May 15
OHIO:
Parolee charged in slaying of ex-prison pen pal, friend in Parma Heights
invoked ‘Dexter,’ wanted to dismember bodies, prosecutor says
A prosecutor told a jury that the 44-year-old man accused of stabbing to death
his former prison pen pal and her friend planned to dismember their bodies in a
manner similar to TV serial killer “Dexter."
In the days after the May 11, 2017 killings in Parma Heights, Thomas Knuff Jr.,
asked a friend to buy him a table saw and told his son that he was worried what
evidence police may find on the fingertips of the bodies of John Mann, 65, and
Regina Capobianco, 50, the prosecutor said.
“He didn’t want them to find their fingertips,” Assistant Cuyahoga County
Prosecutor Anna Faraglia said. “'Just like in Dexter,' he told his son.”
Knuff never made good on his plan to cut up the bodies, prosecutors said.
Faraglia and defense attorney Craig Weintraub told jurors very similar accounts
of the lead-up to the killings during their opening statements on Monday in the
trial where Knuff is charged with aggregated murder and a slew of other
charges. Knuff faces the death penalty if convicted of the most serious
charges.
Prosecutors revealed more details about the grisly killings that happened
inside Mann’s house at the end of a cul-de-sac on Nelwood Road in Parma
Heights.
Pen-pals and paramours
Knuff befriended Capobianco through an inmate-to-inmate pen-pal service while
both were imprisoned in the late 2000s. Capobianco was sentenced to prison in
2009 after she pleaded guilty to felony drug possession charges and violated
probation, and Knuff was serving a dozen years for aggravated robbery.
At the same time, Knuff developed romantic feelings for Alicia Stoner, a social
worker at Trumbull Correctional Institution where Knuff was locked, Faraglia
said.
Faraglia described Stoner as Knuff’s “prison paramour” throughout her opening
statements. The social worker lost her job over her interactions with Knuff.
Knuff qualified for parole in April 2017. Mann and Capobianco arranged to pick
him up from prison, but their plans fell through. Knuff called Stoner who
picked him up and drove him to Cincinnati.
The 2 stayed there for several days. Knuff returned to the Cleveland-area
because the terms of his probation required him to live in Cuyahoga Count.
Stoner paid for him to stay in several motels in the Cleveland area, Faraglia
said.
Knuff reconnected with Capobianco and Mann, and the two invited him to stay at
Mann’s house in Parma Heights in early May 2017. Capobianco was on misdemeanor
probation at the time, and Knuff was not allowed to live with anyone on
probation as part of his parole, Faraglia said.
Only 1 of the 2 could stay with Mann, and he chose Knuff over Capobianco.
Stoner wired Knuff money so he could put up Capobianco in a hotel, but
Capobianco protested because she had been around longer than Knuff.
‘He wanted to eradicate them’
Prosecutors say that Knuff, who did not like the way Capobianco treated Mann
and decided to get rid of her, “in cold blood and with prior calculation and
design," stabbed both her and Mann several times in the home. Faraglia did not
say why prosecutors believe Knuff also killed Mann if his goal was to simply
remove Capobianco.
Knuff rolled up the bodies in blankets, dragged them to their bedroom, and left
the home, Faraglia said.
He asked Stoner to buy him garbage bags, a new pair of shoes and a table saw,
Faraglia said. He scrubbed blood from the home’s walls, cut out blood-soaked
portions of the carpet, stuffed the pieces in garbage bags and tossed them in
the hallway and in the basement, she said. He asked neighbors when the trash
would come, she said.
Then he sent Stoner a letter, asking her to hire a man to set fire to Mann’s
house, Faraglia said.
“He wanted to eradicate them,” Faraglia said. “He didn’t want them to ever be
found.”
Knuff stole a Jeep from his adult son and used it to break into two beauty
stores and steal hundreds of dollars in cash, the prosecutor said.
He drove down Interstate 71 to Medina County, where he pulled over onto the
median, got out of the SUV and pretended to hold a gun to his head until
someone called the State Highway Patrol, Faragalia said.
