July 24
USA (RHODE ISLAND):
DOJ to review possible RI death penalty case as custody battle looms in federal
appeals court
Lawyers on both sides of a Rhode Island murder case that has spawned a custody
battle involving Gov. Lincoln Chafee are set to meet with the Department of
Justice about whether the suspect will face the death penalty.
Jason Pleau's defense attorney David Hoose says both sides meet on Monday with
the DOJ's Capital Case Unit. The group will recommend to U.S. Attorney General
Eric Holder whether Pleau should face the death penalty if convicted of killing
a man outside a bank last year.
Pleau does not want to be transferred to federal custody, where he could face
the death penalty. Chafee last month refused to surrender Pleau, citing the
state's opposition to the death penalty.
The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals hears the custody case Thursday.
(source: Associated Press)
***********************
Video of a Lethal Injection Reopens Questions on the Privacy of Executions
As Andrew Grant DeYoung died by lethal injection in a prison in Jackson, Ga.,
on Thursday night, a video camera watched silently.
The camera recorded his last words — “I’m sorry for everyone I’ve hurt” — and
his eyes blinking as the drugs took effect. It registered his last breaths and
the time of his death: 8:04 p.m.
For decades in the United States, what goes on inside the execution chamber has
been largely shrouded from public view, glimpsed only through the accounts of
journalists and other witnesses.
But the video recording of Mr. DeYoung’s death, the first since 1992, has once
again raised the possibility that executions might be made available for all to
see. In the process, it has reignited a widespread debate about how bright a
light to shine on one of the most secretive corners of the criminal justice
system.
Legal experts say the decision by Judge Bensonetta Tipton Lane of Fulton County
Superior Court to allow the taping in Mr. DeYoung’s case opens the way for
defense lawyers across the country to push for the video documentation of other
executions. And it is inevitable, many experts believe, that some of those
recordings will make their way onto television or even YouTube, with or without
the blessings of a court.
Brian Kammer, a defense lawyer who argued for allowing Mr. DeYoung’s execution
to be recorded, said that documenting the death was essential because of the
controversy over the drugs used in lethal injections.
“We’ve had 3 botched lethal injections in Georgia prior to Mr. DeYoung, and we
thought it was time to get some hard evidence,” Mr. Kammer said.
Mr. DeYoung, who was convicted of the 1993 murders of his parents and
14-year-old sister, was given a three-drug cocktail, including pentobarbital, a
sedative often used to euthanize animals. Critics have argued that the use of
pentobarbital represents cruel and unusual punishment.
In pushing for the video, the lawyers argued that there were problems with an
execution in June in Georgia that used the drug; the condemned man, Roy
Blankenship, was described by a medical expert as jerking, mumbling and
thrashing after the injection was administered. According to an account of the
execution in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mr. DeYoung “showed no violent
signs in death.”
Lawyers for the state attorney general opposed the recording, saying that it
would threaten security and that “in this day and age of almost thoughtless
dissemination of information, there exists a credible risk of public
distribution.”
After Mr. DeYoung’s execution, the video was sealed and sent to a judge’s
chambers for safekeeping, and Mr. Kammer, for one, said he hoped it stayed
hidden. “It’s a horrible thing that Andrew DeYoung had to go through, and it’s
not for the public to see that,” he said.
But Douglas Berman, a professor of law at Ohio State University who commented
on the issue on his blog, Sentencing and Law Policy, said, “I think it would be
foolish for anybody who is authorizing or supervising the videotaping of
executions to assume that it will always remain sealed and unseen.” Mr. Berman
added, “Somewhere, somehow, at some point, this will become publicly
accessible.”
Whether that development would be beneficial or harmful has for years been a
subject of much contention. Deborah W. Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School
who is an expert on the death penalty, says videotaping executions is important
because it provides objective evidence that is not dependent on eyewitness
accounts. The decision to allow the recording of Mr. DeYoung’s death was a sign
of the courts’ growing awareness of the need for transparency, Ms. Denno said.
“Presumably,” she said, court officials “are going to act responsibly, and the
tape will never see the light of day.” But if such videos become public, she
said, it might not be such a bad thing. She noted that television cameras are
allowed in courtrooms and that the public can take tours of prisons.
“Most of what we do in the criminal justice system in terms of punishment is
something that is allegedly open to the public,” Ms. Denno said, “and this is
the ultimate form of our process.”
