The StandDown Texas Project

Connecticut

"Groups try to persuade Rell to abolish death penalty" by Ken Dixon is in today's Connecticut Post.

Opponents of the death penalty began a campaign Thursday to persuade Gov. M. Jodi Rell to sign a bill that would end capital punishment in Connecticut.

Defense lawyers, human rights activists and church leaders from throughout the state asked the Republican governor to reconsider her pledge to veto the legislation, which was approved in historic votes in the House and Senate over the last two weeks.

While a new Quinnipiac University Poll indicated Thursday that 61 percent of the state wants to keep the death penalty, defense lawyers -- during a news conference that featured the author of "Dead Man Walking" in a teleconference from Iowa -- said the survey was flawed.

The lawyers noted that a quarter of capital-punishment supporters in the Q Poll seem to erroneously believe that keeping murderers behind bars for life is more expensive than executing them after decades of expensive appeals.

First-term Rep. Gary A. Holder-Winfield, a New Haven lawmaker who had a private, half-hour-long meeting with Rell this week, said she seemed interested in the issues, but doubts she'll change her mind when the bill gets to her desk over the next couple of weeks.

And:

Roman Catholic leaders from throughout the state, including Bridgeport Bishop William E. Lori and Bishop of Stamford Paul P. Chomnycky, said in a letter to Rell that they believe the death penalty may have been sought throughout the state in an "inconsistent and uneven way" and that the appeals process has become expensive.

"This legislation better serves society and, at the same time, punishes the criminal, shortens the sentencing process by eliminating endless appeals, and shows a profound respect for human life," said the Catholic leaders, led by Archbishop Henry J. Mansell of Hartford.

The Catholic Transcript has the text of the Bishops letter in, "Bishops urge Gov. Rell to alllow repeal of death penalty," written by Roberta Tuttle.   Here's a small excerpt:

"The past several weeks have seen a very intense and emotional debate within the General Assembly concerning the repeal of the death penalty in Connecticut. This issue is clearly one that challenges every elected official as they try to balance the need to protect society from violent offenders and respect the victims of crime, with the need of ensuring that justice is served in a manner that appropriately and equitably punishes the criminal. The General Assembly has had this debate and has determined that the death penalty is not required in our state to meet these ends. We ask that you, therefore, respect the decision of the legislature, as we are in agreement with them on practical and moral grounds, and allow H.B. 6578 to become law in the State of Connecticut.

"While Catholic social and moral teaching support the right of any state to protect itself from serious criminals, it has long held that such action does not require the use of the death penalty when the penal system can guarantee the incarceration of an offender for life. The punishment of life imprisonment without the possibility of release clearly and adequately protects society, equitably punishes the offender, and respects the value of human life."

Earlier coverage of the Connecticut legislation begins with this post about recent public opinion polling in the state.

Election of Judges In Tennessee Is Rejected

That's the title of a report in today's Tennessean by Chas Sisk.  LINK

An effort to directly elect high court judges in Tennessee has come up short, as state lawmakers voted to keep an independent panel to pick nominees to the bench.

The Senate and the House approved a bill Thursday that would reinstate the Judicial Selection Commission under a new name and with new members, ending for now a nearly three-year fight in which critics have accused the courts of being out of step on issues such as abortion, diversity and the death penalty. The House voted 58-38, while the Senate voted 27-5.

The new panel will have fewer seats reserved for lawyers and more members chosen by leaders in the state legislature. Supporters said this will reduce the power of "special interests," namely legal organizations that some say have produced a judiciary that is too liberal for the state.

Passage of the bill did not come easily. Lawmakers debated the measure for several hours Thursday, and even afterward, opponents decried it as a violation of the state constitution, which they said requires open elections to all courts.

"The legislators took away the rights of the people to vote and gave them to special interest groups," said Rep. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown.

Supporters of the commission say it has insulated the judiciary from political pressure. They also say it upholds the state constitution's requirement that the bench be elected because judges have to run every eight years in retention elections, yes-or-no votes on whether they should be able to remain in office.

Nonetheless, the current system has been hit hard in recent years, as critics on both ends of the political spectrum have complained that the Judicial Selection Commission has failed to nominate judges reflective of the state.

Gov. Phil Bredesen sued the commission in 2006, complaining that it had tried to steer him toward certain candidates and thwarted his efforts to bring more diversity to the bench. Meanwhile, conservatives have condemned the court for a series of decisions since the 1990s on social issues, such as the death penalty and abortion.

