April 24 KANSAS: Kansas jury hands down death penalty >From the Kansas AG late Friday: A Barton County jury today returned a sentence of death in the capital murder case of Sidney John Gleason who was convicted earlier this week in the February, 2004 deaths of Mikiala Martinez and Darren R. Wornkey. (source: Kansas City Star) *********** Death penalty opponents hold vigil in hopes the Supreme Court abolishes law More than 2 dozen people came to Bill Lucero's home for a symbolic protest. A 12-year-old cotton wood, which they refer to it as the tree of healing, was planted when capital punishment was approved in Kansas on April 23, 1994. "It's amazing that its still growing strong," Lucero said. Tom Muther was here the day the tree was planted. He joined the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty after learning of their vigil in front of the State Capitol. "I had heard about them fasting on the lawn," Muther said. And Bill Lucero has his own reasons for speaking out against the death penalty. "In 1972 I received a call telling me that my father had been murdered," he said. Lucero says he chose to forgive his father's killer and wants others choose life over death. He says the nourishing of the tree symbolizes the groups growing effort to abolish the death penalty. "I think that in the case of a cold blooded killer it's the only solution," said Mary Blair, capital punishment supporter. But capital punishment has its supporters and many say they believe the Supreme Court will rule to keep the death penalty. Kansas House Speaker Doug Mays declined an on-camera interview but said it's the law of the land and he believes the Supreme Court will "find it to be constitutional and if not, we'll fix it next session." The 1994 law says that if a jury is presented with equal evidence for and against the death penalty, a jury must rule in favor of it. The State Supreme Court struck it down leaving the fate of six convicted killers in limbo. On Tuesday, the case will be heard by the Supreme Court. (source: ABC News) FLORIDA: Death penalty appeal to begin for cop killer----U.S. high court's cop killer ruling may alter procedures THE ARGUMENT Condemned prisoner Clarence Hill was granted a last-minute stay of execution in January based on his appeal challenging Florida's lethal injection methods as cruel and unusual punishment. But the U.S. Supreme Court won't hear arguments this week about the constitutionality of lethal injection. Instead, the court asks questions about the way Hill appealed. Hill based his appeal on a claim lethal injection violates his civil rights, filed under a section of federal law known as 1983. Lawyers for the state argue appeals filed under 1983 can only be about conditions of confinement; for example, if cells are too cold. Florida attorneys say Hill's appeal should have been filed as a habeas claim. In those appeals, inmates directly challenge convictions and sentences. Hill already has made habeas appeals and doesn't get another without court permission, which has been denied. His attorneys say if he can't challenge the constitutionality of lethal injection as a violation of his civil rights, he won't have any way to do so. ** HILL TIMELINE Oct. 19, 1982: Clarence Hill and Cliff Jackson rob Freedom Savings & Loan in downtown Pensacola. Hill shoots and kills Pensacola police Officer Stephen Taylor. Officer Larry Bailly is shot and wounded. April 29, 1983: An Escambia County jury finds Hill guilty of 1st-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, three counts of armed robbery and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. May 27, 1983: Hill is sentenced to death on a 10-2 jury recommendation. Oct. 10, 1985: The Florida Supreme Court orders a new sentencing. April 2, 1986: A 2nd death sentence is handed down on an 11-1 jury recommendation. Nov. 9, 1989: Gov. Bob Martinez signs a death warrant for Hill Jan. 28, 1990: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida grants a stay of execution. May 13, 2005: Florida Supreme Court denies further appeal. Nov. 29, 2005: Gov. Jeb Bush signs Hill's death warrant. Jan. 24: Hill's execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy issues a stay at about 6:45 p.m. Wednesday: Oral arguments in Hill's appeal are presented to the court in Washington, D.C. June 30: A decision is expected from the Supreme Court by the end of its session. HOW IT'S DONE Florida's method of lethal injection was disclosed in a 2000 case challenging its constitutionality. Here's what was described in that case: After being placed on a heart monitor, "The inmate will then be injected with 2 IV's containing saline solution. He will then be escorted into the execution chamber where the witnesses will be able to view the execution. "A pharmacist will prepare the lethal substances. In all, a total of 8 syringes will be used, each of which will be injected in a consecutive order into the IV tube attached to the inmate. The 1st 2 syringes will contain 'no less than' 2 grams of sodium pentothal, an ultra-short-acting barbiturate which renders the inmate unconscious. "The 3rd syringe will contain a saline solution to act as a flushing agent. "The 4th and 4th syringes will contain no less than 50 milligrams of pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles. "The 6th syringe will contain saline, again as a flushing agent. "Finally, the 7th and 8th syringes will contain no less than 150 milliequivalents of potassium chloride, which stops the heart from beating. "Each syringe will be numbered to ensure that they are injected into the IV tube in the proper order. A physician will stand behind the executioner while the chemicals are being injected. The physician's (assistant) will also observe the execution and will certify the inmate's death upon completion of the execution." ** Convicted cop killer Clarence Hill was a syringe plunger away from execution when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy issued a stay in January. On Wednesday, the nation's highest court will hear oral arguments in the appeal that spared Hill's life. The ruling, expected at the end of the June conclusion of the court's session, will settle a technical question about court procedure in death-row appeals and the future of Hill's appeals. More than 23 years after he gunned down Pensacola police Officer Stephen Taylor, Hill