Mr. Berman was also in favor of opening executions to public scrutiny. “I think
that this is the kind of government activity that ought to be publicly known
about,” he said. Videos of executions carried out in other countries are
readily available on YouTube, he pointed out, as are images of violence of all
kinds.
But William Otis, a former chief of the appellate division at the United States
attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia, said that although he
favored the death penalty, the idea of broadcasting executions made him
uncomfortable.
“There’s something that I think would give a normal person pause about making
readily available pictures of executions,” Mr. Otis said. “Who’s going to watch
stuff like that?” He added that if the videos were to be made public, graphic
depictions of murders and their effects on victims should go alongside them.
In an execution, “the defendant seems to be so alone and helpless and
sympathetic, and in that setting, that’s right,” Mr. Otis said. “He’s a human
being, and he’s about to be put to death.” But “to have that out there by
itself is misleading,” he added.
Executions in the United States have not always been private. In 1936, the last
public hanging was held in an empty lot in Owensboro, Ky., before an estimated
20,000 people.
Starting in the 1800s, said Stuart Banner, a professor of law at the University
of California, Los Angeles, public taste began to shift away from such
executions. “Before that, the whole idea was that this would be a good
deterrent,” Mr. Banner said. “People would bring their kids. It was a good
moral lesson.”
Complaints about the behavior of the mob — some people laughed and pickpockets
roamed the crowds — and concerns about the brutality of public executions
eventually put an end to the spectacles. The advent of the gas chamber and the
electric chair sealed the event’s privacy: neither could be used outdoors.
But challenges to the closed-door nature of executions continued, most of them
unsuccessful. A public television station in San Francisco sued to be allowed
to broadcast the execution of Robert Alton Harris at San Quentin in 1992 but
lost the suit. Other bids to videotape executions have been turned down by the
courts.
Mr. Berman said he was less worried about videos of executions being misused if
they became widely available than he was about people becoming indifferent to
them.
People might say, “Gosh, it looks like what they did to my pet,” he said.
(source: New York Times)
MARYLAND:
New death penalty law, appeals delay trials in killing of correctional
officer----5 years later, trial scheduled for one prisoner, no date set for
other
In the past 5 years, since corrections officer David McGuinn was stabbed to
death at the hulking House of Correction in Jessup, there have been major
changes in Maryland's corrections system — new prisons built, new programs
added and tighter controls to rein in gangs and contraband. The House of
Correction itself, once notorious for violence and corruption, has been closed
and is set to be torn down.
Yet one thing hasn't changed: The two prisoners accused of killing McGuinn
still haven't come to trial.
Monday marks the five-year anniversary of the slaying of McGuinn, a by-the-book
officer and father of three. Many of those familiar with the case have been
frustrated by the delays in prosecuting his accused killers, and former
colleagues wonder why no one has yet been held accountable.
"Shame on the system. It's a blight on the criminal justice system that neither
of them have gone to trial yet," said Patrick Moran, director of AFSCME
Maryland, a collective bargaining unit for correctional officers. "I understand
that people have their rights, but it's unacceptable."
For McGuinn's family and correctional officers, the case ought to be put to
rest, he said.
Laura Blankenship, president of the local union, said the message that
correctional officers are getting is that "we can be killed in the line of duty
and nothing happens."
The prosecutions of Lee Edward Stephens and Lamarr C. Harris have been stalled
for a variety of reasons, including battles over medical records and the
difficulties of scheduling a 10-week trial. Another delay occurred because the
wife of a defense attorney was scheduled to give birth. Most notably, Maryland
legislators rewrote the state's death penalty law in 2009, and that has led to
a new set of legal challenges.
In the meantime, Stephens, 32, and Harris, 41, continue to serve their
life-plus sentences for murders committed while they were teenagers.
Legal experts say that the 2 cases are working through the weighty and
time-devouring issues that have always come with capital cases. But now, the
state's new death penalty law — which limits the cases in which prosecutors can
seek capital punishment — will face its first major challenges.
That carries even more potential for delay, said Scott Shellenberger, the
state's attorney for Baltimore County.
"I certainly understand that the law has changed in the interim, but 5 years is
way too long before you get to trial," said Shellenberger, who is not involved
in the 2 cases. "Now there are 4 new ways for lawyers to muck it up. Good
lawyers are going to challenge it, based on the new law."