And:

As before, high court judges will be nominated by a 17-person panel, now called the Judicial Nominating Commission, that will forward a slate of three candidates to the governor. If the governor doesn't like any of those choices, the commission will send a second slate.

Lawyers will continue to make up the majority of the commission, but their clout will be reduced. Under the current system, lawyers held 14 of the commission's seats. The new law cuts that number to 10.

Supporters of the bill that passed Thursday said that change addresses the most serious problems with the old system.

"I think we passed a bill that nobody's pleased with, to be honest," Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey said. "But what we passed today at least keeps the system working. It's much, much better than what we had, and it does take the special interests out of the Judicial Nominating Commission."

The House and Senate versions contain only one difference, though it may prove to be important.

The House version of the bill forces the governor to pick a judge from either the commission's first or second slate of candidates, even if he does not approve of the candidates. The Senate version, however, frees him to reject both slates and choose any person who has applied for a judgeship.

More From North Carolina

"Bishops oppose death penalty bill," is the AP report in today's News & Observer of Raleigh.

North Carolina's Roman Catholic bishops say changes by the state Senate to a bill designed to prevent racial bias in the death penalty are "beyond comprehension."

A priest read a letter Thursday from Bishop Peter Jugis of the Charlotte diocese and Bishop Michael Burbidge of Raleigh at a news conference outside the Legislative Building.

Other religious leaders attending the event agreed they're unhappy with how the Senate approved the Racial Justice Act with new language also designed to allow executions to resume in North Carolina.

Two versions of the North Carolina Racial Justice Act are H 472 and S 461 in the General Assembly.

Earlier coverage begins here.

Nebraska Governor Signs Lethal Injection Bill

That's the title of JoAnne Young's report for the Lincoln Journal Star.  LINK

After 15 months of having no means to carry out its death penalty, Nebraska will soon be able to use lethal injection to execute prisoners convicted of capital crimes.

Attorney General Jon Bruning said Thursday Carey Dean Moore, convicted in 1979 for the murders of Omaha taxi drivers Maynard Helgeland and Reuel Van Ness, could be the first put to death by the new method.

He predicted that could happen in the next two years, as Moore has a couple of appeals remaining.

Moore had an execution date set two years ago, but he was granted a stay until another inmate’s challenge of the constitutionality of the electric chair was resolved. The Nebraska Supreme Court last year declared Nebraska’s use of the electric chair unconstitutional.

The lethal injection bill (LB36) passed on final reading Thursday morning 34-12. Three hours later, Gov. Dave Heineman signed the bill into law.

It goes into effect Sept. 1.

"Lethal injection to be Nebraska's ultimate punishment," is Paul Hammel's Omaha World-Herald report.

After more than 25 years of trying, a bill passed Thursday making lethal injection the means of execution in Nebraska.

On a 34-12 vote, the Legislature gave final-round approval to the lethal injection bill.

Gov. Dave Heineman signed the bill into law just after lunch, saying there was broad support among Nebraskans for capital punishment.

Legislative Bill 36 was introduced after the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled in March 2008 that electrocution - the state's current execution method - violated the state constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Nebraska was the last state to have used the electric chair as its sole means of execution. It is among 34 states that have a death penalty; all but Nebraska use lethal injection as at least one of the options.

One state, New Mexico, repealed its death penalty this year, and state senators in neighboring Colorado came within one vote of passing a repeal measure.

The lethal injection bill in Nebraska was blocked for years by opposition led by former State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who left the Legislature this year under term limits.

LB 36 was sponsored by State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, the speaker of the Legislature. It was based on a Kentucky lethal-injection law upheld last year by the U.S. Supreme Court.

AP has, "Nebraska's governor signs lethal injection bill," by Josh Funk, via Google News.

Before signing the bill, Heineman noted there was "broad support for the death penalty in our state."

But the bill drew opposition from state Sens. Brenda Council and Danielle Nantkes in earlier debate. There was no debate Thursday before final approval in keeping with the practice of the state Legislature.

Nantkes predicted "significant litigation" to come, adding that she didn't think the bill did enough to spell out how executions would be performed and who would carry them out.

Senators who had opposed the measure also said it was likely to lead to more appeals for the 11 men currently on death row. The state's last execution was in 1997.

The bill, which was set to take effect Sept. 1, did not lay out a procedure for how the death penalty would be carried out. It directed the state Department of Correctional Services to develop the protocol for lethal injections.

Attorney General Jon Bruning said he expected the state would have a protocol in place within a year and be ready to request an execution date for a condemned inmate within two or three years.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., said Bruning's timetable might be optimistic in light of expected civil rights and constitutional challenges in court.

