August 26
NORTH CAROLINA:
Civil rights group: NC death penalty cases rife with racial bias
Lawyers with a prominent national civil rights group told the state's highest
court Tuesday that four black death-row inmates deserve the opportunity to
challenge their sentences after prosecutors systemically excluded black jurors
from their cases.
In , the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund cited statistical evidence of
racial discrimination by Cumberland County prosecutors, who dismissed more than
1/2 of all eligible black jurors compared to 1/4 of all others. This bias
"unquestionably tainted" the sentencing process, lawyers argued.
"The continuing stain of racial discrimination not only invalidates the death
sentences imposed on these defendants, but it also undermines public confidence
in North Carolina's judicial system as a whole," Jin Hee Lee, LDF senior deputy
director of litigation, said in a press release. "The Court must be unequivocal
in rejecting racial bias in North Carolina juries, especially in death penalty
cases, by giving the defendants a chance to challenge the discrimination they
faced."
A spokesperson for state Attorney General Josh Stein declined to comment
Tuesday afternoon, citing pending litigation before the state Supreme Court.
The legal brief centers on the 4 separate cases of Marcus Robinson, Christina
Walters, Tilmon Golphin and Quintel Augustine, convicted and sentenced to death
in Cumberland County. Their appeals pinballed between North Carolina courts in
the wake of the 2009 passage and the 2013 repeal of the Racial Justice Act,
which allowed challenges to death-penalty sentences on claims of racial bias.
After seeing their death sentences flip to life without parole and back again,
the defendants this year will argue their case before the state Supreme Court
in State v. Robinson.
The LDF's amicus brief sides with the defendants, concluding that black North
Carolina residents are "routinely and systemically excluded from capital juries
because of their race."
North Carolina hasn't executed an inmate since August 2006, when Samuel Flippen
was killed by lethal injection. Various legal disputes, including the Racial
Justice Act, have prevented death sentences from being carried out since then.
Currently, 143 inmates are on North Carolina's death row.
(source: feltonbusiness.com)
GEORGIA:
Peacock attorneys want his statements excluded; judge sets another hearing date
In a Friday hearing to discuss legal motions in a Colquitt County quintuple
homicide, attorneys for the defendant sought to have a judge toss statements
made to police.
It was the 3rd court appearance for Jeffrey Alan Peacock in 8 days and only the
4th since his arrest in May 2016. He is charged with 5 counts of murder.
Prosecutors say he shot Jonathan Garrett Edwards, Ramsey Jones Pidcock and
Aaron Reid Williams, all 21; 20-year-old Alicia Brooke Norman; and Jordan Shane
Croft, 22. The 5 were shot in the head before the house was set ablaze.
Peacock, who faces the death penalty if convicted, also has been indicted on
charges of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and 3
counts of aggravated cruelty to dogs -- related to the deaths of 3 dogs found
at the residence, 2 inside who died of burns and smoke inhalation and 1 outside
who died of a fracture to the head.
On Aug. 16 Superior Court Judge James E. Hardy denied a defense request to
throw out the indictment based on the makeup of the grand jury. The following
day the judge ruled that evidence seized from Peacock???s truck and his
father's residence could be used at trial.
On Friday, 1 prosecution witness -- Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Jason
Seacrist -- took the stand.
The agent answered questions about his seven-hour interview of Peacock on May
18, 2016, 3 days after the slayings at 505 Rossman Dairy Road. Peacock was
arrested during that interview, conducted in an office at the Colquitt County
Sheriff's Office's Criminal Investigation Division, and he has remained in jail
since that time.
Seacrist said that Peacock emerged quickly as a suspect, partially based on
voluntary statements he made at the burning residence the day of the slayings
that did not match evidence uncovered during the investigation.
One of those statements was that he left the group watching a television
program in the house while he went into Moultrie to get breakfast and
cigarettes. Investigators learned that the program had not been viewed at the
residence that morning.
