[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, CALIF., MD., GA.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 22



USA:

Physicians Shouldn't Be Involved in Executions


Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Baze v.
Rees, a Kentucky case challenging current practices regarding lethal
injectionthe modality of death in almost all of the 38 states that allow
capital punishment. The decision, expected by June, is likely to focus on
the narrow question of the proper standard for assessing whether lethal
injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. However, as the case
turns out, one of the most troubling aspects of lethal injection will
remain at issue: the involvement of physicians in the process of
execution.

Physicians have a long history of involvement with the death penalty. Dr.
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin inspired the device that later bore his name,
hoping that it would be a humane means of ending the life of condemned
prisoners. Executioners often called on physicians for assistance in
calculating the proper drop for death by hanging. Even modern forms of
execution such as the gas chamber and the electric chair involved
physicians in the determination that the prisoner had actually died.

Lethal injection, which as currently practiced involves a three-stage
sequence of drugs that induce anesthesia, paralyze breathing, and stop the
heart, was suggested by an Oklahoma physician in yet another attempt to
find a painless means of execution. Since it has the trappings of a
medical procedure, though, it has pulled physicians and other medical
personnel even more closely into the process of putting prisoners to
death. Of the 38 states that have the death penalty, with lethal injection
the preferred mode of execution in all of them, 17 require physician
involvement and 18 more permit it.

Thus, physicians have been reported to assist in preparing the lethal
drugs, selecting sites for IV lines, inserting the lines, supervising
personnel in administering the drugs, monitoring vital signs, and
declaring death. If the initial doses are ineffective, physicians may
recommend additional amounts that will more reliably induce death.
Advocates of physician involvement in these roles point out that
non-medical personnel are unlikely to do them correctly, with the result
that condemned prisoners will suffer needlessly. Hence, a humanitarian
rationale is offered for physicians to be involved.

To be sure, accounts of mangled executions make clear that lethal
injection is far from the painless and "sterile" procedure for death that
its developers sought. Personnel often have trouble inserting IV lines,
sometimes requiring many painful tries at locating a vein. When done
incorrectly, the lines may not feed directly into a vein, leading to
excruciating pain, burning and blistering when the drugs are injected.
Improperly mixed medications can clog IV lines, stopping executions in
mid-stream. Reports of insufficient medication to induce full anesthesia
indicate that some prisoners have experienced paralysis of their breathing
muscles while still sentient or felt the burning sensation of the
potassium solution intended to stop their hearts as it was injected into
their bodies.

The American Medical Association, AMA, however, along with every other
U.S. and international medical group that has spoken on the issue, has
condemned physician participation in execution. In the AMAs words, "A
physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when
there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a legally
authorized execution." Ending life is so antithetical to the core mission
of physicians that the use of medical skills for that purpose seems a
clear corruption of the profession. The analogy to the futuristic firemen
in Fahrenheit 451who ignite fires to burn books rather than extinguishing
themis close enough to be viscerally disturbing.

Commentators worry about a variety of consequences stemming from
physicians playing a role in executions: loss of public trust, a slide
into the practice of euthanasia in clinical settings, and the distortion
of the debate over the legitimacy of the death penalty by dressing it up
as a medical procedure. From a policy perspective, the last of these is
especially problematic. Whatever one's view of the death penalty, it is
clearly a punitive procedure rooted in a retributive goal. Our debate
regarding its appropriateness should focus on the appropriateness of death
as a means of retribution. Sanitizing the procedure by turning it over to
the medical profession masks the true nature of the death penalty and
undermines informed discussion.

Ironically, a number of courtstaking note of the bungled executions that
seem all too prevalent with current protocolshave required physician
involvement if executions are to continue. Thus, states have been
recruiting physicians for this purpose, offering them anonymity and legal
insulation from sanctions that state medical boards may impose for
unethical behavior. Given the strong case that can be made for the
inappropriateness of physician involvement in executions, if we cannot
figure out a way to execute people humanely without relying on physicians,
perhaps we need to rethink our use of the ultimate penalty. Physicians
should be saving lives, not taking them.

(source: Dr. Paul S. Applebaum; The Columbia Spectator----The author is a
member of the Columbia College class of 1972 and the Elizabeth K. Dollard
Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine and Law at Columbia University. He is
presenting today at the Symposium titled "The Supreme Court and the Legal,
Medical, and Ethical Challenges to Execution by Lethal Injection.")






CALIFORNIA:

Mother of man convicted in hammer death pleads for mercy


The mother of an "American Gypsy" eligible to be executed for a murder
committed with a ball-peen hammer said Tuesday that her son can barely
write his name, and that friends persuaded him break into homes.

Tony Ricky Yonko, 45, was convicted of killing 42-year-old Paul Ngo during
a burglary at Ngo's Lake Elsinore home on Oct. 22, 2002.

Prosecutors said Ngo interrupted Yonko, and Yonko grabbed a hammer that
belonged to the victim and beat him to death.

The defense contended that Yonko didn't mean to kill Ngo, just repel his
attack.

