March 27
MARYLAND:
Bring back the death penalty in Md. ---- The man authorities describe as
'Public Enemy No. 1' will likely spend the next 50 years in prison at taxpayer
Baltimore's very own "Public Enemy No. 1" has been sentenced to life plus 240
years for a double murder ("Killer gets life plus 240 years, flips off top
prosecutor," March 24).
As a result, 27-year-old Darryl Anderson, who has "a long rap sheet," will
likely spend the next 50 years or so living off the Maryland taxpayers who were
so inclined to ban the state's death penalty in 2013.
Capital punishment was largely repealed because liberal forces were successful
in getting voters to believe the lie that it was a racial issue instead of a
judicial issue. Those voters believe the magic money tree will pay to cage up
these animals. Fools.
This creep is the poster boy for the death penalty: In the words of Assistant
Baltimore City State's Attorney Angela Diehl, "It is apparent from his 10-year
history [in the state prison system] it has done nothing to rehabilitate Mr.
Anderson."
To all those who were so overjoyed to see capital punishment repealed in our
state, just think about all the Darryl Andersons you are supporting. Maybe our
new governor can reintroduce a bill to repeal the death penalty ban. One can
only hope.
Brian Spector, Easton
(source: Letter to the Editor, Baltimore Sun)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Death penalty sought in murder case
A Hamptonville man who was charged with murder in the death of his mother
pleaded not guilty in Yadkin County Superior Court this week. The state will be
pursuing this as a death penalty case, said Yadkin County Clerk of Court Beth
Holcomb.
Andy Eric Collins, of 4161 Emily Drive, was charged with the 1st-degree murder
of his mother, Azelyne Collins, on March 13, 2014. According to a press release
from the Yadkin County Sheriff's Office, Azelyne Collins, 82, of 4748 Old
Highway 421, Hamptonville, was reported missing on Oct. 15, 2013.
Collins was reported missing by her daughter, Cindy McQueen, who arrived at her
mother's home on Oct. 15, 2013 to pick her up to attend the High Point
furniture market where the 2 had a sales booth.
Investigators determined that Collins had attended the High Point furniture
market on Oct. 14, 2013, and was last seen driving away from Darwin's
Restaurant on Hoots Road in Hamptonville later that day. A silver alert was
issued and a search conducted by the Yadkin County Sheriff's Office and local
and state agencies.
On Oct. 16, 2013 investigators discovered Collins' body in her silver Honda van
in a heavily wooded area off Rocky Branch Road in Hamptonville. Sheriff Ricky
Oliver said it was obvious upon discovery of the body that she did not die of
natural causes. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death as strangulation.
Investigators with the Yadkin County Sheriff's Office and the State Bureau of
Investigation canvased the neighborhood and began interviewing the family of
the victim. It was determined that the last person to see Collins alive was her
son Andy Collins, who lived a short distance from where the van was discovered.
According to court documents, the district attorney recently submitted a
2,800-page investigation report from the State Bureau of Investigation.
Collins' attorney also withdrew from the case this week. His new appointed
attorney will be David Freedman of Forsyth County. As the case is now a capital
case, Collins also will be appointed a second attorney. His next scheduled
court appearance is June 1.
(source: yadkinripple.com)
UTAH:
Why We Should Finally End The Death Penalty - For Good
The state of Utah just approved killing prisoners via firing squad - a
development that's at once deeply horrifying and, in a strange way,
encouraging. It's horrifying, because rather than recognizing the barbarism of
the death penalty, Utah is moving toward even greater barbarity in the service
of executions. But, perhaps the brutal image of a group of armed executioners
standing before a human being and pulling the trigger will help convince us,
once and for all, to finally bring an end to the death penalty.
The death penalty in America is already, rightfully, fraught with plenty of
controversy. After all, among the nations of the world, the U.S. is in the
distinct minority that still practice capital punishment. According to Amnesty
International, in 2013, only 22 countries carried out executions. The list
includes Sudan, Iran, Yemen, China, Somalia, and the United States.
And, our executions, arguably inherently inhumane, are getting more so: In
2014, a year in which the United States executed 35 people, at least 4 of the
executions were "botched," to use New Republic editor Ben Crair's words, making
it "the worst year in the history of lethal injection." In July, Arizona
attempted to execute Joseph Rudolph Wood III, but the drugs pumped into his
veins took almost two hours to work. A reporter who witnessed the execution
said Wood gasped 660 times before he died.
