May 19
ARKANSAS:
Judicial ethics hearing delayed----Panel looking into Griffen case waits for
special counsel
An ethics hearing over Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen's decision
to participate in a protest against the death penalty was delayed again on
Friday, with a new hearing date set for next month.
The delay is the latest in the two-year-long saga over Griffen's actions, which
came on the same day in April 2017 when Griffen issued an order that threatened
to stall the state's plans to conduct a series of executions. In response, the
Arkansas Supreme Court stripped Griffen of his ability to hear cases on capital
punishment, a decision that caused Griffen to accuse the justices themselves of
ethics charges.
The Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission, the state's judicial
watchdog, dismissed the charges against the Supreme Court justices in November.
Griffen's case, meanwhile, was originally scheduled to go before the commission
next Tuesday.
Instead, an eight-member panel of the commission that was supposed to hear
Griffen's case granted its 3rd continuance since the fall because of scheduling
issues with the out-of-state prosecutors set to try the case against Griffen.
The out-of-state prosecutors were brought in because David Sachar, the director
of the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission, recused from trying the
case along with his deputy director back in 2017. They cited the potential
conflicts of interest with the involvement of the entire Supreme Court.
Instead, Rachel Michel, a staff attorney with the Mississippi Commission on
Judicial Performance, was hired to work free of charge to investigate whether
Griffen's actions violated the state's judicial canons. Michel, however,
received military orders in September that made her unavailable to try the case
at a hearing originally scheduled for October.
The commission then replaced Michel with Timothy Discenza, an attorney at the
Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct. The hearing was delayed until March, and
then to May. But then Discenza had to withdraw because of health last week.
The case is now back in the hands of Michel. Citing more military orders, she
filed a motion this week to either withdraw as special counsel or receive
another continuance.
The commissioners, with one dissenting, Friday voted against allowing Michel to
withdraw. They instead granted her motion for a continuance -- setting a new
hearing date for June 10.
Michel did not say in her motion when she would be available again to try the
case. A person who answered the phone at her office in Mississippi on Friday
said Michel remained away on military orders and was unavailable for comment.
Before adjourning Friday, the commission also denied a motion by Griffen's
attorneys for summary judgment, claiming a lack of evidence in the case. The
commissioners declined to address a separate motion made by Griffen's
attorney's to allow video testimony at the hearing.
Mike Laux, Griffen's attorney, said Friday: "Clearly, there are two sets of
rules at the JDDC: one for the Arkansas Supreme Court Justices and one for
Judge Griffen. I will let your readers guess whose rules are more onerous and
arbitrary."
If the ethics charges are substantiated by the commission, Griffen could face
penalties ranging from admonishment to censure. More serious penalties,
including removal from office, require review from the Supreme Court, whose
justices would likely have to recuse.
(source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
MISSOURI:
State to Seek Death Penalty in Miller County Murder Case
The state will seek the death penalty for a Chicago man accused in a Miller
County murder. Joseph McKenna is accused of first-degree murder, armed criminal
action, and tampering with a witness in relation to the 2018 shooting of Tyler
Worthington from North San Juan California. Authorities say the killing took
place in Miller County during an apparent drug deal gone bad. The announcement
that the state will seek the death penalty came during a hearing in which
McKenna was seeking a bond reduction. The court denied that motion and now says
he will not receive bond at all.
(source: krmsradio.com)
OKLAHOMA:
ODOC 'getting closer' to acquiring device necessary to carry out executions
Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Joe Allbaugh said Wednesday the
agency is “getting closer every day” to acquiring a device needed to resume the
death penalty, though there’s still no firm date for executions to begin again.
Since announcing last year it will replace lethal injection with “nitrogen
hypoxia,” a process which in theory painlessly suffocates an unconscious
person, Oklahoma has been unable to procure a device necessary to carry out
such an execution.
In March, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter told the state’s District
Attorney’s Council those difficulties meant “we may and in fact we are likely
to look to a state manufacturer to develop the machine.”
Hunter said it would take a device that could regulate the introduction of
nitrogen through a tube and into an airtight mask over the face of the
to-be-executed inmate.
Allbaugh told The Frontier on Wednesday while DOC doesn’t yet have someone to
make the device, he is sure Oklahoma Correctional Industries will not be
involved in the product’s development.
Oklahoma Correctional Industries uses inmate labor to create a number of
products, like furniture and outdoor grills, which are then sold to qualifying
state and federal agencies.
Allbaugh also said DOC would not put the development of the nitrogen induction
device out to bid.
Shelley Zumwalt, director of public affairs for Office of Management and
Enterprise Services, said DOC has an exemption to the bid process when it comes
to executions.
