April 13
TEXAS:
Texas Supreme Court rules supplier of death penalty drug can remain secret
The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that suppliers of drugs used for execution
can remain secret.
The court backed the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and overturned a
lower court’s ruling that said the state must release the name of the drug
supplier, according to The Dallas Morning News.
The court agreed with the state’s criminal justice department that revealing
the name of the company that supplied drugs for lethal injection executions in
2014 could put the company in danger.
"We conclude, based on the evidence in the record, that disclosing the source's
identity would create a substantial threat of physical harm to the source's
employees and others, and therefore need not be disclosed,” the court said.
In 2014, a group of death row inmates sued the state, seeking the identity of
the drug supplier, arguing that knowing the source of the drugs could prevent
botched executions. A lower court’s decision, which the state then appealed,
sided with the inmates.
The court’s Friday opinion cited past threats to execution drug suppliers,
including one from a professor telling a pharmacy to “beef up” security. That
letter also made reference to the 1995 Oklahoma City bomb attack by Timothy
McVeigh.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton applauded the ruling, calling it “necessary”
for the drug suppliers to remain anonymous.
“It is necessary to withhold the identities of these businesses and their
employees from public disclosure to ensure their physical safety,” Paxton said
in a statement. “The voters of Texas have expressed their judgment that the
death penalty is necessary, and this decision preserves Texas’ ability to carry
out executions mandated by state law.”
(source: thehill.com)
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
N.H. death penalty repeal bid called 'an enormous victory for life'
The New Hampshire Senate's vote to repeal the death penalty is "an enormous
victory for life," according to the executive director of the Catholic
Mobilizing Network.
The New Hampshire Senate voted 17-6 April 11 to repeal the state's death
penalty law. This follows a 279-88 vote for repeal by the state House in March.
"The overwhelming margins by which the repeal bill passed through the
Legislature sends a strong message about the state's priority to put an end to
the death penalty," said an April 12 statement by Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy.
"It speaks to a long-term decline in support for capital punishment found not
only in New Hampshire, but across the United States as a whole."
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu has threatened to veto the bill, but the
original vote in each chamber passed by margins wide enough to override a veto.
A 2/3 vote is required to override.
"Catholic Mobilizing Network celebrates this encouraging progress and looks
forward to the day when the state officially unshackles itself from the death
penalty once and for all," Murphy said.
New Hampshire has not put a prisoner to death since 1939. However, there is one
man on the state's death row, but the state's corrections department said there
are no immediate plans to acquire the drugs necessary to execute him.
The repeal bill is not retroactive, so it will not apply to Michael Addison,
found guilty of the 2006 murder of a police officer in Manchester, New
Hampshire's largest city. The bill replaces the death penalty with life in
prison without the possibility of parole.
Sununu, a Republican, vetoed a capital punishment repeal bill last year that
lawmakers failed to override. Then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, also vetoed
a repeal bill in 2000 that was sustained. A 2014 effort to repeal the death
penalty failed on a tie vote.
According to the Manchester Union Leader, once the bill is signed by the House
speaker, Senate president and secretary of state, Sununu will have five
business days to either veto the bill, sign it or let it become law without a
signature.
An April 11 statement issued by the governor's office said, "Governor Sununu
continues to stand with crime victims, members of the law enforcement
community, and advocates for justice in opposing a repeal of the death
penalty."
New Hampshire is the last state in New England where the death penalty is still
on the books.
In March, Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions in California,
the nation's most populous state — and most populous death row, with 737 men
and women.
If the New Hampshire repeal bid succeeds, it would become the 21st state to
abolish the death penalty.
Since the death penalty was found by the Supreme Court in 1978 to be
constitutional, more than 7,800 people have been sentenced to death, and close
to 1,500 executed. Another 161, according to the Death Penalty Information
Center, were exonerated from their crime prior to execution. After California's
moratorium, there are still about 2,000 prisoners on death row. The federal
government and the military also authorize the use of capital punishment.
