June 5
TEXAS:
A Message to Texas Compounding Pharmacies: Kill secrets, not people
It's no secret that Texas believes deeply in its right to kill, having done so
more than any other state and already 7 times this year. It's also no secret
Texas thinks this actually works; as in, killing people gets you what you want,
teaches people how wrong they are, and is a clear form of communication.
Which is exactly what most killers think: killing works. Elliot Rodger in
southern California, Army Specialist Ivan Lopez at Fort Hood, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
in Boston, Adam Lanza in Newtown and the state of Texas all operate out of the
same twisted and false narrative: that killing works: it gets you want you
want, teaches people they are wrong, and is a clear form of communication.
What is a secret though, is where the drugs for our executions are made.
Attorney General Greg Abbott has recently decided that Texas can keep our drug
source secret, despite worries from those on death row, a botched execution in
Oklahoma (that used different drugs), and the fact that the compounding
pharmacy which makes the drug is not regulated. Without regulation, its
impossible to know the purity of the drug. Not that there is anything pure
about a death potion.
Horrified at the thought that somewhere, someone is concocting death serum
during the day and enjoying a pleasant meal with their family at night, I
decided to write to the local Compounding Pharmacies in our area.
Why participate in a system with so much doubt and secrecy involved? What's it
mean when pharmacies across the globe have refused to cook this killing stew
because they like the entire developed world see capital punishment as barbaric
and a crime against humanity?
Here's what I wrote and sent to all the Compounding Pharmacies in the Houston
metro area that I could find:
Until recently I'd hardly known what a "compounding" Pharmacy was. Texas
continues to execute death row inmates at a higher rate than any other state,
and as major pharmaceutical makers have ceased making or selling drugs to the
state of Texas, Compounding Pharmacies have moved into the headlines as
providers of Pentobarbitol. Most of these major companies ceased selling their
drugs to Texas out of moral objections to state-sponsored executions.
I'm writing to implore you NOT to make or sell drugs to the state of Texas that
will be used for the purpose of executing people. The Hippocratic Oath demands
that those charged with the health care of the human population do no harm.
What deeper harm is there than the moral injury done to an entire populace who
engages in state-sponsored killing?
The Houston Chronicle has consistently been in support of both abolishing the
death penalty and of open records regarding where Texas is purchasing these
drugs. You can see a recent Chronicle editorial here.
I invite you, as a Compounding Pharmacy, to make your voice heard and stand
against both the secrecy in the Texas purchase system and against any
Compounding Pharmacy that creates and sells these drugs. Will you take a stand
for moral integrity?
I write as a citizen of Texas, as a true believer that science used well can
strengthen our just community, and as a local Christian pastor whose leader
(Jesus Christ) was also killed unjustly by the state.
With kind regards,
If you are, in any way, part of Texas' killing system, please know that you are
culpable in the deaths of people who were created in the image of God.
Stop, please stop! There is a better way. There's a better way for you to make
a living and support your family. There's a better way to ensure the peace of
our state. There's a better way to be in relationship to this issue than
resignation and hopelessness.
The Roots of Violence
Jesus, the leader of my people, was also killed by the state in a shroud of
secrecy. His death proved to be the unmasking of the false narrative that
killing works. In fact, his entire life was directed at helping us see there is
a better way to build a just society and to make peace. Peace, ultimately, came
to myself and my people through the blood of his state sponsored killing
(Colossians 1:20), as he chose forgiveness and friendship over revenge and
retribution.
You too can act in the name of peace as a follower of Jesus! Embrace a new way,
a better way, to live. Put down your test tubes, your incessant calls for
politicians to be "tough on crime", your passion for vengeance. And follow
Jesus, the Prince of Peace.
Let's kill our secrets, not our people.
(source: Marty Troyer is a writer, husband, daddy, and pastor of Houston
Mennonite Church: The Church of the Sermon on the Mount----blog, Houston
Chronicle)
CONNECTICUT:
Connecticut high court to hear death penalty case
The state Supreme Court has scheduled a rare special session to hear the death
penalty appeal of Russell Peeler Jr., who ordered the killings of a woman and
her 8-year-old son.
Justices are scheduled to hear Peeler's appeal of his death sentence on June
30. The court was supposed to take up the case last month, but had to postpone
it.
Peeler's public defenders argue he shouldn't have been condemned to die for
ordering the killings of Karen Clarke and her son, Leroy "B.J." Brown in
Bridgeport in 1999. B.J. was a key witness against Peeler in another case.
The Supreme Court currently is deciding whether the state's 2012 repeal of the
death penalty for future killings violates the equal protection rights of the
11 men on death row.
(source: Associated Press)
LOUISIANA:
Bill to resolve state's death penalty problems dies
Although legislators abandoned the idea of resurrecting the electric chair,
2014 still was supposed to be the year that some resolution was reached on
problems with enforcing the death penalty in Louisiana.
House Bill 328 offered a 2-prong solution: State officials wouldn't have to
disclose where they got the drugs used in lethal injections, and they could buy
them from compounding pharmacies outside Louisiana. The bill breezed through
both chambers and then died.
Gov. Bobby Jindal didn't veto it. The Legislature didn't vote it down. The
bill's author, state Rep. Joseph Lopinto, just never brought it up for a final
vote.
Lopinto's name also was on controversial legislation to set up a legal
framework for surrogacy births in Louisiana. The governor vetoed the surrogacy
legislation last week for the second year in a row.
On Wednesday, Lopinto said he was disappointed by the veto, especially at not
being invited to take part in the conversation on the surrogacy bill's fate.
"The governor's going to do what he's going to do. He could've worked with me,"
said Lopinto, R-Metairie.