"I would think it would be a while before Nebraska actually carries out one," Dieter said.

With the bill signed Thursday, Nebraska became the 36th state to use lethal injection as its primary method of execution. The Death Penalty Information Center said nine states still allow electrocution as a method.

Earlier coverage begins with this post.

Bruce Hight

His editorial column today is, "A burning desire to gather news and help keep watch was most fulfilling."

Today is my last at the Austin American-Statesman after 32 years, and after 37 as a newspaper reporter and editorial writer. I am one of 12 newsroom veterans at the Statesman who accepted the owner's early retirement offer and the last to actually leave; I was asked to stay until the end of the current legislative session.

I have no predictions to offer about the future of newspapers or news reporting, and they are not the same. I'll just say that this community deeply needs the local and state reporting that the Statesman brings to it every day.

Nor do I have a farewell speech about great lessons learned in newspaper journalism, which has been my life since I was 18 years old and realized, while working at my college newspaper at the University of Tennessee (the real UT, or at least the senior one), that it was my calling.

Instead, I'll finish by sharing this memory:

I'll leave you to follow the LINK to read the remainder of this elegant column, written by a first rate journalist.

Fratta's Lawyer May Face Inquiry

That's the title of an article in today's Houston Chronicle, written by Brian Rogers..  LINK

A half-nude photograph e-mailed to convicted killer Robert Fratta through his attorney’s office sent the death penalty phase of the murder-for-hire trial through a tour of the inmate’s personal phone calls Wednesday and could prompt an investigation of his lawyer.

Acting on a recorded phone call from Fratta to a woman with a Florida phone number, prosecutors last week confiscated from the former Missouri City public safety officer’s cell phone a photograph of the woman exposing her breast.

State District Judge Belinda Hill ruled that prosecutors could argue Fratta violated jail rules with the explicit picture but that his attorney, Vivian King, was not responsible for the delivery of several photos.

King said the photos, including one with the woman in a bathtub, were e-mailed to her office during the trial. She said she’s received dozens of e-mails and letters, some with photos or other attachments, from supporters of Fratta, who twice has been convicted of hiring two men to shoot his wife, Farah, in 1994.

King said she asked Fratta to look through the documents to see if they were helpful but did not know he kept the photo or several others the woman sent. King also said she did not believe the picture was contraband.

“I don’t think it is inappropriate,” she said. “And I don’t think he’s done anything wrong.”

And:

Fratta’s 1996 conviction was overturned by an appeals court ruling that the confessions of his co-conspirators, Howard Guidry and Joseph Prystash, shouldn’t have been admitted into evidence because Fratta’s lawyers could not cross-examine them. The two remain on death row.

Fifth Circuit Urges Impeachment of Kent

Tony Mauro reports, "5th Circuit urges impeachment of federal judge, denies disability status," for National Law Journal.

In a one-two punch made public Wednesday on its Web site, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recommended that U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent be impeached and ordered that he not be given disability status.

Kent had pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in connection with an investigation into charges that he sexually harassed court employees. He is scheduled to begin serving a 33-month prison sentence next month. Claiming alcoholism and mental illness, Kent sought disability status so he could continue drawing a salary while in prison.

But 5th Circuit Chief Judge Edith Jones, in a letter (pdf) Wednesday to Kent's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, said no, asserting that "a claimant should not profit from his own wrongdoing by engaging in criminal misconduct and then collecting a federal retirement salary for the disability related to the prosecution." Jones did note that until he was indicted, Kent "continued to handle a high volume of cases expeditiously," and so did not appear to be disabled or impaired.

On the question of impeachment, the circuit's judicial council formally urged (pdf) the Judicial Conference, a policy-making panel of the appellate courts, to "take expeditious action" toward impeachment proceedings before Congress. The House of Representatives has already begun its investigation of Kent with an eye toward impeachment.

At his sentencing earlier this month, two women described nightmarish working conditions when Kent groped and molested them in his chambers. Kent pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for lying about the incidents to federal investigators. The case was the first sex abuse case against a sitting federal judge.

Earlier coverage begins here.

Polling in Connecticut

"Q-Poll: Connecticut Strongly Backs Death Penalty," is Daniela Altimari's report for the Hartford Courant.

By a two to one margin, Connecticut voters once again say the state should keep the death penalty.

A Quinnipiac University poll released this morning found that 61 percent support the death penalty, while 34 percent believe it should be replaced with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The survey of 1,575 registered voters comes on the heels of a historic vote in the legislature to repeal capital punishment in the state. Gov. M. Jodi Rell has vowed to veto the measure.