Under questioning from Allan Sincox, 1 of 2 capital defenders representing
Peacock, Seacrist explained some of the interview techniques and strategies
used.
Prior to Aug. 23, Peacock had not been in a courtroom since May 2017 when his
attorney made a plea of not guilty on his behalf.
Hardy set a date of Oct. 9 to continue the hearing on the defense request to
toss out Peacock's statements. At that time the defense may present an expert
witness hired to review the recording of Peacock's interview.
The family member of Ramsey Jones Pidcock who is serving as their spokesperson
said in an email that the family has nothing to say at this time about the
case.
(source: Moultrie Observer)
ALABAMA:
Alabama Supreme Court denies petitions from death row inmates
The state's highest court won't hear the cases of 3 Alabama death row inmates.
The Alabama Supreme Court announced Friday in its weekly order list that it has
denied writs of certiorari--or requests to review--the cases of David Phillip
Wilson, Michael Brandon Kelley, and David Dewayne Riley. All 3 men are
currently awaiting execution at Holman Prison in Atmore.
Wilson, 34, was convicted and sentenced to death in Houston County for the
death of Dewey Walker in 2004. Walker, a 64-year-old suffering from cancer, was
found dead in his Dothan home after he failed to show up for work for several
days.
Kelley was convicted in St. Clair County on two counts of capital murder and 1
count of sexual torture. He has been on death row since 2010. In January, the
court denied a writ of certiorari for the inmate, but he petitioned to the
Criminal Court of Appeals. That court denied his application for rehearing in
June.
Kelley was 29 at the time he was convicted of killing 23-year-old Emily Lynn
Milling, whose body was found off River Road in Leeds in November 2008.
Witnesses testified at Kelley's trial that Milling had been choked and beaten
to death.
Riley's request to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals was denied in March.
Riley is on death row for his convictions in the 2005 slaying of 38-year-old
Scott Michael Kirtley, who was shot to death during a liquor store robbery.
Riley was convicted for a 2nd time in 2011, after the Alabama Court of Criminal
Appeals threw out his original 2007 case. The court's order is based on a 2015
petition filed by Riley, which claims he had ineffective counsel at his second
trial. That appeal was denied by the circuit court in 2016.
(source: al.com)
************************
Lethal injection or gas? Alabama's death row gets to choose
Some say inhaling nitrogen gas would be like dying on a plane that
depressurizes in flight, swiftly killing all aboard. Now more than 1/4 of
Alabama's death row inmates have signed statements saying they would prefer
that gas over lethal injection or the electric chair when facing execution.
No inmate in the U.S. has been put to death with nitrogen gas before, and
critics suspect at least some inmates are simply hoping to delay a date with
the death chamber through the inevitable legal challenges ahead.
State corrections officials say 51 of Alabama's 180 inmates have chosen
nitrogen hypoxia, allowed a choice after Alabama lawmakers voted this year to
authorize that alternative execution method. With difficulties obtaining
execution drugs and litigation arising over claims of botched and horribly
painful chemical injections this decade, Alabama is not alone as it joins
Oklahoma and Mississippi in exploring that as a potential alternative.
John Palombi, an attorney with the Federal Defenders Program, said his group
advised inmates to request the uncertainties of nitrogen gas over what he
called the known "torture" of Alabama's 3-drug cocktail. They had a June 30
deadline to make a choice.
"Our decision to have our clients opt into use of nitrogen hypoxia was based on
our belief that a 3 drug lethal injection protocol ... is torturous and has
tortured our clients," Palombi wrote in an email, citing last year's execution
of Torrey McNabb and Ronald Smith Jr.'s the year before.
While being sedated in the death chamber for the 1994 killing of a convenience
store clerk, Smith coughed and heaved repeatedly for 13 minutes. His attorneys
witnessed the execution and said his movements showed he was "not anesthetized
at any point during the agonizingly long procedure." Lawyers for McNabb said
his final moments were inhumanely painful as he rolled his head back and forth
while being executed for a police officer's 1997 slaying.
