their experiences, in their
own words.
The following stories have been edited for length and clarity.
THE WARDEN
"I was training decent men and women how to take the life of a human being."
Frank Thompson, 72, served as a superintendent and a warden in both the Oregon
and Arkansas prison systems before retiring in 1998. Last year, Thompson
submitted a statement to the Oregon state legislature in favor of abolishing
the state's death penalty, criticizing the punishment as a "failed public
policy."
I grew up in the civil rights era, in a time when civil rights workers were
being murdered. I worked in law enforcement, reluctantly fundamentally
supporting the death penalty, until I became a superintendent of prisons. I'm
not a softie on crime. Capital punishment was embedded in my psyche as an
appropriate sanction.
I was called upon to administer the 1st capital punishment program here in
Oregon. Because I had to become so intimately involved in rewriting the capital
punishment protocols, I became intricately exposed to every nuance of the
capital punishment process.
That began a series of Saul and Paul events in me that sort of allowed me to
start thinking about those flaws in the back of my mind that I knew existed
with capital punishment. It's being administered against the poor; it lacks
proof that it deters anything.
There was a moment, strapping down one of the inmates, where the straps were
apparently tied a little too tight. The inmate, lying there on the gurney
before the lethal injections began, he sort of looked up to me and said, "Boss,
it's hurting my hands."
So I looked at my tie-down team and said, "Loosen them up a little bit." That
was a moment of compassion in an otherwise really, really terrible situation.
We weren't there to inflict pain; our job was to bring about this inmate's
demise in as humane a manner as possible.
Because of my military background in Vietnam and because of my law enforcement
background, I'm very big on training. I trained, and trained, and trained my
staff. So much that one day, the training captain said to me, "Frank, even
though they're earning overtime going through the training, the staff is just
getting tired." And I said, "Good. Have them go back and do it for me 1 more
time."
I was trying to insulate them from the fears of doing this job. Conducting the
execution process with dignity in mind for everyone involved is a very powerful
motivation for everything we did.
I have since learned there were some staff who had never been part of an
execution process, or any career in which lives could be taken as part of their
jobs. They were bothered greatly. So much so that they began looking for jobs
in other areas.
I realized that I was training decent men and women how to take the life of a
human being. In the name of a public policy that after all these years couldn't
be shown to increase the net of public safety.
At that point, I couldn't go forward without being honest with myself. In order
to lead people into such a daunting task, you have to be honest.
THE BUREAUCRAT
"This stuff will kill you if you think about it all the time."
Terry Collins, 61, worked for a total of 32-and-a-half years in corrections,
most recently as the director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and
Correction. Before that, he was the warden of 2 Ohio prisons, including during
the aftermath of the Lucasville riot, an 11-day siege that was one of the
deadliest prison riots in U.S. history. Collins said that although he began his
career accepting the death penalty, his years of experience have changed his
outlook on the system.
I witnessed 32 executions. As regional director, I was on site in the control
room.
During that time period, I was often asked my opinion on the death penalty. My
response was, "It's the law of the state, and I'm going to carry it out to the
best of my ability."
I used to tell inmates all the time, 'I don't know if you're guilty or
innocent, but the courts said you're supposed to be here. My job is supposed to
make sure you stay in custody until you served your time or the judge says
you're to be released."
What I always question in my mind was, did the system get it right? I don't
believe that there was anyone executed during my tenure, those that I
witnessed, that was innocent. But I don't know that as fact. It's certainly a
true fact that 9 people in this state have come off death row who were later
found to be not guilty.
I've walked other people out of prison who were later found not guilty. So the
system does make mistakes. I don't think you can make a mistake when you're
talking about somebody's life.
I had a case where a guy for years told me he was not guilty. Probably 5 or 7
years after that, I actually walked him out the front door.
We were on the steps and he told me, "See, I told you, Mr. Collins. I wasn't
guilty." Only thing I could say to him was, "I'm sorry."
