March 16
TEXAS----new execution date
6th execution date set for convicted Montgomery County killer Larry Swearingen
For the 6th time, the state of Texas is set to execute convicted killer Larry
Ray Swearingen, a Willis man convicted of slaughtering Montgomery County
college student Melissa Trotter before dumping her body in the Sam Houston
National Forest.
In the 2 decades he's been on death row, the 47-year-old former mechanic has
repeatedly professed his innocence while narrowly avoiding the gurney again and
again. Once, he won a stay over a clerical error. Other times, it was questions
about everytsanhing from autopsy evidence to entomology that helped him avoid
the Huntsville death chamber.
But in February - weeks after getting back results from a monthslong
DNA-testing process that failed to turn up new information in the case -
prosecutors filed a motion asking for an Aug. 21 execution date.
Judge J.D. Langley greenlit the request - the state's 9th in the case - on
Tuesday, a move likely to set off a flurry of last-minute appeals.
"We've already proved that Larry Swearingen didn't commit this crime and the
forensics have just been ignored," said defense attorney James Rytting. "We
continue to find serious problems with the technical and scientific evidence
used to convict him."
Specifically, he said, the cell phone evidence "was complete junk - and we're
going to demonstrate it." He also called into question other forensics,
including fiber analysis and the use of torn pantyhose from near Swearingen's
home that the state said matched material from the crime scene.
"The doubts will be there forever, like another Cameron Todd Willingham,"
Rytting said, referencing a controversial 2004 execution.
But Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon does not share that
uncertainty.
"We're cautiously optimistic that this execution date will go through," he said
Wednesday. "However, given the nature of death penalty litigation and appeals
it would not be unusual for last minute writs to be filed."
Now Montgomery County's only death row prisoner, Swearingen was sentenced to
die in 2000, two years after the slaying that landed him behind bars. Weeks
before Christmas 1998, Trotter and Swearingen were spotted in the library at
Montgomery Community College. They left together, and it was the last time
anyone saw the 19-year-old alive.
Hair and fiber evidence later showed the teen had been in Swearingen's car at
some point before she vanished.
During trial, Swearingen's wife testified that she came home that evening to
find the place in disarray - and in the middle of it all were a lighter and
cigarettes believed to belong to Trotter. It could have been the sign of a
struggle, but Swearingen later filed a burglary report, saying his home had
been broken into while he was out of town.
That afternoon, he placed a call routed through a cell tower near FM 1097 in
Willis - a spot prosecutors say he would have passed while heading from his
house to the woods where Trotter's decomposing body was found 25 days later.
Crime scene investigators recovered biological material from the scene - but
there was never any conclusive link to Swearingen. Instead, he was convicted
and sentenced to death based on what courts later described as a "mountain" of
circumstantial evidence.
For years, defense lawyers fought for DNA testing in the case. Finally, both
sides came to an agreement in 2017.
In the months that followed, experts analyzed cigarette butts from the crime
scene, hair and some of the slain teen's clothing. But most of the aging
evidence didn't turn up any male DNA at all, and the cigarettes only returned
DNA from the hunters who discovered the girl's body.
Though the testing agreement came weeks after a last-minute stay of execution,
it wasn't the long-standing questions over DNA that in 2017 saved him from the
death chamber. Instead, it was a clerical error - and an alleged death row
confession plot.
That fall, Swearingen made national headlines as the result of a scheme hatched
with serial killer Anthony Shore. Shore, who has since been executed, was
allegedly planning to wrongly confess to Trotter's slaying in the final minutes
before his death.
But authorities got wind of the supposed plan, and called off Shore's execution
date to investigate further. The former tow truck driver was executed in early
2018.
The Lone Star State has executed 2 men so far in 2019, and another 5 death
dates are on the calendar.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
***********************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----42
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----560
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
43---------Mar. 28----------------Patrick Murphy----------561
44---------Apr. 11----------------Mark Robertson----------562
45---------Apr. 24----------------John King---------------563
46---------May 2------------------Dexter Johnson----------564
47---------Aug. 21----------------Larry Swearingen-------565
48---------Sept. 4----------------Billy Crutsinger--------566
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
**************************
USA----countdown to nation's 1500th execution
With the execution of Billie Wayne Coble in Texas on February 28, the USA has
now executed 1,493 condemned individuals since the death penalty was
relegalized on July 2, 1976 in the US Supreme Court Gregg v Georgia decision.
Gary Gilmore was the 1st person executed, in Utah, on January 17, 1977.
Below is a list of scheduled executions as the nation approaches a terrible
milestone of 1500 executions in the modern era.
NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution
dates are added and possible stays of execution occur.
1494-------Mar. 28------------Patrick Murphy------------Texas
1495-------Apr. 11------------Mark Robertson------------Texas
1496-------Apr. 11------------Christopher Pike-----------Alabama
1496-------Apr. 24------------John King-------------------Texas
1497-------May 2--------------Dexter Johnson------------Texas
1498-------May 16-------------Donnie Johnson-----------Tennessee
1499-------Aug. 15------------Stephen West--------------Tennessee
1500-------Aug. 21------------Larry Swearingen---------Texas
1501-------Sept. 4------------Billy Crutsinger------------Texas
(source: Rick Halperin)
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
It's time to denounce the death penalty
The death penalty is denounced by the United Nations and every country in
Europe. Every other New England state, as a well as 20 other U.S. states, all
find the death penalty morally repugnant.