State officials disputed that anything went wrong either time.
Bob Horton of the Alabama Department of Corrections gave no time estimate for
when the alternative method would be ready. But the spokesman assured in an
email that the department "will have a protocol in place before the state
carries out executions by nitrogen."
Republican state Sen. Trip Pittman, sponsor of Alabama's legislation, believes
nitrogen will prove more humane. He spoke of how aircraft passengers have
passed out and died from a sudden plane depressurization. While nitrogen gas
isn't itself poisonous, anyone breathing it without breathing oxygen will lose
consciousness and die from lack of oxygen.
"The person will pass out and ultimately pass," said Pittman.
Much of what is known about death by nitrogen comes from research, industrial
accidents and suicides. It's not even clear how nitrogen would be delivered,
whether via some type of mask or breathing apparatus.
"This is entirely experimental," said Randall Marshall, legal director of the
American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama. "It is the epitome of cruel and
usual punish because it is experimenting on human beings."
State Sen. Cam Ward said he thinks some inmates signed for nitrogen gas because
lengthy challenges are foreseen.
"Some of them, not all of them, are probably litigating this to avoid the death
penalty," said Ward, who chairs Alabama's legislative committee that oversees
state prisons.
But he added other inmates probably believe inhaling nitrogen gas could be a
better way to die: "I think they've seen stories of where the three-drug
cocktail lethal injection has failed and there's that fear of it being a
botched process as opposed to nitrogen."
In neighboring Mississippi, officials have authorized nitrogen hypoxia for
executions in the event lethal injection is held unconstitutional or becomes
"unavailable." No actual plans to begin using gas have been announced, however,
and the state hasn't executed anyone since 2012, partly because a legal
challenge to its lethal injection procedure continues.
Elsewhere, Oklahoma officials announced in March that the state will develop
protocols to use nitrogen gas to execute inmates because of the problems
obtaining lethal injection drugs. Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said at
the time that, "we can no longer sit on the sidelines and wait on the drugs."
Litigation over Alabama's lethal injection method ended as the inmates opted
for nitrogen.
Alabama last month agreed to dismiss a lawsuit challenging lethal injection as
cruel and unusual punishment because the eight inmate plaintiffs in the case
had opted for nitrogen gas. The claims challenging the state's lethal injection
process as inhumane are now moot, "because their executions will be carried out
at the appropriate time by nitrogen hypoxia," attorneys wrote in a motion to
the court.
However, Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information
Center, said he expects litigation over the use of nitrogen gas. He said
Oklahoma's execution process is currently subject to a federal court order. He
noted that Alabama prisoners who selected nitrogen didn't relinquish rights to
challenge nitrogen gas or any other execution method.
"Execution by nitrogen hypoxia has never been tried before and there are
different potential dangers ... I think it is highly likely that there will be
challenges," Dunham said.
(source: Associated Press)
NEBRASKA:
Legal battles continue over Nebraska's desire to use death penalty
Nebraska last week completed its 1st execution in 21 years when it put
60-year-old Carey Dean Moore to death.
Moore had been on death row for 38 years, and had stopped fighting the state's
attempt to bring capital punishment back to life with his lethal injection
death sentence.
That's not the case for the prisoner who was notified in November by the
Department of Correctional Services of the drugs that would be used for his
potential execution.
Jose Sandoval was sentenced to death along with Jorge Galindo and Erick Vela
for the 2002 shootings and killings of Lisa Bryant, Lola Elwood, Samuel Sun, Jo
Mausbach and Evonne Tuttle in a botched bank robbery attempt in Norfolk.
Even though Moore was notified of the drugs that would be used in his death
sentence after Sandoval, the state sought his execution warrant first.
A department spokeswoman said the department has not requested a warrant for
Sandoval from the Nebraska Supreme Court. But it is continuing to seek lethal
injection drugs to replace those that will expire soon.
John Lotter is now the man who has been on death row the longest, but he has
received no notification of lethal injection drugs to be used in his sentence.