(source: ncronline.org)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Daily American poll: Somerset County residents favor death penalty
A majority of Somerset County residents polled believe that it costs less than
$1 million to carry out the death penalty, but they are at least a $199 million
off from the actual cost.
In an anonymous poll conducted by the Daily American, 62 out of 81 residents
said the death penalty is the punishment they’d prefer for people convicted of
murder. 57 residents also said they thought it costs the state less than $1
million to put convicted felons to death, from arrest to execution.
(source: Daily American)
GEORGIA----new and impending execution
Georgia set to execute man who killed 2 women in 1994
A man who killed his ex-girlfriend and another woman nearly 25 years ago is the
1st death row prisoner set to be executed in Georgia this year.
Scotty Garnell Morrow, 52, is scheduled to die May 2 at the state prison in
Jackson, state Attorney General Chris Carr announced Friday.
Morrow was convicted of murder in the fatal shootings of his ex-girlfriend
Barbara Ann Young and her friend Tonya Woods at Young’s Gainesville home in
December 1994. A third woman was also shot but survived.
Morrow and Young began dating in June 1994, but she broke up with him that
December because of his abusive behavior, according to a Georgia Supreme Court
summary of the case. Morrow called Young on Dec. 29, 1994, and she told him to
leave her alone, the summary says. Young was in her kitchen with 2 friends and
2 of her children, when Morrow showed up a short time later and the pair
argued.
Woods told Morrow to leave, saying Young didn’t want anything to do with him
anymore. Morrow yelled at her and pulled out a handgun and began shooting,
hitting Woods in the abdomen and severing her spine, the summary says.
Morrow also shot Young’s other friend, LaToya Horne, in the arm.
Young ran from the kitchen. Morrow ran after her and kicked open the door to
her bedroom, where he beat her head and face and then followed her into the
hallway, grabbed her by the hair and fired a fatal shot into her head, the
summary says.
Young’s 5-year-old son was hiding in a nearby bedroom and saw Morrow kill his
mother, the summary says.
Morrow then returned to the kitchen, where he fired a fatal shot under Woods’
chin and then shot Horne in the face and arm, the summary says. He cut the
telephone line and fled.
Young and Woods died from their injuries, and Horne was severely wounded but
managed to leave the house to seek help.
? Morrow was arrested within hours. He confessed and the gun used in the
killings was found hidden in his yard.
Attorneys representing Morrow in post-conviction proceedings challenged the
constitutionality of his sentence in a petition filed in federal court in 2012.
“The death penalty is rarely sought — let alone obtained — in response to
spontaneous and emotionally-charged crimes like that committed by Mr. Morrow,”
they wrote.
When Morrow went to Young’s home, he pleaded with her to get back together. He
pulled out his gun when Woods mocked him, saying Young had used him for money
and companionship while her “real man” was in prison, the petition says.
“It was in immediate reaction to Ms. Woods’s comments that (Morrow) fired,
shooting first at Ms. Woods. The entire crime was complete within moments,”
Morrow’s lawyers wrote. “In short, Mr. Morrow’s crime was spontaneous and his
mental state at the time of the crime was compromised.”
His trial attorneys failed to adequately investigate his childhood, so jurors
didn’t hear about years of abuse and bullying Morrow experienced as a child
that left him tormented and unprepared to function in a healthy relationship,
his post-conviction attorneys wrote.
If his trial attorneys had done a proper investigation, they could have proven
that Morrow “was a genuinely nice guy who, because of the psychological pain of
his past, snapped,” his lawyers argued.
Morrow’s execution date was set after the Superior Court of Hall County, where
he was convicted, filed an order Friday setting a seven-day window for his
execution. That window stretches from noon on May 2 to noon on May 9.
Georgia uses an injection of compounded pentobarbital, a sedative, to execute
condemned prisoners.
(source: Athens Banner-Herald)
*********************
Execution Date Set for Scotty Garnell Morrow, Convicted of Murder
An execution date for Scotty Garnell Morrow has been set for May 2, 2019.
