August 13
AUGUST 13, 2018:
TEXAS:
Closing arguments expected Monday in 'honor killings' death penalty trial
Prosecutors Monday are expected to weave together more than 20 years of bad
acts to convince a Harris County jury to sentence a Jordanian immigrant to
death for killing his son-in-law and orchestrating the slaying of his
daughter's close friend in what prosecutors said were "honor killings."
Defense lawyers for 60-year-old Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan likely will try to paint
a picture of a devoted and traditional Muslim father caught between the culture
of his homeland where patriarchs control their offspring and the modern world.
Both sides will have about an hour to give closing arguments Monday capping an
8-week capital murder trial in state District Judge Jan Krocker's court.
Defense attorney Allen Tanner opened the trial 2 months ago by saying it was a
"chaotic" case and jurors would have a hard time figuring out what happened
during 2 slayings in 2012.
After 5 weeks of testimony, the jury took less than an hour to convict Irsan of
the double homicide of his 28-year-old son-in-law, Coty Beavers, in November
2012, and Gelareh Bagherzadeh, an Iranian activist who was a close friend of
Irsan's daughter, 11 months earlier.
The same jury then spent 2 weeks listening to testimony to determine whether
Irsan should be sentenced to death or life without parole.
They heard that Irsan also killed a different son-in-law in 2012. Irsan
testified that it was in self-defense. Other family members said he blasted the
young man in the chest with a shotgun because he did not approve of the
marriage, then planted a pistol on the body.
To sentence Irsan to die, jurors will have to decide that he would be a "future
danger" to society.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
MISSISSIPPI:
Mississippi man who hid bodies in Russell Co. sentenced after death penalty
voided
A man whose death sentence was overturned in 2014 has been resentenced to life
in prison.
State prison records show 44-year-old Roger Gillett was resentenced in July.
Gillett and then-girlfriend Lisa Jo Chamberlin were convicted of killing
Gillett's cousin and the cousin's girlfriend in 2004 because they wouldn't open
a safe. Dismembered bodies of Vernon Hulett and Linda Heintzelman were found
stuffed in a freezer on a farm near Russell, Kansas.
The Mississippi Supreme Court voided Gillett's death sentence, finding jurors
wrongly considered Gillett's attempted escape from a Kansas jail.
Forrest County District Attorney Patricia Burchell consulted victim families
before deciding against the death penalty.
Chamberlin's death sentence was reinstated in March after a federal appeals
court dismissed accusations of racial bias in jury selection.
(source: Associated Press)
INDIANA:
Man rapes, kills, eats girlfriend's dead body
An Indiana man Joseph Oberhansley accused of raping, killing and eating parts
of his ex-girlfriend???s dead body is now mentally competent to stand trial,
and is ready to tell the court all he knows about the incident, a state
psychiatrist says.
Fox News reports that the 35-year-old Oberhansley, of Jeffersonville, U.S., has
been committed at the Logansport State Hospital since October 2017, when a
judge ruled that he wasn't competent to stand trial for the 2014 killing of
girlfriend Tammy Jo Blanton.
Prosecutors alleged that Oberhansley broke into the Jeffersonville home of
Blanton in September 2014, and raped her, fatally stabbed her and ate parts of
her body.
"This matter has been going on for 4 years now, and it's high time that the
victim's family saw justice done," Clark County Prosecuting Attorney Jeremy
Mull told the Courier Journal after the hearing.
The letter from the psychiatrist filed with Clark County Circuit Court noted
that Oberhansley's competency has been restored since he was committed there
last October to undergo competency restoration.
In some of his early court appearances after his arrest, Obserhansley had
outbursts in court and said his name was Zeus, WAVE3 reported. Oberhansley's
attorneys requested in court Thursday to have a month to talk with him and form
an opinion on his competency. During the hearing, Oberhansley spoke up, telling
the judge he needed to fire his attorneys, according to the Courier Journal.