Why is it that though the N.H. Legislature has twice voted to repeal the death
penalty, the decision was vetoed by the sitting governor, once by a Democratic
governor, once by a Republican governor? Their priorities were political, not
moral.
In August 2018, the Catholic Church took an absolute pro-life stance against
the death penalty. Pope Francis has changed the Catechism to state that “The
death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and
dignity of the person.” He went on to announce that the church should “work
with determination for its abolition worldwide.”
Too often, pro-life conversations have not included the understanding that the
death penalty, too, is an offense to the notion that life is sacred, even that
of the criminal.
I hope that all who see themselves as pro-life will urge the governor to
support repeal of the death penalty when it passes in the Legislature.
CHARLIE GIBSON
55 Shaker Farm Road South
Marlborough
(source: Letter to the Editor,Keene Sentinel)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Prosecutors Seeking Death Penalty in Teen Girl Murder Case
The remains of a 14-year-old girl were discovered in some woods on Halloween
night 2016 in Luzerne County.
Now, prosecutors are trying to convince a jury that the girl's killer should be
sentenced to death.
The sentencing phase of Jacob Sullivan's trial began on Friday in Bucks County.
Sullivan pleaded guilty last month to the murder and rape of Grace Packer.
According to investigators, Grace's adoptive mother, Sara Packer, watched as
Sullivan raped and strangled the teenager in July of 2016.
The 2 later traveled to Luzerne County where they dumped Grace's remains in the
woods near Bear Creek.
Sullivan's sentencing hearing is expected to last about 2 weeks in Bucks
County.
(source: WNEP news)
FLORIDA:
Defense pushes for dismissal as 34-year-old Hernando murder case heads to
retrial----In 2014, the Florida Supreme Court overturned Paul Hildwin's
conviction and death sentence in the 1985 killing of Vronzettie Cox. His
attorney said he can't get a fair retrial.
A 34-year-old murder case set for retrial next month returned to the courtroom
Thursday with discussion that stretched into the night about the passage of
time and the nature of memory.
In 2014, the Florida Supreme Court, citing DNA evidence and faulty science
during the original trial, overturned a sentence and granted a retrial for Paul
Hildwin, 58. Hildwin was sentenced to death and spent 28 years in prison in the
1985 slaying of 42-year-old Vronzettie Cox, whose body was found stuffed in a
car trunk in a remote part of Hernando County.
Earlier this month, Hildwin's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the case. At
Thursday's hearing, defense attorney Lyann Goudie argued that Hildwin's
original attorney, Daniel Lewan, was inexperienced and provided incompetent
representation, failing to attack possible holes in the prosecution.
What’s more, she said, many of the witnesses from Hildwin’s 1986 trial are dead
or unable to testify because of memory loss. That combination makes it
impossible for him to get a fair trial, she said.
"When half this case is tried by former testimony, I'm 2nd chair to Lewan,"
Goudie said. "I'm second chair to a 3rd-year lawyer who'd never tried a murder
case. ... Nobody asked the questions. Now (the witnesses) are dead."
Hildwin's retrial is scheduled to start April 1. The state has indicated it
will seek the death penalty again.
As of Friday, Fifth Circuit Court Judge Stephen E. Toner had yet to issue a
ruling on the motion to dismiss.
Toner and attorneys on both sides repeatedly brought up the unusual nature of a
case so old and the need to bring fresh eyes to a complicated history and set
of facts.
"Death is different, and the term ‘super-due process’ comes to mind," the judge
said. "I am troubled by many concerns of things not being available to the
defense, because of that. For want of a better phrase, it is what it is."
Prosecutors argued that the defense built its case for dismissal at the
original trial over what may end up being non-issues. Rules of evidence may
limit much of the original testimony from now-unavailable witnesses, Assistant
State Attorney Richard Buxman said, and he believes too many of the defense's
other points are based on speculation.
Buxman hasn't come across a case that was dismissed solely because of the
passage of time, he said.
The Supreme Court's 2014 ruling involved samples of semen and sweat found on a
pair of women's underwear and a dishrag at the crime scene. The prosecution
relied heavily on them in the original trial but linked the fluids to Hildwin
with now-outdated science, the court said.
Modern testing tied the samples to Cox's boyfriend, William Haverty.
The defense argued at the original trial that Haverty was the most likely
suspect in Cox's killing. Haverty later spent nearly 20 years in prison for an
unrelated child sex abuse conviction, state records show.
(source: Tampa Bay Times)
LOUISIANA:
Our opinion: Death penalty needs discussion, not partisanship
Louisiana’s lawmakers took up the death penalty issue earlier this week in
Baton Rouge.
Unfortunately, rather than embark on a reasoned debate among various groups
representing the spectrum of concerns on the issue, the event earlier this week
was more of a partisan attack.