escaped a second death warrant signed by a Florida governor. His attorney exulted. "What a fantastic day!" said Todd Doss when his client got the stay of execution. Death penalty proponents steamed and sent Doss dozens of hateful e-mails, one suggesting he should be executed along with his client. Taylor's family continued to suffer almost a quarter century after his murder. "All these people who are against the death penalty tell me it doesn't work," said Linda Knouse, Taylor's sister. "Well, the reason it doesn't work is because they aren't carried out properly. "It shouldn't be 24 years later. They found him guilty over and over, and it just shouldn't take this long." More than one inmate's life is on the line: - A.D. Rutherford, who, a week after Hill, had his life similarly spared until the issues raised by Hill's case are resolved. The 57-year-old Milton man is sentenced to death for the 1985 murder of Stella Salamon, a 63-year-old widow beaten and strangled to death. - Though the Supreme Court seeks to resolve a procedural issue, ultimately the result is important in 37 states that use lethal injection because it could make them change their methods and lead to more legal challenges if Hill wins. - For inmates on death row across the country, the court's decision will open up or close off avenues for further appeals. "If I was a lawyer in one of those states that have a similar procedure, you can bet I'd be formulating an attack based on Mr. Hill's case," Doss said. It's already so. "For all intents and purposes, every state actively seeking to carry out capital sentences has been impacted," wrote the state's attorney in her brief to the Supreme Court. Knouse said she will not allow herself to consider the possibility execution of her brother's killer could be delayed even longer. The South Florida woman said during the agonizing hour waiting in the witness room of Florida's death house in January, she relived her brother's death and "day in and day out" for 2 weeks afterward. Hill and Rutherford remain on death row more than two decades after their crimes were committed and continuing a legal odyssey capital punishment proponents and opponents alike say doesn't work. "Given our twisted system, it takes forever to get to the point where people exhaust their appeals," Gov. Jeb Bush said in February. Hill's attorney agrees the process doesn't work, but from a different perspective. "I think our system's broken. I don't focus so much on the time issue," Doss said. "Whenever the process is not allowed to run its course ... it really causes some chaos really where it's not as reasoned and orderly as it should be and could be." Florida's death row has 372 inmates who have been there an average of just less than 13 years. The state's attorney says appeals take as long as they need to. "It never takes too long. The bottom line is that if you're still litigating, that means courts are interested in your claim," said Carolyn Snurkowski, Florida assistant deputy attorney general. "The fact we're engaged in a discussion ... it's just the evolution of the law." Taylor's brother, Jack Taylor Jr. of Pensacola, expressed frustration. "The execution (will happen). It's just taken a ridiculous amount of time," he said. Hill "deserved it, so, by God, let him get it." (source: The News-Press) MARYLAND: Seeking death penalty Murder cases in which Baltimore County prosecutors have sought death sentences since 2000, when the county's last still-standing death sentence was imposed. - John Edward Kennedy Jr.: Pleaded guilty Dec. 13, 2005 to one count of 1st-degree felony murder, avoiding a possible death sentence in the shooting of a private-school educator last year in a parking garage at Towson Town Center. - Kevin E. Wiggins: Accepted an offer Oct. 7, 2004, from prosecutors for a life prison term. His death sentence in the 1988 murder of an elderly Woodlawn woman was overturned in 2003 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Prosecutors decided against seeking another death sentence, in part, to secure finality for the victim's family. - Kimberly Shay Ruffner: Sentenced May 20, 2004, to life for the 1984 killing of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton, a murder for which Kirk Bloodsworth was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. Prosecutors dropped several charges and agreed not to seek the death penalty in return for Ruffner's guilty plea. - Kenneth Lloyd Collins: Sentenced Feb. 5, 2004, to life after a judge overturned his death sentence in the 1986 killing of a bank executive. Prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty again after consulting with the victim's widow. - Courtney Bryant: Sentenced to life without the possibility of parole after Maryland's highest court overturned his death sentence and prosecutors halted efforts in December 2003 to send the convicted killer back to death row for the 2000 murder of a Hunt Valley Burger King worker. Prosecutors said they agreed to the life sentence after the victim's father said he didn't want to go through another sentencing hearing and having the case go up on appeal. - Wesley Allen Rollins: Sentenced Aug. 14, 2003, to life without parole by Baltimore County Circuit Judge John F. Fader II. Despite a jury's verdict to the contrary, the judge said he did not believe beyond a reasonable doubt that Rollins smothered a 71-year-old Catonsville woman in her bed in 2001 and declined to impose a death sentence. - Wallace Dudley Ball: Sentenced in August 2003 to life for the 1994 killing of a college student at her family's Stevenson home. After Ball's death sentence was overturned, prosecutors dropped pursuit of another death sentence when the victim's mother said she didn't want to go through another round of appeals. - Clarence Conyers: Sentenced July 25, 2003, to two life terms without parole by Baltimore County Circuit Judge Dana M. Levitz, who declined to impose a death sentence, in part because of the "devastating effect that this unending litigation has on the innocent families of the victims." Conyers had twice before been sentenced to death for the 1994 killings of 2 women in northwest Baltimore County. Both sentences were overturned on appeal. - Douglas A. Starliper : Sentenced March 6, 2003, to two consecutive life sentences by Levitz, who said that a death sentence and its decades-long