Lotter and Marvin Nissen were convicted of killing Brandon Teena, a transgender
man. They killed Teena in 1993 to silence him after he told police they had
raped him. They also killed Lisa Lambert and Phillip DeVine, who lived in the
same house in Humboldt as Teena and witnessed the killing. Lotter has
maintained his innocence.
Attorneys for Lotter have alleged in a court filing that he is ineligible for
the death penalty because he functions intellectually as a child.
Nearly 9 months ago, ACLU of Nebraska filed a lawsuit on behalf of most death
row inmates, including Sandoval and Lotter, that claims the ballot initiative
that stopped the Legislature???s 2015 repeal of the death penalty was illegal.
The suit was an attempt to stop any executions, or even steps toward an
execution, of Nebraska's condemned prisoners. But 8 months later, the state put
Moore to death.
Sandoval told the Journal Star in November he intended to fight the execution.
Attorney Stu Dornan filed a motion in Madison County District Court in December
arguing that Sandoval, 38, should be resentenced to life in prison or have
another capital sentencing hearing.
The Legislature repealed the death penalty in May 2015, then nullified the
governor's veto of the bill (LB268) with another vote. The repeal, Dornan said,
went into effect Aug. 30 before it was suspended again because of an initiative
referendum vote.
"Mr. Sandoval is subject to a uniquely cruel and unprecedented form of
psychological suffering through alternating periods of relief and terror as he
has been told that his life would be spared, and then told again that he would
be executed," the motion said.
Briefs have been submitted in the ACLU lawsuit in Lancaster County and are
awaiting scheduling of oral arguments.
Prisons director Scott Frakes said earlier this month, in an affidavit filed as
the result of a motion by drug company Fresenius Kabi to stop the use of 2
drugs in the execution of Moore, that he had no other source or supplier for
the drugs to be used in future executions.
But he is still trying.
One of the drugs, the department's supply of potassium chloride, will expire
Aug. 31, and Frakes said he has no other source or supplier for the drugs at
this time. A 2nd drug, cisatracurium, will expire Oct. 31.
Laura Strimple, spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, said in an email
that it is the responsibility of the department to carry out the death sentence
orders of the court, and that includes continuing to pursue procuring the
necessary lethal injection drugs.
She said she would not speculate on whether the department would consider
changing the drugs or the death penalty protocol.
ACLU of Nebraska Executive Director Danielle Conrad said Friday that individual
constitutional rights are not decided at the ballot box, and did not give Gov.
Pete Ricketts permission to violate the state's tradition of open government
when carrying out government's most grave function, the death penalty.
"Next legislative session will see a wave of new reform and abolition efforts,"
Conrad said.
And ACLU of Nebraska intends to litigate the remaining legal and policy issues
surrounding Nebraska's death penalty, she said.
"We call on the governor to join us in seeking reform of our severely
overcrowded and crisis-riddled prison system to advance true public safety
goals," Conrad said. "Nebraska's troubled history with the death penalty is not
over and will saddle Nebraska taxpayers for years to come."
(source: mdjonline.com)
***************************
Carey Dean Moore execution: Mystery 14 minutes behind the curtain
The execution of killer Carey Dean Moore will be remembered for what we didn't
see - 14 minutes while the curtains were drawn.
Strapped to the death gurney, Carey Dean Moore desperately heaved in oxygen,
coughed, went red in the face and hands, then purple before his executioners
pulled the curtain.
The change in protocal happened when in the Nebraska State Penitentiary's death
chamber, the condemned prisoner appeared to open his eyes slightly. A minute
later the curtain was inexplicably closed.
He eventually succumbed to the experimental new cocktail of drugs devised to
kill him with that curtain drawn. It remained closed for 14 minutes in total,
not opening again until 6 minutes after death was pronounced.
Nebraska's 1st execution in 2 decades was already controversial for its new 4
drug combination. It was the 1st time the opioid fentanyl had been used in a
lethal injection.