Attorney General Jeff Landry went to the House criminal justice committee
hearing to criticize Gov. John Bel Edwards, who Landry said has not done enough
to ensure the state can start executing inmates on death row.
Louisiana has not carried out an execution since 2010, under then-Gov. Bobby
Jindal. Since that time, the state has had increasing difficulties securing the
drug it uses to administer lethal injections.
Jindal and Edwards have confronted the same problem, but Landry said the
current governor is dragging his feet in getting the system up and running once
again.
Neither Edwards nor anyone from his corrections department was invited to
Tuesday’s hearing, so it wasn’t so much an exchange of information as it was a
bashing of the current administration – something that has been a public
pastime for Landry. Edwards, a Democrat, and Landry, a Republican, both face
re-election this year.
This issue is far too important for the participants in this discussion to rely
on partisan politics. While victim advocates worry that survivors are being
deprived of the chance to see justice carried out, others are concerned that
the death penalty removes the state’s ability to act on cases where convicted
people are later exonerated.
Laverne Thompson did speak at the hearing, using the case of her husband, John,
to illustrate the dangers of the death penalty. John Thompson was scheduled to
be executed in 2003 but was released after a court found prosecutors had hidden
evidence at his trial. He later died.
“The status of Louisiana’s death penalty is that it does not respond to our
culture of violence, that it makes mistakes,” Laverne Thompson said.
This is a life-or-death issue that deserves to be discussed with respect and
thoughtfulness. Hearings based on pinning blame won’t get us closer to reaching
a consensus on one of our modern society’s most polarizing debates.
Every facet of this complicated issue has legitimate points that should be
heard and considered. Partisan attacks don’t further the larger and more
important goal of setting a public policy that makes sense and pursues justice.
(source: Editorial, Houma Today)
NEBRASKA:
Judge says Nebraska must provide information to attorneys for Arkansas
death-row inmates
A federal judge has ruled that Nebraska must turn over documents about how it
got the fentanyl it used to carry out an execution last summer.
But it doesn't have to identify the pharmacy that supplied it.
Senior U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp said that information isn’t
relevant to the lawsuit by Arkansas death-row inmates because the company has
"made a business decision to decline any future sales of chemicals to any
state, including Nebraska."
It is the 2nd time a judge has directed the state to provide information about
death penalty drugs that it seeks to keep private.
In the 12-page decision Friday, Camp gave the Nebraska Department of
Correctional Services until April 12 to provide:
* Communications and documents exchanged between the prison and Pharmacy N, the
pseudonym for the company that supplied the drugs, regarding the pharmacy's
decision to supply fentanyl to Nebraska for use in executions;
* Documents regarding how the prison was able to identify Pharmacy N and
persuade the company to supply fentanyl to Nebraska for use in executions; and
* Communications between the prison and Pharmacy N regarding its decision to
supply fentanyl to Nebraska for use in executions.
Last summer, attorneys for a group of five Arkansas death-row inmates asked a
U.S. District judge to force Nebraska to provide them information about where
it got the fentanyl it ultimately used in Carey Dean Moore's execution in
August.
They argued it was relevant to a pending lawsuit in federal court in Arkansas
where they were challenging, among other things, the state's use of midazolam
in executions, which they called inhumane.
Little Rock attorney John Williams contended a protocol that uses diazepam and
fentanyl would "significantly reduce the substantial risk of pain and suffering
inherent in the midazolam protocol," and pointed to Nevada and Nebraska, which
both obtained the drugs for executions.
In a brief, he argued information Nebraska has about its source was necessary
to determine whether the drug could be made available to Arkansas for use in
executions, a required element of the inmates' claim.
At stake, attorneys say, is the right of at least 17 men to not be subjected to
cruel and unusual punishment during their executions.
When the prison and the Nebraska Attorney General's office refused to provide
it, they sought an order compelling them to comply under a subpoena issued in
the Eastern District of Arkansas.
Friday, Camp said the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, to which Nebraska and
Arkansas both are a part, has held that the name of a supplier of execution
drugs no longer remains relevant once it "indisputably refuses to make (the
drugs) available to anyone."
Pharmacy N's president made a declaration that, since supplying lethal
injection drugs to Nebraska, it has decided not to provide them again.
But, Camp said, because Nebraska ultimately was able to successfully obtain
fentanyl, the information sought by the Arkansas inmates still "may be relevant
to whether it is truly infeasible for Arkansas to use fentanyl for its
executions."
The AG's office argued Nebraska should be immune from such subpoenas and that
the action infringes on the state's autonomy.
Camp said the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services asserted that, after
"extraordinary difficulty" in finding a supplier, Pharmacy N agreed to provide
the drugs "on the condition that its identity would remain secret."
"Compliance with the subpoena would signal to possible future suppliers that
Nebraska cannot legally keep their identities secret, thus jeopardizing NDCS'
ability to secure a stable supply of drugs to carry out future executions,"
they argued.
But, Camp said, those concerns are moot, since the name of the pharmacy is
being redacted.
