[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA, N.J., IND., ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 27



USA:


No humanity in capital punishment process----The methods used for the
death penalty in the U.S. serve no true justice.


In the hours preceding an execution, the San Quentin California State
Prison offers its doomed prisoner every measure of lukewarm comfort. The
inmate is provided with Valium (optional), clean clothes and slippers
(mandatory), access to radio and television and, of course, as extravagant
a last meal as $50 can buy.

At midnight, he or she is ushered into the execution chamber, strapped on
a gurney and given alcohol swabs to prevent an infection that would never
affect the inmate.

The warden gives the signal, the three-drug cocktail is administered, and
somewhere between three minutes and half an hour, the inmate's heart
finally gives out.

This is the ostensible beauty of lethal injection: quick, painless and,
most importantly, easy for the onlookers.

The needle has often been lauded as the humane alternative to capital
punishment; there is no cringe-inducing crack of the neck, no smell of
seared flesh, no shots fired.

Recent challenges to the alleged painlessness of this mode of killing,
however, have brought capital punishment to a standstill in California.

In February 2006, Michael Morales, a San Quentin inmate convicted of rape
and murder, was granted a last-minute stay of execution after filing a
suit attacking the constitutionality of lethal injection.

Since then, all executions in the Golden State have been placed on an
indefinite moratorium, barring the resolution of the case.

This, and many other lawsuits around the nation, have brought into
perspective the flaws inherent in our current system of capital
punishment, mainly, that the boasted humaneness of the procedure applies
more to the witnesses rather than the prisoners.

The lethal concoction of drugs does an expert job of keeping the
ghastliness of what occurs far away from the innocent eyes of the
bystanders.

Like the 37 other states that employ the death penalty, California uses a
standard combination of three drugs to sedate, paralyze and, of course,
murder, its prisoners.

First, the inmate is given a large dose of sodium thiopental, which acts
as a general anesthetic; second, pancuronium bromide is administered,
which relaxes the muscles and paralyzes the lungs, eventually stopping
respiration.

The final blow comes in the form of potassium chloride, which essentially
stops the heart.

Conveniently enough, the same drug that stops breathing also immobilizes
facial muscles, rendering it impossible for the condemned to betray the
writhing pain inevitably caused by each organ shutting down, one by one.

The process is not necessarily as expedient as it is made out to be.

Cases have shown that some inmates live up to 30 minutes before being
pronounced dead; one convict in a Florida State Prison lived 34 minutes,
and even required a 2nd dose before his heart stopped.

With no easy solution in sight, Morales' case won't be addressed until
January at the earliest, when the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on similar
allegations of unconstitutionality in Kentucky.

California is not the only state seriously reviewing the death penalty,
and though several temporary solutions have already been posed, (e.g.
increasing the amount of anesthetic administered), recent lawsuits suggest
a more sweeping reform will be necessary.

After all, it is only in keeping with its own pattern that the American
judicial system continues to cycle through methods of humanizing killing.

>From hanging, to the firing squad and the electric chair, and, more
recently, the gas chamber, the United States is in a constant search for
the perfect method of guiltless retribution - anything to make us forget
the most cruel and unusual punishment of all is death itself.

We can continue to look, try new methods of murder, perpetuate a culture
of killing - or we can realize there is no such thing as a humane murder.

(source: Univ. Southern Calif. Daily Trojan; Lucy Mueller is a freshman
majoring in English)

*******************

Etzioni Disputes Economists on Death PenaltyP>

Just when America is coming to its senses about the barbarity and futility
of capital punishment, Amitai Etzioni writes, some economists with
misleading, half-baked stats muddy the facts.

The economists have "a model that, they say, shows that the death penalty
deters crimes and hence saves lives," says Etzioni. "Because most people
do not read the math involved and have a hard time following the
intricacies of these models, these kinds of 'findings' are often taken
seriously. . . .