appeal process would leave the victims' families without closure. Starliper was convicted of the 2001 killings of two of his friends during a drunken argument in Woodlawn. - John K. Surdi: Pleaded guilty and was sentenced March 3, 2003, to life without parole in the 2001 killing of his sister's boyfriend in their Loch Raven home. - Richard Antonio Moore: Pleaded guilty and was sentenced April 30, 2001, to life without the possibility of parole, avoiding a possible death sentence in the 2000 killing of Baltimore County police Sgt. Bruce A. Prothero during a jewelry store robbery in Pikesville. Prosecutors said that despite a strong case, they agreed to a plea because Maryland's appeals process stretches on so long that capital punishment is "a sentence that only exists on paper." - Elva E. Reid: Pleaded guilty and was sentenced Oct. 2, 2000, to life without parole for killing her boyfriend in 1999 and trying to cover up the murder by setting a fire in her Turners Station townhouse that killed her young daughter. - Eugene Colvin-el: Death sentence was commuted June 7, 2000, to life without parole by then-Gov. Parris N. Glendening. Colvin-el was convicted in the 1980 stabbing death of an 82-year-old Florida woman who was visiting her daughter in Pikesville for the Jewish High Holy Days. The week before Colvin-el's scheduled execution, Glendening said he was not sufficiently convinced of the convicted killer's guilt. - Lawrence Michael Borchardt Sr.: Sentenced to death May 23, 2000, in the fatal stabbing of an elderly couple at their Rosedale home on Thanksgiving in 1998. That sentence was overturned May 26, 2005, and a new sentencing hearing was ordered. The Maryland Court of Appeals granted the state's request for leave to appeal that ruling. Arguments were heard in February, and a decision from the court is pending. (source: Baltimore Sun) USA: States Negligent in Use of Lethal Injections Incompetence, negligence, and irresponsibility by U.S. states put condemned prisoners at needless risk of excruciating pain during lethal injection executions, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Lethal injections are used in 37 of the 38 death penalty states in the United States and by the federal government. Every execution in 2005 was by lethal injection. The 65-page report, "So Long as They Die: Lethal Injections in the United States," reveals the slipshod history of executions by lethal injection, using a protocol created three decades ago with no scientific research, nor modern adaptation, and still unchanged today. As the prisoner lies strapped to a gurney, a series of 3 drugs is injected into his vein by executioners hidden behind a wall. A massive dose of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic, is injected first, followed by pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes voluntary muscles, but leaves the prisoner fully conscious and able to experience pain. A 3rd drug, potassium chloride, quickly causes cardiac arrest, but the drug is so painful that veterinarian guidelines prohibit its use unless a veterinarian first ensures that the pet to be put down is deeply unconscious. No such precaution is taken for prisoners being executed. "The U.S. takes more care killing dogs than people," said Jamie Fellner, U.S. program director at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. "Just because a prisoner may have killed without care or conscience does not mean that the state should follow suit." Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all circumstances and calls for its abolition. But until the 38 death penalty states and the federal government abolish capital punishment, international human rights law requires them to ensure they have developed a method of execution that will reduce, to the greatest extent possible, the condemned prisoner's risk of mental or physical pain and suffering. Human Rights Watch urges that states suspend execution by lethal injection until they have conducted a thorough review and assessment of existing and alternative methods. The drug sequence used in the United States was developed in 1977 by a medical examiner in Oklahoma who had no expertise in pharmacology or anesthesia. Texas quickly adopted Oklahoma's protocol, and at least 34 other states then did too. (Nevada's protocol remains secret). Human Right Watch found that none of the states consulted medical experts to ascertain whether the original three-drug sequence could be adapted to lessen the risk of pain to the prisoner by using other drugs or methods of administering them. "Copycatting is not the right way to decide how to put people to death," said Fellner. "If a state is going to execute someone, it must do its homework, consult with experts, and select a method designed to inflict the least possible pain and suffering." Without adequate or properly-administered anesthesia, prisoners executed by the 3-drug sequence would be conscious during suffocation caused by the paralytic agent, and would feel the fiery pain from the potassium chloride coursing through their veins. Logs from recent executions in California, and toxicology reports from recent executions in North Carolina, suggest prisoners may in fact have been inadequately anesthetized before being put to death. Corrections agencies have rejected the option of executing prisoners with a single massive injection of a barbiturate, even though that should provide a painless death, because such a method would force executioners and witnesses to wait about 30 minutes longer for the prisoner's heart to stop beating. Corrections officials have also resisted eliminating the pancuronium bromide - the paralytic agent - even though its use makes it much harder to tell if a prisoner is sufficiently anesthetized. The drug is not needed to kill the prisoner, nor does it protect him from pain: it appears intended mainly to keep his body from twitching or convulsing while dying. It also masks any pain the prisoner might be feeling, since he cannot move, cry out, or even blink his eyes. "Prison officials have been more concerned about sparing the sensitivities of executioners and witnesses than protecting the condemned prisoner from pain," said Fellner. "They are more concerned with appearances than with the reality." Although prisoners have for years brought legal claims that lethal injections were