The AG's office also argued — as it did in a state public-records lawsuit —
that the subpoena forces disclosure of "material reasonably calculated to lead
to the identity of execution team members," despite a state statute that makes
that a secret.
But Camp said the state hadn't shown the information was protected under the
discovery exemption of the law, which allows for disclosure after a showing of
"extraordinary good cause" as long as a protective order is issued to limit
dissemination of the information.
The state can appeal to the 8th Circuit.
In the separate state case, a Lancaster County judge in June ordered the state
to release records of communications with its lethal injection drug supplier,
as well as several other documents related to Nebraska's efforts to carry out
the death penalty.
The state appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court, which hasn't yet held oral
arguments in the case.
(source: Lincoln Journal Star)
CALIFORNIA:
Charles Manson, Rose Bird, Caryl Chessman and California's wrenching death
penalty debate
One of Elisabeth Semel’s earliest memories of the death penalty in California
was the 1960 execution of Caryl Chessman. She remembers seeing her father
upset.
She became a criminal defense lawyer and went on to defend inmates convicted of
capital crimes, running a death penalty clinic at UC Berkeley.
Kent Scheidegger, a former commercial lawyer, was inspired to join the fight
for the death penalty after voters ousted California Chief Justice Rose Bird
and 2 colleagues in 1986 for overturning death sentences.
He said the courts were thwarting the people’s will and he joined a pro-death
penalty group to persuade judges to uphold death sentences.
Advocates and others on both sides went on to endure decades of frustration in
California’s wrenching wars over the death penalty.
This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom put his own imprint on the saga, declaring a
moratorium on executions while he was in office. But the death penalty remains
lawful in California, and neither side is ready yet to lay down arms.
The battle started with a 1972 California Supreme Court decision that declared
the state’s death penalty unconstitutional. The decision spared the lives of
Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan and more than 100 others.
Supporters of the death penalty gradually resurrected the law to pass
constitutional muster, and California juries have condemned scores of people to
die.
Bird and 2 other Democratic appointees to the Supreme Court were replaced with
conservatives, and the newly formed court routinely upheld death sentences.
The state’s execution logjam broke with the 1992 lethal gassing of Robert Alton
Harris, who had killed 2 teenage boys in San Diego. It was the state’s 1st
execution in 25 years.
Another death row inmate, David Mason, was executed in the gas chamber the
following year.
Then a federal court decision in 1996 forced the state to close the gas chamber
and execute by lethal injection. Later that year, serial killer William Bonin
died by the needle, 4 years after Harris. Executions continued sporadically.
By the time Republican appointee Ronald M. George was California’s chief
justice, there was a massive backlog of death penalty appeals. The cost to the
state of trying the cases and handling the appeals was crushing.
George, a former prosecutor who had previously defended California’s death
penalty, declared the system “dysfunctional.” An inmate on death row was more
likely to die from old age than execution, he said.
In all, 13 inmates have been executed in California since the restoration of
the death penalty. More than 100 condemned inmates have died of natural causes
or suicide during that time.
A state commission determined that the death penalty would work in California
only if the state put in a massive infusion of money.
No one seemed inclined to provide that kind of money, but the death penalty
remained on the books and death row began running out of room.
Actor Mike Farrell, a death penalty abolitionist, spent many execution nights
outside San Quentin State Prison as peaceful protesters held candles and sang
hymns.
He met with 2 California death row inmates before their executions, including
Stanley Tookie Williams in 2005.
Williams, a former Los Angeles gang leader, was convicted of killing four
people. In prison he wrote books for young people urging them to eschew gangs.
Farrell also met with then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, another actor, to plead
for Williams’ life.
“I just don’t understand the point in killing this man,” Farrell recalled
telling Schwarzenegger. “If you commit him to life in prison without parole, he
can keep doing the work he is doing with kids.”
Schwarzenegger said Williams had to admit guilt and express remorse, Farrell
said. Williams insisted he did not commit the murders and died by lethal
injection.
Another inmate was executed before a federal judge in Northern California
decided in 2006 that the state’s 3-drug method of execution violated the U.S.
Constitution. The lethal cocktail exposed inmates to the risk of cruel and
unusual suffering, the judge found.
No one has been executed in California since that decision.
“We would have had 20 executions between then and now had it not been for that
ruling,” Scheidegger said.
Supporters of capital punishment managed in recent years to defeat two ballot
measures to abolish the death penalty and won narrow passage in 2016 of a
measure intended to speed up executions.
Gov. Jerry Brown, who personally opposes the death penalty, played no role in
the campaigns. His last two terms in office exasperated both supporters and
opponents of capital punishment.
Scheidegger said he believed that Brown, who as governor oversaw the department
in charge of executions, stymied their resumption by moving extremely slowly to
devise an execution protocol. At one point, Scheidegger sued Brown to force
action.
Semel called those years a time of “deep disappointment.” Both Brown and Atty.
Gen. Kamala Harris, now a candidate for president, said they personally opposed
the death penalty but “didn’t do anything about it,” Semel said.
“Those are the things that stick with me,” she said. On Monday, Farrell went to
Sacramento to meet with Newsom and other opponents of the death penalty.