"They're trying to control my thoughts," he said in court; they're trying to
control my mind." Judge Vicki Carmichael told him he needed to work with his
attorneys, and scheduled another hearing on Sept. 21 to discuss the matter.
Prosecutors have previously said they will seek the death penalty for Blanton's
killing.
Before his arrest in 2015, Oberhansley was free on parole for a previous
killing when he was a teenager, according to WAVE3.
(source: vanguardngr.com)
TENNESSEE:
America Has Stopped Being a Civilized Nation----In 1985, Billy Ray Irick
committed a hideous crime in Tennessee. Last week, the state of Tennessee
responded in kind.
On Thursday morning, The Knoxville News Sentinel published a front-page story
by Matt Lakin about the imminent execution of Billy Ray Irick. The inmate had
been on death row since 1986, a year after he confessed to raping and murdering
a 7-year-old child left in his care. The little girl was named Paula Dyer. She
called her murderer "Uncle Bill." The print headline read, "Paula Dyer's last
day on Earth."
Thursday was Billy Ray Irick's last day on Earth. His execution was the 1st in
Tennessee since 2009.
The physical evidence against him was incontrovertible, and no one is
questioning his guilt. But there are big questions about whether Tennessee
should have executed him. As Nashville Scene's Steven Hale has reported in
depth, Mr. Irick apparently suffered from severe mental illness. He spent much
of his childhood in a home for abused and troubled children. He told people the
devil was giving him orders. He chased another little girl down the street with
a machete.
Based on post-trial affidavits from Paula Dyer's stepfamily, the psychologist
who pronounced Mr. Irick fit to stand trial in 1986 later questioned that
judgment. "Is he fit for execution? That combination of words," Mr. Hale
writes, "like so many in the lexicon of the death penalty, twists the English
language into a peculiar shape. But it is crucial." In the United States,
executing an insane person is unconstitutional.
Another problem with this execution is Tennessee's new protocol for lethal
injection. The 1st drug administered in an execution is supposed to put the
inmate to sleep so he can't feel the effects of the other 2 drugs: the 1 that
causes paralysis and the one that stops the heart. But midazolam, the sedative
in Tennessee's execution cocktail, doesn't always render complete
unconsciousness. It's possible for the inmate to feel the effects of the next 2
drugs, and what he feels is akin to being suffocated and burned alive at the
same time.
The United States Supreme Court had declined to delay the execution, but
Justice Sonia Sotomayor strongly dissented: "In refusing to grant Irick a stay,
the court today turns a blind eye to a proven likelihood that the state of
Tennessee is on the verge of inflicting several minutes of torturous pain on an
inmate in its custody," Justice Sotomayor wrote. "If the law permits this
execution to go forward in spite of the horrific final minutes that Irick may
well experience, then we have stopped being a civilized nation and accepted
barbarism."
This is the unvarying pattern in death-penalty cases: arguments in favor of
lenience, arguments in favor of severity and a perfectly realistic assumption
that nothing at all will change. Some victims will be more sympathetic than
others. Some death-row prisoners will be harder to hate. Defense attorneys will
point out extenuating circumstances. Critics will list the pragmatic arguments
against the death penalty - from its failure to deter crime to the racial
disparities in its application to its terrifying permanence.
It would be a tiresome litany if not for the fact that a human life hangs in
the balance. It would be a tiresome litany if not for the fact that in state
executions, the executioner is always you.
Plenty of people are happy to play the role of public executioner. A recent
poll from the Pew Research Center found that 73 % of white evangelical
Christians supported the death penalty in cases of murder. Even among
Catholics, 53 % believe capital punishment is an appropriate response to a
crime like Mr. Irick's. This is a curious position, coming from people who
drive cars bearing "Choose Life" bumper stickers. It is especially curious
considering Pope Francis's recent unequivocal condemnation of the death
penalty. "The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the
inviolability and dignity of the person," the Catechism of the Catholic Church
now reads. That dignity "is not lost even after the commission of very serious
crimes."