unconstitutionally cruel, courts have until recently given short shrift to their arguments. Troubled by new and powerful evidence of possibly botched executions, federal courts in California and North Carolina have this year refused to permit scheduled executions to take place using the standard lethal injection protocol. On April 26, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments about the procedures a prisoner must follow to challenge lethal injections. Until recent years, the United States was the only country in the world that used lethal injection as an execution method. Several other countries that have not yet abolished the death penalty have followed: China started using lethal injection in 1997; Guatemala executed its first prisoner by lethal injection in 1998; and the Philippines and Thailand have had lethal injection execution laws in place since 2001 (although to date, they have not executed anyone by this method). (source: Human Rights Watch) *************** Concerns About Pain Put Lethal Injection on Trial A flurry of litigation challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection has placed a spotlight on growing evidence that condemned inmates may not be properly anesthetized and therefore experience excruciating pain during executions. Although it has become the predominant method of execution around the country, lethal injection was initially adopted three decades ago without scientific or medical studies, on the recommendation of an Oklahoma state legislator who wanted a more humane procedure. Since then, objections have arisen in many of the 37 other states that adapted Oklahoma's procedures, including California, where a federal judge has scheduled a two-day hearing next week on altering or even eliminating the state's lethal injection methods. So far this year, executions have been delayed in California, Florida, Maryland and Missouri - and in 3 federal cases - because of litigation challenging the use of lethal injections. Cases from Kentucky, Louisiana and Tennessee are pending, and unsuccessful challenges have been waged in Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. Although it offends some death penalty proponents that the state is obliged to limit inmates' suffering during execution, the Supreme Court in its 1976 decision reinstating the death penalty cautioned that officials must avoid "the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain." The problem with the three-stage lethal injection drug procedure is that it may mask rather than prevent pain, critics contend. The first drug administered, the sedative sodium thiopental, is meant to deaden pain, the second, a paralytic, to immobilize the prisoner and the third, potassium chloride, to stop the heart. However, sedative dosages, especially as administered by untrained prison personnel, have been found inadequate to anesthetize inmates, according to testimony in some of the cases. And the paralytic prevents them from expressing the intense pain of the heart-stopping chemical, physicians say. In a study to be released today, Human Rights Watch reported on more than a dozen executions in which inmates appeared to suffer. For example, in North Carolina in 2003, a prisoner started to convulse, sat up and gagged during his execution. He appeared to be choking and his arms seemed to struggle under the sheet, the report said. In a 2001 execution, again in North Carolina, an inmate appeared to lose consciousness and then began convulsing and opened his eyes, the report said. A witness said the inmate tried to catch his breath as his chest heaved. Earlier this year, lawyers for a condemned inmate in California presented evidence from 6 recent California executions in which the inmates were still breathing minutes after receiving massive doses of anesthetic, a possible sign that the drug was not working as intended. The legal assault on lethal injection has been building for several years. A Human Rights Watch report, entitled "So Long as They Die," highlights admissions from prison officials in several states that no medical professionals were involved in developing their lethal injection procedures and that prison personnel are simply not versed in administering drugs. For example, when asked in a 2003 court hearing about what considerations went into the development of Louisiana's lethal injection protocol, Annette Viator, former chief counsel for the state penitentiary, said, "The only thing that mattered was that the guy ended up dead." Asked how the state chose the chemicals it used, Donald Courts, the pharmacy director at the prison, said, "it wasn't a medical decision. It was based on the other states that had all used a similar dose." Similarly, a judge in Kentucky noted last year that officials there "did not conduct any independent scientific or medical studies or consult any medical professionals concerning the drugs and dosage amounts to be injected into the condemned. Kentucky appears to be no different from any other state." Dr. Jay Chapman, the former Oklahoma medical examiner who played a key role in developing the original lethal injection procedure, told a Human Rights Watch researcher, "I never knew we would have complete idiots injecting these drugs. Which we seem to have." Critics say the only way to ensure the sedative dosage is adequate is to have trained medical personnel on hand to administer the drug and monitor its levels. That, however, would violate the canons of medical ethics forbidding doctors, nurses and other medical professionals from participating in a killing. "There are smarter drug cocktails to use where you have less concern [about suffering], but the problem is compounded by people who have no idea what they are doing," said Dr. Leonidas Koniaris, a University of Miami physician who has done research on lethal injections. As an alternative, critics have suggested shifting to an overdose of a single sedative. Dr. Mark Dershwitz, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, who has testified on behalf of several states defending their lethal injection procedures, told Human Rights Watch that if a large dose of pentobarbital were used it certainly would kill an inmate but that it might take "more than half an hour. Everyone involved will have to wait a very long time for the heart to stop." Dershwitz said no state official had decided