The latest poll is consistent with previous surveys that showed a similar level of support for capital punishment.

And:

Lawmakers who support abolition say the death penalty doesn't work in Connecticut: only one person, convicted serial killer Michael Ross, has been put to death in the past 49 years and that was only after he waged a legal battle to do so. They said the endless appeals are frustrating and unfair to family members of victims.

But Rell has been steadfast in her belief that some crimes are so atrocious, the death penalty is warranted.

The Day carries the AP report, "Poll: 3 in 5 Conn. residents support death penalty."

The Quinnipiac University Poll found 61 percent of those surveyed supported capital punishment and did not want it replaced with life in prison without parole for convicted murderers.

The Democrat-led General Assembly this month approved legislation abolishing the death penalty, but Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has vowed to veto it. She has said capital punishment is appropriate for certain heinous crimes, a sentiment shared by many in the new poll.

The percentage of Connecticut residents who support the death penalty has changed little over the past several years.

The last poll, in November 2007, found that 63 percent supported the death penalty for convicted murderers. In 2001, 60 percent supported it.

Director Douglas Schwartz said the new poll shows public opinion is on Rell's side as she prepares to veto the bill that sharply split Connecticut's General Assembly this month.

And:

Among those who favored capital punishment, 23 percent said in response to an open-ended question that the death penalty provides retribution and/or fair punishment. Another 22 percent said it is appropriate for severe or heinous crimes.

Among its opponents, 23 percent said no one has the right to take a human life, and 15 percent said they fear the possibility that an innocent person could be executed.

Ten convicted murderers currently sit on Connecticut's death row.

Coverage of Connecticut's repeal legislation and the governor's veto vow begins with this post.

North Carolina

"Religious leaders unhappy with death penalty bill change," is the AP report via the Winston-Salem Journal.

Several religious leaders want a procedure designed to prevent racial bias in the death penalty without encouraging capital punishment to resume in North Carolina.

They scheduled a news conference Thursday at the Legislative Building to discuss why they oppose the Senate version of the Racial Justice Act and want the original measure approved.

The bill cleared the chamber two weeks ago with an amendment that is designed to help remove legal obstacles that have effectively halted executions for two years. It now sits in a House committee.

The state's two Roman Catholic bishops and other Christian leaders have signed a statement expressing that the original bill be approved and calling the added language "unconscionable and an act of grievous racial injustice."

Earlier coverage of the bill is here.

Nebraska Lawmakers Approve Lethal Injection Bill - UPDATED

That's the title of the AP report by Josh Funk, via the Lincoln Journal Star.  LINK

Nebraska lawmakers have approved a bill designed to give the state the legal means to carry out its death penalty.

The bill (LB36) would change the state’s method of execution from electrocution to lethal injection. It passed on a 34-12 vote Thursday. Three senators didn’t vote.

It now goes to Gov. Dave Heineman. He has said he supports the change.

Nebraska's unicameral legislature gave the measure final approval earlier today.  Earlier coverage is here.

The Omaha World-Herald has just posted Paul Hammel's "Heineman to sign lethal injection bill."

After more than 25 years of trying, a bill making lethal injection the means of execution in Nebraska was passed this morning.

On a 34-12 vote, the Legislature sent the lethal injection bill to Gov. Dave Heineman, who said he would sign the bill into law this afternoon.

Legislative Bill 36 was introduced after the Nebraska Supreme Court, in March of 2008, ruled that electrocution -- the current method of execution – was unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

Nebraska was the last state to have used the electric chair as its sole means of execution. It is among 34 states that have a death penalty; all but Nebraska utilize lethal injection as at least one of the options for carrying it out.

The lethal injection bill had been blocked for years by opposition led by former State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who left the Legislature this year due to term limits.

Washington's Lethal Injection Trial Expected to Wrap Up

That's the title of the report from Washington Public Radio's KUOW-FM.  LINK

Lawyers for death row inmates in Washington state hope this will be the week they convince a judge to block the use of lethal injection as a form of capital punishment. A four–day trial resumes today (Tuesday). Last week, testimony focused on whether the state has enough safeguards in place to ensure lethal injection isn't a cruel way to die.

The irony is lethal injection was supposed to be a more humane way to execute prisoners. But lawyers for the condemned say Washington doesn't have qualified people assigned to carry out an execution and the procedures for putting inmates to death are inadequate. Attorney Sherilyn Peterson represents death row inmate Darold Stenson. He was convicted of killing his wife and business partner in 1993.