Zumwalt pointed to state statutes that say “the purchase of drugs, medical
supplies or medical equipment necessary to carry out (an) execution shall not
be subject to the provisions of the Oklahoma Central Purchasing Act.
Historically a hotbed for the death penalty, there has not been an execution in
Oklahoma in more than four years, dating back to the January 2015 execution of
Charles Warner. Oklahoma tried multiple times since then to execute Richard
Glossip, who was convicted of a murder for hire plot in 1998. However each
attempt was stayed by the courts and Glossip still resides in DOC’s Oklahoma
State Penitentiary.
National and international scrutiny of Oklahoma’s death penalty exploded in
2014 following the execution of Clayton Lockett. Lockett, 38, convicted of the
brutal murder of Stephanie Neiman in 2000, died following an excruciating
43-minute execution on April 29, 2014, in which multiple failures led to an
improperly inserted IV. Lockett woke during the execution, writhed and spoke
multiple times before DOC officials closed the curtain.
Oklahoma used an untested drug mixture on Lockett that day and it was later
learned the state had accidentally acquired (and used in Warner’s case) an
unapproved drug in the Warner execution and in the multiple attempts to execute
Glossip.
The 4-year hiatus between executions is the longest since Oklahoma resumed
carrying out the death penalty in 1990. Department of Corrections records show
the 1st execution occurred in 1915 and continued on a mostly yearly basis until
1966. There have been 195 executions in Oklahoma’s history.
(source: Enid News & Eagle)
NEBRASKA:
Clarifying remarks on Jesus, death penalty
Editor's note: Though the Journal Star has a policy prohibiting letters to the
editor by the same author within 45 days of publication, it is making an
exception in this case to allow the writer to clarify a point that was obscured
by the headline an editor wrote for his letter.
Robert Underwood (“Death penalty words far out of context,” May 16) missed the
point of my May 12 letter, on which the Journal Star wrote a headline of "Jesus
favors the death penalty."
My own missive was in response to a letter that based opposition to the death
penalty on the New Testament’s evangelical counsel of “turn the other cheek.”
If that dictum of Jesus were a commandment, then the United States would not
have an army or Lincoln a police department, where deadly force is sometimes
required.
My point, perhaps too subtle, was that anyone can pull a quote from the Bible
and justify either side of almost any argument. I think, however, that most
readers got it, as all the online version emoji responders to my letter found
it humorous, which was the intention of my epistolary riposte.
For the record, the Catholic Church (of which I am a member) actually opposes
the death penalty in all circumstances.
That being said, the consistent weight of Catholic tradition has until very
recently supported the death penalty under certain circumstances. And in the
common law (on which the positive law of the United States and the State of
Nebraska rests), the death penalty derives from the almost universally accepted
legal doctrines of “self-defense” and “defense of others.”
Richard J. Wall Jr., Lincoln
(source: Letter to the Editor, Lincoln Journal Star)
WYOMING:
Cheyenne man charged with first-degree murder in mother’s death
A Cheyenne man has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the
death of his 80-year-old mother.
If convicted, James Wallace, 48, faces a maximum penalty of life in prison or
the death penalty. His mother, Carol Wallace, was found dead last week in the
home the 2 shared.
According to court documents:
Laramie County Sheriff's deputies were dispatched to the 1100 block of Green
Mountain Road, northwest of Cheyenne, for a possible weapons assault at 7:30
a.m. May 10.
Glenn Wallace called to report his brother, James Wallace, was “high on meth
and freaking out, said he hit his mother with a hammer.” Glenn Wallace said his
mother was beyond any help, and dispatchers heard James Wallace shouting that
his brother was lying, adding “I didn’t kill my mom, I killed a dummy.”
Glenn Wallace said he was at the home to pick Carol Wallace up for a day of
garage sale shopping. He told dispatchers James Wallace had a methamphetamine
problem.
When deputies arrived on scene, they discovered Carol Wallace’s body in the
basement on the east side of the home. The woman was lying face down, and
deputies noticed what appeared to be blood drops on the stairs from the
basement to the 1st floor.
After a search warrant was issued, detectives found multiple bloody drag marks
leading to the body, and began moving items in an effort to search for more
evidence. They located a larger pool of blood and other blood droplets
throughout the basement, much of which was hidden by boxes and other items in
an apparent attempt to conceal evidence.
Several small-caliber guns were found at the home, 2 of which had ammunition,
according to court records. A large hammer found outside the room where Carol
Wallace’s body was found appeared to have blood and hair on it, as did a knife
found in the vicinity.
An automobile body hammer wrapped in a towel also appeared to be concealed
intentionally.