“This is what I am going to do,” he said Newsom told the group.
Newsom said he would meet with capital punishment supporters to discuss his
plans the following day. Farrell told the governor his decision was “true
heroism.”
“Most of the governors who do this sort of thing do it at the end of their
terms, not at at the beginning,” Farrell said. “He said, ‘No, this is the right
time.’ I was blown away.”
News broke late Tuesday that Newsom was using his power of reprieve to place a
moratorium on executions.
Scheidegger was livid. He agreed that Newsom had the right to grant reprieves
to condemned inmates, but accused him of “flagrantly violating” the law by
withdrawing an execution protocol and shutting down the death chamber.
Sacramento County Dist. Atty. Anne Marie Schubert, who had campaigned to keep
the death penalty and speed it up, said that when she heard the news she
thought of a mother whose young son was tortured and sodomized for 10 hours
before he was stabbed more than 40 times. His killer was on death row.
She also thought of Marc Klass, who “has waited a quarter of a century” to see
the killer of his daughter, Polly, 12, executed. Newsom gave him “less than 24
hours’ notice” of his decision, Schubert said
Farrell watched Newsom’s news conference on television. He said he cried.
(source: Los Angeles Times)
********************
California governor on The View: Halting death penalty 'moral' decision
Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom defended the suspension of the death penalty in his
state during his appearance on "The View" on Friday.
On Wednesday, Newsom introduced a moratorium on the death penalty, putting 737
executions in the state on hold. He categorized the decision as a "moral" and
"very emotional" one.
"I would be asked to sign off on one death every single day for 2-plus years, 1
a week for 14 years," he told The View hosts, "knowing that at least 4 % of
those, 30-plus people, were innocent."
California has the Western Hemisphere's highest number of people on death row,
according to the governor.
"We had a person 26 years on death row that was just exonerated last year," he
added, as an example of the more than 100 US citizens on death row that have
been found innocent. Newsom has served as the state's governor since January,
after serving as the lieutenant governor for eight years. This is not the first
time he vocalized his stance on the death penalty. In 2016, the
then-lieutenant-governor endorsed a ballot measure that would have repealed the
death penalty in the state.
California residents voted it down.
Newsom said he was elected for and has the right to exercise his best judgment.
"I am afforded, pursuant to the constitution, the ability to make this
determination," he told The View hosts. "I don't do it flippantly. I have deep
respect and admiration for people who have a different point of view."
Newsom added that he spoke with the family members of victims of death convicts
no fewer than 12 times in the last week.
"'There's nothing I can do to bring your child back,'" he said he told families
who disagreed with his decision. "'There's nothing I can say to change your
point of view.' The fact is though I'm entrusted to do something much broader
than just address one individual case."
He also addressed broader issues such as disparities in the criminal justice
system.
"You're better off in this country if you're rich and guilty than if you're
poor and innocent," Newsom said to applause.
He addressed the issue with ABC affiliate station KGO on Wednesday.
"The American justice system is completely broken, and we all are perpetuating
it. The systemic racism, the implicit bias, the overt bias, the whims of
prosecutors based on geography, based on the will of people in the moment, fear
and anxiety... until we address that I don't think we can do what Saudi Arabia
is doing and what North Korea is doing," Newsom said.
One prominent opponent to the governor's decision was President Donald Trump.
Defying voters, the Governor of California will halt all death penalty
executions of 737 stone cold killers. Friends and families of the always
forgotten VICTIMS are not thrilled, and neither am I!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2019
Trump tweeted that Newsom was "defying voters" by halting the executions of
"737 stone cold killers."
"Friends and families of the always forgotten VICTIMS are not thrilled,"
tweeted the president, "and neither am I!"
(source: ABC News)
*****************
Why evangelicals are applauding California’s governor for halting executions
California Gov. Gavin Newsom made history this week when he suspended
executions in California, an important and necessary step to address the
inequities and failures in a capital punishment system that is utterly broken.
As evangelicals, we are taught to examine the systems around us and to call out
those that are unfair and unjust. The death penalty is exactly that. It is
arbitrary, biased, and immoral.
In explaining his decision, Newsom cited his concern that there are innocent
people on death row in his state. More than 160 people have been exonerated and
freed from death row across the country since 1973. That figure is part of what
compels us to speak out against the death penalty.
As Christians, we believe that all life is sacred. We know the justice system
will never get it right 100 percent of the time, and an imperfect system just
isn’t good enough when we’re dealing with life and death. The risk of executing
an innocent person is one we should never be willing to take.
We know the death penalty is applied unfairly, with major racial bias. The race
of the victim plays a large role in who receives a death sentence and who is
allowed to serve a prison sentence. Someone who murders a white person is much
more likely to get the death penalty. As people of faith, we stand on the
principles of justice and racial equality. As Galen Carey, vice president for
government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals, wrote in a
statement after Newsom announced his decision, “Race should never be a factor
in determining the severity of punishment imposed.”
We also know that the system is undeniably unfair to those who cannot afford to
pay for their own legal representation. This too flies in the face of our
Christian values. We are called to care for the poor and to advocate for those
who most need our help and support, including those sitting on death row who
suffer from serious mental illness. We must do better for our most vulnerable
brothers and sisters.