Peterson: "The question is whether the state's protocol as implemented provides constitutionally adequate assurance that condemned inmates will be unconscious when they are injected with pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride."

The state responds that Washington's lethal injection protocols are similar to Kentucky's which were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. And that's not all, says Assistant Attorney General Sara Olson.

Olson: "This trial will also show that the protocol used in Washington will not inflict cruel and unusual punishment."

Earlier coverage is here.

Nebraska

"Nebraska senators advance lethal-injection bill," is JoAnne Young's report in today's Lincoln Journal Star.  The article contains a sidebar listing how Nebraska legislators voted.  LB 36 is not on today's legislative agenda.

A move by a Lincoln senator to delay enactment of lethal injection as a way to carry out the Nebraska death penalty failed Tuesday.

The bill (LB36) advanced to final reading on a 34-11 vote.

Lincoln Sen. Danielle Nantkes was joined by Omaha Sen. Brenda Council in opposing LB36, saying it was flawed in a number of ways, including that it delegates legislative authority to nonelected state Department of Correctional Services officials to establish a protocol and procedure for lethal injection.
In about 3ƒ hours of debate on the second reading of the bill, Nantkes and Council did most of the talking.

Calling consideration of lethal injection the Legislature’s “march to death,” Nantkes recited a litany of examples of botched executions in states that use lethal injection. She said they include violent reactions to the administered drugs and the inability of executioners to find suitable veins to administer the drugs, resulting in prolonged time in the death chambers.

“Be clear. There is nothing humane about this practice you are about to approve,” she said.

Nantkes pointed out that when the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled the electric chair unconstitutional last year, it established a test for any execution method.

* It must eliminate the risk of unnecessary and wanton pain.

* It must comply with evolving standards of decency that mark a civilized, mature society.

* The state must prove the method minimizes physical violence and mutilation of the inmate’s body.

“At the very least,” she said, “we should take the time to ensure, at a minimum, a transparent procedure being carried out by competent personnel.”

That is what the courts are telling the Legislature to do to ensure its death penalty method passes constitutional muster, she said.

In enacting the lethal injection bill, Nantkes said, senators are abdicating their legislative authority to establish protocol and procedures to unelected, unaccountable prison bureaucrats who lack expertise and training.

AP's report, "Neb. Legislature: Lethal-Injection Measure Advanced," written by Jean Ortiz is via the Yankton Press & Dakotan.

A bill that would make lethal injection Nebraska’s sole means of executing prisoners is headed to the final round of debate.

Lawmakers gave second-round approval to the bill (LB36) Tuesday, despite protests from some senators that the measure is deeply flawed.

The vote came after lawmakers rejected an attempt to postpone consideration of the bill.

If the measure is approved on the third round, it would go to Gov. Dave Heineman for his consideration. He has said he supports changing the state’s method of execution.

Nebraska has been without a means of execution since February 2008, when the state Supreme Court ruled that the electric chair was unconstitutional because it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

Nebraska was the only state with electrocution as its sole means of execution.

There are 11 men on Nebraska’s death row; the last execution was in 1997.

Lawmakers voted 34-11 to move the measure to the final round of debate. Three senators didn’t vote and one was absent.

The bill introduced by Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk has drawn strong opposition from Sen. Brenda Council of Omaha, whose attempt last week to repeal the death penalty failed, and Sen. Danielle Nantkes of Lincoln, who failed Tuesday in an attempt to postpone the discussion.

KOLN-TV has, "AG Discusses What's Next For Lethal Injection," by Keller Russell.

State lawmakers have sent a bill to make lethal injection Nebraska's only means of execution, on to the final round of debate.

Senators on both sides of the debate expect the bill to pass the third round And the governor has voiced his approval of the bill, so what happens if it's signed into law?

It could be a game of wait and see.

Opponents of LB-36, and the death penalty overall have said from the beginning, the bill is flawed and will result in years of litigation and appeals.

"That's been the experience in other states that have changed their method of execution and I don't see anything in this process that would be any different," said Sen. Danielle Nantkes of Lincoln, who expects a "litany of litigation" to be filed by the attorneys of the men on death row.

What's different, Attorney General Jon Bruning said in Nebraska's case is the statutes the bill (LB 36) is molded after, which have previously upheld in courts.

"Again, this is a process that isn't newly invented in Nebraska. Its a process that's used in other states, so many of the concepts they would test in court have already been tested in at a minimum other state courts but often times federal courts," said Bruning.

Still he agrees there will be challenges made from death row.