In April, executioners in Oklahoma pushed an IV through a vein in Clayton
Lockett's groin, causing the lethal drugs to accumulate in his tissue rather
than his bloodstream. In court documents, the prison warden described the scene
as "a bloody mess"; blood squirted onto Lockett's clothing as he writhed and
groaned in pain. The state was apparently going to stop the procedure, but then
Lockett had a heart attack and died - but not before a scene that a victim
services observer described as "like a horror movie."
But, rather than abandon the death penalty altogether, the fine leaders of the
State of Utah have enacted legislation mandating that, if the drugs for lethal
injection cannot be obtained - or, say, if the federal government soon bans
such drugs after the rash of botched executions - Utah will now just shoot
people. In the face of such a shortage, death by bullet is being presented as
an option to inmates there. "We are completely out of the drugs," Rep. Paul
Ray, the Republican legislator who sponsored the law, told the Los Angeles
Times. Lethal injection remains the state's default execution method, but 3 of
the 8 inmates currently on Utah's death row have reportedly opted for the
firing squad.
Even if you don't object to firing squads specifically, there's a compelling
reason to stop capital punishment altogether: We often kill innocent people.
Utah's move to expand its death penalty methods comes just a few weeks after
Glenn Ford, a man sentenced to death for 1st-degree murder in Louisiana in
1984, was exonerated and released from prison after 30 years. Ford joined a
list of now 151 people who have been proven innocent and freed from death row
since 1973 - 151 people who otherwise would have been killed.
In the wake of Ford's release, attorney Marty Stroud wrote a lengthy apology
for his role as the lead prosecutor in the murder trial. Stroud decried the
criminal justice system's knee-jerk enthusiasm for prosecution and conviction,
even in the face of innocence. He also decried the death penalty: "No one
should be given the ability to impose a sentence of death in any criminal
proceeding. We are simply incapable of devising a system that can fairly and
impartially impose a sentence of death because we are all fallible human
beings."
In fact, every 3 days in America someone is exonerated after having been
wrongfully convicted and sent to prison or death row. Since Black defendants
are significantly more likely to be subject to the death penalty and sentenced
to die - especially when the alleged victim is white - than white defendants on
trial for similar crimes, there's a discriminatory element to these deaths,
also.
"The clear reality is that the death penalty is an anathema to any society that
purports to call itself civilized," Stroud wrote. "It is an abomination that
continues to scar the fibers of this society and it will continue to do so
until this barbaric penalty is outlawed. Until then, we will live in a land
that condones state-assisted revenge, and that is not justice in any form or
fashion."
Utah previously banned executions by firing squad in 2004, but death row
inmates sentenced before then could still request the method. The state last
executed someone by firing squad in 2010. In 1977, Utah was also the 1st state
to execute someone after the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in
1976. That execution was also by firing squad. The process then, which
presumably will be duplicated now, entailed literally pinning a target on the
chest of the condemned and positioning 5 sharpshooters behind a wall about 25
feet away. One of the shooters would fire a blank so that none of the shooters
knew who actually deployed the lethal round. It's a fascinating series of
efforts to insulate the shooters, and by extension the state, from confronting
the obvious heinousness of this act.
But, it may be good for the American people to finally confront what the death
penalty really is - a way for an often biased and definitely flawed government
body to end a human's life. It is brutal and violent and, well, "like a horror
movie."
Utah Rep. Paul Ray defended his new legislation by quipping in that L.A. Times
interview, "We could argue all day about what is more humane." And, he has a
point: Is it more "humane" to execute someone by injection than by bullet? Is
that even the right question to be asking? It's clear that the most humane
option by far is to stop executions altogether.
(source: refinery29.com)
*****************
Why Utah is bringing back the firing squad for executions
The future of executions in Utah may not be lethal injections, but rather 5
professional shooters firing at a prisoner's heart.
On Monday, Utah became one of the few states to allow firing squads for
executions after Gov. Gary Herbert signed a law approving this controversial
method as a backup if the state can't restock its depleted supply of lethal
injection drugs.
During a firing-squad execution, a prisoner is seated in a chair that's stacked
with sandbags to prevent bullets from ricocheting, according to the Associated
Press. 5 shooters, picked from a pool of trained volunteers, aim their rifles
through slots on a wall and target the prisoner's chest (because it's a larger
target than the head). If the shooters hit, the prisoner's heart should rupture
and cause a relatively quick death from blood loss.
It's unclear whether Utah will run out of execution drugs and actually use the
firing squad on any of the 8 prisoners on death row who didn't choose the form
of execution before 2004, when the state last allowed the option.