Attorney General Chris Carr offers the following information in the case
against Morrow for the murder of Barbara Ann Young and Tonya Rochelle Woods.
Scheduled Execution
On April 12, 2019, the Superior Court of Hall County filed an order setting the
seven-day window in which the execution of Scotty Garnell Morrow may occur to
begin at noon, May 2, 2019 and end seven days later at noon on May 9, 2019.
Morrow has concluded his direct appeal proceedings and his state and federal
habeas corpus proceedings.
Morrow’s Crime (December 29, 1994)
The Georgia Supreme Court summarized the facts of the case as follows:
Barbara Ann Young began dating Scotty Morrow in June 1994 and she broke up with
him in December 1994 because of his abusive behavior. At 9:52 a.m. on December
29, 1994, Morrow telephoned Ms. Young at her home, but she told him that she
wanted him to leave her alone. After hanging up, Morrow drove to Ms. Young’s
home and entered without permission. Ms. Young was in the kitchen with two of
her friends, Tonya Woods and LaToya Horne. Two of Ms. Young’s children,
five-year-old Christopher and eight-month-old Devonte, were also present. There
was an argument in the kitchen and Ms. Woods told Morrow to leave because Ms.
Young did not want to have anything to do with him anymore. Morrow yelled,
"Shut your mouth, bitch!" and pulled a 9-millimeter pistol from his waistband.
He shot Ms. Woods in the abdomen and Ms. Horne in the arm. The bullet that
struck Ms. Woods severed her spinal cord, paralyzing her from the waist down.
Ms. Young fled down the hallway and into her bedroom. Morrow caught her in the
bedroom and beat her on the head and face. She managed to flee back to the
hallway where Morrow grabbed her by the hair and shot her point-blank in the
head, killing her. From his hiding place in a nearby bedroom, Christopher saw
Morrow kill his mother. Morrow returned to the kitchen. Testimony as to
clicking noises and the fact that a live cartridge was found on the kitchen
floor indicate that he either reloaded his pistol or cleared a jam. He then
placed the muzzle of the pistol an inch from Ms. Woods’ chin and killed her
with a shot to the head. The medical examiner opined that, although she was
paralyzed, Ms. Woods had not lost much blood at that time and was probably
still conscious when the fatal shot was fired. Morrow also shot Ms. Horne 2
more times, in the face and the arm, and fled after cutting the telephone line.
Despite her injuries, which included a shattered palate, permanent deafness in
one ear, and nerve damage in an arm, Ms. Horne managed to get to her feet and
run to a neighbor’s house. She and Christopher told the responding police
officers that Morrow was the shooter. Morrow confessed after his arrest and the
murder weapon was found hidden in his backyard. At trial, Morrow admitted that
he shot the victims because he "wanted [Ms. Woods] to shut up."
Morrow v. State, 272 Ga. 691, 699-700 (2000).
The Trial (1995-1999)
Morrow was indicted in the Superior Court of Hall County, Georgia on March 6,
1995 for 2 counts of malice murder, 2 counts of felony murder, 6 counts of
aggravated assault, aggravated battery, cruelty to a child, burglary and
possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. On June 26, 1999, a
jury found Morrow guilty on all counts. The jury’s recommendation of a death
sentence was returned on June 29, 1999.
The Direct Appeal (2000-2001)
The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Morrow’s convictions and death sentence on
June 12, 2000. Morrow v. State, 272 Ga. 691 (2000). The United States Supreme
Court denied Morrow’s request to appeal on March 26, 2001. Morrow v. Georgia,
532 U.S. 944 (2001).
State Habeas Corpus Proceedings (2001-2012)
Morrow filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Superior Court of
Butts County, Georgia on October 30, 2001. An evidentiary hearing was held on
April 25-26, 2005. On February 4, 2011, the state habeas corpus court entered
an order denying habeas relief as to Morrow’s convictions and granting habeas
relief as to his death sentence finding that he received ineffective assistance
of trial counsel. The State appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court, which
reversed the habeas court’s order and reinstated Morrow’s death sentence on
October 17, 2011. Humphrey v. Morrow, 289 Ga. 864 (2011). The United States
Supreme Court denied Morrow’s request to appeal on April 23, 2012. Morrow v.