Then too, there is the matter of our own dignity, the dignity of those of us in
whose name and for whose "protection" the state has decided - in cold blood,
with calm premeditation - to take a human life. We are not doing it out of fear
or rage or insanity. We are doing it out of a primitive need for vengeance.
Paula Dyer was a beautiful little girl who deserved a full and happy life, but
Billy Ray Irick's death didn't give it back to her. His death did not erase her
terrible suffering or bring her back to the people who have mourned her loss
for more than 3 decades. Justice Sotomayor is right. We are not a civilized
nation. We aren't even close.
(source: Opinion; Margaret Renkl is a contributing opinion writer who covers
flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South----New York Times)
NEBRASKA:
How Carey Dean Moore's execution, Nebraska's 1st lethal injection, will be
carried out
Nebraska's official death penalty procedure says this week's execution of Carey
Dean Moore will be accomplished by the injection of substances in a quantity
sufficient to cause death without the unnecessary and wanton infliction of
pain.
If a federal appellate court doesn't halt Moore's execution between now and 10
a.m. Tuesday, the prison staff members responsible for what sounds like a
straightforward task will be under a high degree of scrutiny.
Nebraska has carried out 37 state-sanctioned executions, but Moore's will be
the 1st by lethal injection. Bill Clinton occupied the White House the last
time the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services executed an inmate, using
the electric chair.
Moore, 60, has served for 38 years on death row for the 1979 killings of Omaha
cabdrivers Reuel Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland. He has recently told friends
and family that he is ready to die and does not want his execution halted.
Another factor at play Tuesday: The state will give Moore a 4-drug combination
never used before in an execution. Death penalty critics have said that raises
the likelihood of a botched execution, meaning it could take longer than normal
or Moore could experience excess pain.
"Nobody is hoping things go wrong," said Robert Dunham, director of the Death
Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. "Everybody is hoping, if it
happens, it happens smoothly."
Corrections Director Scott Frakes declined a request to be interviewed for this
story.
But a former high-ranking member of the department said no one wants the
execution to go smoothly more than staff members who will serve on the
execution team.
"My concern is that it's been so long," said Brian Gage, who spent 34 years
with corrections and served as warden of Tecumseh State Prison. "The majority
of them will be new to an execution."
Based upon the state's protocol document, the execution team conducts training
sessions at least once a month throughout the year. But when an execution date
has been set, the frequency of training increases to at least once per week.
The Nebraska Supreme Court set Moore's execution date on July 5.
Execution team members volunteer for the duty, and most have their identities
shielded under state law.
With the execution just 2 days away, Moore will have been transported from
death row at the Tecumseh prison to a holding cell at the Nebraska State
Penitentiary in Lincoln, Gage said. The penitentiary houses the execution
chamber.
He will be under what's called death watch, which means he will be closely
monitored so he doesn't commit suicide.
At least 48 hours before the execution, the IV team leader will examine Moore
to find appropriate veins to insert the IV needle. The IV team leader must have
completed training as an emergency medical technician and in needle insertion.
As the hour of his execution approaches, Moore will be given expanded visiting
time with his minister, family and friends. He also will be afforded the chance
to eat a "final meal," which Gage said is not an elaborate dinner ordered from
outside the facility. Rather, he can make a choice of whatever happens to be on
the cafeteria's full menu at the time.
When the time arrives, Gage said members of the escort team will accompany
Moore to the execution chamber. When the state last carried out an execution,
the inmate walked from the holding cell down a set of stairs to the execution
chamber.
Moore will then be placed on the padded table, where his arms, legs and torso
will be secured in place by restraints. The escort team will then leave the
room.
The IV team leader will set primary and backup IV lines in 2 of Moore's veins.
The team leader will test the lines using saline fluid and will attach a heart
monitor to the inmate.
When the corrections director gives the order, the IV team leader will begin
the lethal injection. The sequence of drugs and doses to be injected:
2 milligrams of diazepam (a sedative) per kilogram of body weight followed by
additional doses until the inmate is unconscious. A 50 cc saline flush will
follow the diazepam.