Earlier coverage of the Nebraska legislation begins with this post.

Former San Quentin Warden Honored for Speaking Out Against Death Penalty

That's the title of Richard Halstead's report in the Marin Independent Journal.  It appeared in the Saturday edition.  LINK

During her stint as warden of San Quentin State Prison, Jeanne Woodford oversaw the execution of four death row inmates without ever discussing her personal feelings about the death penalty.

On Thursday night, however, Woodford received an award from Death Penalty Focus for her courage in speaking out against capital punishment. Woodford, who went on to serve as both director and undersecretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, began sharing her thoughts about the death penalty about a year after retiring in 2006. Others honored by the San Francisco-based nonprofit included New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former California Attorney General John Van De Kamp.

Singling out Woodford and Van De Kamp, Death Penalty Focus director Lance Lindsey said, "They're courageous because they're coming out of communities that are often associated with a knee-jerk tough-on-crime position. What they represent is a smart-on-crime position."

Woodford, 56, said she has always opposed the death penalty.

"Initially for me it was just a matter of, does this really make sense to be killing people to avenge the death of someone else?" Woodford said in an interview this week.

She said it is a debate that will never be settled.

"Some people believe in an eye for an eye, and some people don't," she said.

Woodford, who started her career as a prison guard at San Quentin, said there are more practical reasons for opposing capital punishment.

And:

"I just really worry about the state of California," Woodford said. "I worry about the fact that we continue to spend so much money on issues that aren't giving us any benefit. The death penalty is one of those."

Woodford said the state also can no longer afford to incarcerate nonviolent offenders or to skimp on mental health and drug treatment programs, which keep people out of prison. She said money is being wasted by sending parole violators back to state prison for minor violations.

"We're not making intelligent choices about who should be in state prison and who shouldn't," Woodford said.

During her stint as warden at San Quentin from 1999 to 2004, Woodford initiated a number of experimental programs aimed at reducing recidivism.

"We currently look back on that time with some nostalgia," said Jacques Verduin, executive director of the Insight Prison Project, a San Rafael-based nonprofit that works with San Quentin to provide rehabilitative programs.

In an earlier post today, I noted Woodford's October 2008 OpEd, "Death Row Realism.

Voices From Missouri

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch carries,"The death penalty returns to Missouri" by Pamela Dolan. 

According to an article today on Missourinet, state Attorney General Chris Koster has said that now that legal challenges to the state’s “death penalty structure” have been overcome, we will “return to regularly scheduled executions.”

“My guess is that for the near future,” said Koster. “We will see one execution probably every month as these individuals come up in the court system.”

Is anyone else troubled by this?  Do you think that there is a moral and ethical problem here?  Or do you believe that the command to love another does not extend to convicted criminals?  Would it make a difference if you could see the people involved as individuals?  Or do their crimes outweigh their humanity?

Here is how I first learned about the death penalty.  When I was a child my father worked as a Legal Aid attorney and public defender.  He is a brilliant lawyer, with the oratorical skills one usually associates with legal dramas on TV.  In real life, courtrooms tend to be dull places, full of motions and filings and sad, defeated people, but my dad can bring any courtroom to life with his presence and passion and downright stunning command of the English language.  Not only that, but he knows the law backwards and forwards and can, I’m quite sure, recite precedent in his sleep.

I will never forget the year that he took on a death penalty case.  Usually an involved, attentive father, he became consumed with his work.  Our whole family became consumed with his work.  When the case finally went to trial, school was out for the summer and I was allowed to go to court with him every day and watch the proceedings. It was all very reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird, except that my dad looks more like Jerry Garcia, the deceased lead man for the Grateful Dead, than like Gregory Peck, who played Atticus Finch in the movie.

In the days leading up to his final argument, my dad got very quiet, very focused, and it struck me that he held a man’s life in his hands.  My dad had been intimately involved with this man’s life and welfare every day for more than a year.  We talked about this man every morning and every evening around our dining room table.  Failure meant that this person, a disabled Vietnam vet with a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder, would die at the hands of the state.  It was simply unfathomable to me.

Earlier this week, Missouri executed a man named Dennis Skillicorn.  There is no question that he was guilty of the crimes for which he was convicted.  Some argued that his culpability was not all that it was made out to be at trial, but nobody ever really made a case that he was innocent.  And yet when I read about his execution, I wonder what purpose it served.