Humphrey, 566 U.S. 964 (2012).
Federal Habeas Corpus Proceedings (2012-2019)
Morrow filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States
District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on March 8, 2012. On July
28, 2016, the district court denied Morrow federal habeas relief. The Eleventh
Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s denial of relief on
March 27, 2018. Morrow v. Warden, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison,
886 F.3d 1138 (11th Cir. 2018). The United States Supreme Court denied Morrow’s
request to appeal on February 19, 2019. Morrow v. Ford, 2019 U.S. LEXIS 1039
(2019).
(source: law.georgia.gov)
************************
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-------Apr. 24------------John King------------------Texas
1495-------May 2--------------Scotty Morrow--------------Georgia
1496-------May 2--------------Dexter Johnson------------Texas
1497-------May 16-------------Donnie Johnson-----------Tennessee
1498-------Aug. 15------------Stephen West-------------Tennessee
1499-------Aug. 21------------Larry Swearingen---------Texas
1500-------Sept. 4------------Billy Crutsinger---------Texas
1501------Sept. 12------------Warren Henness-----------Ohio
(source: Rick Halperin)
ALABAMA:
The Supreme Court Botches Another Death Penalty Decision----If a state has
capital punishment, then the court must ensure that it proceeds fairly and
deliberately.
There’s a scene in the classic 1979 film “And Justice for All” where lawyer
Arthur Kirkland, played by Al Pacino, tells a client who’s been jailed for a
crime he didn’t commit that even though new evidence clears him, the judge
won’t let him out. The client, desperate, asks why. “There’s a law,” says
Kirkland. “It says that evidence must be submitted within a certain time
period. And ours came in 3 days late.” The audience is meant to be suitably
shocked.
Fast-forward to this week in the real world. A man named Christopher Lee Price
soon will be executed by the state of Alabama because his lawyer — in the words
of this morning’s order from the U.S. Supreme Court — “submitted additional
evidence today, a few hours before his scheduled execution time.” In other
words, he made his claim too late.
One needn’t be a fan of capital punishment to recognize that if a death penalty
is going to exist, there must come a time when the courts stop issuing stays
and let the punishment proceed. But in this case, the “additional evidence” to
which the majority made reference was the final version of an academic study.
Price’s lawyer had previously submitted a preliminary copy labeled “do not
cite,” and the U.S. Court of Appeals had decided, oddly, that the label meant
that report was not “reliable evidence.” In response, the lawyer obtained the
final version, which read exactly the same way. That was the new evidence.
The study in question involves the most humane way to kill the condemned man.
And it has a history.
Back in 2014, the state of Oklahoma made headlines when it badly botched the
execution of a man named Clayton Lockett. The sedatives didn’t work right, and
a later investigation found that his death was “prolonged and apparently
agonizing.” Lockett was a bad apple, who had shot a 19-year old woman and
buried her alive. The sort of person, one might say, for whom capital
punishment is designed. But we should still care how it’s done. One measure of
civilization is its ability to treat criminals better than they treat their
victims.
The Oklahoma legislature, understanding this precept, decided last year to
switch to nitrogen hypoxia as a “more humane” means of execution. The apparent
basis was this study. Rather than face an intravenous injection of toxic
substances, the condemned man will inhale nitrogen, probably through a mask,
and will get dizzy and pass out, never to wake.
Alabama followed Oklahoma in adopting nitrogen inhalation, but has not yet
developed a protocol to implement it. Price missed the state’s deadline for
electing to be killed by the new method rather than the old, but that’s not
hard to understand: It’s difficult to make a choice when the state itself
hasn’t decided how the new method will be carried out.