Troopers took him into custody and took him to the hospital, where doctors
amputated his nearly severed finger and gave him a psychological evaluation,
she said. He was released, and stayed with a revolving cast of his childhood
friends until his June 13, 2017 arrest.
A gruesome discovery
Residents back on Nelwood Road complained of a foul smell emanating from Mann’s
house, Faraglia said. Police went to the house on May 23, 2017 and went inside.
The officers found “a hoarder’s paradise,” Faraglia said. Garbage bags lined
the halls and rooms, and rotten meat lay on the table. Police believed the
smell was coming from the meat, disposed of it, and left without searching the
rest house, she said.
Capobianco’s sister grew concerned that she hadn’t heard from her sister and
went to the house herself on June 21, 2017.
The grass grew wild, weeks of mail piled on the front stoop and the air smelled
rotten, Faraglia said. The sister went into the house through the backdoor, and
noticed Capobianco’s heart medication on the piano.
A neighbor noticed the woman go into the house and called police. Officers
showed up and again went into the house, this time in hazmat suits, and a
sergeant found Mann’s skull in the bedroom. He called the county’s medical
examiner’s office, which also discovered Capobianco’s skull.
Both of the bodies were decomposed to the point that fluid had leaked through
the walls onto the outside of the house, which emitted the odor that neighbors
smelled, Faraglia said.
‘Maybes and what-ifs'
Weintraub in his opening statement declared the state’s entire case relied
solely on circumstantial evidence.
“There will be no evidence, other than speculation, whatsoever, that Thomas
Knuff committed 2 aggravated murders,” Weintraub said. “It’s a case that is
premised on maybes and what-ifs.”
Weintraub argued that Knuff had no motive to kill either Capobianco or Mann,
both of whom he cared deeply for. The motive belonged to Capobianco, Weintraub
said.
Knuff felt that Capobianco was taking advantage of Mann, and told Mann about an
elder abuse hotline, Weintraub said. When Mann and Knuff tried to kick
Capobianco out of the house, she attacked them, Weintraub said.
Knuff told investigators that Capobianco killed Mann and he killed her in
self-defense when he tried to intervene, prosecutors said. Toxicology reports
will show Capobianco had been drinking and taking drugs that night, Weintraub
said
Knuff panicked after the killings, Weintraub said. He feared no one would
believe his story of self-defense because he was on parole, and that he was
surely headed to back to jail, Weintraub said. So he resorted to getting high
and, in a drug-induced haze, broke into the stores to get some quick cash.
(source: cleveland.com)
TENNESSEE----impending execution
Governor won’t intervene in execution of Donnie Johnson
Gov. Bill Lee announced Tuesday evening he will not stop the execution of death
row inmate Donnie Johnson, who is set to be put to death Thursday.
“After prayerful and deliberate consideration of Don Johnson’s request for
clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence
of the state of Tennessee and will not be intervening,” Lee said in a
statement.
Johnson is scheduled to be executed Thursday for the 1984 murder of his wife,
Connie Johnson, whose body was found by authorities in a vehicle at the Mall of
Memphis.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to consider a challenge
of Tennessee’s method for lethal injection, a combination of drugs some
activists say fails to keep death row inmates from feeling terrible pain as
they are executed.
The 68-year-old Johnson did not choose a method for his death, according to
reports, leaving the state to select lethal injection rather than the electric
chair.
9 people in Tennessee have been executed since the state resumed executions in
2000. 57 men and 1 woman sit on death row, nearly 1/2 of them, 27, from Shelby
County.
Johnson was convicted in 1985 of killing his wife, suffocating her with a
garbage bag. He has denied murdering her.
Connie Johnson's daughter, Cynthia Vaughn, spoke about her stepfather's
conviction during a death penalty panel discussion at LeMoyne-Owen College in
March.
Vaughn said anger over her mother's death drove her to be a death penalty
proponent for many years, but she changed her position after forgiving Johnson
during a 2012 prison visit.
She told the audience she now believes “the death penalty for people in that
situation is horrible. The death penalty does victimize the victim’s family
members and the inmate’s family members.”
(source: dailymemphian.com)
*********************
Memphis killer moved to death watch as he waits to see if Gov. Lee will stop
his execution----Donnie Johnson brutally murdered his wife in 1984, but says he
is now a changed man. His victim's daughter has asked for mercy on his behalf.
A man convicted of killing his wife more than 3 decades ago has been moved to
death watch.
Donnie Johnson was sentenced to death for the 1984 murder of his wife, Connie
Johnson, in Memphis. Investigators said he suffocated her by stuffing a
30-gallon trash bag down her throat and left her body outside the Mall of
Memphis 2 weeks before Christmas.
He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Thursday.
Death watch is the 3-day period before an execution when the inmate is moved to
a cell adjacent to the execution chamber where he is under constant 24-hour a
day observation.
Only people on the inmates official visitation list are allowed to visit during
death watch, and no contact is allowed until the final day, and that's at the
discretion of the warden.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined this week to consider a challenge from
Tennessee death row inmates who say lethal injection is cruel and unusual
punishment. Johnson said he will not file any more legal challenges on Monday.
Instead he is hoping for mercy from the Governor, with a request that his
sentence be commuted to life without parole.
Attorney Robert Hutton has extensive experience with death penalty cases.
“The Governor always has power to commute any particular sentence has very
broad clemency powers,” Hutton said.
Hutton says the governor has several factors to consider. One being that the
jury at the time of Johnson’s sentencing did not have the option of life
without parole because it was not a choice in the early 1980's.
“You find many people end up voting for death, not because they think the
person deserves to die, but because they are afraid they’ll be released from
prison. We know in modern sentencing when juries have the option of life
without parole the number of capital convictions goes way down,” he said.
Hutton also says that Governor Lee can consider that Connie Johnson’s daughter
does not want her stepfather executed, and Johnson has been a model prisoner,
becoming a Christian and helping other prisoners convert to Christianity.
Hutton says in the past governors have said several days before a scheduled
execution what their decision is.
“It is hopeful Governor Lee has not said no as of this point,” he said.
At this point Governor Bill Lee is still considering Don Johnson’s application
for clemency
If Johnson is executed, he will be the 4th condemned man to die in Tennessee
since August, when the state began executing inmates at a steady clip. The 1st
was Billy Ray Irick, who murdered a 7-year-old girl in Knoxville.
(source: WBIR news)
**************************
Tennessee governors recall their agonizing death row decisions
Bob Clement remembers walking past his father's bedroom inside the governor’s
mansion when he was a boy. Gov. Frank Clement was on his knees leaning against
his bed, praying.
A man was about to die.
The life-or-death decisions placed on the shoulders of Tennessee’s governors
weighed mightily on the men in the moment and, for some, throughout their
lives.
Donnie Johnson is on death watch, scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday
for suffocating his wife with a 30-gallon trash bag just 2 weeks before
Christmas in 1984.
By Tuesday evening, Gov. Bill Lee had made his decision, declining offer
clemency.
Johnson will die Thursday.
‘The most difficult decision’
On the campaign trail, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam said he would uphold the
state constitution if presented with a death penalty decision. It took 8 years,
but by the time Haslam exited office he had overseen 3 executions.
Making a decision on capital punishment was “far heavier” than Haslam
anticipated and is something he thinks about from time to time, particularly
this week as Lee is making a decision.
“You’re actually talking about a real person, a real crime and real victims,
and the reality of it is at some point and time they look at you and say, ‘Do
you want us to go ahead?’ That’s about as sobering a moment you can have,” he
said.
Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen oversaw 5 executions as governor. He said few
have ever been through the experience of holding a person's life in your hands,
and there is no life experience to prepare you. He vividly remembers overseeing
his 1st execution, the death of Sedley Alley, in 2006.
“You’re sitting there, it’s 11 o’clock in the evening, and the Supreme Court
has said go ahead, and you’re the only person on earth with a 15-second phone
call who can bring this to an end and save this person’s life,” he said. “It’s
a very agonizing, unpleasant situation to be in.”
6 executions in 2 years
During Clement’s 1st 2 terms as governor, he oversaw 6 executions, all withina
2-year window from April 1955 to May 1957.
Bob Clement, the former U.S. congressman, said the childhood memory of his
father’s prayers is sharp..
“He knew all he had to do was pick up that phone, call the warden and stop the
execution,” he said.
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who served as Republican governor from 1979 to 1987,
never had to make the decision, although he almost did when a death-row inmate
temporarily stopped his appeals.
Alexander sought advice from others about how to handle death penalty clemency
ple, including Frank Clement's father, longtime Dickson city judge Robert
Clement. Frank Clement died an untimely death in 1969.
Donald Wayne Strouth was convicted of murdering a Kingsport businessman in
1978. He was scheduled to die in November 1981, but, with less than a month
remaining, exercised his final appeal. He died of natural causes in 2015.
“I thought about it a lot and prayed about it and worried about it,” Alexander
said. “It was the most difficult decision I could imagine having.
“For me, it separated itself from all other types of decisions the governor has
to make. I mean, there were prison riots, firings of Cabinet members, civil
rights disturbances (and) all of that, but this was all by itself.”
Tom Ingram, a Republican politico, was deputy and chief of staff to Alexander
during his 1st term as governor. He set up the meeting with the elder Clement.
“(The death penalty) was not something Lamar looked forward to at all,” he
said. “It was a sense of relief when the appeals moved it down the road and we
were fortunate in his 2 terms not to have to deal with it.”
Taking its toll over time
As Alexander tells it, Frank Clement used to visit death row and talk to the
prisoners before an execution date, even bringing the Rev. Billy Graham for one
of his visits.
Bob Clement said his father would meet with the victim’s family. It took a
toll.
“He really struggled with capital punishment, but what made it so tough on him
(was his visits),” Clement said. “I don’t know of any governor anywhere at any
time who did what he did, personally going out to the state penitentiary to sit
out with those on death row and talk with them 1 on 1.”
Alexander agreed.
“He worried about it the whole time he was governor, and (his father, Robert)
Clement thought it was probably what caused Frank to die an early death — his
drinking as a result of his agony over the death sentence,” he said. “So, it’s
a tough issue for the governor.”
Clement didn’t attribute his father's untimely death to the death penalty, but
said the decisions were always emotional for him.
“It was tough making those decisions. He did let some die, but he saved some of
their lives … that’s an overwhelming decision to make, and all you have to do
is pick up the phone and save someone’s life,” Clement said.
For Bredesen, “I’ve been able to put it out of my mind. I don’t agonize over it
in retrospect. You wait until the decision is right, you make a decision and
then go on with the next thing.”
Haslam said capital punishment decisions were just part of the job, albeit, not
those he wanted to have.
“It’s neither a decision that haunts me nor one that I just put out of my
mind,” he said. “It continues to be one that feels heavy and sobering, but I
think of those decisions as being ones that are part of the role.”
A matter of faith
Republican Gov. Don Sundquist oversaw the execution of West Tennessee’s Robert
Coe in 2000, the state’s 1st execution in 40 years, but said his faith didn’t
prohibit him from upholding the state’s constitution. “It’s still something
when you take somebody’s life, but I didn’t agonize over it. I agonized over
the crime and the fact that he’s guilty.”
Haslam said he spent time in prayer and spent hours calling people he respected
and getting their opinion. He was with his wife, Crissy, waiting by the phone
during the 3 executions.
“I think like everything you do in a role like this, you’re constantly praying
and thinking about what the right decision will be and talking with as many
people as we can so we can get (more) perspective on it,” he said.
Mike McWherter, former Democratic gubernatorial candidate and son of the late
Democratic Gov. Ned McWherter, said he and his father spoke about capital
punishment. Their ideas of the governor’s role were similar, ideas the younger
man was ready to adopt had he been elected.
“I remember my father telling me at the time that he didn’t like the concept,
but it was the law of the state of Tennessee and if he was going to swear to
uphold the laws and constitution, he would enforce it.”
Ned McWherter served 2 terms without an execution.
Commuting sentences
After overseeing 6 executions during his 1st 2 terms as governor, when Clement
won reelection after Gov. Buford Ellington served 4 years, he did away with the
death penalty altogether in 1965 and commuted the sentences of everyone on
death row. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down death penalty cases in 1972,
though the state rewrote the statute and reinstated the practice in 1975.
Executions did not resume until 2000 under Sundquist.
Thirty states and the federal government have the death penalty on the books,
but some of those states, including California, have imposed moratoriums,
according to Reuters. The vast majority of executions are carried out by a
handful of states. There were 25 U.S. executions last year.
Bredesen commuted the death sentences of 3 inmates as governor, including Gaile
Owens in 2010. She was released from prison a year later. Owens was sentenced
to death for hiring a hit man to kill her husband in 1984.
Bredesen commuted the death sentence of Michael Joe Boyd to life in prison
months before his execution date. Days before leaving office, he commuted the
death sentence of convicted murderer Edward Jerome Harbison to life in prison
without parole.
No other governor has commuted death penalty sentences, according to the Death
Penalty Information Center.
“The approach I decided was to say I’m not going to try to be the 13th juror …
I’m (not) looking at it and saying whether the person is guilty or anything. I
liked to think of it as being the final check on whether the system has worked
here.”
In these cases, he thought the system had failed the convicted based on similar
cases nationally or, as was the case with Boyd, that the convicted’s legal
representation failed them.
In Lee’s shoes
Before Lee had decided, Alexander said he wouldn’t advise the governor on what
to do but he’s “very sympathetic” for any governor who has to deal with the
death penalty, particularly someone of faith like Lee.
Earlier Tuesday, Ingram said he had not spoken with Lee about his pending
decision but could imagine what he was going through.
“Knowing him and knowing his faith and his compassion for people, I can imagine
(it’s hard). It’s easy to respect the judicial process, but at the end of the
day you have a life-or-death decision given to you by law. I think it’s
probably the most difficult and personal decision a governor is ever faced
with.”
Sundquist said Lee has to follow his principles and then make a decision.
“I wouldn’t tell him to do it or not do it. He’s going to have to reach that
conclusion. The only thing I’d do to reach it is to make sure (Johnson has) had
the appeal process required and that he’s guilty.”
(source: Knoxville News Sentinel)
*************************
My life could have ended on death row. Inmates deserve mercy too. My destiny
was changed by the hand of God, the color of my skin and the ZIP code where I
was raised.
[Bethany Roberts Mann is the mother of 4 daughters.]
I was born in prison.
I learned this at the age of 40 after receiving my birth records from the state
of Tennessee. This was quite a sobering discovery. I assume most adoptees have
a fantasy of how they were brought into the world. Beginning life with a drug
addled, incarcerated mother does not fit the illusion.
My biological mother gave birth to me at 18. I was her 4th child. She shot her
husband and was charged with the homicide in 1973, more than a year before my
birth.
She was uneducated, addicted and poor. I was taken into state custody, placed
into foster care and my remaining siblings were divided among extended family.
Eventually I was adopted by a 2-parent family in a predominantly white,
suburban, middle-class neighborhood with loving parents, and I never wanted for
anything for the remainder of my growing up.
I have never shared my story publicly, but my story is a story of grace and
hope. It is also a story filled with neglect, pain and poverty of the mind. I
share it now for one reason only. My story could have ended like so many I’ve
heard: addicted, in prison or on death row.
I have been visiting death row prisoners with my husband now weekly for almost
10 years after deciding to take the words of Jesus literally. These visits have
given me a perspective on grace and the need for redemption that can only be
seen through the eyes of those acutely in touch with their own mortality and an
understanding of their brokenness.
The lack of a quality legal defense is the greatest determining factor in
sentencing in death penalty cases. As the root of mass incarceration continues
to be ignored we turn a blind eye to the families that are destroyed and the
burden that falls on the poor and people of color as we disproportionately
incarcerate and, as in many cases, execute them.
Governor Lee should avoid taking an 'eye for an eye'
I have avoided most of the pitfalls that the story of my birth infers. My
destiny was changed by the hand of God, the color of my skin and the zip code
where I was raised.
I would appeal to Gov. Bill Lee to grant clemency to Don Johnson, the Memphis
man set for execution next week for the murder of his wife in 1984, based upon
my prayer that he is truly a man of faith and a man of reason.
Jesus was quite clear in his call for justice and mercy, telling His followers,
“You have heard it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell
you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps, you on the right cheek turn
to him the other also.” Matthew 5
Massive prison reform is needed, but until that day comes, can we truly call
ourselves Christ followers and not decry the killing of those to whom we are
told explicitly to show mercy and compassion?
I would ask Governor Lee to not let his legacy be one of vengeance.
(source: Opinion; Bethany Roberts Mann is the mother of 4 daughters. She lives
intentionally every day to break the cycle of poverty one life at a time----The
Tennessean)
NEVADA:
Convicted killer hears his own testimony 37 years later
As far as we know, it's unprecedented in Washoe County. A penalty hearing for a
convicted murderer being reenacted for a jury, 37 years after the original jury
heard the same words.
Tracy Petrocelli was convicted in 1982 of the murder of Reno car dealer James
Wilson and received the death penalty.
There have since been a number of appeals and two years ago, an appeals court
confirmed once again the conviction, but overturned the sentence. The issue was
the testimony of a psychiatrist who interviewed Petrocelli without the presence
of his attorney.
So, a new penalty hearing was ordered. The court decided the best way to handle
it after so many years was to have a new jury hear much of the testimony from
the original hearing--minus, of course, the psychiatrist's testimony that led
to the reversal.
So, the jury has been hearing it word for word, as if from a script, read by
Deputy District Attorney Luke Prengamen with responses from the witness chair
read by a series of stand-ins. The court has referred to them as 'actors'.
They're actually apparently drawn from local investigative staff.
So May 14, 2019, Petrocelli--now 37 years older, frail-appearing and in a
wheelchair, listened to his own testimony from 1982.
Much of it focused on conflicts between statements he made about the crime,
which he insisted was an accident as he and Wilson struggled over a gun while
they were on a test drive in a moving vehicle.
And, if it really was an accident, whether he had sought medical care for
Wilson.
Unlike his demeanor during opening statements last week, Petrocelli seemed to
listen with interest to his 37-year-old testimony. He's seeking to have his
sentence reduced to life without the possibility of parole, but once again his
life depends on the outcome of this hearing.
The hearing is expected to wind up before the end of the week.
Still to be heard, something that wasn't part of the trial or the hearing in
1982--impact statements from James Wilson's family.
(source: KOLO TV news)
USA:
Justice Dept. says FDA lacks jurisdiction to regulate drugs in executions
The Justice Department said in a legal opinion Tuesday that the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) does not have jurisdiction over drugs used in lethal
injections.
The DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel said that “articles intended for use in
capital punishment by a state or the federal government cannot be regulated as
‘drugs’ or ‘devices.’” Therefore, it stated, the FDA “lacks jurisdiction.”
The opinion was signed by Assistant Attorney General Steve Engel, an appointee
of President Trump.
The opinion is the result of a years-long dispute between Texas and the FDA
that began in 2015 when the agency blocked the Lone Star State from importing
shipments of an anesthetic from an overseas distributor. The FDA said the
importation was illegal because the drug was not approved in the U.S. and was
mislabeled.
Texas officially filed suit in 2017, shortly before Trump took office, saying
the FDA was meddling in its law enforcement obligations.
The Justice Department’s legal opinion sides with Texas in the suit, though it
is unclear if it will have immediate impact. The FDA has been operating under a
2012 court injunction prohibiting the drug, sodium thiopental, from being
imported.
The Justice Department has not indicated if it will fight to have the
injunction removed, an effort that could result in a lengthy court battle.
President Trump and both of his Senate-confirmed attorneys general, Jeff
Sessions and William Barr, have voiced support for capital punishment.
States have had difficulties in obtaining drugs for lethal injections in recent
years after drug companies objected to having their products used in
executions, causing a shortage in available materials, according to The
Washington Post. Some pharmaceutical companies have gone to court to prevent
their products from being used in lethal objections.
(source: thehill.com)
***********************
Supreme Court justices defend divergent death penalty views
Although the Supreme Court justices chose not to take up 2 petitions for review
submitted by death-row inmates from Alabama and Tennessee May 13, they didn’t
do so with a simple one-sentence rejection.
Instead, they made their reasonings and their divided views on capital
punishment clear with new opinions that “set the record straight” — in the
words of one of the opinions — offering reasons behind their recent death
penalty decisions.
The flurry of opinions issued May 13 — more than 30 pages in all — reviews the
high court’s responses to recent death penalty cases that appear contradictory.
In March, the court blocked the execution of Texas death-row inmate Patrick
Murphy because his Buddhist religious adviser wasn’t permitted to be present
but in February, the court allowed the execution of Domineque Ray, an Alabama
Muslim, to proceed even though Ray had appealed the state’s decision to deny an
imam’s presence at his execution.
On May 13, the court denied a review of an appeal from Christopher Lee Price in
Alabama, a death-row inmate who had been denied a last-minute stay of execution
in April over his challenge to the state’s lethal injection procedure.
In the 5-4 vote on his case, the court said the inmate had waited too long to
ask for a different form of execution. After the ruling, Justice Stephen Breyer
wrote a strongly worded dissent urging the justices to hold off on a decision
and discuss it in a private conference.
“To proceed in this way calls into question the basic principles of fairness
that should underlie our criminal justice system,” Breyer wrote.
Justice Clarence Thomas responded in writing to Breyer’s criticism May 13 as a
means to “set the record straight.” In a 14-page opinion, he said Breyer’s
claims contained “nothing of substance” and his legal analysis did not
“withstand even minimal legal scrutiny.” He added that Price’s strategy of
seeking another form of execution was simply to delay what was inevitable.
“It is the same strategy adopted by many death-row inmates with an impending
execution: bring last-minute claims that will delay the execution, no matter
how groundless,” Thomas wrote, adding that the proper response of the court
should be to “deny meritless requests expeditiously.”
The justices’ decision in the case came after Price was to have been executed.
He is now scheduled to be put to death May 30. The state set this new execution
date because the death warrant for Price had expired before the state could
execute him April 11.
On May 13, the court also denied review of the case of Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman, a
Tennessee death-row prisoner scheduled to be executed May 16. Abdur’Rahman and
other Tennessee prisoners had challenged the state’s lethal injection protocol
and state secrecy laws which prevents people from knowing how its lethal
injection drugs are obtained.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the court’s denial of a review of this
case and said it was “perverse” to require inmates to provide an alternative
execution method before they could successfully challenge an existing method.
In reexamining the death penalty cases that involved the presence of a
spiritual adviser, Justice Brett Kavanaugh — who opposed a stay of execution
for a Muslim inmate denied an imam’s presence but supported a stay for a
Buddhist inmate denied the presence of his spiritual adviser — explained his
reasonings May 13.
Kavanaugh said Ray, the Alabama Muslim who was executed in February, had not
claimed unequal religious treatment under the First Amendment and his demand
for an imam’s presence came too late.
He said Murphy, whose execution was stayed, raised an equal-treatment claim and
made his request for a Buddhist adviser’s presence a month before his scheduled
execution. At the time, Texas policy only allowed Christian or Muslim ministers
to be present, but the state has since changed its policy, banning all
religious ministers from the execution room but allowing inmates to choose
spiritual advisers to be in the viewing room.
One thing Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Thomas and Neil Gorsuch,
agreed on was that both cases reflect the problem of “inexcusably late stay
applications” arriving at the court.
In a separate filing, Alito, who opposed both stays of execution, stressed that
the court is presented with “claims that raised complicated issues that cannot
be adequately decided with hasty briefing and an inadequate record.”
(source: catholicphilly.com)
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