But the state's fallback to what seems like such a gruesome and outdated form
of execution demonstrates the depth and danger of the lethal injection drug
shortage, which has left the future of the death penalty unclear in Utah,
Texas, Oklahoma, and the 29 other states where the practice is legal, and added
a new angle to the perennial debate about the morality and effectiveness of
capital punishment.
European pharmaceutical companies are making it really hard to get lethal
injection drugs
Over the past few years, a shortage of sodium thiopental, a key drug in lethal
injections, has left states scrambling for alternative ways to execute
prisoners and has inspired some to shroud the process in secrecy.
The shortage began around 2010, when drug suppliers around the world, including
the US, began refusing to supply drugs for the injections - out of either
opposition to the death penalty or concerns about having their products
associated with executions.
"The drugs were being cut off right and left," Deborah Denno, a death penalty
expert at Fordham University, said.
Hospira Inc. was the sole US supplier of sodium thiopental, according to Denno.
But Hospira stopped producing the drug in 2011, after struggling to procure
active ingredients for its production and fielding legal threats from
authorities in Italy, where the death penalty is vehemently opposed.
Some states still managed to import sodium thiopental from shadier overseas
sources. But beginning in 2012, the US District Court of the District of
Columbia issued several rulings banning imports of the drugs, deciding that the
imported supplies didn't meet FDA regulations.
As the shortage continued, states turned to other European companies for
alternative drugs, such as phenobarbital and propofol, that are typically used
as sedatives for surgeries. But these companies - under pressure from a
European Union export ban, activists like Reprieve, and foreign governments
that prohibit the death penalty - over time refused to supply the drugs.
As these companies either stopped supplying drugs or were unable to export to
the US, states began to look for new - and sometimes untested - ways to execute
prisoners.
Unregulated compounding pharmacies made up for the shortage
With pharmaceutical companies out of the picture, states resorted to
compounding pharmacies to make the drugs, which until now escaped most
regulations since they did small, mostly out-of-sight transactions with
individuals, not major customers. The US-based pharmacies began to produce
experimental, sometimes secretive cocktails for states' executions.
Compounding pharmacies were originally meant to make custom drugs for
individual people, not major buyers like state governments, Denno said. As a
result, their drug cocktails can often be very shoddy - Georgia stopped an
execution because its lethal injection drug was "cloudy" - and have been
decried as experimental and dangerous by civil rights groups such as the
American Civil Liberties Union.
But even compounding pharmacies may soon stop providing execution drugs to
states. The International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists on March 24
announced that it "discourages its members from participating in the
preparation, dispensing, or distribution of compounded medications for use in
legally authorized executions."
Producing lethal injection drugs "is only going to invite further scrutiny"
The stance may be a way for compounding pharmacies, which are largely
unregulated, to avoid the extra regulatory scrutiny that can come with
producing lethal injection drugs. "These compounding pharmacies already have
enough of a [public relations] issue," Denno said. Massachusetts, for instance,
in 2014 passed a law cracking down on compounding pharmacies after a local
company's drugs were implicated in the deaths of more than 60 people. Producing
lethal injection drugs, Denno said, "is only going to invite further scrutiny."
But instead of stepping up regulations, some death penalty states have adopted
measures to shield compounding pharmacies that provide lethal drugs from
outside scrutiny.
In December, Ohio passed a law that will keep suppliers of lethal drug
injections anonymous. John Murphy, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting
Attorneys Association, which supports the law, said last December that the
changes are not meant to make the execution process more secretive. "This just
protects the identity of the people involved so they don't get harassed,
intimidated, or attacked," he told me.
Several states botched executions in the past year
The drug shortage hasn't only led to concerns about market forces, regulations,
and supply and demand. It's also raised important constitutional questions
about cruel and unusual punishment, as the shortage has led some states to try
experimental and unpredictable drugs for executions.
Since 2014, there have been several high-profile botched executions - described
in gruesome detail in the press - all of which have involved secretive,
experimental uses of midazolam, a sedative critics such as the ACLU say is
unfit for executions.
Here are some of the cases:
Dennis McGuire, Ohio: McGuire took 26 minutes to die after the state used a
mixture of hydromorphone and midazolam, according to Cincinnati's CityBeat.
McGuire gasped and snorted before he died.
Clayton Lockett, Oklahoma: Lockett struggled violently and groaned after the
state injected a combination of midazolam, vecuronium bromide, and potassium
chloride, the Guardian reported. State officials halted the execution, but
Lockett died of a heart attack 43 minutes after the drugs were injected.
Joseph Wood, Arizona: Wood took nearly two hours to die after the state used a
mixture of hydromorphone and midazolam, according to the Guardian. Wood, who
gasped and gulped before he died, was injected with 15 times the amounts called
for in the state's execution protocol by the time he was pronounced dead.