Several months later, however, Price filed papers to challenge his scheduled
execution by lethal injection, arguing in essence that if nitrogen inhalation
is truly more humane, then its pending availability in Alabama means that the
state should no longer be allowed to use lethal injection. This is the lawsuit
that the justices rejected in the wee hours of Friday morning.
Let’s be clear. Price, too, is evidently a bad apple. Several news accounts of
the Supreme Court’s action have said simply that he was convicted of using a
sword to kill an Alabama pastor. True, but less than complete. The details of
his crime are worse. Price and an accomplice targeted the pastor, arriving at
the house dressed all in black. The pastor and his wife had just returned from
an evening church service. She had retired for the night; he was downstairs
wrapping presents. Price and his partner cut the telephone lines and apparently
the power. When the pastor went outside to see what was going on, he was
attacked with a sword and mortally wounded. His wife grabbed a gun and fired a
warning shot, but then ran out of bullets. The men beat her severely. They
searched the house and then fled. 1
As I said: a bad apple.
But if we’re going to have capital punishment, all of the challenges will be
from bad apples. Justice Stephen Breyer, in a dissenting opinion joined by
three of his colleagues, argued that the high court should at least discuss the
matter before vacating the stay of execution. “To proceed in this way,” he
wrote, “calls into question the basic principles of fairness that should
underlie our criminal justice system.” Just as bad, he concluded, was “to
proceed in this matter in the middle of the night without giving all members of
the court the opportunity for discussing.”
We can argue long and hard over the morality of the death penalty. But if we’re
going to have one, we should do our best not to impose it in ways that give the
impression that we’re rushing the condemned to the death chamber. There are
some issues worth taking the time to debate. The most humane way to kill is
surely one of them.
(source: Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor
of law at Yale University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall. His novels include “The Emperor of Ocean Park,” and his
latest nonfiction book is “Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman
Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster.”)
************************
The Supreme Court Made a Death Penalty Decision in the Dead of the Night and
Justice Breyer Is Pissed----“To proceed in this way calls into question the
basic principles of fairness that should underlie our criminal justice system.”
At approximately 3:00 a.m. Friday morning, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling
that allows the execution of an Alabama death row inmate to move forward, after
a lower court had issued a stay of execution. The order itself was only a
paragraph, but Justice Stephen Breyer responded with a six-page dissent that
provided a glimpse into just how divided the nation’s highest court has become.
“Should anyone doubt that death sentences in the United States can be carried
out in an arbitrary way,” Justice Breyer wrote, “let that person review the
following circumstances as they have been presented to our Court this evening.”
He then went on to describe the flurry of activity that took place on Thursday
afternoon. Christopher Price was set to die on April 11 for the 1991 murder of
a pastor in Bazemore, Alabama. Price had claimed that Alabama’s lethal
injection protocol would cause him pain and suffering, a constitutional
violation. The inmate argued that he should instead be executed by nitrogen
hypoxia. Hours before his scheduled execution on Thursday, a federal judge in
Mobile, Alabama, issued a stay over those claims, giving the state until May 10
to provide evidence against Price’s claim that nitrogen hypoxia would reduce
the risk of severe pain.
Alabama immediately appealed the lower court’s decision, but the 11th Circuit
Court of Appeals affirmed it. Alabama then appealed to the US Supreme Court,
saying that Price failed to sign up for the new method of execution in a timely
fashion. But when Price’s death warrant expired at midnight, the high court
still hadn’t made a decision. The final decision was issued at around 3:00 a.m.
The majority ruled in a short unsigned paragraph that because Price had not
brought his claims sooner, they would allow the execution to move forward.