to switch, even after hearing that pentobarbital would be less painful. Asked why, the report's coauthors Jamie Fellner and Sarah Tofte quoted Dershwitz as follows: "It's not about the prisoner. It's about public policy. It's about the audience [at the execution] and prison personnel who have to carry out the execution. It would be hard for everybody to have to sit and wait for the EKG activity to cease so they can declare the prisoner dead." U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel will conduct a 2-day hearing on California's procedure beginning May 2. In late February, California officials delayed Michael A. Morales' execution after saying that they could not get a licensed medical professional to inject the lethal chemicals as Fogel had ordered. Morales is on death row for the 1981 murder of a Lodi high school student. No court has found lethal injection unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has permitted some delays, but allowed other lethal injection executions to go forward, including that of Willie Brown Jr. in North Carolina on Friday. A federal judge initially blocked Brown's execution for the 1983 slaying of a convenience store clerk. But he relented after prison officials agreed to use a bispectral index monitor, a device the state said could monitor Brown's level of consciousness. Defense anesthesiology experts warned that the machine was useless in the absence of trained professionals who could intervene if Brown awoke, but the judge disagreed. Dr. Mark Heath, an assistant professor of clinical anesthesiology at Columbia University in New York, said in a declaration submitted in the Morales case that California's "selection of potassium chloride to cause cardiac arrest needlessly increases the risk that a prisoner will experience excruciating pain prior to execution." Last October, the American Society of Anesthesiologists issued an advisory warning that the risk of experiencing awareness during surgery increases when the patient has a history of substance abuse and when the anesthesia is administered intravenously, an action noted in the Human Rights Watch report. Anesthesia is administered intravenously during executions, and many condemned inmates have histories of drug use. Surgery patients who received neuromuscular blocking agents with inadequate anesthesia have told of extreme suffering while being unable to alert the anesthesiologist, according to court testimony in a lethal injection case in Louisiana. In a brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court last week, Tennessee physicians wrote that "achieving and maintaining an appropriate anesthetic depth is an extraordinarily complex endeavor that requires specialized training, procedures and equipment." Physicians already are involved in executions, but mostly on the periphery. In California, a physician must fit a heart monitor on the condemned prisoner and check its readings, according to Human Rights Watch. Twenty-eight states require a physician to determine or pronounce death during an execution, the report said. Attorneys for the state have steadfastly maintained that the amount of the sedative sodium thiopental administered by death row personnel at San Quentin State Prison will quickly render an inmate unconscious and that the inmate will remain in that condition while the other drugs are delivered. Since Morales' execution was stayed in late February, California has changed its protocol slightly. Attorneys for the state maintain that they are acting well within the bounds of the law. But Heath said the state's procedures don't even meet guidelines set by the American Veterinary Medical Assn. for the euthanasia of animals. At least 30 states ban the use of paralytics in animal euthanasia, and the veterinary association says using a neuromuscular blocking drug with an anesthetic is unacceptable for animals. "They are using '70s technology for animals 35 years later in people, and the vets have moved away from those protocols," Koniaris said. Dr. Willie Reed, one of the authors of a veterinary association study on euthanasia, said Michigan State University's veterinary clinic euthanizes animals with pentobarbital, a long-lasting sedative. The dosage is adjusted for the weight of the animal. Doctors say the drug would probably work just as effectively in humans, but medical ethics prevent them from proposing a means of execution, even if it is more humane than the process currently used. Contrary to the position taken by Dershwitz, the anesthesiology professor, some physicians and veterinarians say pentobarbital's effects are rapid. "The animal dies almost instantaneously, within a few seconds of the injection, probably less than a minute," said Reed, director of a veterinary research center at the university. "It is used on cattle every week." (source: Los Angeles Times) ********************** Lethal yes, painless no----The 3-drug cocktail used in executions may leave prisoners suffering horribly but paralyzed, unable to say anything. [By Jamie Fellner, JAMIE FELLNER is director of the U.S. program at Human Rights Watch and the co-author of "So Long as They Die: Lethal Injections in the United States."] IT IS EASY to understand why lethal injection has become the most frequently used method of execution in the United States. The procedure yields no gruesome spectacle of bodies bursting into flame in electric chairs, twitching at the end of gallows ropes, convulsing from lethal gas. Instead, lethal injection executions look reassuringly like a medical procedure: The prisoner is strapped to a gurney, injected with drugs and dies. A quiet, sanitized, efficient and ostensibly painless killing - as seemingly benign as putting a horse to sleep, as Ronald Reagan suggested. But appearances are deceiving. Mounting evidence suggests at least some prisoners may have suffered horribly before they died, awake and wracked by pain but unable to move to let anybody know. Dr. Jay Chapman, an Oklahoma medical examiner with no pharmacology experience, came up with the lethal injection protocol in 1977 at the request of a state legislator. Without doing any research, he dictated a two-drug sequence, which he then expanded to the 3-drug cocktail now used in California and 35 other states. (Nevada, which uses lethal injections, won't say what kind, and Nebraska executes by