For the first few years after McGuinn was killed, on one evening each July,
somber correctional officers, flickering candles in hand, gathered outside the
House of Correction to remember their fallen colleague. There was no vigil last
year; but the union's local is planning an event for Monday night.
McGuinn's memory lives on in other ways: his name is on plaques, on the
signpost of a road entering the Jessup prison complex, and on faded T-shirts
remembering him as a "fallen hero."
By all accounts, the 42-year-old, nicknamed "Homeland Security" by coworkers,
was thought of as a humble and serious man. He was so private that only after
he was killed did people who worked alongside him know that he had children — a
daughter, son and stepdaughter — and a large family in Atlantic City, N.J.
Only if they'd read his obituary in his hometown newspaper would they have
learned that his family tree includes Matthew Henson, known as one of the first
Arctic explorers to reach the North Pole, and that he had worked in Atlantic
County as a certified emergency medical technician.
McGuinn's relatives did not respond to interview requests for this article or
could not be reached.
On July 25, 2006, McGuinn was taking head counts in the prison's west wing when
he was attacked from behind shortly before 10 p.m. He was on Tier E4's narrow,
cell-lined catwalk when he was repeatedly stabbed.
A day later, Stephens and Harris were charged in the death. In the statement of
charges, Maryland State Police said Harris was identified by a witness and that
clothes of both prisoners were bloody. Public safety officials said it appeared
that one of the two inmates had a tool used to tamper with cell door locks.
Prosecutors have never offered a motive for the attack.
Since the arrests, the cases have become a legal odyssey.
"Capital cases take a long time. … The standard for defense lawyers is greater
— you leave no stone unturned," said Baltimore lawyer Andrew Levy, who teaches
part-time at the University of Maryland law school and has handled capital
cases.
"But here it involves the killing of a law enforcement officer, a correctional
guard. In terms of the institutional interest, there is no case that's going to
be more important to the prosecution," he said.
Part of the defense's work is creating a comprehensive record for appeal.
Challenges must be raised before and during a trial to create that record. What
some see as delaying tactics, others see as necessary due process.
"Patience is the best way to work with this," said Commissioner of Correction
J. Michael Stouffer. "Folks would like to have it behind us and just close this
chapter in history, but we know that it is a legal process and we have to work
through the process."
Whether Harris will go to trial at all, much less soon, is unclear — he may be
declared mentally. He already is serving three consecutive life sentences, plus
time for a weapons violation for his role in an execution-style murder of two
people in August 1989 in a South Baltimore park. In prison, he has been
convicted of at least two more violent crimes, including assaulting a
correctional officer, which added a year to his sentence.
In August 2008, a psychiatrist at the state's Clifton T. Perkins Hospital
Center thought he was incompetent to stand trial. A tug of war ensued over
whether prosecutors could have access to Harris's treatment records. Defense
lawyers objected, citing doctor-patient confidentiality.
Those objections were rejected, first by Judge Paul A. Hackner, then at the
Court of Special Appeals and finally, late last month, at the Court of Appeals,
the state's highest court.
If found incompetent, Harris would be kept in state custody. If he is found
mentally fit for trial, courtroom disputes over the death penalty would resume.
Stephens, the second defendant, has been serving a life sentence plus 15 years
after being convicted in the April 1997 killing of a man outside a nightclub in
Salisbury.
Stephens' case appears to be closer to trial, with a date set for January.
"We are definitely going this time – famous last words, I know, but I think we
are definitely going this time," said Gary Proctor, one of Stephens' lawyers.
It generally takes between two and three years to get a capital case to trial
in Maryland due to the complexity of death penalty laws, said Millemann.
"The difference here in Maryland is that in the course of this [case], the
Legislature changed the law," he said.
In 2009, the General Assembly adopted death penalty curbs, reserving capital
punishment for murders in which there is DNA or other biological evidence that
links the defendant to the murder, a videotaped confession or a video recording
of the crime.
In August 2009, Stephens' lawyers challenged that aspect of the new death
penalty law. It took more than a year and half to resolve.
Court documents show prosecutors expect to use DNA evidence at Stephens' trial.
"We've been ready since the first trial date, but we understand that the death
penalty process is a prudent one," said Kristin Fleckenstein, spokeswoman for
the Anne Arundel County State's Attorney's Office, which is prosecuting the two
suspects. She would not discuss details of the cases.
Legal experts say that prison murder cases are notoriously difficult to
prosecute because of inmate witnesses, crime scenes tainted by the need to
control prisoners and related hurdles.