Breyer was not convinced by the argument that Price’s timing was a problem. On
June 1, 2018 Alabama passed legislation allowing for nitrogen hypoxia, or being
gassed to death, as another method of execution. The state gave inmates 30 days
to choose how they wished to die. But, as Justice Breyer notes, Price may have
only had 3 days to decide how the state would kill him:
Yet based on the limited information before us, it appears no inmate received a
copy of the election form (prepared by a public defender) until June 26, and
the State makes no representation about when Price received it other than that
it was “before the end of June.” Thus, it is possible that Price was given no
more than 72 hours to decide how he wanted to die, notwithstanding the 30–day
period prescribed by state law.
Now, the state will have to reschedule his execution.
The majority’s opinion about Price’s timeliness is not the only issue that
rankled Justice Breyer. The fact that the decision was made hastily in the
middle of the night, said Breyer, undermines the entire criminal justice
system:
To proceed in this way calls into question the basic principles of fairness
that should underlie our criminal justice system. To proceed in this matter in
the middle of the night without giving all Members of the Court the opportunity
for discussion tomorrow morning is, I believe, unfortunate.
The ruling comes at a time when the conservative and liberal justices have been
clashing over capital punishment in the United States. Earlier this month, in
an opinion declining to review the case of a Missouri death row inmate who has
a rare disease which could make his execution “gruesome,” Justice Neil Gorsuch
wrote that 11th-hour stays should be an “extreme exception.” It appears that
the case of Christopher Price did not rise to that standard.
(source: motherjones.com)
********************************
Divided Supreme Court says execution can proceed — but the death warrant had
already expired
Conservative justices on the Supreme Court overruled lower courts in a
middle-of-the-night order and said an Alabama execution could proceed, over the
objections of their liberal colleagues who wanted to discuss the case Friday
morning.
The order came too late for the state to carry out the execution of Christopher
Lee Price, and Alabama will have to ask a state court to set another execution
date.
But the 5-to-4 ruling at the Supreme Court indicated that the court’s new
conservative majority is far less likely to agree to last-minute stay requests
from those facing execution. It also emphasized the stark divide between
conservative and liberal justices on capital punishment and the most humane way
to carry it out.
“What is at stake in this case is the right of a condemned inmate not to be
subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth
Amendment,” wrote Justice Stephen G. Breyer, objecting to the majority’s
decision.
He added: “To proceed in this matter in the middle of the night without giving
all members of the court the opportunity for discussion tomorrow morning is, I
believe, unfortunate.”
? He was joined by his fellow liberal colleagues Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia
Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Price, sentenced to death for his role in murdering an Alabama minister in 1991
with a sword and a dagger, was asking to be executed by inhaling nitrogen gas,
a process called nitrogen hypoxia, rather than risk a “botched” execution by
injection.
Alabama allows nitrogen hypoxia but has never used it in an execution.
But the Supreme Court majority said Price had missed his chance to elect that
manner of death.
In a brief, unsigned order, the court’s conservatives said that death-row
inmates in Alabama in June 2018 were given 30 days to elect nitrogen hypoxia.
While 48 inmates did so, Price did not.
“He then waited until February 2019 to file this action and submitted
additional evidence today, a few hours before his scheduled execution time,”
said the order from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence
Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh.
That majority earlier this year allowed the execution of a Muslim inmate in
Alabama who had complained that he was not allowed an imam by his side at his
death, while Christian inmates could have a chaplain with them. The five
justices suggested the legal action had come too late.
The conservatives also recently rejected an appeal from a Missouri inmate who
said that lethal injection in his case could cause excruciating pain — such
that perhaps he would choke on his own blood during the process. The court
ruled 5 to 4 that Russell Bucklew had not proven that lethal injection would
choke him or that another manner of execution would alleviate the problem.
Breyer’s dissent revealed the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that accompanies
execution stay requests.
“Should anyone doubt that death sentences in the United States can be carried
out in an arbitrary way, let that person review the following circumstances as
they have been presented to our court this evening,” Breyer wrote.
After Price obtained stays from a district judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the 11th Circuit, the state of Alabama asked the Supreme Court to intervene
after 9 p.m. Thursday.
Breyer wrote that he requested the court take no action until Friday, when the
justices were scheduled to meet in private conference to discuss other matters.