There's a thin line between staff and inmates. You can't become overly
friendly, but you have to remember you're still dealing with human beings. You
can't get down on a personal level, because sometimes it turns bad for the
individuals involved.
For directors, it's a 24/7 job. I always tried to get to my kids' sporting
events and their school plays, but I've had to work on Thanksgiving Day, on
Christmas Day, been called in to work on New Year's Eve. You're never away from
it.
You have to find a way to step away from it. Some people can't find a way to do
that. But this stuff will kill you if you think about it all the time.
THE CHAPLAIN
"I fought the good fight, and now I have to pay the price."
In his 15 years as a chaplain with the Texas Department of Corrections, Rev.
Carroll "Bud" Pickett, now 83, walked with inmates in their final 10 steps on
death row a total of 95 times. On the day Pickett retired, in 1995, he
announced he was standing against the death penalty -- something he was unable
to do as a DOC employee. He has advocated for its abolition ever since,
publishing a memoir about his experiences in 2009.
Pickett's health is declining, which he said has rendered him unable to
communicate by phone. But he was willing to talk to HuffPost via email. Below
are excerpts:
I have had a difficult time in the last 2 months, with medical and emotional
problems.
I have been to several great doctors and they all agree that serving as death
house chaplain, then testifying at death penalty trials for 6 years and being a
part of mediation teams to visit men going on trial all over Texas, has
affected my heart. It has gotten to the point that I am now blind, cannot
drive, cannot sleep regularly.
Thus, my physicians have ordered me to cancel all work with anything connected
with death house, executions and death penalty trials. I regret this but I
cannot help it.
Standing by the gurney almost 100 times, and watching innocent men killed,
watching repentant men killed, and seeing the pain among families and men and
my employee friends, cannot leave my memories.
I regret that as of last week, I am totally retired from any and all activities
concerning what I did for 34 years. I am human and I did my best, and now I am
paying for standing for what I feel is right. I never thought it would come to
this, so I was going to fight the death penalty in any and every way until I
died.
I gave it all I had, and now it took its toll. It looks like I fought the good
fight, ran the good race, and now I have to pay the price.
THE EXECUTIONER
"I don't know who my enemies are."
Jerry Givens, 62, worked for the Virginia DOC for 23 years in roles including
corrections officer, lieutenant and eventually captain before retiring in 1999.
While serving as lieutenant at the now-shuttered Virginia State Penitentiary in
Richmond, Givens performed the majority of the executions of his career.
One of your main jobs at the prison is to save lives. You're keeping them safe,
preventing suicides. When I had to do executions, I would transform myself into
a person who would take a life.
My family didn't know a lot of what I did. A lot of executioners hide their
identity for the safety of their family. A lot of people in society despise the
executioner. I don't know who my enemies are.
You have to psych yourself out that [the guy's] guilty. I would build my ego up
to be able to do it. I had to believe without a shadow of a doubt that he was
guilty and that he deserved it. I always prayed to God, "I hope I don't execute
an innocent person."
I had set a goal that I would do 100 executions. But God saw fit I wouldn't do
100. I think if I did, I would have probably executed an innocent guy. I did
62.
The effects were jarring after the first 1 or 2. But Virginia started doing
them so regularly -- you get kind of used to them.
I'd feel like a yo-yo. If there was a lot of publicity and media coverage
[around an execution] and it stays in the news, it takes a while to calm down.
I might rest for 2 or 3 days. Sometimes it might take a month or 2.
For executions, there's was no training. I never saw any that were out-and-out
botched, but there were definite problems.
Everyone we executed, we put them in blue denims. Blue denim shirt and pants.
When you're doing electrocutions, you need a natural sponge that you soak in a
brine solution for 24 hours, and you shave their head and leg so the electrodes
get good contact.
On one guy, we rolled the pant leg up. [As the inmate convulsed] the pant leg
fell down and it caught on fire. We started cutting the pant leg off after
that.