He could have spent the rest of his life in prison, where he would not have been able to kill again.  Life in prison without possibility of parole is demonstrably less expensive than the death penalty (and, according to Amnesty International, it would be even if we did away with the appeals process).  Don’t let anybody tell you that being in prison for life is cushy, or pampered, or somehow “too good” for hardened criminals, because in reality it’s nothing short of brutal.  And then there is all the evidence that Skillicorn had reformed, had found God, and had become a more-than-model inmate.  None of this mattered to the system or to our governor; our state chose to take Skillicorn’s life instead of exercising the other options it had.  Why?

Earlier coverage of Skillicorn execution is here.

Opinion Roundup

"House calls at the death chamber?" is by Steve Ford, the editorial page editor of North Carolina's News & Observer.  It appeared in the Sunday edition.

Across a grand stage in Washington last Sunday strode the newly minted physicians -- one of them a close acquaintance of mine ever since he first drew breath in Rex Hospital -- to accept their diplomas. Then came the inspirational speechifying, the welcome from elders in the healing profession, the calls to selflessness and dedication, always in service to the patient.

But what if the "patient" happens to be a condemned inmate being put down by lethal injection?

There's really no wonder that doctors, through their professional organizations, stand strongly against having any kind of role in executions. To "attend" as someone is being put to death insults the ideals ingrained throughout their training and reinforced throughout their careers.

And:

As a practical matter, no Tar Heel physician could be forced to participate in an execution except someone on the prison payroll who was given a direct order, with firing the price of disobedience. But even doctors who believe (despite all the contrary evidence) that the death penalty serves the ends of justice still would have to defy their own profession's sense of right and wrong conduct to cash that check in payment for death chamber duty.

Feeling tempted, doc? Attend your medical school's next commencement and give yourself a booster shot of idealism, the kind that tells you to put the patient first. Always.

For Alabama's Birmingham News, editorial writer Robin DeMonia has posted, "Alabama too often skirts rules in death penalty cases."

Some things aren't really a matter of debate anymore: The state of Alabama can't execute people who are mentally retarded. Prosecutors can't keep blacks off juries just because they're black.

It's the law.

But Alabama officials who are so big on law-and-order principles can be awfully small about abiding by rules that apply to their own conduct.

I'm not talking about police officers flailing an unconscious suspect, although there are parallels to the taped beating that is making Birmingham famous, again.

I'm talking about cases in which lives are on the line, and the people who are supposed to uphold the law just seem to be hunting for a loophole.

Listen to Bryan Stevenson, a highly regarded death penalty lawyer who runs the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery. "When the death penalty is involved, and the politics of the death penalty are behind it," he said, "we're not willing to follow the law."

In too many cases, courts have to force us to do the right thing.

  Stevenson points to some of his recent cases:

-- A federal judge on May 14 ordered [See the judge's order] the state to lift the death sentence of Glenn William Holladay, a mentally retarded man who killed his ex-wife, her boyfriend and a neighbor in Gadsden in 1986.

State prosecutors fought to keep Holladay on Death Row, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's 2002 ban on executing the mentally retarded. Although Holladay scored low enough on IQ tests dating back to childhood to qualify as mentally retarded, state prosecutors claimed his poor showing had more to do with illiteracy than retardation.

Stevenson said prosecutors just didn't want to give up on the idea of executing Holladay. Why not? It's not as if the alternative sentence, life in prison without parole, is something to look forward to.

Florida Marks 30 Years Since Death Penalty's Return

That's the title of an AP report by Ron Word.  It appeared in the Sunday Miami Herald.  LINK

Three decades have past since Florida resumed executions when John Spenkelink was strapped into Old Sparky and electrocuted, the nation's first involuntary execution after a Supreme Court ban was lifted.

Since then, the state has executed another 64 men and two women. Florida has changed its execution method from the electric chair to lethal injection and the conflict over the death penalty remains as heated as it was 30 years ago. There have been several botched executions and former Gov. Jeb Bush once imposed a moratorium to review the state's procedures and make sure they passed constitutional muster.

"I don't know how you put someone to death and it not be somewhat controversial," said Richard Dugger, who was assistant warden at Florida State Prison when Spenkelink was executed and later head of the Department of Corrections.

Spenkelink, 30, was executed May 25, 1979, for the slaying of traveling companion Joseph Syzmankiewicz in a Tallahassee motel - Dugger became somewhat notorious for give him a couple shots of Jack Daniels whiskey just before his death.

In his trial, Spenkelink had claimed he had been raped and the death was self-defense. The jury did not buy it.

Spenkelink, until moments before he died, fought his execution. His case made five trips to the U.S Supreme Court.

His lawyer, David Kendall, now a Washington, D.C., attorney, watched him die and still believes his client shouldn't have been executed.