“I recognized that my request would delay resolution of the application and
that the state would have to obtain a new execution warrant, thus delaying the
execution by 30 days,” Breyer wrote. “But in my judgment, that delay was
warranted, at least on the facts as we have them now.”
But he said the majority would not agree to that, “thus preventing full
discussion among the court’s members. In doing so, it overrides the
discretionary judgment of not one, but two lower courts. Why?”
The court’s ruling was emailed to reporters at 2:51 a.m. Friday.
While the deliberations proceeded in Washington, Alabama officials decided to
halt Price’s execution just before the death warrant expired at midnight. That
left them angry as well.
“This evening, the state of Alabama witnessed a miscarriage of justice,” Gov.
Kay Ivey (R) said in a statement.
(source: CNN)
*************************
Ivey calls stay of execution for Christopher Lee Price a miscarriage of justice
Late Thursday night, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (R) called the granting of a
stay of execution for death row inmate Christopher Lee Price “a miscarriage of
justice.”
“This evening, the state of Alabama witnessed a miscarriage of justice,” Gov.
Ivey said. “Just days before Christmas in 1991, Christopher Lee Price brutally
took the life of Pastor Bill Lynn. This horrendous crime left Pastor Lynn’s
wife and family to grieve, and now, almost 30 years later, the family is still
left with no closure. ”
“To Pastor Lynn’s family, as well as the prosecutors and members of law
enforcement who have worked on this case for years, I want to offer my
assurance that I will continually fight to uphold the laws that bind our
state,” Ivey continued. “Rightfully administering justice is a necessary duty
as governor of Alabama.”
“Tonight, in the middle of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, the family of
Pastor Bill Lynn was deprived of justice,” said Alabama Attorney General Steve
Marshall (R). “They were, in effect, re-victimized by a killer trying to evade
his just punishment. This 11th-hour stay for death row inmate Christopher Price
will do nothing to serve the ends of justice. Indeed, it has inflicted the
opposite— injustice, in the form of justice delayed.”
“On December 22, 1991, Bill Lynn was wrapping Christmas gifts for his
grandchildren when he was ambushed outside his home, slashed and stabbed with a
sword dozens of times,” Marshall explained. “His killer has dodged his death
sentence for the better part of three decades by employing much the same
strategy he has pursued tonight—desperately clinging to legal maneuverings to
avoid facing the consequences of his heinous crime.”
“I can promise you this: Alabama will never forget victims. Justice will be had
for Pastor Lynn and his family” Marshall vowed. “As for Christopher Price, his
day of justice will come.”
Thursday evening, Judge Kristi Dubose, of the U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of Alabama, granted Price’s second petition for a stay, which
was later upheld on appeal by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Time ran
out before the State’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court could be considered.
(source: alreporter.com)
**********************
Over 3 A.M. Dissent, Supreme Court Says Alabama Execution May Proceed----“To
proceed in this way calls into question the basic principles of fairness that
should underlie our criminal justice system,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote
in his dissent.
A bitterly divided Supreme Court ruled early Friday morning that the execution
of an Alabama death row inmate could proceed. The vote was 5 to 4.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s anguished dissent, issued around 3 a.m., said the
majority had denied his request that the execution be delayed so that the
justices could discuss the matter at their scheduled private conference on
Friday morning. That was a rare glimpse into deliberations that are ordinarily
secret.
The dispute among the justices lasted long enough that Alabama officials called
off the execution of the inmate, Christopher L. Price, which had been scheduled
for Thursday night. They said a new execution date will be set.
“To proceed in this way calls into question the basic principles of fairness
that should underlie our criminal justice system,” Justice Breyer wrote. “To
proceed in this matter in the middle of the night without giving all members of
the court the opportunity for discussion tomorrow morning is, I believe,
unfortunate.”
The majority, in a brief unsigned opinion, said Mr. Price had waited too long
to raise his claim that Alabama’s method of execution, a lethal injection of
three chemicals, could subject him to excruciating pain. Mr. Price asked to be
executed using nitrogen gas, a method allowed by Alabama law.