People on death row, society sees them as animals. But I see them as human
beings. I look beyond that crime. I see that they were a little boy. What
triggered that little boy? This guy is losing everything. This is his last
everything. What is he feeling?
1 inmate was baptized the day before his execution. Some of the corrections
officers went to his baptism. Some people said we got too close. That's not
being too close. That's human nature. He's still my brother.
I knew the system was corrupted when we exonerated Earl Washington Jr. from
death row. He's on the street now. But 3 weeks later, I would have executed
him.
You have 2 types of people on death row. The guilty and the innocent. And when
you have the guilty and the innocent, you shouldn't have death row.
(source: Huffington Post)
******************
The search for a more humane execution is flawed because there's no such thing
Oklahoma is but the governor's signature away from becoming the 1st state to
approve the use of nitrogen gas in executions - another step in the doomed
search for a humane execution. The state began to study alternatives after
botching the execution of Clayton Lockett on 29 April 2014; it took 43 minutes
for him to die from a lethal injection attempt.
But as we have seen with lethal injection, less gruesome doesn't mean painless.
The unfortunate logic of modern execution is that if the body is still enough,
and quiet enough, then we can forget that there is a person in there.
Mike Christian, the state representative who co-wrote the nitrogen legislation,
argues that nitrogen gas is scientifically proven to cause a quick and painless
death. Though he once told Der Spiegel that he didn't care if they used "lethal
injection, the guillotine or if we feed them to lions"; he now claims that "we
have come up with a fool-proof way for a humane execution."
This isn't the 1st time we've heard that modern science has found a brand-new
way to make the barbaric humane. Proponents of executions from the guillotine
to the electric chair to lethal injection claimed that science had advanced
enough to create the painless execution; they were all wrong. At their most
efficient, these methods don't eliminate pain. They simply hide the pain from
observers.
The state wasn't always ostensibly concerned with the pain of those it had
decided to eliminate. The breaking wheel, for example, involved strapping a
prisoner to a cartwheel, breaking his limbs and, if he were lucky, a coup de
grace - if not, executionees suffered slow deaths from dehydration. But on 3
August 1788, a furious Versailles crowd rescued Jean Louschart from the
breaking wheel and threatened his would-be executioner that "you must kill your
customers without making them suffer." King Louis XVI pardoned Louschart - and
knew he needed to abolish the wheel.
In 1789, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French physician who wanted to reform the
practice of beheading (which often required two or more hacks with a sword or
axe), told the National Assembly that a decapitation machine "will take off a
head in a twinkling and the victim will feel nothing but a slight sense of
refreshing coolness on the neck." 3 years later, the National Assembly asked
Antoine Louis, the permanent secretary to the Academy of Surgeons, to build the
machine that "should only involve the deprivation of life." On 21 January 1793,
Louis XVI was killed with the National Razor; it was last used in France in
1977.
New York Governor David Hill also turned to modern science for a humane form of
execution in 1885: "The present mode of executing criminals by hanging has come
down to us from the dark ages," he complained. On 13 May 1886, a bill
established "A Commission to Investigate and Report the Most Humane and
Practical Method of Carrying into Effect the Sentence of Death in Capital
Cases"; the commission recommended, promising that it would be "absolute in its
working and will effect the instantaneous and painless death of the convicted
criminal."
On 6 August 1890, in the state's very 1st electrocution, officials had to send
2 waves of electricity through William Kemmler's body, causing his fingers to
curl into themselves, his mouth to foam, and his flesh to smoke. And, just
since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, there have been at least 10
more botched electrocutions; even when electrocutions worked as advertised,
death penalty supporters described terrifying scenes of blood and burned flesh.
So by the late 1970s, states turned to lethal injection; Oklahoma called on Dr
Jay Chapman, the state's chief medical examiner, to design a protocol that
would appear humane. Soon, Chapman's 3-drug regimen became the gold standard
across the nation. Ronald Reagan, drawing on his experience as a farmer,
compared the method to a veterinarian who gives an injured horse a shot and
"the horse goes to sleep."