25 micrograms of fentanyl (a powerful opioid painkiller) per kilogram of body
weight, followed by a 50 cc saline flush.
1.6 milligrams of cisatracurium (a paralyzing drug intended to stop the
inmate's breathing) per kilogram of body weight followed by a 50 cc saline
flush.
240 milliequivalents of potassium chloride (a drug that causes heart attack in
high doses) followed by a final saline flush.
After the diazepam is given, the IV team leader must conduct a consciousness
check of Moore. Common methods include pinching an eyelid or cheek and calling
his name. The inmate must be unconscious before the remaining 3 drugs are
injected.
Lethal injections without obvious complications typically take about 10 minutes
to result in death, Dunham said. But some botched executions have taken
significantly longer.
If the staff member who sets the IV misses a vein and the drugs flow into the
inmate's muscles, death can be prolonged and extremely painful, he said. Or if
the inmate regains consciousness, he can experience an intense, burning pain
from the potassium chloride, the drug that stops the heart.
A coroner or medical professional will check to determine whether Moore is dead
after the four drugs are injected. If the coroner determines he is still alive,
the IV team leader must carry out the injection sequence a 2nd time.
In a lawsuit heard Friday in federal court, a lawyer for a Germany-based drug
company said state documents suggest the paralyzing drug has not been stored at
the proper temperature by corrections staff. The lawyer said if the drug has
degraded as a result, it may not work as prison officials hope.
Eric Berger is a professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law who has
studied lethal injection for over a decade. In an opinion piece published by
The World-Herald, Berger wrote that if the inmate is not properly anesthetized
by the first 2 drugs, Moore could experience a sensation that's been described
as "being burned alive from the inside" when the final drug, potassium
chloride, enters his bloodstream.
"Nobody disputes that the injection of potassium chloride alone would violate
the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment," Berger
said.
Frakes, the prisons director, said in a court affidavit filed this week that he
relied on "opinions of qualified pharmacological and medical anesthesiology
experts" to come up with the drugs and dosages. In addition, he said the drugs
underwent lab testing to confirm their composition.
(source: Omaha World-Herald)
******************
Execution Witness talks about Carey Dean Moore case
Brent Martin is the current News Director for Nebraska Radio Network, but
before he worked in Nebraska he was in Missouri as a News reporter, where he
witnessed 13 different death penalty executions throughout his career.
"Our news organization believed that we needed to be there, again if the
state's going to exact the ultimate punishment we need to be there to report to
the public," says Brent Martin.
Martin says witnessing all of those executions taught him how to strike a
balance between his duty as a reporter and his emotions.
"I think it's obviously very emotional and it maybe easy for me to say because
I've been through it and all of that, but I think you kinda need to keep your
emotions in check and view it as it is," added Martin.
When it comes to being on hand for an execution, Martin says the actual act
falls short of expectations.
"Everybody who I've ever talked to uses the same word without prompting,
anti-climatic, because you go in and you understand what it is, you understand
what you're going into witness, you understand how important it is, what your
role is as a reporter but the actual lethal injection protocol of the execution
goes against what you think it will be, what you conjure up in your mind," said
Martin.
Martin says he doesn't have a position on capital punishment, but says it's his
duty to report on it for the public.
"I know people are adamant on both sides of the issue. There's got to be
someone that's there who observes it and reports to the public and that's my
role" says Martin.
(source: KLKN TV news)
USA:
Helping an Execution Is a Bad Look for a Drugmaker----What if the profit
concerns of a European company can help stop the death penalty in the U.S.?
On the surface it sounds like a sick joke. The German drug manufacturer
Fresenius Kabi is suing to block an execution in Nebraska - not because it
opposes capital punishment, but because it would be bad for the company's
public relations for its drugs to be used to kill. It's not the 1st time. Other
drug companies have also tried to block executions using their products for
similar reasons.
A federal district judge rejected Fresenius's suit Friday, but the company has
appealed. Regardless of whether the Nebraska execution, scheduled for Tuesday,
is delayed or halted, the effort is worth examining.