electrocution.) First, a massive dose of the anesthetic sodium pentothal is injected, followed by pancuronium bromide - a drug that paralyzes voluntary muscles, including the lungs and diaphragm, but leaves the prisoner conscious and able to experience pain. Then potassium chloride brings swift cardiac arrest. Why these 3 drugs? "Why not?" Chapman asked. The 3rd drug is known to be so painful that veterinarian guidelines prohibit its use on dogs unless the vet first ensures they are deeply unconscious. But those precautions do not apply to prisoners. Their executioners stay behind a wall pushing drugs into IV tubes. No one makes sure the prisoner is unconscious; if he is not, he will be aware of suffocating from the pancuronium bromide and will feel the fiery pain of potassium chloride coursing through his veins to his heart. Logs from 6 recent executions in California reveal that prisoners' chests were still moving regularly up and down long after the anesthetic should have stopped their breathing - suggesting they were awake and suffering. Toxicology reports from executions in North Carolina also suggest some prisoners had been inadequately anesthetized. Of course, the idea of a "humane execution" is an oxymoron; they are all inherently cruel. Yet no state defends its lethal injection protocol as the most humane possible method. Indeed, California officials point out that they are not constitutionally obliged to choose the "best" method - only one that is not unconstitutionally cruel. Whatever the legal merits of this position, it can scarcely be justified morally. Moreover, international human rights law imposes on California officials the obligation to ensure its executions will cause the least possible pain and suffering for the condemned. But California does not meet that standard. A federal judge in California recently refused to permit the execution of Michael Morales to go forward under the existing rules. The judge suggested the alternative of a single injection of a massive dose of a barbiturate. State officials rejected that option, however, because although it would guarantee a painless death for the prisoner, it could take 30 to 45 minutes. And officials want to spare witnesses and executioners having to wait so long for the prisoner's heart to stop beating. Another proposal was to have a qualified person monitor the prisoner to make sure he was fully anesthetized before the other drugs were administered. But the California Department of Corrections failed, before the court's deadline, to find any anesthesiologists willing to violate the ethical guidelines that prohibit physicians from participating in executions. Monitoring whether the prisoner is fully anesthetized would be easier without the paralytic agent. But corrections officials like it because it imposes a welcome "chemical veil" between the prisoner and the executioners and witnesses. Without the paralytic agent, the prisoner's body might twitch or jerk in agony when the potassium chloride is administered - something corrections officials would prefer nobody see. Corrections officials recently announced some tinkering with their lethal injection procedures. Attorneys for the state say the new method reflects consultations among corrections officials. But they do not say they have consulted with anyone who has the medical expertise to help them evaluate the lethal drugs, dosages and protocols. In February, the judge in the Morales case urged California officials to review the state's lethal injection protocol, suggesting that a proactive approach by state officials would "go a long way toward maintaining judicial and public confidence in the integrity and effectiveness of the protocol." Sometime soon, a hearing will be held during which the judge and the public may learn how corrections officials have been making their decisions. I predict the story we will learn then will be appalling. Corrections officials should not be permitted merely to try to justify their current execution method. They should be required to consult with medical experts - toxicologists, anesthesiologists or others - to determine if there are drugs or methods of drug administration that would pose less risk of pain and suffering. California may want to gloss over the inherent ugliness of putting another person to death, but it should at the very least make serious efforts to minimize the prisoner's suffering. Just because a prisoner has killed without care or conscience does not mean that the state should follow suit. (source: Los Angeles Times) VIRGINIA: Closing arguments to be heard in 9/11 trial A jury will hear closing arguments and then receive instructions Monday to deliberate the fate of al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, who faces a potential death sentence for his connections to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Court resumes at 9:30 a.m. ET. Deliberations are expected to begin Monday afternoon. Moussaoui, 37, a French citizen of Arab descent, is the first person the U.S. government has put on trial for the attacks that resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths when four hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in northern Virginia, and a field in western Pennsylvania. Moussaoui, whose main contribution to the conspiracy was covering it up following his arrest a month before, has told the jury he feels no remorse for the deaths, handing the prosecutors an affirmation of a key item on the checklist of questions the jury will consider. The jury must also consider the impact of the attacks on victims' families and survivors, New York's government and economy, and the functioning of the nation's military headquarters. Prosecutors called 30 Sept. 11 families to describe their losses and a handful of survivors of the trade center and Pentagon attacks to describe the horrific scenes. The same jury of 9 men and 3 women that decided last month Moussaoui's lies to interrogators in August 2001 directly resulted in some deaths, will now decide whether the court shall impose execution by lethal injection or life in the nation's super-maximum security prison with no chance of release. Five alternates have also sat through seven weeks of testimony and evidence. The most heartwrenching was perhaps the parade of families who described their losses coupled with videotapes of planes