But the missing 14 minutes, shrouding from registered observers, is proving a
bombshell for prison authorities.
What went on?
"Speculation cannot help but be rife and ... (will) stoke the fire," Nebraska
senator Ernie Chambers wrote after the execution in a letter to Corrections
director Scott Frakes.
Mr Frakes was in the room with Moore when he went purple, and said something
into his radio before the curtains were closed on witnesses, the Lincoln
Journal Star reported.
Chambers predicted in the coming weeks those missing 14 minutes will "assume as
much significance and generate as much speculation" as the missing parts of the
Watergate tapes.
Nebraska Radio Network reporter Brent Martin was watching Moore's execution. He
said he had watched 13 executions in neighbouring Missouri and had never seen
the curtain drawn until the inmate was declared dead.
EXPERIMENTAL DRUG COCKTAIL
Carey Dean Moore, 60, was on death row for the murder of 2 taxi drivers
committed when he was aged 21 in 1979.
He had been due for execution 6 times in the past, but on each occasion it had
been halted at the 11th hour.
But finally, at 10.47am on August 14, the killer was pronounced dead.
It is the method of his death which is stirring so much controversy.
Moore was administered a fatal 4-drug cocktail. First up at 10.24am 37cc of
diazepam (Valium) to slow cognition and voluntary muscle movement, followed by
46cc of the powerful opioid fentanyl at 10.30am.
According to witnesses, when Moore was given the fentanyl, he appeared to cough
and his diaphragm and abdomen moved rapidly up and down with heaving breaths.
At 10.31am his chest stopped moving and he went still.
At 10.32am, he was administered 15cc of the paralytic cisatracurium besylate,
followed by 120cc of potassium chloride - meant to stop his heart - at 10.33am.
Moore's face gradually turned red, as did his hands, and then his face turned
purple.
The Lincoln Journal Starasked pharmacist Ally Dering-Anderson - who had no
connection to the execution - what the visible symptoms meant.
Ms Dering-Anderson said at the time he was coughing, the killer was probably
gasping with difficulty to breathe, as his brain realised it wasn't getting
enough oxygen.
Reddening could be caused by tiny blood vessels widening.
When they started transmitting blood that looked blue due to inadequate amounts
of oxygen, it could appear purple.
What went on thereafter with the curtain closed may never be confirmed,
although the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services did reveal the state
coroner spent 4 minutes examining Moore.
He was pronounced dead at 10.47am.
DEATH ROW VS DRUG COMPANIES
Department spokeswoman Dawn-Renee Smith said curtains had been closed on
executions in the past.
During executions in the 1990s, she believed the curtain was closed following
use of the electric chair for 10-15 minutes.
Once time of death had been determined, the curtain was reopened for about 15
seconds.
But her words were not reassuring for the anti-death penalty movement which had
swelled prior to Moore's executions and other states using different drug
protocols.
Carrying out death sentences across the United States has become subject to
postponement with pharmaceutical companies challenging the use of their drugs
in executions.
They are in the business of helping people. They want their drugs to be known
as lifesaving - not associated with death.
Out on the streets, a group called Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death
Penalty had protested up to the hour of Moore's execution, as well as
afterwards.
What Carey Dean Moore actually did to earn himself the death sentence seems to
have become somewhat lost.
A KILLER 'WITHOUT EMOTION'
But retired Omaha World-Herald reporter Jim Fogarty, who covered Moore's murder
trial, told netnebraska.org what happened in the Nebraskan city in late August
1979.
"Carey Moore happened that August," Fogarty said.
Within the space of a few days, the bodies of 2 taxi drivers were found shot in
the head in their vehicles.
Witnesses had seen passengers get into the cabs of Reuel Van Ness and then
Maynard Helgeland, before the bodies of the men, both aged 47, were found.
Omaha, Nebraska' biggest city on the Missouri River in America's Midwest, was
not struck by fear after the murders because the victims were taxi drivers, not
random citizens.