But as Christians, we also believe that every person is made in the image of
God and that nothing can change that, no matter what choices we make here on
earth. His love does not stop for those who commit terrible crimes. He never
gives up on anyone. I’ve met people who have turned their lives around by the
grace of God — I believe that our God in Heaven delights in these stories.
It was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who said that budgets are moral documents. As
followers of Christ, we must look at the moral impacts of the financial cost of
the death penalty. Those resources could be spent on services to help the
victims of violent crime heal from the trauma that they’ve experienced. We’re
losing so much and gaining nothing in return. It’s time to let the death
penalty go.
Instead, we need to look for new responses to violence, to address victims’
trauma and advance racial equity in ways that promise healing, safety and
restoration for all.
We know that many evangelical Christians share these principles from the way
our organization, the EJUSA Evangelical Network, has grown since its founding
in 2011 by Dr. Joel Hunter, retired senior pastor of Northland, a Church
Distributed, and Tony Campolo of the Red-Letter Christian movement, both of
whom have endorsed Gov. Newsom’s decision. More and more evangelicals are
standing with us as our voice grows.
It’s refreshing to see Gov. Newsom face this issue head-on. Because California
has approximately one quarter of all the death row inmates in America, the
governor’s action will have a profound impact on capital punishment in America.
He’s already cast a glaring light on the system’s inequities.
It’s time for Evangelicals to rise up as well. Our Christian faith compels us
to act — to stand up for justice and to fight against this system that has
failed us all. Human lives are on the line.
(Heather Beaudoin is senior manager of the EJUSA Evangelical Network, which
promotes a justice system centered on redemption and healing and helped to
launch Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. The views expressed in
this commentary do not necessarily represent those of Religion News Service.)
***************
Eyewitness to execution: The Bee’s coverage of 1992 gas chamber execution
Gov. Gavin Newsom stirred controversy with his order Wednesday placing a
moratorium on the death penalty in California for 737 condemned inmates. No one
has been executed in the state since 2006, and only 13 inmates have been put to
death since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978 in California.
The 1st execution since then was of Robert Alton Harris on April 21, 1992.
The following is an account of that execution from Bee reporter Sam Stanton,
who was a witness to 2 gas chamber and 6 lethal injection executions:
In the end, Robert Alton Harris seemed determined to go peacefully, a trait
that had eluded him in the 39 violent and abusive years he spent on Earth.
As the cyanide fumes rose up to his face in the San Quentin gas chamber, he
inhaled deeply and stared straight ahead, barely moving until death throes
convulsed his body.
His trademark smirk was gone, replaced by a haunting look of sadness spawned by
one last hellish night of fighting for his life and two predawn journeys to the
gas chamber.
Harris, the murderer of 2 16-year-old boys, made his 1st trip at 3:49 a.m.,
when he was strapped in a chair for 12 minutes. But with barely a minute to
spare before the cyanide pellets were to be dropped, a surprise court order was
called in, delaying the execution.
Within 2 hours he was walked back to the chamber and hurriedly subjected to
cyanide gas poisoning that killed him at 6:21 a.m.
His final night was spent in a small metal cell with only a bare mattress, a
minister and a constant stream of updates on the legal battles that appeared to
have drained him by dawn.
When he entered the chamber for the second and final time at 6:01 a.m., Harris
looked meekly at the four dozen witnesses and appeared to accept that after so
long, he was going to die for the 1978 murders of Michael Baker and John
Mayeski.
He went almost peacefully, mouthing the message to one guard watching, “It’s
all right.”
He then craned his neck backward and to the side until he caught the eye of San
Diego Police Detective Steve Baker, whose son he had murdered.
“I’m sorry,” Harris mouthed.
Behind the thick windows, Baker nodded back but remained expressionless. The
time for remorse had passed, he said.
“When you’re sitting in the gas chamber, saying you’re sorry is a little bit
too little and a little bit too late,” he would say later.
Within a minute of Harris’ silent apology, the gas had begun to rise about him,
and he sucked it deeply into his lungs. Within minutes, he gasped, moaned and
drooled until his head eased forward into his chest and he died.
Before entering the chamber, Harris borrowed a line from a recent popular movie
(“Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey”). “You can be a king or a street sweeper, but
everybody dances with the grim reaper,” San Quentin Warden Daniel Vasquez
reported him saying.
Yet the bravado appeared to be false.
While other gas chamber victims have thrashed and fought the gas, Harris
appeared to give himself up to it.
He never clenched the arms of the chair to which he was strapped, and his
muscular body moved in a slow, almost graceful response to the asphyxiation.
He didn’t move after 6:08 a.m. but was not pronounced dead until about 13
minutes later, an event that brought an almost rapture-like smile of joy to the
face of Sharron Mankins, Michael Baker’s mother.
Harris’ lawyers had finally failed in their attempts to spare him from the
lethal gas on the grounds that it is cruel and unusual punishment.
But the events preceding his death were on a fine line between delayed justice
and mental torture.
Scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, Harris had begun Monday resigned to his
fate, officials said.
He bid farewell to some of the guards he had become close to in his 13 years on
death row, then moved to a visiting area at 8:30 a.m. to meet with family and
friends.
By 6:22 p.m., he had been taken to the condemned prisoner’s cell steps from the
chamber, where he was to eat his last meal and spend the last 5½ hours of his
life.
Instead, he spent nearly 12 hours there as a federal appeals court in San
Francisco and the U.S. Supreme Court fought pitched legal battles over whether
he would die.
Stay after stay after stay was handed down by the federal court seeking delays,
but attorneys for the state of California pounced on each with appeals that
overturned them.
Up until 11 p.m., California Department of Corrections officials were prepared
to proceed on schedule with what they call the “execution ritual.”
But the legal battles pushed it back, first past 1 a.m., then 2 a.m., and
finally 3.
Outside the prison gates, the anti-death penalty forces had dwindled to a
handful, while inside, few noises were heard save the roar of the generators
from the television trucks gathered to cover the event.
But at 3:06 a.m., the word came down swiftly. All 18 media witnesses to the
execution were to proceed to 2 waiting shuttle buses outside. Immediately.
They piled in after emptying their pockets of everything - wallets, pens,
pencils, notebooks - except one piece of photo identification.
The shuttles roared off up the hill into the center of the huge prison complex,
one racing so quickly toward the death house that its open door slammed into a
security gate that was not opened fast enough.
The second followed closely behind, abandoning one witness who was forced to
run to the assembly point - a snack bar by the gas chamber building.
“We’re minutes away from execution,” shouted Tipton Kindel, the Corrections
Department spokesman.
After searches of all 18, the witnesses were marched out into the moonlit,
cloudless night.
They moved across a street under the watch of a sharpshooter and several
guards, creating ominous echoing bangs as each stepped on a loose manhole
cover.
Inside the witness room, friends and relatives of Mayeski and Baker already
stood toward the back of the room on 2 rising platforms. Closer to the death
chamber, standing before a railing several feet away from the windows, were
more witnesses and relatives.
Away toward a far corner was a cluster of guests Harris had invited, including
his older brother, Randall.
At 3:49 a.m., three guards firmly gripping Harris walked him into the chamber
and held him while he was strapped into Chair B, 1 of 2 inside the apple-green
contraption.
He appeared to have tears in his eyes momentarily, but within a minute gave a
thumbs-up sign and wink to the onlookers.
He was dressed in a new, short-sleeved work shirt and denim trousers, his
brownish yet graying hair pulled back in a slight ponytail.
In the background, a faint ringing could be heard behind the chamber door.
“Oh, God,” gasped one of the women from the Baker and Mayeski contingent.
It sounded momentarily like a telephone ring, and witnesses nervously eyed each
other as they considered whether last-minute reprieves came only in movies.
After a minute, the concern appeared groundless.
Harris was left in the chamber and the minutes began to tick away as everyone
awaited the gas. At 3:53 a.m. he mouthed to a guard, “I can’t move.”
He looked around. Back to his friends and relatives. Over to four guards
standing toward the corner of the witness room. Up at the reporters craning and
contorting to see him over the shoulders of those at the railing.
He flexed his hands and shook his head as though agitated, wanting to get it
over with. He appeared to shrug toward the reporters. A few more minutes
passed.
Suddenly, a subterranean groaning began to rumble through the room, the sound
that might be caused by the release of hydrochloric acid into the holding tank
under his seat, with the cyanide packets suspended above.
It was now 3:58 a.m., and even Harris thought it was time.
“Let’s pull the lever,” he appeared to say, then laughed.
But another minute passed as he looked about impatiently, and some heard a
voice from behind the chamber say, “Turn the water off.”
Still nothing happened, and at 4 a.m. Harris closed his eyes and bowed his
head, then looked up again.
Within a minute the chamber door was pulled open suddenly. Burly, purposeful
guards expertly unstrapped and hustled him out of the chamber as he looked up
in confusion.
“Ladies and gentleman,” prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon began to say. But
it was obvious. There was another stay of execution.
The witnesses were escorted out, and they learned that Harris had been within
minutes of death when a judge telephoned the prison to delay the execution.
The groaning sound they heard was the acid being withdrawn from the reservoir
as officials rushed to put the brakes on the ritual.
Outside, officers escorting the media witnesses assumed wrongly that the
execution had been carried out.
“Devastating, huh?” one said after seeing the shocked looks on the faces of
those emerging.
It was - but to the Baker and Mayeski relatives, not to the Harris guests.
Marilyn Clark, a sister of Mayeski who had tears in her eyes through much of
the ordeal, looked stunned. Linda Herring, Michael Baker’s sister, grabbed her
head in disbelief.
California Attorney General Dan Lungren’s face fell with disappointment.
Across the room, Harris’ friends and relatives stood in shocked silence,
holding their hands and their breath at the thought that he might be saved once
again.
All the witnesses were returned to their waiting areas away from reporters
while prison officials announced the state’s intent to overturn the stay.
By 5:45 a.m., Harris had lost his final legal fight.