After being taken into custody, detectives reported James Wallace was mumbling
to himself in the interview room, talking about “robots and other things.”
During his mumbling, he said “what was I do...thinking? Yo mom, boom,” and
began to cry.
James Wallace told detectives he didn’t kill his mother, but later pointed to
himself and said, “I’m the one who killed the mother.”
During a May 11 autopsy, pathologists said Carol Wallace suffered blunt force
trauma to the head and chest, a gunshot wound to the head and a cutting wound
on the chest. Pathologists also identified what they believed to be several
defensible wounds on one of Carol Wallace's hands caused by a sharp object.
The Wyoming State Crime Lab's blood pattern analysis results are still pending.
James Wallace had previously been arrested for domestic violence against Carol
Wallace. He was released on bond March 25 in that case, and failed to appear
for his May 6 court date.
He’s currently being held in the Laramie County jail. His initial appearance in
Laramie County Circuit Court is scheduled for Thursday.
(source: Wyoming Tribune Eagle)
USA:
A Common-Sense Ruling on Death Penalty Drugs
If there's one thing that tells you government in America is too big and
unaccountable, it's when one branch of government stops another government from
doing what it was set up to do, even if it's not the first agency's job. Case
in point: Under President Barack Obama, the Food and Drug Administration
stopped multiple states from carrying out executions because the agency had not
approved the drugs they intended to use for lethal injection. Really.
President Donald Trump's Department of Justice is changing that.
On May 3, Steven Engel, head of the department's Office of Legal Counsel,
posted a common-sense opinion that the FDA has no business approving execution
drugs. "Consistent with the agency's practice in this area for several decades
before 2017, we thus conclude that, when an article's intended use is to
effectuate capital punishment by a state or the federal government, it is not
subject to regulation under the (Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act)."
Engel's reasoning was simple. The FDA is supposed to determine if drugs or
devices are "safe and effective for their intended uses -- a goal that markedly
conflicts with the purpose of execution." This is something FDA officials
should not have to be told.
How did this insanity get started?
In 2009, the U.S. manufacturers stopped producing sodium thiopental, a drug
commonly used in 3-drug lethal injection protocols. States that needed the drug
began to look for supplies abroad.
In 2011, convicted killers from Arizona, California, and Tennessee sued to
prompt the FDA to block the importation of sodium thiopental. In 2012, a
federal judge issued a permanent injunction against the importation of the drug
on the grounds it was FDA-unapproved and misbranded.
The FDA cited that injunction after it seized thiopental shipped to Arizona and
Texas in 2015.
"We have single federal judges all over the country who are just deciding" that
they can bend the law to their politics, argued Michael Rushford, president of
the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento,
California. If governors and state attorneys general choose not to combat such
rulings, "3 people can shut down a law."
It didn't matter that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality
of lethal injection under a 3-drug protocol by a 7-2 vote in 2008. Death
penalty opponents can be highly successful in gaming the system because players
in that system want to be gamed.
Nor did it matter that, in 2000, the Supreme Court ruled Congress did not give
the FDA authority to regulate tobacco, "because there is no safe or therapeutic
purpose to smoking," wrote Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Likewise, there is no
such thing as a safe execution, but if at first, you don't succeed ...
Obama's FDA went along with a bad judicial decision without regard to Supreme
Court rulings and states' rights because it could grind down legal policies
virtually anonymously.
Obama, by the way, said he was in favor of the death penalty. In his 2006 book,
"The Audacity of Hope," Obama explained, "While the evidence tells me the death
penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes -- mass
murder, the rape, and murder of a child -- so heinous, so beyond the pale, that
the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by
meting out the ultimate punishment."
Then he let his FDA do the bidding of death row inmates who could not win in
court.
In 2015, a legal challenge to a different drug upheld Oklahoma's 3-drug
protocol by a 5-4 vote. Writing for the majority in the Glossip decision,
Justice Samuel Alito argued, "Because it is settled that capital punishment is
constitutional," it "necessarily follows that there must be a (constitutional)
means of carrying it out."
All 4 inmates behind the suit had been sentenced to death for heinous crimes.
One hired a man to bludgeon his employer to death. One murdered his 9-month-old
daughter by snapping her spine in half. One murdered a food service supervisor
in prison, and the 4th anally raped and murdered an 11-month-old girl.
Wednesday, President Donald Trump told the 38th Annual National Peace Officers'
Memorial Service that he believes in the death penalty and "it's got to be
fair, but it's got to go fast." Already, his Department of Justice had told the
FDA to stick to its mandate.
"There really is a new sheriff in town," marveled Rushford, "which is
wonderful."
(source: Opinion, Debra J. Saunders, townhall.com)
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