But Fogarty said what was remarkable was Carey Dean Moore's nonchalance about
carrying out the murders.
A juvenile criminal, unemployed Moore needed money for drugs.
1 of 11 children to an alcoholic father, he and his identical twin brother
Harry David Moore were delinquent co-offenders, stealing cars, robbing homes
and businesses.
They were separated, aged 10, and sent to different homes and institutions.
In 1979, Moore began rehearsing robberies at gunpoint.
Taxi drivers carried cash, and Moore made fake calls to lure drivers and
observe their habits.
His 1st victim was father-of-10, Korean War veteran Reuel Van Ness, 47, who
loved a good joke.
Mr Van Ness bled to death in his Safeway cab after Moore shot him 3 times from
the back seat and took his money.
Moore had taken his 14-year-old brother Don along for the robbery and the
brothers spent Mr Van Ness's $140 on cannabis and porn magazines.
(Don Moore was sentenced to life in prison for 2nd degree murder, but later
paroled; he has returned to prison twice for parole violations.)
F5 days after his 1st murder, Moore shot dead another Korean War veteran,
Maynard Helgeland, 47, who was a recovering alcoholic trying to reconnect with
his estranged family.
Moore would later describe killing one of the drivers.
"The second he looked back towards me, that's when I pulled the trigger, aiming
at his head, 3 times, I think.
"He slumped down. I got out and pushed him over. I didn't want to look at his
face."
Jim Fogarty recalled that the Omaha Police Department had evidence and a sketch
of the likely suspect from early on.
Police picked him up driving a stolen red station wagon with a .32-calibre
handgun under the driver's seat.
He said Moore's response on being arrested, charged with double murder and
sentenced to death was a surprise.
Moore was flabbergasted.
"I've done all kinds of things like this before. What was the big deal in
killing 2 cab drivers?"
Fogarty said: "His whole life he got caught ... he got slapped on the wrist.
"He was expecting another slap on the wrist, and he's floored that he was
getting the death penalty."
Fogarty said that Moore's confession to police, recorded on tape, sounded
matter-of-fact, passionless. "He wasn't angry, he wasn't happy."
The confession was "delivered without emotion. Very businesslike".
The effect of playing the video on the people in the courtroom was "hushed".
Moore had waived trial by jury and when a guilty verdict was returned, he did
not look surprised.
But then the judge passed the death penalty on him.
Asked what made this case a sentence of death, Fogarty said it was "the degree
of premeditation".
"I have seen much more heinous, atrocious crimes that did not get the death
penalty in Nebraska.
"[But] he thought about it, he practised it, he did it without reservation,
without hesitation."
In 1982, Carey Dean Moore unsuccessfully appealed the death sentence.
BROTHER ESCAPE PLAN
In 1985, when he was 27, Moore attempted to escape from Nebraska Penitentiary
by trading clothes with his brother.
Harry David Moore (known as David) was sentenced to the same prison for
burglary while his identical twin was on death row.
During a visit, Carey convinced his twin to swap clothes and David stayed on
death row.
But a prison cook noticed that the Moore now washing pots in the jail kitchen
looked about 7kg heavier.
The ruse was up.
"Back then we were both animals," David Moore later told the Associated Press.
"We weren't fit to be allowed in society, I guess."
David Moore left prison in 1983 and did not return, getting a job and a family.
In 2007, Carey Dean Moore prepared to die in the electric chair, but the
Nebraska Supreme Court halted the execution to examine the constitutionality of
the device.
By then, Moore had been living in his death cell for 27 years, and had become a
devout Christian.
Last week, his twin brother made a final return to prison, as a visitor, to
share his condemned brother's last hours eating pizza, strawberry cheesecake
and drinking Pepsi.
Carey Dean Moore said a prayer, and at 10am the next day he was wheeled into
the execution room in the Lincoln penitentiary.
Now what he will mostly be remembered for is what may also never be fully
explained - the last 14 minutes it took Carey Dean Moore to die.
(source: New Zealand Herald)
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