There is something morally bizarre, even horrifying, about the idea that a
human being should live or die based on the PR concerns of a company thousands
of miles away. Yet these efforts demonstrate what you might call the banality
of good: Their official worries are based on ordinary corporate profit, but
their actions nonetheless play a meaningful role in the long, slow process of
reducing and maybe ultimately eliminating executions in the U.S.
Lethal injection is just the latest in a long string of efforts to make capital
punishment more "humane," a dubious aspiration that had its European birth
sometime in the 18th century and is a classic product of Enlightenment.
Humane execution is a kind of paradox: We want to end a person's life as a
punishment, but we want to do so with minimal pain for the subject and minimal
horror for the public.
In the European Middle Ages, this paradox didn't exist. Execution was generally
intended to create spectacle and convey moral condemnation. Pain and suffering
were part of the equation.
Burning witches was biblically inspired (if not strictly biblical). Drawing and
quartering, a particularly horrible practice, was the punishment for treason
against the crown. Hanging, the prescribed English punishment for ordinary
felons, often had a torture component when the drop of the gallows wasn't long
enough to break the subjects??? necks and they strangled slowly instead.
The guillotine, named for the French doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814)
who helped create it, was popularized during the French Revolution as a
"humane" method of execution appropriate to an enlightened age. In its
aftermath, executions have reflected new technological innovations, from
electricity to poison gas.
Seen in this historical light, the use of drugs to paralyze and kill convicted
murderers should come as no surprise. We live in an age of big pharma and trust
in medications. No wonder we think drugs are a solution to the execution
paradox.
Enter the death-penalty abolitionists. Many, probably most, abolitionists think
that it is always wrong to take a human life by execution - the view recently
adopted for the Catholic Church by Pope Francis.
Yet because the strong abolitionist argument has not had the moral force to
convince everybody, death-penalty opponents have long relied on various
pragmatic arguments in public and in the courts.
When the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 declared what turned out to be a temporary
moratorium on all executions, it didn't hold that capital punishment was
inherently wrong. In fact, the justices in the case of Furman v. Georgia
couldn't agree on a single rationale for why the death penalty was cruel and
unusual. The key element in most of their opinions was the arbitrariness of how
the death penalty was applied, with evidence drawn from racial disparities.
Death-penalty opponents have also focused on the fallibility of the judicial
system. Successful attempts to show that some death-row prisoners were actually
innocent have undoubtedly contributed to the gradual decline of the number of
executions in the U.S. in recent decades.
That brings us to the European drug companies. They assert, accurately enough,
that capital punishment is outlawed in the European Union. And they say that
the public climate of condemnation there gives them a reason to intervene in
U.S. courts. Fresenius also says that neither it nor its authorized
distributors provide drugs for executions, so Nebraska's supply must have been
obtained without its authorization. The company's strongest argument is
probably that mishandling of the drugs might hamper their effectiveness.
Companies like Fresenius aren't lying when they say they worry about their
reputations. They are responding to public pressure brought on them by
abolitionists, who are themselves trying to come up with any creative angle to
block executions.
Yet the companies don't want to take a firmly moral stand against the death
penalty, presumably to avoid creating further public controversy and perhaps
also to make their claims seem somehow more valid.
The upshot is that the companies find themselves in the strange position of
insisting in court filings that they don't care about matters of life and
death, but only about the bottom line.
That's not a great look for Fresenius, a German company that was founded in
1912 and flourished through World War II. 1
But advocates seeking social change must use all the tools at their disposal to
get it. That includes the banal self-interest of German drug manufacturers. At
least it's being invoked as a force for good.
What about Fresenius during World War II? A company history skirts the issue.
This corporate-sponsored document, "100 Years of Fresenius," says that founder
Eduard Fresenius did not join the Nazi Party and that the company did not
employ forced labor. It did supply the German army with drugs however, and its
"output increased temporarily."
(source: bloomberg.com)
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