Even those who did not know McGuinn continue to mark the anniversary of his
death.
John Wolfe, the warden at the Jessup Correctional Institute, the next building
over from the House, will on Monday hold a moment of silence and say a few
words to his staff, much the way he notes the anniversary of the killing of
other correctional officers.
"Every July 25 I tell people what happened," Wolfe said. "I tell them 'he came
to work, a regular guy, and he didn't get to go home to his family.' … The
details are not that important. … 'You have to have your guard up.'"
(source: Baltimore Sun)
FLORIDA:
Florida execution set 33 years after crime
UA: 225/11 Index: AMR 51/064/2011 USA Date: 22 July 2011 Date: 20 May 2011
URGENT ACTION
Florida execution set 33 years after crime
Manuel Valle , a Cuban national, is due to be executed in Florida on 2 August .
He was convicted of the murder of a police officer in 1978 . He was 27 years
old when first sent to death row. He is now 61. He is being denied access to a
meaningful clemency process. On 2 April 1978, Officer Louis Peña of the Coral
Gables Police Department in Miami, Florida, was shot dead after stopping Manuel
Valle and Felix Ruiz in their car. Officer Gary Spell, who arrived at the scene
separately, testified that Manuel Valle had shot Officer Peña and then fired
two shots at Officer Spell. Manuel Valle was charged with murder and attempted
murder. Felix Ruiz was charged as an accessory and sentenced to 10 years in
prison.
Manuel Valle was sentenced to death in May 1978. In 1981, the Florida Supreme
Court ruled that his lawyer had been prevented from adequately preparing a
defence due to the speed with which the case had been brought to trial. At a
new trial in 1981, Manuel Valle was again sentenced to death, but this sentence
was overturned by the US Supreme Court in 1986. In 1988, a new jury voted by
eight to four that Manual Valle be sentenced to death.
On 30 June 2011, Governor Rick Scott signed a death warrant in Manuel Valle’s
case setting his execution date. The warrant stated that executive clemency was
not appropriate. The state has said that a clemency process has been held, but
the only information on any such process found by Manuel Valle’s current
lawyers is a request made in 1992 by the then-Governor Lawton Chiles that a
clemency investigation be conducted. Manuel Valle’s lawyers have said that they
can find no evidence of any clemency proceedings having been conducted, either
in the 1990s or under the current governor. They have stated that “without
notice, without the opportunity to be heard, without counsel, Mr Valle’s
clemency proceedings, if any, did not comport with due process”. If any such
proceeding has been conducted, the lawyers have asserted, “it was conducted in
complete secrecy without counsel”.
The US Supreme Court has stated that executive clemency is the “fail-safe" in
the criminal justice system, to provide the possibility for remedy or relief
not provided by the judiciary. Under article 6.4 of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty ratified by the USA in 1992, “anyone
sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of the
sentence”. Respect for this right can only be achieved through a meaningful,
transparent process, with the participation of the prisoner and his or her
counsel. No such process has been conducted here, in violation of the USA’s
international obligations.
PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in your own language :
Acknowledge the seriousness of the crime for which Manuel Valle was sentenced
to death and explaining that you are not seeking to downplay the suffering
caused;
Express concern that Manual Valle has not had access to a meaningful and
transparent clemency procedure, as required under international law, and urge
that this be rectified;
Point to the cruelty of the death penalty, not least subjecting someone to 33
years on death row, and note that in that time, scores of countries have
abolished the death penalty as they have come to recognize its risks, costs,
ineffectiveness, and its incompatibility with fundamental human rights
principles;
Urge Governor Scott to prevent this execution and to ensure commutation of
Manuel Valle’s death sentence.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, AND BEFORE 2 AUGUST 2011 TO:
Office of Governor Rick Scott, State of Florida, The Capitol, 400 S. Monroe
St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001, USA
Fax: +1 850 487-0801
Email: rick.sc...@eog.myflorida.com
Salutation: Dear Governor
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country .
Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.
URGENT ACTION florida execution set 33 years after crime
Additional Information
Manuel Valle is a Cuban national. According to his current lawyers, he was not
informed after his arrest in 1978 of his right to seek assistance from the
Cuban authorities, as required under the Vienna Convention on Consular
Relations. Cuba ratified this treaty in 1965 and the USA ratified it four years
later (see also http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/063/2011/en).