These botched executions drew criticism and put an unwanted spotlight on the
use of experimental lethal drugs, which critics say is a violation of
constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. Some states,
including Ohio and Oklahoma, have delayed further executions as they review
their practices.
Denno expects these problems to continue as states struggle to replace superior
drugs like sodium thiopental. "Every time a state changes to a new drug, it
introduces a degree of uncertainty," Denno said. "These drugs aren't the 1st
choice."
Untested drugs are dangerous, but botched executions aren't new
Botched executions have been around as long the death penalty. About 7 % of
lethal injections and 3 % of all executions between 1890 and 2010 were botched,
according to Austin Sarat's Gruesome Spectacles.
Part of the reason states began using lethal injection drugs is because the
previously preferred method of execution for many states, electrocution, often
had horrifying results, including the eruption of burned flesh and even live
fires as prisoners gasped for air and slowly died.
"We have really incompetent people doing this"
But lethal injections carry problems beyond the drugs used for the procedures
that may make them even more prone to being bungled. For one, most doctors -
who are likely the most qualified to administer the deadly drugs - won't
participate in executions because administering a deadly drug to kill someone
would violate professional ethics. In 2010, the American Board of
Anesthesiologists voted to revoke the certification of any member who
participates in executing a prisoner.
As a result, states aren't typically able to bring in the best-trained doctors,
particularly anesthesiologists, to administer drugs that are very dangerous
when mishandled. "We have really incompetent people doing this," Denno said.
In Oklahoma, the doctor and paramedic who participated in Clayton Lockett's
botched execution said they received no training, the AP reported. The
execution team administered needles that weren't long enough for the procedure,
and caused what a state official called a "bloody mess" when the doctor tried
to set an IV line in Lockett's groin and blood gushed out.
In addition to physically botching an execution, it's always possible the state
will execute an innocent person. An April 2014 study published in PNAS, a
scientific journal, suggested that at least 4 5 of people sentenced to death in
the US are likely innocent. At least 6 people were exonerated of death
sentences in 2014, according to a January report from the National Registry of
Exonerations.
States are looking for other ways to execute people
So far, Denno of Fordham University has tracked 3 states that are moving toward
alternatives to lethal injection should they run out of drugs. Tennessee
reinstated the possibility of the electric chair, Utah has allowed the firing
squad again, and Oklahoma is considering using gas chambers.
These methods of executions were largely abandoned 50 years ago. After the
Supreme Court forced states in 1972 to reform their execution procedures to be
less racially discriminatory, states began mostly using lethal injections.
States could potentially seek out different drugs to continue using lethal
injections and avoid execution methods that are widely seen as more gruesome.
But states are also likely wary of repeating the same problems they've
experienced with the current batch of drugs. "The same thing is going to
happen," Denno said. "This has been a cycle: every time states have tried to do
it, they've been cut off."
But many of the methods of execution that don't involve injected drugs have
major problems.
Denno predicted the gas chamber will likely turn into "a disaster." She said it
has the same issues as lethal injection drugs: it's unclear where states would
get the chemicals required for the executions, and whatever chemicals are used
may not be suitable for a quick, relatively painless death. It also recalls
ghastly memories of World War II, when the Nazis used gas chambers to kill
prisoners in death camps.
The firing squad is "the quickest, the surest, and you have trained
executioners to do it"
Electrocution and hanging were abandoned in the first place because they often
resulted in botched executions. Electrocutions caused burned skin or live fires
during multiple executions, and hangings could go very wrong when the rope
broke or the prisoner was decapitated.
Denno argued Utah's method, the firing squad, may turn out to be the most
humane of the available options, even above lethal injections. "It's the
quickest, the surest, and you have trained executioners to do it," she said.
Rob Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center said
states are dealing with the reality that there's no humane way of killing
someone. "All the methods of execution have problems," Dunham said. "The
involuntary termination of another person's life by execution is an inherently
violent act."
Of course, states may be able to come up with another method entirely ??? or
repeal the death penalty altogether. But at least for now, states appear to be
sticking to the traditional ways of executing prisoners.
Why the death penalty persists
Capital punishment persists through drug shortages and botched executions
because it still has strong public support in the US, which puts pressure on
lawmakers to find alternatives to lethal injection drugs rather than abolishing
the death penalty in the 32 states where it's still legal.
America's support for the death penalty stands in sharp contrast with Europe,
where only Belarus, a pro-Moscow dictatorship, still allows capital punishment.