Once again, the reporters were rushed onto the buses. They roared off again,
this time stranding 2 witnesses who had to hitch a ride in a car. The other
witnesses already were present, and at 6:01 a.m. a pumping sound could be
heard. This time, it was clear the acid was flowing inward to the tank under
the chair.
In the same minute, Harris was brought in once again, and three guards strapped
him in.
This time, there was a noticeable difference. He appeared almost as lifeless as
he would be in a matter of minutes.
His face was etched with lines, and his eyes were large and sad looking. He
barely appeared to move on his own, apparently drained by the sleepless night
and the emotional toll of the event 2 hours before.
He shut his eyes, then opened them and mouthed “It’s all right” to a guard and
“I’m sorry” to Baker.
By 6:05 a.m. it became clear that Harris would die.
No one heard the pellets plunk into the holding tanks of acid, nor saw the gas
rise up. But he suddenly began breathing in and out very forcefully.
His eyes rolled into the back of his head, which leaned slowly forward and then
all the way back.
A few minutes later it moved forward again.
At times, his mouth was half-open. At others, his eyes were slits.
He convulsed involuntarily, and moaned, then gasped and convulsed again. He
took deep breaths of the poison air as his head moved slowly forward again,
then shook with yet another convulsion.
At 6:07 a.m., Harris appeared to finally be at rest. His head was bowed forward
on his chest, and his eyes were closed.
But a minute later his body struggled for survival as his head moved upward
with a gasp, then down with another. He began to drool, and his body once again
was wracked with convulsions.
By 6:12 a.m., his body gave up the fight and Harris slowly died.
“The boy’s dead,” whispered one witness from near the Mayeski and Baker
relatives.
Sharron Mankins grinned. She had carried the pain for so long of the
description of the boys’ deaths.
She knew the story well: how Harris riddled the boys’ bodies with bullets after
stealing their car for a bank robbery; how he had chased one down and told him
before he killed him, “God can’t help you now, boy. You’re going to die.”
She had heard the claims that Harris was not responsible, that he had been
abused from before premature birth when his father kicked his mother in the
womb, that he had been subjected to fetal alcohol poisoning, that he had been
repeatedly abused as a child.
But she and the others had maintained that their pain could be eased only by
the finality his death would bring.
Marilyn Clark looked upward. Linda Herring stood pensively, her arms folded
across her chest.
But the minutes dragged on.
By 6:16 a.m., Crittendon glanced nervously at his watch.
In the next minute, relatives of Harris’ victims began to whisper among
themselves. Before that, most in the chamber had been silent, except for the
reporters who whispered descriptions and times to each other.
At 6:20 a.m., clanking sounds could be heard faintly in the rooms behind the
chamber, and 2 minutes later there was a knock on the steel-riveted door that
led from it to the witness room.
It opened slightly, and a piece of paper was thrust out.
A guard read the wordy announcement that contained a simple message: Robert
Alton Harris had been declared legally dead at 6:21 a.m.
The witnesses filed outside, into the bright sunlight.
After 25 years and nine days, California’s gas chamber was back in operation.
(source: Sacramento Bee)
*********************
Death Penalty?
The death penalty is a peculiar paradox in progressive California.
The death penalty is a peculiar paradox in progressive California. In several
referenda, voters clearly supported keeping this ultimate penalty, most
recently in 2016. Back in 2012, here’s what we said:
Our Editorial Board takes no position on the morality of the death penalty or
whether it is somehow “too cruel.” But 17 other states have dropped capital
punishment because it is just not practical. For convicted murderers: lock them
up and throw away the key; no exceptions; no whining. If they find religion and
redemption in prison, there’s plenty of spiritual work to get done in there.
Our Editorial Board ended up on the losing side of what was then, Proposition
34. But the fact is, no one has been executed in California for the past 13
years. The death penalty is a costly mess, but Governor Newsom’s unilateral
move this week with an executive order for a moratorium, is not the way to
settle the issue. The governor needs to lead; convince the people that the
death penalty is ineffective and too expensive. In the end, the voters must
realize it is not a crime deterrent, but a wasteful distraction.
(source: KSBW news)
************************
Newsom overrules voters in halting death penalty: Letters
Newsom to halt death penalty despite voter efforts to hasten executions” (March
12):
I do not understand why California voters keep electing liberal Democrat
politicians who do not abide by the wishes of the voters of California.
California voters have voted twice to keep the death penalty. Gov. Gavin Newsom
personally opposes the death penalty so he just went against the voter’s wishes
and suspended the death penalty in California.
There are now 737 convicted murderers in California who can now sleep better at
night while the victims of these brutal murderers are being victimized again.
Newsom basically said that he does not care what the voters said. He is acting
more like a dictator than an elected politician.
Another example of the liberal Democrat policies is the sanctuary law in
California. Polls show that the majority of California voters oppose such law
which protects criminal illegal immigrants but the politicians do what they
think is best.
Voters, in the future please vote for a candidate who believes in the rule of
the law and will not coddle criminals.
— Dave Van Buren, Highland
(source: Letter to the Editor, San Bernardino Sun)
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