But this experiment in humane execution hasn't delivered on its promise either.
According to Austin Sarat, 7 % of lethal injections are botched, higher than
any other method. One reason is that medical professionals cannot participate,
or else they might lose their board certification. Even Jay Chapman had a
change of heart about his creation in practice: "The simplest thing I know of
is the guillotine," he said in 2007, adding "And I'm not at all opposed to
bringing it back. The person's head is cut off and that's the end of it."
Gruesome? Perhaps. But the only real thing distinguishing nitrogen executions
from firing squads from lethal injections from electrocutions from hangings
from beheadings is our own comfort as witnesses; for those condemned to death
by the state, there is no going gently into that good night. There is only
pain.
(source: jason Silverstein, The Guardian)
************************
10 States with Highest Murder Rates Despite Death Penalty
If you are wondering which are the states with highest murder rates despite
death penalty, that can mean only one thing - you are also wondering if the
death penalty serves its purpose. So, what is the purpose of execution, if
there is any except for punishing the criminal? As everyone understands it -
the main goal of the death penalty is not only in retribution, but also to
deter further crimes, especially murders. The idea is: potential murderers and
other criminals should be intimidated by the idea of paying for their crimes
with the death penalty, and because of that they should stop themselves before
committing some heinous act. We feel that it is only natural to ask the
question - if someone is "sane enough" to commit an atrocity in the first
place, would capital punishment really stop them? Do you really think that
murderers would stop for a minute and value their intended deeds? All this
doesn't seem that plausible. (Maybe you would be interested in comparing this
list of 10 states with highest murder rates despite death penalty with one that
shows us which are the 10 states with death penalty and that use it the most.)
According to the Death Penalty Center's many statistic data, as well as some
FBI Studies, there does exist a difference in murder rates between the states
with death penalty and non-death penalty states, but that difference only
serves to prove that the capital punishment doesn't achieve its goals (except
for the obvious one - punishing criminals). Hence, it is not that unexpected
that states with highest murder rates are usually the ones with the death
penalty. You may wonder now - why is this unexpected, one thing is that capital
punishment doesn't deter murders, but it is a completely different thing to say
that the death penalty in a way actually simulates crimes. We agree with this
observation, but we feel that there is a strong connection between murder rates
and the death penalty itself, because of the examples such as resuming capital
punishment in Oklahoma. Namely, studies have shown that after 25 years with no
death penalty, resuming it in Oklahoma has produced an increase in murder rates
and the incidence of other massacres. Why is that so? We can have many
philosophical disputes about this question, but we feel that the answer is
hidden in the very essence of the death penalty itself. Let's look at this
logically - if our state allows execution for murder only in some specific
cases, maybe then the crime itself is not at all that monstrous? We feel that
by the legalization of the deed of murder, we take away a part of this crime's
weight.
But now, after sharing some of our thoughts on this matter with you, let's get
to the point - do you live in a state with the death penalty? Do you think that
your state is somewhat safer because of capital punishment? Are you interested
in putting that by to the test by finding out how does it rate when it comes to
the number of murders? If you are ready, take a look and find out if your state
is here, in the list of 10 states with highest murder rates despite death
penalty (statistics are from 2013):
10. Oklahoma----Murder rate per 100, 000 people: 5,1
9. Arkansas----Murder rate per 100, 000 people: 5,4
8. Arizona------Murder rate per 100, 000 people: 5,4
7. Georgia------Murder rate per 100, 000 people: 5,6
6. Nevada------Murder rate per 100, 000 people: 5,8
5. Missouri-----Murder rate per 100, 000 people: 6,1
4. South Carolina--Murder rate per 100, 000 people: 6,2
3. Mississippi----Murder rate per 100, 000 people: 6,5
2. Alabama-------Murder rate per 100, 000 people: 7,2
And the state with highest murder rate despite death penalty is Louisiana!
--------Murder rate per 100, 000 people: 10, 8
(source: insidermonkey.com)
_______________________________________________
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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