Lopinto said the lethal injection measure only offered a short-term solution to
an issue that is playing out in courts across the United States. He said he
told the Jindal administration he was dropping the bill shortly after the
surrogacy veto. "They didn't try to convince me one way or other other," he
said.
Several news organizations, including The Associated Press, are challenging
Missouri's policy on keeping the source of its death penalty drugs a secret. A
condemned killer on the state's death row also is raising legal issues about
the secrecy.
"We're doing it piece meal. We're doing a short-term solution on something, in
my opinion, that is going to be solved by the (U.S.) Supreme Court," Lopinto
said.
The Jindal administration is trying to follow through with an execution
sentence against convicted child killer Christopher Sepulvado. Sepulvado beat
and scalded to death his young stepson in 1992.
Sepulvado delayed his execution by raising legal challenges about the state's
plans to use the controversial combination of the sedative midazolam and the
pain medication hydromorphone to kill him. The combination became a necessary
alternative after the Jindal administration failed to find a supplier for the
preferred lethal injection drug of pentobarbital.
European drug manufacturers are cracking down on their products' use in
execution chambers, making it difficult to find pentobarbital. An added
complication in Louisiana is a restriction against state officials calling a
compounding pharmacy in another state and placing an order.
In May, the Jindal administration pushed back a June court hearing on
Sepulvado's drug challenges until November. The administration said the delay
was necessary "as the Legislature considers alternative methods of execution
and as the Department (of Public Safety and Corrections) is reviewing the most
effective dosage levels for the drug protocol."
The delay came not long after an Oklahoma inmate named Clayton Lockett mumbled
and tried to lift his head more than 10 minutes after drugs were pumped into
his veins in April. Oklahoma used midazolam, the same drug Louisiana plans to
inject into Sepulvado, and 2 other drugs.
State Department of Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc declined an interview
request Wednesday. In a prepared statement, he said the House did adopt House
Resolution 142 to study and make recommendations on the best practices for
administering the death penalty. A report is due by January. Meanwhile, the
state has the sedative midazolam and the pain medication hydromorphone in
stock. The drugs expire next year.
"Justice will be served according to the law," LeBlanc said.
(source: The Advocate)
INDIANA:
Serial killer's guilty plea during jury selection shocks prosecution
A serial killer's guilty plea before the start of his final murder trial came
as a complete shock to the prosecutor on the case.
Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson said Clyde Gibson's decision to admit
to killing Stephanie Kirk was unexpected.
Gibson pleaded as charged in a death penalty case. That's something that hasn't
happened many times in the state of Indiana.
"I was surprised. I was very surprised," Henderson said.
The surprise was partly because Henderson, defense attorneys and Gibson were in
the middle of jury selection when it happened.
They'd traveled to Vanderburgh County to try to find a jury not tainted by
previous media coverage.
Day one was long as both sides closely examined prospective jurors' views on
the death penalty.
"I'm going to assume that something occurred during that 12 hours sitting at
counsel table that caused him to have a change of mind," Henderson said.
The next morning, Gibson's attorney's said Gibson would plead guilty to killing
Kirk, a Charlestown woman who was last seen alive in March 2012.
Police found her buried in Gibson's yard the next month.
"There was no explanation in open court and no explanation to me either by the
attorneys," Henderson said.
Judge Susan Orth accepted Gibson's plea Tuesday afternoon.
Henderson said it saves his office time and saves the county the cost of a
2-week sequestered trial.
It also saves Kirk's family the emotional heartache that comes with sitting
through a trial.
"Any time we can avoid that, that's a positive. So here, pleading as charged,
it doesn't get any better," Henderson said.
Kirk's father, Tony Kirk, has wanted 2 things since his daughter's murder: for
Gibson to admit what he did and pay for it. He got 1/2 of that with Gibson's
plea. The rest will come in the sentencing phase at the end of July.
"Death penalty. Nothing less than that," Tony Kirk said. "No matter how many
days have passed, weeks have passed, or months passed, you catch yourself
thinking about it. It's unbelievable what a human being can do to another human
being."
That penalty phase begins July 28 and will last about 3 days.
Orth will decide whether to give Gibson the death penalty or life in prison.
Last fall, a jury sentenced him to death for the murder of Christine Whitis.
Earlier this year, Gibson pleaded guilty to killing Karen Hodella and received
a 65-year prison sentence for her death.
(source: WLKY news)
MISSOURI:
Why continue barbaric death penalty?
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster is looking for "a reliable supply of
deadly chemicals." Finding a stash for his state has become tough. The
suppliers want to remain secret.
The usual sources want out because it is hurting their reputation. Sounds like
a creepy scenario. Sadly, this is a description of the stumbling blocks that
death-penalty states have encountered in their quest to execute their citizens.
Koster, however, has a solution. He is suggesting that his state make its own
execution drugs (Associated Press article, Saturday's Dispatch). He said that
this would "weight transparency back into the execution process."
Missouri currently purchases its execution drugs in secret from compounding
pharmacies because medical professionals and pharmaceutical companies are
refusing to be involved in the process of execution. Strangely, Koster and many
others are primarily troubled by the secrecy issue, as if making state killing
more transparent will somehow make it less barbaric.
Shouldn't we at least question a process that most respected medical and
pharmacy professionals feel conflicts with their mission and will be a stain on
their reputations?
When no one wants to touch something with a 10-foot pole, can???t we assume
that there is something rancid at the other end of that pole?
It's time to join other civilized countries and abolish the death penalty. At
present, we find ourselves in the company of China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia
as the top executioners worldwide.
CAROL A. RAFFERTY
Columbus
(source: Letter to the Editor, Columbus Dispatch)
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