An October 2014 Gallup poll found 63 % of Americans support the death penalty,
while 33 % oppose it.
Support for the death penalty gets a little more complicated when Americans are
asked about specific methods of execution. An NBC News poll from May 2014 found
nearly 2/3 of voters support alternatives to lethal injection if the needle
isn't an option. But most US adults told YouGov in a February 2015 survey that
the gas chamber, electric chair, firing squad, hanging, and beheading are cruel
and unusual punishment, while lethal injection isn't.
Support for the death penalty also varies from state to state. Executions are
much more culturally and legally ingrained in the South and, to a lesser
extent, the West than in the rest of the country. 18 states have abolished the
death penalty, most of which are in the Northeast and Midwest, according to the
Death Penalty Information Center.
So while popular support generally pressures lawmakers to find alternatives to
lethal injections, that's not necessarily true in all parts of the country, and
most US adults don't appear to support all methods of execution.
Regardless of what lawmakers do, it's also true that the number of executions
has been dropping for years. A report from the Death Penalty Information Center
found the number of executions hit a 20-year low in 2014.
The Supreme Court will hear a challenge from Oklahoma about lethal injection
drugs
After Oklahoma botched the execution of Clayton Lockett, 3 prisoners sued the
state to challenge its method of execution.
The underlying question for the Supreme Court is whether midazolam, the
sedative used in Lockett's execution, is a suitable lethal injection drug. In
2008, the Supreme Court ruled in Baze and Bowling v. Rees that a different
3-drug lethal injection protocol used by states at the time was constitutional.
But inmates argue that any protocol with midazolam isn't substantively similar
to the previous method of lethal injections, since it appears to be less
effective. That should be grounds, the inmates argue, for ending the use of
midazolam.
Experts are very cautious about predicting how the Supreme Court will rule. But
it's likely, Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center said, that the
court will focus exclusively on midazolam and Oklahoma's protocol, instead of
making sweeping judgments about the death penalty as a whole.
"The Supreme Court's general rule is to only decide what's before it," Dunham
said. "So it's probably not going to have global implications. It's only going
to address the constitutional issues in Oklahoma."
Still, if the Supreme Court rules against midazolam, it could force states to
speed up searches for other execution methods - and that could lead to more
states bringing back old tactics, like Utah's firing squad.
(source: vox.com)
IDAHO:
9th Circuit dismisses Duncan's appeal of death sentence
The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has rejected claims from attorneys for
multiple murderer Joseph Duncan that the killer was incompetent to waive
appeals of his death sentence, and dismissed the appeal that defense attorneys
filed on his behalf.
The attorneys still could seek an en banc rehearing from the 9th Circuit or
appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the ruling is a significant step in the
case of Duncan, who faces the death penalty 3 times over for the 2005
kidnapping, torture and murder of a 9-year-old North Idaho boy, Dylan Groene.
"They upheld our arguments," said Rafael Gonzalez, first assistant U.S.
Attorney for Idaho. "We're very satisfied with the court's ruling."
Duncan, 52, is on death row at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. He pleaded
guilty to all charges after his murderous attack on the Groene family at their
North Idaho home, in which he killed 3 family members before kidnapping the 2
youngest children, 1 of whom he later also killed. Only the youngest daughter,
then 8, survived. He has received multiple life sentences for his crimes, in
addition to the triple death sentence.
At his federal death penalty sentencing trial in 2008, Duncan dismissed his
attorneys and insisted on representing himself. On Nov. 15, 2008, he wrote a
letter to U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge saying, "This is to inform the court
that if any appeal is initiated on my behalf, it is done contrary to my
wishes."
His standby defense attorneys maintained he wasn't mentally competent to waive
his appeal, and filed an appeal to the 9th Circuit on his behalf, against his
wishes. 2 years later, in 2010, Duncan said he'd changed his mind about
appealing, based on his mother's wishes; his defense attorneys have pressed his
case since then.
A 3-judge panel of the 9th Circuit ruled that Judge Lodge correctly determined,
after a lengthy competency hearing in open court, that Duncan was mentally
competent when he waived his right to appeal. And they ruled that it was too
late to change his mind 2 years later, and dismissed the appeal.
"For the victims, it's a long road," Gonzalez said. "But we just keep taking it
step by step to ensure that justice is done."
U.S. Attorney for Idaho Wendy Olson, who was traveling on Friday, personally
argued the case to the 9th Circuit on March 17. "Competent defendants can waive
their right to appeal, even in a capital case," she told the appeals court in
San Francisco.
The speedy ruling, just 10 days later, shows the judges agreed.
(source: Spokesman-Review)
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