crashing into the twin towers and people jumping from them. Moussaoui pleaded guilty to all charges against him last year, while maintaining he had no role in the Sept. 11 plot. However, when he testified twice during the past seven weeks, he claimed his enrollment in U.S. flight schools was designed to enable him to pilot a fifth plane on Sept. 11 into the White House. FBI witnesses conceded no evidence of a fifth targeted plane exists, and prosecutors endorsed a defense statement debunking Moussaoui's claim that "shoebomber" Richard Reid was tapped for his hijacking crew. The stipulation informed the jury that while Moussaoui and Reid knew each other from a London mosque and paramilitary camp in Afghanistan, al Qaeda leadership never assigned them to work together on any terrorist operation. Moussaoui's credibility may also have been undermined by defense mental health experts, who diagnose Moussaoui as a paranoid schizophrenic who suffers from delusions, including the recurring dream that President Bush will free him. Yet the government psychiatrist who has spent the most time interviewing Moussaoui rejects the schizophrenia diagnosis and told the jury some of Moussaoui's unconventional beliefs are rooted in his fundamentalist Muslim faith. Former federal prosecutor Peter White predicted prosecutors are "going to remind the jury of the impact that September 11th had on thousands and thousands of innocent Americans." White said prosecutors will depict Moussaoui as someone "who takes glee in killing Americans and pledged his continuing desire to kill Americans" and may conclude with a statement along the lines of: "If Zacarias Moussaoui doesn't deserve the death penalty, then who does?" More than a dozen Sept. 11 families who don't believe Moussaoui should receive the death penalty testified for the defense last week. They were forbidden from offering an opinion on capital punishment in court. "Clearly the defender's office invited each of us to testify in hope that the jury would be encouraged to find this man worthy of spending the rest of his life in prison and not executed, and that is my hope as well," said Marilynn Rosenthal, outside the courthouse. Her son, Josh, died inside the twin towers. "Mr. Moussaoui is the wrong man to be on trial. There are other people in custody who were central planners," said Alice Hogland, outside court. She testified about her son, Mark Bingham, who was among the heroes who fought back on United Flight 93, thwarting hijackers' plans to hit the Capitol when the plane went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Indeed, one of the reasons not to execute Moussaoui, defense attorneys are expected to argue, is that Sept. 11 plot coordinator Khalid Shaiykh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, who have been referenced repeatedly in the trial, are among the captured al Qaeda higher-ups not yet facing justice. "They are the ones who should be on trial," Hoagland said. "Moussaoui is a marginal and undependable character." (source: CNN) ************** Life of a Terrorist: Seeking, and Finding, His Jihad----Zacarias Moussaoui was an easy mark. Young and nearly broke, sleeping in a London shelter, he was ashamed of his past and uncertain of his future. Zacarias Moussaoui was an easy mark. Young and nearly broke, sleeping in a London shelter, he was ashamed of his past and uncertain of his future. And each day, when he went to the mosque in Brixton, he would run a gantlet of Islamic extremists. Eventually, they snared him. And the story of how a disaffected, down-and-almost-out young Muslim became a self-described member of the 9/11 plot offers chilling insights into the way Al Qaeda trolls for recruits and trains them to become suicidal zealots, willing to kill themselves to kill others. Had Moussaoui not surrendered to the spell of the radicals, his life might have been different. After all, he had broken away from his impoverished childhood in France, as well as his violent, alcoholic father. He had made it to London. He was smart; he earned a master's degree in business. But that was the road not taken. At the Brixton mosque, he began wearing military camouflage and black boots. He criticized fellow Muslims as too soft. "Where's the jihad?" he kept asking. "Where's the jihad?" >From there, joining Islamist guerrillas in Chechnya was not a big step. Neither was signing up for Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Or flight school in America. Moussaoui found his war. Last year, he pleaded guilty to being involved with the Sept. 11, 2001, plot. This week, a federal jury in Alexandria, Va., will begin deliberating on what the legal consequences of his involvement with Al Qaeda should be - a death row cell or life in prison without the possibility of parole. But for government and other analysts who focus on trying to understand how seemingly ordinary young men become terrorists or would-be terrorists, testimony and documents in the sentencing trial offered valuable details about the path men such as Moussaoui have traveled. Paul R. Martin, an expert on cults, said Moussaoui represented the classic case of a vulnerable young man brainwashed by Islamic radicals in London during the mid-1990s. "They swept him away," Martin told the jury last week. Martin said that French Moroccans such as Moussaoui living in Western Europe "just didn't feel like they fit in. They were sort of on the fringes. So when some of them came into contact with these radical elements, they felt for the first time that, 'Wow, I belong. This is my home.'" Other new evidence came from Mohammed al-Qahtani, the so-called 20th 9/11 hijacker. In a summary of what he has told U.S. interrogators at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Al-Qahtani described how Al Qaeda isolated men like him and Moussaoui and transformed them into automatons for jihad. They were herded together at training camps, Al-Qahtani said, assigned to group tents, cut off from the outside world. One man ruled their life: Osama bin Laden, whom they called "the big boss." Also, a new CIA report was read to jurors that further outlined Al Qaeda's "brainwashing techniques." It even told of one initiate who feared for his life and with some perseverance had made it out of the camps. Moussaoui arrived in England around 1995. He was in his late 20s and enrolled in business