Manuel Valle has been facing execution for 33 years, a torment deepened by the
fact that during his time on death row more than 60 of his fellow inmates have
been taken from their cells and killed by the State of Florida. The US Supreme
Court has not ruled on whether prolonged confinement on death row violates the
US Constitution, but individual Justices have raised concerns. In 1995, for
example, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that executing a prisoner who had been
on death row for 17 years arguably negated any deterrent or retributive
justification for the punishment, supposedly the two main purposes of the death
penalty. In 2002, in the case of an inmate who had been on death row for more
than 25 years, Justice Stephen Breyer stated that if executed, the prisoner
would have been “punished both by death and also by more than a generation
spent in death row’s twilight. It is fairly asked whether such punishment is
both unusual and cruel.” Three years earlier, he had written that “It is
difficult to deny the suffering inherent in a prolonged wait for execution – a
matter which courts and individual judges have long recognized”, and added that
“death row conditions of special isolation may well aggravate that suffering.”
In 1996, a Florida Supreme Court judge noted that death row prisoners in
Florida, as now, “are maintained in a six- by nine-foot cell with a ceiling
nine and one-half feet high. These prisoners are taken to the exercise yard for
two-hour intervals twice a week. Otherwise, these prisoners are in their cells
except for medical reasons, legal or media interviews, or to see visitors….
These facilities and procedures were not designed and should not be used to
maintain prisoners for years and years.”
The last execution in Florida was in February 2010. This would be the first
execution under Governor Rick Scott, who took office in January 2011. Ordinary
judicial appeals in Manuel Valle’s case were completed in October 2007, opening
the way for his execution to be scheduled. His lawyers are challenging the
“arbitrary and standardless power given to Florida’s Governor to sign death
warrants”. A week before Governor Scott signed Manuel Valle’s death warrant in
June, he was criticized in the media for not having signed such a warrant
during his first six months in office. In those months he had been contacted in
writing by the murder victim’s daughter in this case asking why Manuel Valle’s
death warrant had yet not been signed.
The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions has
said that “transparency is among the fundamental due process safeguards that
prevent the arbitrary deprivation of life”, and that “persons sentenced to
death, their families, and their lawyers should be provided with timely and
reliable information”. Lawyers for Manuel Valle are arguing that he has been
denied access to records to which he is entitled, including in relation to the
state’s lethal injection procedures and its acquisition of execution drugs.
They are also challenging the legality of the execution procedures. In the past
year, following the suspension and then ending of production by the sole US
manufacturer of sodium thiopental, the anaesthetic component of the three-drug
mix used by most of the USA’s death penalty jurisdictions, states have
scrambled for alternatives (see USA: An embarrassment of hitches,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/058/2011/en). Some have turned to
pentobarbital as a substitute, including Florida in June 2011. The
Denmark-based manufacturer of pentobarbital has condemned use of its drug in
executions, and has also questioned its efficacy for this purpose. On 1 July
2011, it announced that it would now use a “specialty pharmacy” programme that
would deny distribution of the drug to prisons in US states using lethal
injection.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty unconditionally. There have
been 1,263 executions in the USA since judicial killing resumed there in 1977,
including 29 this year. Sixty-six men and two women have been executed in
Florida since 1977.
Name: Manuel Valle
Gender: m
UA: 225/11 Index: AMR 51/064/2011 Issue Date: 22 July 2011
Stop the Execution of Manuel Valle in Florida
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=6oJCLQPAJiJUG&b=6645049&aid=16292
(source: Amnesty International)
ARIZONA:
Death penalty procedures challenged in Ariz. court
In Arizona's death chamber in the minutes just before an execution, inmates lay
strapped to a table with a white sheet pulled up to their necks.
Witnesses who are there partially to ensure that the inmates don't experience
unnecessary pain don't see anything leading up to that point — it's just a man
on a table about to be put to death with an injection they can't see.
The veiled process and other procedures followed by the Arizona Department of
Corrections are now being challenged in federal court. U.S. District Judge Neil
Wake scheduled a trial in the matter for Oct. 11 and can rule that the
department is violating inmates' constitutional rights by the way it conducts
executions, or find that the department has acted properly.
"All you see is a head sticking out from a sheet, and a guy sort of looks
around, maybe makes a last statement and then closes his eyes," said Dale
Baich, a federal public defender who has represented the most recent inmates
executed in Arizona. "We want more transparency in the process and that's what
we hope comes of this litigation."