The case is the latest example of an increasingly rancorous divide on the
Supreme Court over the death penalty, with conservative justices frustrated
over what they considered excessive delays in carrying out executions. The
liberal justices, on the other hand, have accused the majority of reckless
haste that could give rise to pain amounting to torture.
The replacement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who was a moderating force in
capital cases, with the more conservative Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh has
hardened the divide between the two sides. This term’s major cases will be
decided in the coming months and similar angry splits are likely.
Mr. Price and an accomplice were convicted of using a sword and dagger to kill
William Lynn, a minister, in his home in Bazemore, Ala., in 1991 while he was
preparing Christmas presents for his grandchildren. The pastor’s wife, Bessie
Lynn, was badly wounded in the attack but survived. Mr. Price admitted to
participating in robbing the couple but claimed that only his accomplice had
harmed them.
In June, Alabama gave death row inmates 30 days to choose nitrogen hypoxia,
which deprives the body of oxygen, as the way they would be executed, and Mr.
Price had failed to do so. The majority said that was the end of the matter.
Lower courts entered stays of execution on Thursday, citing new evidence and
questions about jurisdiction. Around 9 p.m. on Thursday, Alabama officials
asked the Supreme Court to lift the stays. It agreed about 6 hours later.
Earlier this month, in rejecting a challenge from a Missouri inmate about how
he was to be put to death, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, writing for a five-justice
majority, said “courts should police carefully against attempts to use such
challenges as tools to interpose unjustified delay.”
That decision followed a 5-to-4 ruling in February to allow the execution of a
Muslim inmate in Alabama after his request to have his imam be present was
denied, with the majority saying he should have asked sooner. In dissent,
Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the majority was “profoundly wrong.” In March,
the court stayed the execution of a Buddhist inmate in Texas in similar
circumstances, over two noted dissents, with the majority apparently satisfied
that the request had been timely.
In his 7-page dissent on Friday, Justice Breyer reviewed the proceedings in Mr.
Price’s case and said undue haste had undermined justice. Justices Kagan, Ruth
Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joined his dissent in the case, Dunn v.
Price, No. 18A1053.
“Should anyone doubt that death sentences in the United States can be carried
out in an arbitrary way,” Justice Breyer wrote, “let that person review the
following circumstances as they have been presented to our court this evening.”
He said his colleagues had turned away his request to discuss the matter in
person. Late-night rulings on death penalty stay applications are not
unheard-of, but they are seldom issued in the predawn hours.
“I requested that the court take no action until tomorrow, when the matter
could be discussed at conference,” he wrote, referring to a private meeting
that is regularly scheduled for most Friday mornings during the court’s term.
“I recognized that my request would delay resolution of the application and
that the state would have to obtain a new execution warrant, thus delaying the
execution by 30 days.
“But in my judgment, that delay was warranted, at least on the facts as we have
them now,” Justice Breyer wrote.
Alabama officials expressed outrage over the delay after the death warrant
expired.
“Tonight, in the middle of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, the family of
Pastor Bill Lynn was deprived of justice,” said Attorney General Steven T.
Marshall. “They were, in effect, re-victimized by a killer trying to evade his
just punishment.”
Mr. Marshall complained that Mr. Price had long “dodged his death sentence for
the better part of three decades by employing much the same strategy he has
pursued tonight — desperately clinging to legal maneuverings to avoid facing
the consequences of his heinous crime.” He vowed that Mr. Lynn’s “day of
justice will come.”
In his dissent, Justice Breyer wrote that a brief delay to allow the Supreme
Court to discuss the matter was warranted.
There were substantial questions, he wrote, about whether Mr. Price had acted
too slowly in choosing nitrogen gas.
“What is at stake in this case,” Justice Breyer wrote, “is the right of a
condemned inmate not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in
violation of the Eighth Amendment.”
(source: New York Times)
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