school. Fellow student Nil Plant recalled him as friendly and ambitious. "But he wasn't a proper Arab or a French boy either. He was sort of stuck in between, belonging to nowhere. He had a lot going for him, but nowhere to go." Abdul Haqq Baker, the imam at the Brixton mosque, testified that Moussaoui "came in eager, quick to learn." But outside the front doors were radicals passing out leaflets and warning that Baker and other mosque leaders were too soft. They said the Middle East was aflame and yet the mosque leaders sat idly by. The leaflets announced upcoming militant study groups. The titles included "Victory to Muslims!" and "Why Muslims Are Weak." The radicals showed films of young Muslim boys castrated in Bosnia, their genitals displayed on trays. They derided U.N. troops as "blue hats," and said they used Muslim women as "pleasure girls." Moussaoui was intrigued and started attending the radicals' study circles. "His friendly demeanor changed," Baker said. He erupted into tirades; asked to calm down, Moussaoui shouted epithets. "You could see the disdain in his face," Baker said. By now, according to Martin, the extremists controlled Moussaoui: "Probably, at that point, he felt like he owed them his life." Moussaoui went off to Chechnya. He turned up at the Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, where he drove young recruits from the airport and back. He trained in explosives and pledged bayat - total loyalty - to Bin Laden. The CIA report said the camps "provided the isolation and psychological atmosphere necessary to support classic brainwashing techniques." The goal was to turn recruits into "committed operatives who could be trusted to live for several years in the West and still carry out their mission." Travel to Afghanistan was crucial; Al Qaeda wanted its young fighters immersed in the "pure Islamic state." Additional pressures were applied to prevent "backsliding," especially to keep a "2nd wave" of recruits in line for a planned follow-up attack after Sept. 11. Moussaoui, Al-Qahtani and many of the 9/11 hijackers were at the Afghanistan camps at about the same time. Al-Qahtani described how the system worked at 2 camps. The 1st had a rigorous schedule, where all students prayed together, rarely leaving one another's sights. Bin Laden frequently visited. He gave "sermons, recommendations and advice regarding jihad, the struggle of Islam and bayat," Al-Qahtani said. Recruits swore allegiance to the "Prince of Jihad." Al-Qahtani moved to an advanced training camp near the airport at Kandahar, Afghanistan, at a place called Tarnak Farms. They practiced breaching doors and waging close-quarter combat. They were taught explosives "in case they ever needed to use them." Al-Qahtani was selected as the 20th hijacker for Sept. 11. But he was turned away at the Orlando, Fla., airport in August 2001 when he drew the suspicion of authorities. Moussaoui by then had been in this country for eight months. He said he was sent by Bin Laden to join the Sept. 11 team. He first took flight training in Oklahoma City. According to FBI memos, Suhaib Webb, the imam at the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, said Moussaoui complained that mosque members were too complacent. Moussaoui took one member of the mosque, Hussein al-Attas, under his wing. Webb believed that "Al-Attas was probably brainwashed" by Moussaoui into planning a trip to Pakistan for jihad. Instead, Moussaoui was arrested taking jet simulation lessons after he and Al-Attas drove to Minneapolis. Moussaoui believes that someday he will be set free. But the truth appears far different. As far as Bin Laden's lieutenants are concerned, evidence presented near the end of the trial suggested, the Brixton recruit was used up - expendable. (source: Los Angeles Times) ******************* Defense Hopes for Mercy in Moussaoui Case Zacarias Moussaoui says he expects no mercy from Americans. His lawyers hope a jury will prove him wrong. After a 6-week trial that ran the gamut from jaw-dropping to heartbreaking, closing arguments in the death-penalty case of the al-Qaida conspirator were scheduled Monday. The federal jury has only 2 choices when it begins deliberations: death or life in prison. The judge will be bound to impose their decision. Moussaoui is the only person in this country charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The jury earlier found him eligible for execution by determining that his actions caused at least one death that day. Although Moussaoui was in jail on Sept. 11, the jury ruled that lies he told federal agents when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations allowed the plot to go forward. The jury's decision now focuses on whether Moussaoui deserves the death penalty. Prosecutors emphasized the emotional impact of 9/11 on victims and their families. They presented testimony from dozens victim-impact witnesses whose testimony often left jurors in tears. Emotions switched from sorrow to rage when prosecutors cross-examined Moussaoui, who mocked the victims' testimony and took glee in the aftermath of 9/11. Moussaoui had previously taken the stand and stunned the courtroom by claiming he was to have piloted a 5th plane on 9/11, after years of denying a role in the attacks. The defense sought to blunt the victim-impact testimony by putting a dozen 9/11 family members on the stand in support of Moussaoui. The witnesses were barred from explicitly saying they favored life in prison, but got their point across by saying that they do not seek vengeance. Much of the testimony also revolved around Moussaoui's mental health. Experts hired by the defense diagnosed him as a schizophrenic who suffers delusions, including his firmly held belief that President Bush will free him from prison. Government-appointed experts say Moussaoui is not mentally ill and attribute his beliefs about Bush to religious zealotry. Even if the jury believes Moussaoui is schizophrenic, they can still decide to execute him. In many trials, proof of mental illness is a determining factor in what happens to a defendant, but it this case it is just one of many factors the jury will be asked to weigh. (source: Associated Press)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., FLA., MD., USA, VA.
Rick Halperin Mon, 24 Apr 2006 10:02:28 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