Yonko is an American Gypsy, taught to cheat, lie and steal since
childhood, according to his brother and an expert witness. The value
system allows them to victimize non-Gypsies but never condones violence,
according to testimony.

His mother, Rose Costello Yonko, testified Tuesday that she married John
Yonko, Tony's father, when she was 15 as part of an arranged marriage.

"They sold me for $3,600. That is the way the Gypsies work."

Rose Yonko testified that she began having children and eventually became
the mother of 12, at least 3 of whom are behind bars. The family moved
yearly, as her husband did roof repairs, driveway repairs, worked
carnivals and bought and sold cars.

"After the time that I was 18 years old, I told fortunes and I sold
flowers. We moved every year. Every year.

"I never put them in school," she said, adding that her son cannot read.
"I think he only knew how to write his name. Even that was hard."

The defense claimed Rose Yonko is schizophrenic. On the witness stand, she
said she was unable to remember much because of mental illness, but she
remembered Tony having problems while growing up.

"He used to cry a lot," she said.

In 1974, Rose Yonko said, she started having hallucinations.

"I used to see things in front of my eyes," she said.

She is now 63 years old and being cared for by her children and brother,
she testified.

Rose Yonko testified that Tony would take pills given to him by some bad
Gypsy friends and get involved in bad things that would get him into
trouble.

She testified that her son was a good father to his 3 children.

Tony was "in love with his children very much," she said

Los Angeles sheriff's Detective James Corbin testified that Tony Yonko was
arrested for a burglary at a Rosemead home on Sept. 28, 1996.

Yonko used a ruse to get into the home. He told an 84-year-old woman that
his puppy was thirsty and needed a drink of water, then followed her into
the home and searched a room, Corbin said.

When confronted by the woman's son, "He went into character as soon as
they came face-to-face," Corbin said.

Yonko got on the floor and acted though he was looking for his puppy, then
left, the detective said.

At the time, Yonko had his 3rd wife, Shirley, and their 3 children with
him.

Defense attorneys contend that Yonko is not violent by nature and that,
within the Gypsy culture, violence against anyone is taboo. They are
trying to keep their client off death row.

The jury convicted Yonko of felony murder with special circumstances,
leaving him open to the death penalty.

If the same jury sentences him to death, another jury would be picked to
decide whether Yonko is "mentally retarded," which would prevent his
execution.

Prosecutors argue that Yonko has a history of violence. A woman testified
that Yonko was among some men who gang raped her more than 20 years ago in
Los Angeles.

Deputy District Attorney Stephen Gallon told jurors that, in deliberating
the punishment for Yonko, they are allowed to consider his Yonko's
convictions for residential burglary, as well as unproven allegations of
rape, arson and assault.

Yonko's attorneys have said that a doctor already determined that their
client is retarded. They intend to put the doctor on the stand during the
penalty phase of trial, though they did not assert that Yonko is disabled
earlier.

(source: San Diego Union-Tribune)






MARYLAND:

Judge will sentence inmate who killed officer


Saying that he poses too great a danger to society, prosecutors argued
Tuesday that convicted killer Brandon T. Morris deserves a death sentence
for killing a correctional officer.

Washington County Deputy State's Attorney Joseph Michael sought to
establish Morris' "future dangerousness" during the opening of sentencing
hearings in Howard County Circuit Court.

Defense attorney Arcangelo Tuminelli started the proceedings by saying
Morris chose to be sentenced by Judge Joseph P. Manck rather than by the
jury that convicted him Friday of 1st-degree murder and other counts in
the January 2006 killing of Jeffery A. Wroten in Washington County.

"We came to the conclusion that Morris' wish was probably the best
decision," Tuminelli said outside the courthouse Tuesday. He noted concern
about the effect that the emotional testimony of the prosecution's
witnesses could have on a jury.

"The concern is that this kind of evidence is powerful enough evidence,
and we just wanted someone who would not be overly influenced," Tuminelli
said in reference to the testimony of the state's witnesses, who included
Wroten's sister and ex-wife.

In Maryland, a death-penalty case is the only kind in which a defendant
can choose to have the jury decide the sentence instead of the judge.

After last week's verdict, prosecutors said that Morris' criminal history
of violence with firearms makes him too great a danger to be spared the
death penalty.

Morris, 22, was convicted of killing Wroten while escaping from Washington
County Hospital in January 2006. He was serving a seven-year sentence at
Roxbury Correctional Institution for armed robbery and assault when he was
taken to the hospital after stabbing himself near the liver with a needle.
Wroten was guarding him overnight.

According to prosecutors, Morris shot Wroten in the face with the
officer's state-issued revolver, then jumped into a cab outside the
hospital and ordered the driver to take him to Pennsylvania.

After the cab crashed into a concrete barrier, Morris jumped out of the
car and ran to a nearby truck stop. Officers later apprehended him in an
open field near the Pennsylvania border.

The jury found Morris guilty on all 22 charges against him, including
1st-degree murder, felony murder during a robbery and felony murder during
an escape.

During Tuesday's testimony by prosecution witnesses, Wroten's sister,
Kailyn Petty, testified about the hardship on his 4 daughters.