"Actually the data on which this model is based are extremely thin. First,
there are simply not enough executions for most statistical methods to
work properly; in 2003, while there were more than 16,000 homicides
nationwide, there were only 65 executions. Adding to this statistical
shortfall, too many other factors change over the same period as the
number of executions changes to permit a sound conclusion. These include
the overall crime rates, policing methods, gun laws, levels of economic
growth and of upward mobility, drug rehabilitation and education policy,
among others. Things are complicated even further when one recognizes that
these factors differ not only over time but also among various states that
execute more people than others. The economists gloss over such challenges
by using dummy variables, artificial weights, and other slights of hand.

"But all that the economists ultimately demonstrate is some (deeply
questionable) correlation between capital punishment and murder. That is,
they show that as the number of executions increased, homicide rates
decreased. It doesnt take a doctorate in economics to know that
correlation does not prove causality."

(source: Chronicle of Higher Education)






NEW JERSEY:

Religious leaders push N.J. lawmakers to abolish death penalty


More than 550 New Jersey religious leaders are calling on state lawmakers
to abolish the death penalty.

The leaders come from varying faiths and made their pleas in a letter
delivered Tuesday to all 120 legislators.

They say the death penalty fails the state legally, morally and
economically.

Their plea comes as legislators prepare to vote in the coming weeks on
replacing the death penalty with life in prison without parole.

If it did, New Jersey would become the first state to abolish the death
penalty since it was reinstated in 1976 by the U.S. Supreme Court.

(source: Associated Press)






INDIANA:

Court Upholds Death Sentence In Student's Rape, Murder----Michael
Overstreet On Death Row For Strangling Kelly Eckart


The Indiana Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence for a man convicted
of raping and murdering a Franklin College student.

The state's high court handed down the ruling Tuesday morning in the case
of Michael Dean Overstreet.

Overstreet is on death row for the 1997 strangling of Kelly Eckart, 18.

Court justices rejected Overstreet's claims that his life should be spared
because he suffers from severe mental illness.

It was the 2nd time the Supreme Court has upheld Overstreet's death
sentence.

(source: Theindychannel.com)






ALABAMA:

Judge: challenge to Alabama execution procedures warrants trial


A federal judge has ruled 2 death row inmates deserve a trial on their
lawsuit claiming Alabama's lethal injection procedures are
unconstitutionally cruel.

U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins denied the state government's request
for a ruling in the state's favor without a trial. In a Nov. 16 order, the
judge said the legal claims raised by Willie McNair and James Callahan
should go to trial, but he did not immediately set a trial date.

The Alabama Supreme Court has scheduled Callahan's execution for Jan. 31,
but Callahan's attorneys have asked for a postponement. McNair does not
have an execution date set.

Attorneys for the state argued in federal court that McNair and Callahan
waited too late to challenge Alabama's lethal injection law, which was
enacted in 2004. But the judge said the inmates filed suit in 2006 before
the state sought execution dates for either man, and that's early enough.

Other Alabama inmates have had similar suits thrown out because they filed
the suits after the state attorney general asked the Alabama Supreme Court
to set execution dates for them.

Watkins noted in his order that the trial could have been held in October
but had to be delayed when the state changed its lethal injection
procedures to make sure an inmate is unconscious before receiving drugs to
stop the lungs and heart.

Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said Tuesday that Watkins'
handling of the case could be impacted by the U.S. Supreme Court's recent
decision to hear a similar lethal injection case from Kentucky.

In his Nov. 16 order, Watkins wrote that the Alabama trial will address
issues such as the training of the execution team and the monitoring of
the condemned inmate for unconsciousness while the deadly drugs are being
administered.

The judge also noted that before the trial, he plans to inspect the death
chamber at Holman Prison in Atmore "because material issues of fact exist
as to the appropriate location of execution team members during the
procedure, the length and location of IV lines, the size of the
observation window, and the location of equipment and supplies."

McNair was sentenced to death for the robbery and murder of Ella Foy Riley
of Abbeville on May 21, 1990.

Callahan was sentenced to death for the kidnapping, rape and murder of
Jacksonville State University student Rebecca Suzanne Howell on Feb. 4,
1982.

(source: Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette)