Death Penalty

We have heard from out partners in the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty that House Bill No. 8, also known as "Jessica's Law," has been placed on the emergency calendar and is set for a vote on the floor of the Texas House tomorrow, February 28th.  Jessica's law is one of several bills in state legislatures around the country that attempt to expand the death penalty to additional crimes and circumstances.  As TCADP explains in their talking points memo regarding the bill:

Jessica's Law, HB 8 and SB 68, would expand sentencing for child sex offenders to 25 years for a first time offense and the death penalty for a second time offense.  This expansion is of great concern to victim's groups, prosecutors, sex offender experts, and death penalty abolitionists.  This expansion would be for a crime that does not include murder.  Legal experts expect the Supreme Court to overrule this expansion once appeals reach them from other states that have already passed this version of Jessica's Law. But we must not wait for the Supreme Court. The fiscal aspect of this expansion is also of great concern. We must stop this expansion of the death penalty now!  Please contact your state lawmakers, write letters to the editor, spread the word, this is bad public policy.

Amnesty International USA joins TCADP in urging our Texas members to contact their legislators and urge them to oppose this legislation.  To find your legislator and that legislator's contact information, you can use the "Who Represents Me?" form on the Texas Legislature's website.  For other tips contacting legislators regarding this bill, please check out the "Contact Lawmakers" page on TCADP's website and their Talking Points Memo on the bill.   

The good news from Montana continues!  Last Friday the Montana Senate voted 27-22 to approve Senate Bill 306, which would abolish the death penalty in Montana.  The bill now heads to the House, where it is likely to face stiffer opposition.  Although the vote followed party lines to a large extent (Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed), at least a few Senators voted against their party's position.  An Associated Press article on the vote can be found here.

Also last Friday, but in the First State, a federal judge has now made Delaware's statewide stay of executions official.  Chief Judge Sue Robinson did this by granting class action status to a lawsuit challenging the state's lethal injection practices as cruel and unusual punishment.  While a de facto stay has been in place in Delaware since last May, Judge Robinson's order now officially extends this stay to all the inmates on Delaware's death row.  An article in the News Journal reports that Judge Robinson rejected arguments by the state that granting class action status would deprive inmates of their right to "volunteer" for execution.      

The state of Texas executed Newton Burton Anderson by lethal injection last night.  Newton Anderson's execution was Texas' 5th in the year 2007 (there have been only 6 in total, with one in Oklahoma) and the 145th of Rick Perry's term as Governor.  Although the 152 executions during George Bush's tenure were a record for a Texas Governor, Rick Perry will surpass that number if the currently scheduled executions go forward.  The next scheduled execution is that of Donald Miller, who is scheduled to be put to death on February 27, 2007.  Click here for more information on Donald Miller's case and Amnesty International's on-line action asking Rick Perry to grant Donald Miller a reprieve.

The Associated Press reported Newton Anderson's last words:

"For all those that want this to happen, I hope you get what you want and it makes you feel better and gives you some kind of relief," Newton Anderson said as he looked at relatives and friends of the couple. "I don't know what else to say."  Looking toward another window where his sister was sobbing, he said, "For those that I have hurt, I hope after a while it gets better."

Anderson told them several times that he loved them. "I am sorry. That's it. Goodbye."

Seven minutes later at 6:17 p.m. CST, Anderson was pronounced dead.

In a handwritten statement distributed after his death, Anderson again apologized to the family of his victims.

"I only want to say that for the last eight years I have had to leave with my guilt and shame. I know I was wrong and now I give my life," he wrote.

He concluded, "I give my life. I hope it is enough for everyone. If things could be undone, I would do it, I would do it!!:"

The full article on the execution and murders can be found here. 

The Indiana Assessment Team of the American Bar Association's Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project has been examining the death penalty system in Indiana for the past 20 month to determine compliance with the ABA's death penalty protocols and other issues.  The team has now released its full report, which finds that Indiana is in compliance with only 10 of the 93 relevant protocols, and recommends that Indiana temporarily halt executions until it can reform the process.  Among other things, the report recommends changes to the appointment of defense counsel, data collection on death penalty cases, and the passage of laws to prohibit excution of those with mental retardation and severe mental illness.  The full report runs to nearly 400 pages, and the ABA has also released an executive summary of the assessment team's findings and recommendations and a compliance chart showing where Indiana stands on the various protocols.  Indiana is the fifth of eight states that the ABA project intends to assess.  The next three are Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.   

from the diaries of the tennessee dude...

yesterday was well nigh a momentous day in the movement to end the most wasteful, inaccurate, and failed public policy in the country - capital punishment...

shari silberstein, one of the acutely talented minds that seem to emerge from equal justice usa, shared some of the things that happened in hearing on ending the death penalty in maryland yesterday:

"...the Governor not only had an op-ed in the Washington Post on the day of our abolition bill hearings, but he came to testify in both the House and the Senate.  At least in Maryland, governors virtually never testify on bills that they didn't introduce, so his decision to do so is no small thing.  The first of the Thursday morning stories is here, from the Baltimore Sun...

...Also testifying were a sitting and a former State's Attorney, a former Attorney General, and a former assistant State's Attorney, as well as exonerees, victims' family members, and religious leaders.  Thanks to a press conference with six exonerees, Kirk Bloodsworth was all over the evening news across the state.  Kirk, Ray Krone, Vicki Schieber, and Bonnita Spikes were all excellent (as always!), and the rooms were packed..."

holy wow that's a lot of elite heavy hitters lining up to stop the diversion of taxpayers $$$ from wastefulness back into victim's services and crime prevention...

keep posted here for the committee votes in the maryland house and senate when they come down...this is exciting!

peace out <3

Former Maryland Governor Harry R. Hughes, who led the state from 1979 to 1987, has added his voice to the abolition chorus in Maryland.  In a letter to the Washington Post titled "Kill Maryland's Death Penalty," Governor Hughes wrote:

Today, Maryland's lawmakers face their own life-or-death decision. I urge them to take the only logical path and put an end to Maryland's system of capital punishment.

I stand with Gov. Martin O'Malley in saying it's time to give up on this failed policy. My opinion is that executions demean us as a society. I also join with the majority of Marylanders who believe that on a practical level, the system is rife with problems that cannot be solved.

There are currently two identical death penalty repeal bills in the Maryland House and Senate--HB 225 and SB 211.  Governor O'Malley has already indicated that he supports the abolition legislation and would sign it into law. 

from the diaries of the tennessee dude...

amnesty international began using the tagline the america i believe in as part of it's stop torture campaign some time last year and i for one was really moved and motivated by it...for me there are the american ideals that are laid out in the constitution and the bill of rights and then there's the america in action that has fallen short of living up to those values..,.an america whose foreign policy under the current administration has embraced extraordinary rendition and torture as tactics that in the end make us less safe and move us farther away from peaceful and mutually beneficial relationships...

but it appears that on the domestic front as regards the public policy we refer to as the death penalty we are moving closer to the america i believe in with each passing day...

me and the abolition intern have brought ya'll up to date on some of the state-level fronts where serious citizen initiated challenges have emerged to challenge capital punishment as a policy that is administered in a way that is contrary and fundamentally in opposition to our core cosntitutional values...like all human beings are treated equal under and before the law...

so i read with great alacrity that the washington state legislature is considering a bill that would stay executions until july 1, 2008, and empanel a task force to review whether the death penalty is imposed fairly and uniformly...

if keeping up with the jonses means embracing rather than rejecting our core constitutional values of fairness, equality, and equal justice by calling for time-outs on executions and truly studying the adminstration of an irreversible sanction then consider me fully embedded in the ol' rat race...

click here to read more in the intelligencer...

peace out <3

from the diaries of the tennessee dude...

back on february 8th (my sister's birthday - hi glendal!) we reported about some big goings on in big sky country... about this year's legislative push for abolition in montana...

and yesterday we heard that "the state shouldn't be in the business of killing people," from members of their senate panel as they recommended the death penalty be abolished...that's right boyz n' girlz, the senate judiciary committee endorsed the bill, 8-4, sending it to the senate floor for further debate, as montana joins a number of states scrutinizing capital punishment...

now opponents trotted out this euphemistic inaccuracy - capital punishment can be a deterrent to criminals, and must be kept on the books as an option for prosecutors...

PUHLEEEEEEEZ! ... let's get it straight --- not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true, not true...

which part of NOT TRUE don't they get??? click here to get all the debunking on this myth...what's it a euphemism for??? "uh, let's go get us some vengeance or sumpin',"...or sumpin, sumpin sumpin like that...

and supporters of the bill??? -

"I don't think we always know who's innocent and who's guilty," Sen. Carol Williams, D-Missoula, said. "As long as I feel there's the potential that somebody may be innocently convicted of something, I think the government shouldn't be in the business of executing Montanans."

so a big shout out - WOOT WOOT - to all you activists, organizers, legislators, mommas, poppas, and misc. et. al.s in the big sky state of montana who have worked so hard to get to this point...maybe this year, or next but soon...

for a full article click here...

peace out <3

from the abolition intern...

I don't want to tread on the tennessee dude's territory here, but an article from the Nashville City Paper brought something to my attention that I think warrants special mention on this blog.  Apparently, late last month Tennessee Representative Mike Turner wrote a letter to Governor Bredesen asking the Governor to pardon Paul House, an inmate on Tennessee's death row since 1986.  Such an act by a sitting legislator is rare, but the injustice of Paul House's case appears to have affected Mike Turner deeply.  First, new evidence (including DNA evidence) in House's case now makes it very probable that House is innonent of the crime for which he was convicted, and the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that "it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror viewing the record as a whole lack reasonble doubt."  Second, House not only remains in prison and on death row pending further judicial action, but he is suffering and may die from multiple sclerosis before he is either exonerated by the courts or granted a new trial.  Mike Turner's letter, as reported in the Nashville City Paper, includes the following:

"I am convinced that the courts in their deliberations will eventually free Paul, but the legal process is slow and he is already under a sentence of death as he is a very sick man," Turner wrote in his June 30 letter to Bredesen.

"What a shame and what a blemish it would be upon our great state to have an innocent man die in prison," the letter continued. "I would respectfully ask you to pardon Paul House and send him home to his family."

What a shame and blemish indeed.  So, if House's innocence (or at least absence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt) is so compelling that both the U.S. Supreme Court and a State Representative have notice,d why isn't he free yet?  The answer to that is a classic example of the limitations on the appellate process in the U.S.

Paul House's case has for some years now been working its way through the federal system on the basis of new evidence and other claims concerning the original trial.  His original trial was in state court, but his state remedies have already been exhausted.  Although federal courts can and do review such cases, their review is limited and the courts tend to be highly reluctant to challenge judgements made at the state level, particularly in the absence of a new trial on the facts.  As a result of the reigning statutes and court decisions on this issue, when Paul House's case reached the Supreme Court, he had to meet the excruciatingly narrow requirement of a "compelling claim of actual innocence" in order for his case to go forward.  And he did.

Some of the factors that helped House meet this standard, in the words of the Supreme Court:

DNA testing has established that the semen on [the victim's] nightgown and panties came from her husband . . . not from House. ...

We now know, though the trial jury did not, that an Assistant Chied Medical Examiner believes the blood on House's jeans must have come from autopsy samples; that a vial and a quarter of autopsy blood is unaccounted for; that the blood was transported to the FBI together with the pants in conditions that could have caused the vials to spill; that the blood did spill at least once during its journey from Tennessee authorities through FBI hands to a defense expert; that the pants were stored in a plastic bag bearing both a large blood stain and a label with [an agent's] name; and that the styrofoam box containing the blood samples may well have been opened before it arrived at the FBI lab. ...

[I]n the post-trial proceedings House presented troubling evidence that . . . the victims's husband himself could have been the murderer.

Based on these and other factors, the Supreme Court ruled that this was "the rare case" where a convict had met the Court's high standard of a "compelling claim of actual innocence."  Unfortunately for Mr. House, the Supreme Court also held that his was "not a case of conclusive exoneration," which means that it must return to lower courts where House can now pursue his claims further.  In other words, Paul House remains guilty in the eyes of the system until he can actually prove his own innocence, despite the fact that the Supreme Court believes he could not be convicted of the crime based on the current evidence.  In the meantime, House's degenerative disease continues its work destroying his body, and his wrongful imprisonment continues.  Those interested in reading the Court's full opinion, rendered last June, can find it here.

Mike Turner should be commended (and supported) for seeing the manifest injustice of the situation.  In some ways, this is not even a death penalty issue, since it seems almost certain that Paul House will not be executed.  But he may very well die in prison, as a direct result of the state's action, and certainly he will have lost much in his 20 years behind bars.  His medical condition brings the injustice of Paul House's case into sharp focus.  If justice matters to us, the collapse of the case against him should at least set Paul House free while the courts continue with their work.  Cheers to Mike Turner for recognizing this truth, and for urging Governor Bredesen to action.  If only more politicians could be like Mike....   

The U.N. Observer reported yesterday that the executions of Wassan Talib, Zainab Fadhil and Liqa Omar Muhammad are expected to occur on March 3rd. 

Wassan Talib and Zeynab Fadhil were sentenced to death by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI) on August 31, 2006 for the 2005 murder of several members of Iraqi security forces in the Baghdad district of Hay al-Furat. Both women denied they had been involved, and Zeynab Fadhil reportedly claimed that she was abroad at the time of the killings.

Liqa' Qamar was sentenced to death on February 6, 2006 by the CCCI, for a kidnapping which reportedly took place in 2005. Her husband is said to have been detained and accused of the same crime. No further details are available.

All three women are held at Baghdad's al-Kadhimiya Prison. Two have young children with them: Zeynab Fadhil her three-year-old daughter, Liqa' Qamar her one-year-old daughter, who was born in prison.

All three women, along with Samar Sa'ad ‘Abdullah, were the subject of an Amnesty International Urgent Action circulated on February 9th, before their execution dates were known.  A copy of the full Urgent Action, which includes contact information for the relevant Iraqi officials and advice on how to effectively send letters and emails, is attached below.

UA_33-07.doc   

Kansans opt against death penalty
By Scott Rothschild (Contact)
Lawrence Journal World

Topeka - Death penalty opponents Monday released a poll showing most Kansans prefer alternatives to capital punishment.

But a spokesman for the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty said he expects it will take a long time to persuade legislators to abolish the death penalty.

"We've been at this a long time," said Ben Coats. "If this takes as long as I've got, I'm going to continue doing it."

The poll of 500 frequent Kansas voters showed that nearly two-thirds would prefer a sentence of life in prison without parole, in which the inmate would work in prison to pay restitution to victims' families.

"There is not an overwhelming support for the death penalty where there is an alternative available," Coats said.

The poll also found that many Kansans thought capital punishment was handed out unfairly.

Fifty-seven percent of those responding believe that some people are executed while others serve prison terms for the same type of offense.

Even so, Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said there probably would be no movement during the current session on a bill to abolish the death penalty.

"No one has come to me and asked for a hearing on the bill," Vratil said.

The poll was conducted Jan. 20-21 by Jayhawk Consulting Service. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.

The poll also showed that many Kansans were unfamiliar with alternatives to the death penalty already in state law, such as the sentence of 50 years in prison without the possibility of parole.

Kansas has gone back and forth on the death penalty. It was repealed in 1907, reinstated in 1935, repealed again in 1972 and reinstated again in 1994.

Since the death penalty was last reinstated in Kansas, 10 people have been sentenced to death, but none has been executed. One sentence was removed by the prosecutor's request, and two have been vacated by the Kansas Supreme Court.

from the diaries of the tennessee dude... 

the thing about grassroots organizing is that there's no way to take shortcuts - you gotta do the work...and that's what's been going on ever since the first call for a moratorium on executions in 1997 by the american bar association...and, in order to create opportunities and take advantage of them when they emerge one has to be strategic, thinking ahead, identifying the variables, setting out on a course of action, re-evaluating along the way, adjusting course, and building the big mo' as you go - momentum...

and we're seeing evidence of this regularly...yesterday we reported on the abolition bill passing the new mexico house...today its an editorial out of charlotte north carolina (below)...and tomorrow...

peace out <3

But is it just?
Moratorium or not, state death system needs fixing

In the middle of a national debate over whether lethal injections violate the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment, N.C. executive, judicial and legislative branch officials have been groping for answers.

First a Superior Court judge halted three executions because inmates' lawyers argued lethal injections are unconstitutional. Then a House study committee recommended refinements in the death penalty system. And the Council of State, the 10 executive officials elected statewide, recommended changes in the lethal injection protocol and sent the issue back to the courts.

Gov. Mike Easley, a death penalty supporter, observed there's a de facto halt. "Obviously there's clearly a moratorium in place right now," he said. "How long that will last will depend on how long it takes to untangle this Gordian knot."

The moratorium exists because of the likelihood of further delays, either from Superior Court Judge Don Stephens or, if he approves the revised protocol, from appellate courts if inmates' lawyers appealed such a ruling.

This legal wrangling obscures the real debate that ought to be taking place. It's not whether there should be capital punishment for the worst murders. The public supports it. But unresolved questions go right to the heart of how the state administers the death penalty. As the Observer demonstrated in news stories several years ago about capital punishment, there are fundamental questions of fairness:

• The death penalty is applied differently, depending upon where crimes are committed. Some prosecutors pursue death sentences more than others, which means your chances of getting life in prison or lethal injection depend upon where you commit a murder. Is that just?
• A murderer's chances of getting a death sentence may depend on racial cues -- particularly the race of the victim. The killer of a white person may be more likely to face death than the killer of a black person. Is that just?
• And whether you get the death penalty depends on whether you get a good lawyer. While the state has cleaned up a number of problems regarding defense lawyers and required more training, there are still Death Row residents who were defended at trial by poorly trained, ill-equipped lawyers you wouldn't hire to represent you on a traffic ticket. While these inmates may have good appellate lawyers now, they are at a huge disadvantage, because lawyers can't bring up all the issues on appeal they can in a trial. Is that just?

This is why state legislators should use this de facto moratorium to revisit critical issues that reflect poorly on our system of criminal justice. It is not enough to excuse its problems by saying all death cases are messy in some way, and questions of justice for killers don't really matter when killers had little regard for their victims. If we are going to kill convicted felons in society's name, we are obliged to get it right every time. If the system cannot assure that kind of certainty, it cannot assure justice, either.

Today the New Mexico House passed House Bill 190 by a 41-28 margin--the bill now heads for the Senate.  HB 190 would abolish the death penalty in New Mexico and replace it with life in prison without parole.  Previously, the House Judiciary Committee and Consumer and Public Affairs Committee approved the bill by 9-3 and 4-3 margins, respectively.  The New Mexico House passed a different abolition bill in 2005 by a 38-31 vote, but that bill died in the Senate.  The New Mexico Legislature's current session ends on March 17th.  If it passes both houses and becomes law, the bill would take effect on July 1, 2007.   

from the thoughts of the abolition intern...

One of the oldest recorded debates on the death penalty occurred in Athens in the fifth century B.C. between Cleon and Diodotua.  Thucydides dramatizes the debate in Book III of his History of the Peloponnesian War.  Although Cleon is a well-known historical figure, Diodotus is only known for his role in this debate.  The situation, in essence, was this (and I ask any students of Classics out there to forgive me for the compression and paraphrasing): After Athens put down a revolt in the island city of Mytilene, the Athenians decided to execute all of the city's male inhabitants--Cleon appears to have led the charge for this punishment.  A ship was dispatched for this purpose, but the Athenians began to have second thoughts about the harsh penalty.  The next day, the assembly gathered again to debate the issue, and Cleon gave a speech intended to cut off all talk of mercy by emphasizing that this was a matter of war and empire, and that only Athens' self-interest should be on the table.  Diodotus then stood up and gave a clever response in which he framed his arguments against the death penalty in terms Athens self-interest, presenting the merciful approach as good policy for Athens' military and economic self-interests.  Among other things, he argued that this kind of brutality would lead every revolting city to hold out until the end, forcing Athens to conduct difficult and expensive sieges.  He also explained how such a death penalty would not really deter revolts (for who revolts thinking they will lose?), and might instead inflame passions against the Athenians.  Diodotus prevailed in the argument and a second, swifter ship was dispatched to spare the people of Mytilene (the leaders of the revolt were still executed, I believe).

What has this got to do with Texas, or even the death penalty in the United States?  A few years ago I attended a talk on criminal sentencing guidelines and imprisonment in the U.S. in which the speaker argued that change in the system was most likely to occur when fiscally conservative, somewhat libertarian-minded state politicians began to rebel against it.  Their opposition would not be out of concern that the system is draconian, racist, or unjust, but the simple fact that it leads to enormous expenses (and thus tax burdens) without a countervailing payoff for society.  I have always thought of this as the Diodotian argument--forget mercy; it's just good policy.  Well, something like this argument has apparently been gaining traction in Texas.

An article in Austin-American Statesman reports how Texas is looking to reform its criminal justice system in order to provide more rehabilitation and treatment, including addiction treatment, therapy, and counseling.  Is Texas softening up?  Probably not.  The article concludes:

For his part, [Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John] Whitmire, who spearheaded an overhaul of Texas' criminal code in 1993 and has chaired the criminal justice committee for a decade, insists the reforms are not about overhauling the system as much as fine-tuning it.

"It's about how we spend our money, where we spend our money," he said. "We can't continue building new prisons and expect to ever solve the problems we're facing.

"This is about spending our money more wisely."

The article says nothing about the death penalty in Texas, but it speaks volumes about a practical and economic approach to criminal justice that could bring about long-needed reforms where moral and philosophical objections often fall flat.  Maybe, just maybe, states like Texas will start to take a hard look at the cost-benefit analysis of the death penalty and realize that you don't have to be a bleeding-heart liberal tree-hugger namby-pamby to think that the death penalty is bad policy.  You can still be "Texas tough" and think it's a waste of money. 

One of the interesting things about Diodotus is that, because he comes through history only in one debate, we have no way of knowing exactly what he thought about the death penalty, and whether his personal motivation was actually Athenian self-interest or a moral objection to the whole thing.  But it doesn't matter.  Even if it's not, deep down, my true motivation, I think the financial/economic case against the death penalty is correct.  So why not focus on those arguments if they are the ones that have traction in the current political climate?  There's no doubt that Texas has its share of Cleons--maybe it's time for Diodotus to have his day.       

from the abolition intern...

I would highly recommend checking out Elizabeth Weil's article "The Needle and the Damage Done," which will appear in the New York Times Magazine this Sunday but is currently available on-line here.  The printable version runs to about eight pages, and includes quotations of trial testimony and original interviews with doctors, scholars, and judges who have dealt with the lethal injection issue.  The article also details the steps in the lethal injection process, and describes how and why a number of lethal injections have "gone wrong."  It also provides a good synopsis of the course of events leading to stays in Florida, California, Tennessee and Missouri.  Definitely a good read for anyone who needs to get up to speed or just wants to learn more about the issue. 

from the diaries of the tennessee dude...

when then-illinois governor george ryan commuted the death sentences of some 167 human beings on death row in january 2003 dwight lewis, columnist for the tennessean (owned by gannett) in nashville, wrote eloquently abut the governor's decision...

fact is whenever mr. lewis pens a column it's usually eloquent, poignant, and significant ...while the tennessean has suffered over the years in its investigative side it's editorial board has remained solid and it has benefitted from the continuity of conscience brought to it by dwight lewis...

and well, he's done it again...writing on governor bredesen's recent 90 day moratorium on executions related to the state's lethal injection protocol...today's column entitled alas, we take a serious look at how we kill the condemned is woth the read...

peace out <3

more musings from the abolition intern...

With the death penalty being such a state-by-state and emergency-driven issue, it's often difficult to remember where things stand across the USA.  It's become even more confusing of late with so many states entering a gray area in which they have placed executions on hold while trying to "fix the system," or just to review it.  Here's my attempt at a 2007 scorecard on the state of the states:

The Abolitionists

Lest we forget, there is still no death penalty in Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin or Washington, DC.  This does not appear likely to change, despite the passage of the pro-death penalty advisory referendum in Wisconsin in the last election (which passed by a smaller margin than predicted and did not have its intended effect of bringing the Republican gubernatorial candidate into office). 

On The Bubble

If you're already making your bracket for which state will become the Abolition Champion of 2007, both New Jersey and Maryland have strong line-ups of anti-death penalty voices, including two Governors, a former NJ Attorney General, the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission, and a good collection of legislators.  Abolition legislation is nothing new, but in both states there are some real signs that the political branches of government have turned a corner in their willingness to consider these measures.  Watch this space for updates when bills starts to move.

It's way way too early to call this, but if you're looking for a Cinderella story, check out The Tennessee Dude's last post on Montana, and dare to dream.. 

LI Limbo

The list of states with some kind of a stay or moratorium on executions seems to be growing weekly since the execution of Angel Diaz last December.  Some these stays come with a very strong statement of intent by the Governor to recommence executions once lethal injection has been reviewed and/or reformed (Florida, California and Tennessee all spring to mind).  In Illinois, the statewide moratorium now appears to be more or less a fact of life, and Governor George Ryan recently recieved a nomination for a Nobel Peace prize for using his clemency powers to clear out Illinois' death row back in 2003.  The 2004 decision of the New York Supreme Court declaring the death penalty unconstitutional in that state still stands, though New York's death row has one occupant.  Other states where executions are currently on hold in one form or anoth include Arkansas, Delaware, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and South Dakota.  (Ohio may well resume executions next month.)  Missouri's legislature also has some abolitionist measures currently working their way through committee. 

The General Assembly of South Dakota recently moved one step closer to resuming executions with the passage out of Committee of two bills that would "reform" lethal injection by repealing the requirement of physician presence and giving the warden power of the drugs to be used.       

North Carolina is displaying its great passing game this year, with the North Carolina medical board passing an ethics opinion against physician participation in executions,  Judge Stephens passing the ball to the Council of State via the 1909 law, the Council passing a protocol that did nothing to resolve the ethical conflict, and the legislature passing up an opportunity to deal with the issue.  It looks like all of this will set up one more pass to Judge Stephens, who is expected to pass it back to the legislature, which has had ample time to set up for some kind of shot.  Thank God there's no game clock for this sort of thing.  In the meantime, executions remain on hold indefinitely.     

The Executioners

With so many stays and postponed executions, only five have been carried out thus far in 2007, though many more were scheduled at one point or another.  It will come as no surprise that four of those, including yesterday's execution of James Jackson, happened in Texas.  The fifth execution was in Oklahoma, which, unlike Texas, has no other executions scheduled in the near future.  It now looks like the Lone Star State will stand alone in carrying out executions this February, with the executions of Newton Anderson on the 22nd and Donald Miller on the 27th the only ones currently scheduled this month.  Both Ohio and Pennsylvania could join Texas in March.

Against the Tide 

Despite the country-wide slowdown in the death penalty, and the possibility of the first state abolition in three decades, some state legislatures are moving in the opposite direction with expansion legislation.  Particularly worrisome are Utah's bills to extend the death penalty to repeat sex offenders and all child murders, Virginia's restriction on the triggerman rule, and Georgia's allowance of a judge-imposed death sentence with the agreement of only 9 jurors.

And the rest...

The are not many big changes to report in the remaining half of the states.  A few quick notes: New Hampshire and Kansas have had no executions since the resumption of the death penalty, although the Kansas Supreme Court's determination that the death penalty is unconstitutional was overturned by the US Supreme Court.  Pennsylvania has one execution (that of Landon May) scheduled for March 1st, but DPIC notes that a stay is likely.  Abolitionist bills have been introduced in the legislatures of Connecticut, Kentucky, Nebraska and New Mexico, but no strong indication that it could pass (there is some such legislation in other states as well).  Indiana has a mixed bag of measures on the table, ranging from a bill barring execution of the mentally ill to a bill giving the judge creater power to impose a death sentence if a jury can't agree.

So that's my summary, such as it is.  Comments, corrections and additions welcome.  Thanks for reading...           

from the diaries of the tennessee dude...

seems like most of the intense debate, action, and challenges surrounding capital punishment are taking place in new jersey, maryland, and north carolina suggesting it to be an east coast phenomenon but hold on just a second, we have an alert from out there somewhere in dick cheney country (or thereabouts)...

that's right, montana - land of the big sky - grabbed headlines this week with a bill submitted by sen. dan harrington, d-butte that would commute death sentemces to life in prison and abolish the death penalty from here on out...

one of the bill's supporters? james "ziggy" ziegler's whose 78-year-old father was sitting in his car waiting outside a grocery store when he was shot in the head...and ziggy ziegler (i LOVE this guy AND his name), instead of focusing on the anger he felt for her father's murderers, the former yellowstone county commissioner became an outspoken critic of the death penalty...

joining ziegler and others to show support was david kaczynski the executive director of new yorkers against the death penalty ... david's mentally ill brother ted is known in the media as the unabomber ...

"We have a death penalty that disproportionately impacts the poor, people of color and the mentally challenged," Kaczynski said. "Do we really want a death penalty that is applied unfairly and risks executing the innocent?"

with kaczynski's help, police were able to arrest his brother at a remote cabin near lincoln in 1996...ted kaczynski is serving a life sentence for sending mail bombs that killed three people and wounded several others...david is writing a book about reconciliation with one of his brother's victims...

so this is a shout out to all those activists and organizers in the big sky state who understand that capital punishment is fundamentally a public policy failure, is adminsistered in a way that fundamentally conflicts with our core constitutional values, and are making a strategic challenge to its continued use...

S -- A -- L --U -- T -- E  !!!

peace out <3

from the diaries of the tennessee dude...

as a side note on the ongoing (and very important debate) in north carolina notice should be given to some of the details reported by the associated press...it seems that two women carrying the name beverly have made most reasonable contributions to that state's death penalty debate...

first, the co-chair of the house study committee on capital punishment, beverly earle, d-mecklenburg,set the committee straight on when it should join the debate by asking members to remember that their assigned mission is only to find and fix errors in the state's death penalty system...said she:

"I would want to think that none of us would want to see an innocent person put to death. I would want to think that, but it's beginning to be kind of hard," ... "I would think that we'd want to put all the safeguards that we can in place to make sure that that doesn't happen."

further lt. gov. beverly perdue's office released a written statement saying that perdue supports suspending executions until constitutional questions related to how the death penalty is administered are "clarified by the courts."...the statement said that perdue, a likely democratic candidate for governor in 2008, remained a proponent of capital punishment but didn't say how she would vote today...

the full ap story can be read by clicking here ...

just to be fair to the men also note that on the eve of the historic discussion by the council of state on the way north carolina puts convicts to death, state rep. thomas wright joined 43 other democratic lawmakers in asking gov. mike easley to halt executions until the lethal injection method is shown to be constitutional...

nonetheless i am currently very enamored with the name beverly...smitten even...

peace out <3

The North Carolina Council of State today approved a lethal injection protocol that calls for a licensed medical doctor to "monitor the essential body functions of the condemned inmate" and "notify the Warden immediately upon his or her determination that the inmate shows signs of undue pain or suffering."  The nine member council voted 6-3 to approve the protocol.  This protocol addresses Judge Stephens' decision that he could not approve an execution until there was a protocol approved by the Council of State, but does nothing to address the conflict between the NC Medical Board's ethics opinion against doctor participation in executions and the current protocol.  Thus, the issue may yet need to go to the legislature for resolution.

One additional note:
An aspect of the professional ethics dilemma often overlooked in these discussions is that ethics opinions preventing participation in executions are not unique to medical doctors.  For example, the American Nurses Association has a similar position statement on this issue.  That statement includes the following:

Historically, the role of the nurse has been to promote, preserve and protect human life. The ANA Code for Nurses with Interpretive Statements (Code for Nurses) is grounded in the basic principles of respect for persons, the non-infliction of harm and fidelity to recipients of nursing care. The Code for Nurses, nursing's ethical code of conduct, stipulates that "the nurse does not act deliberately to terminate the life of any person." The obligation to refrain from causing death is longstanding and should not be breached even when legally sanctioned. Participation in capital punishment is inconsistent with these ethical precepts and the goals of the profession. The ANA is strongly opposed to all forms of participation, by whatever means, whether under civil or military legal authority. Nurses should refrain from participation in capital punishment and not take part in assessment, supervision or monitoring of the procedure or the prisoner; procuring, prescribing or preparing medications or solutions; inserting the intravenous catheter; injecting the lethal solution; and attending or witnessing the execution as a nurse. The fact that capital punishment is currently supported in many segments of society does not override the obligation of nurses