"It's hard for us to talk about him without crying," said Petty, who lives
in Charlotte, N.C. "We try to talk about the funny things he did, but you
can see the sadness in their eyes.

"He saw them every day. They loved him. They adored him. They were his
joy."

Petty recalled the day she and her husband, Joel, went to see Wroten at
the hospital after he had been shot.

"He told me that Jeff's not there -- he's already gone," she said. "His
body's there, but he's not there.

"He was laying on that bed helpless. I couldn't do anything for him. So me
and Joel just stood there crying."

Wroten's ex-wife, Tracey Wroten, also testified, though she was limited to
verifying personal facts about her former husband that Morris claimed to
know, including his favorite movies.

Other witnesses included officials from the state Division of Correction
and the Roxbury Correctional Institution.

Maryland State Police Trooper Richard Bachtell, the officer who
interviewed Morris after the shooting, said Morris told him that he had
lived on the streets of Baltimore since he was 18 years old and that he
feels like he's "living in hell on earth."

Bachtell said that when he asked Morris what he thought of Wroten, he
replied, "He was a nice dude."

Bachtell also testified that in the interview Morris told him that he did
not remember shooting Wroten nor escaping the hospital.

The defense will begin presenting its witnesses today. Tuminelli said he
plans to present evidence that Morris should be spared the death penalty
because his childhood and background made him more susceptible to a
criminal lifestyle, including the fact that he grew up in an area of
Baltimore so crime-ridden that his family had to move because of a drug
raid in the neighborhood.

The defense's witnesses will include experts on social work, psy chology
and childhood development, Tuminelli said.

(source: Baltimore Sun)






GEORGIA:

Death penalty cases can't be tried on the cheap


Brian Nichols, accused of killing 4 people after a March 2005 jail break,
has been blamed for nearly bankrupting the state's indigent defense fund,
established a few years ago to ensure that poor criminal defendants get
decent lawyers. And, indeed, Nichols' death-penalty defense has cost
nearly $2 million so far  and the trial hasn't even begun.

Understandably, Nichols doesn't elicit much sympathy. Still, there is
something troubling about the rush to execute accused criminals on the
cheap. If the state of Georgia insists on carrying out the ultimate
penalty, it should be prepared to pay the price to make sure the defendant
has received a fair trial.

In a letter earlier this month to state Rep. Barry Fleming (R-Harlem),
Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller, the beleaguered jurist overseeing the
Nichols case, outlined some of the resources and tactics used by Fulton
County District Attorney Paul Howard to try to send Nichols to death row.

Fuller pointed out that Howard's office has indicted Nichols on 54 counts
and assigned 5 attorneys to the case. He also noted that Howard has used
several law enforcement agencies to assist in the investigation and
identified 478 potential witnesses for the prosecution.

(Fuller wrote the letter to correct the widely repeated misconception that
he approves expenditures for Nichols' defense. That's the job of the
Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, which oversees the indigent
defense system, as Fuller noted. "For better or worse, the General
Assembly took supervisory responsibility of indigent defense funding from
the laps of trial judges and placed it in the hands" of the council, the
judge wrote.)

Even Nichols  who is widely presumed guilty, given what authorities have
characterized as a confession  has a constitutional right to a vigorous
defense, with good lawyers and investigators working on his behalf. If the
case against him is airtight, as news accounts suggests, he will be
convicted.

Gov. Sonny Perdue has asked the Legislature to give the public defender
council an emergency midyear boost of $3.6 million, with about $1 million
of that earmarked for capital cases.

Though Nichols' case is the most notorious, another 76 capital cases are
clogging the public defenders' pipeline, and most of them feature
defendants whose guilt is far less certain. If we don't support a vigorous
defense for them, we could well end up sending innocent people to death
row.

Since 1973, about 120 people in 25 states, including Georgia, have been
exonerated and released after they were sentenced to die. You'd have to
have a lot of faith in the system to believe that no innocents have
already slipped through unnoticed and gone to their executions.

Given the risks of getting it wrong, it's no surprise that the death
penalty is less popular in Georgia than it used to be. According to
research by Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters, Georgia prosecutors
are asking for capital punishment only about half as often as they did in
the 1980s and '90s.

If the state doesn't want to spend untold millions every year on capital
cases, the Legislature ought to pass a law allowing prosecutors the
flexibility of seeking life without parole.

Currently, it's an option only if a prosecutor seeks the death penalty
necessitating a costly trial  or the defendant was previously convicted of
a serious felony.

Some prosecutors  and many jurors  would accept life without parole as a
just sentence that protects public safety without raising the nettlesome
issues of a death penalty trial. But last year, the Georgia House failed
to pass a bill that would have given prosecutors such flexibility. That
legislation should become law.

Capital punishment, with its many financial and moral costs, could then be
left for the most heinous cases: the murders of 4 people, including a
Fulton County judge and a sheriff's deputy; the murders of 2 DeKalb County
police officers; the murders of 6 south Georgia immigrants in home
invasion robberies; a serial killer.

The death penalty is an extreme punishment that we ought to reserve for
extreme cases.

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)