Baich is arguing that the corrections department is violating inmates'
constitutional rights and deviating from execution protocol in five ways. Among
them: using a new execution drug, using the groin area as the injection site
and failing to leave injections uncovered during executions.
He compared Arizona's sheet-cloaked process to some other states' procedures,
during which witnesses see every step, including injections, he said.
Assistant Attorney General Kent Cattani, who will be arguing against Baich at
the October trial, rejected his arguments and said the corrections officials
themselves dictate protocol and can change it anytime they see fit.
"An inmate can challenge a change but they have to show there's a high
likelihood of significant pain or suffering because of the change," he said.
Cattani said he sees no reason why execution witnesses should be able to view
each step in the process.
"I'm not sure I understand why there would be a need for insertion of the
femoral vein (in the groin area) to be witnessed," Cattani said. "All of these
executions have been publicly witnessed, the inmate has been conscious, the
inmate is perfectly capable of explaining that he has suffered severe pain, and
that simply has not been the case."
Cattani said for an execution to violate an inmate's constitutional rights
"there has to be more than a chance that something could go wrong."
"Here we have the Department of Corrections carrying out very capably this
serious responsibility, and it's not one they take lightly," he said.
Corrections Director Charles Ryan declined to comment through department
spokesman Bill Lamoreaux.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco turned down a motion to
delay Tuesday's execution of Thomas Paul West over the legal challenge to the
department's procedures, ruling that he had failed to prove that there was a
substantial risk that he would experience severe pain during the execution.
But at a hearing the day before the execution, Judge Kim Wardlaw said the
corrections department needs to follow protocol.
A catheter in West's right arm was visible to witnesses because the sheet had
been moved over, although it was still up to his neck and covering the
injection to his femoral vein. At the four executions before that, including
one on June 30, no injection was visible because the sheet covered everything
but the head.
In a prepared statement, Lamoreaux said West's sheet was pulled aside to show
his arm injection "because it was the primary IV point and to be observed by
the staff" and that in previous executions, the femoral vein had been the
primary injection.
He said inmates are treated in "a most humane and dignified manner" and that
witnesses aren't allowed to watch every step to maintain the privacy of the
team conducting the execution and to protect inmates' dignity.
"The inmate is conscious and presumably capable of letting others know about
any pain or discomfort," he wrote, adding that a drug is used to numb the
injection site.
In the 5 executions since October, 2 of the inmates declined to say last words
to a roomful of witnesses just before they were put to death. The other 3
didn't say anything about experiencing pain, and one even cheered his favorite
sports team just before his death.
Although Arizona has executed 5 men in the last 9 months, no new executions
have been scheduled.
Up to 5 inmates whose appeals are nearing their end in court could have their
execution dates scheduled early next year. Those inmates include Robert Henry
Moorman, who was serving a 9-year prison term for kidnapping back in 1984 when
the state let him out on a 72-hour release to visit his adoptive mother at a
nearby hotel.
Moorman beat, stabbed and strangled the woman in their hotel room, then
meticulously dismembered her body and threw the pieces away in various trash
bins and sewers in Florence before he was re-arrested, charged, and sentenced
to death.
Daniel Wayne Cook also could be rescheduled for an execution early next year.
He was scheduled to be executed April 5 for killing a man and a teenage boy in
1987 in Lake Havasu City after torturing and raping them for hours, but the
U.S. Supreme Court put the execution on hold until it rules on Cook's claims of
ineffective counsel during post-trial proceedings.
That likely won't happen until the end of the year, and the earliest Cook's
execution could be rescheduled is January.
The state has executed 91 inmates since 1910; 28 of them have been put to death
with lethal injection since the state began using that method in 1992.
Altogether there are 128 inmates still on Arizona's death row. Because Arizona
defendants facing the death penalty started getting two attorneys instead of
just one in the mid-1990s, those convicted since then have more limited options
to file appeals based on the quality of their legal team, Cattani said.
"The theory is the more exhaustive the process in state court, the less likely
it is there would be any type of reversal in federal court," he said. "And we
are seeing fewer cases reversed."
As a result, as many as 50 inmates could be scheduled for execution in the next
few years, he said.
October's trial won't delay or stop any of them, but could change some of the
corrections department's practices.
And if not, "We'll keep swinging," said public defender Baich.
(source: Associated Press)
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