"The question was this the kind of murder that merited the death penalty?" Kendall said. "Absolutely not. This case lacks the kind of aggravating circumstance that are the hallmark of the death penalty."

Utah had executed Gary Gillmore two years earlier for two slayings, but he did not challenge his death sentence and died by firing squad after telling prison officials, "Let's do it."

Spenkelink had rejected a prosecution offer to plead guilty to a charge of second-degree murder and receive a long prison sentence.

Dugger recalls the time as being one of uncertainty. Florida didn't have an executioner. It had not used the electric chair for 15 years and it had no written procedures on how to conduct an execution.

"The biggest thing about Spenkelink was that it was a new experience for everybody involved," Dugger said. "There was so much attention to it, we couldn't make a mistake."

And:

Florida has had its share of problems while performing executions. Twice there were fires in the electric chair headpieces: Pedro Medina in 1997 and Jesse Tafero in 1990. In both cases, someone on the execution crew had replaced natural sea sponges with artificial sponges, causing flames and sparking when power was turned on in the chair.

On another occasion, Dugger recalls seeing blue electricity danced across the floor during an execution. A prisoner mopping up the floor had left a pool of water under a rubber mat in the execution chamber. Dugger said it is lucky the entire staff was not electrocuted.

The switch to lethal injection did not solve the problems. In December 2006, it took Miami killer Angel Diaz about 36 minutes to die. An autopsy showed the needles used to send lethal drugs racing through his veins had poked through into his muscles.

Bush ordered an investigation into the failure, causing a yearlong delay in executions and a change in procedures. Now, midway through the execution, the warden shakes the inmate to ensure that he is unconscious after the first chemical is administered. If inmate does not respond, the final two chemicals are injected.

In Florida, serial killers Ted Bundy and Gerald Stano, and black-widow killer Judy Buenoano were among the 44 inmates strapped into the electric chair, a three-legged oaken chair built by inmates. Another 23 inmates, including female serial killer Aileen Wuornos and Gainesville student slayer Danny Rolling, have died from lethal injection.

Today, Florida has 392 death row inmates, compared to 134 in 1979. Two, John Marek and David Johnston, recently had their executions stopped by the state Supreme Court.

Marek was convicted of the 1983 kidnapping and murder of a woman who had car trouble on Florida's Turnpike. He has received an indefinite stay claiming new evidence shows he is not the killer.

Johnston was convicted of the November 1983 slaying of 84-year-old Mary Hammond of Orlando. His execution was stopped so DNA evidence can be tested.

Some other states have ended their use of capital punishment to save money, including New Mexico. A similar measure failed by one vote in the Colorado Senate. In Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist and Attorney General Bill McCollum remain committed to the death penalty.

Connecticut Governor Vows Veto

"Rell Vows to Veto Ban on Death Penalty in Connecticut," is the AP report via the New York Times.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell vowed on Friday to veto a newly approved bill that would ban the death penalty, saying capital punishment is appropriate for certain heinous crimes.

The measure, approved early Friday by the State Senate and last week by the House of Representatives, would replace capital punishment in Connecticut with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

At least two-thirds of the members of each chamber would have to vote to override a veto. But achieving that margin is in doubt, given the tight 19-to-17 vote in the Democrat-led Senate. The bill passed 90 to 56 in the House, which is also led by Democrats.

Mrs. Rell, a Republican, said on Friday that while she understood the “passionate beliefs of people on both sides” of the debate, she would veto the measure “as soon as it hits my desk.”

The governor's full statement, issued Friday afternoon, is here.

Sunday's Hartford Courant carried, "3 Minds Change On Death Penalty, Make Difference," written by Daniela Altimari.

State Sen. Gary LeBeau was long in the camp that favors capital punishment. While the veteran lawmaker struggled with the issue, he invariably come around to the conclusion that some crimes are so atrocious they deserve the ultimate penalty.

But over the past couple of years, the East Hartford Democrat's thinking began to shift. A series of high-profile exonerations of innocent men fueled LeBeau's deepening conviction that the criminal justice system is not infallible.

His changing views were shaded by other, more personal reasons as he grew older and tangled with life's fragility. He lost his father and his wife's parents in recent years. His mother is ailing and in a nursing home. And he suffered his own health crisis — months of muscle weakness initially diagnosed as Parkinson's disease but later determined to be a copper deficiency. "I have more of an appreciation of life and how precious it is,'' LeBeau said.

With that, his stance changed.

At 61, LeBeau, a retired schoolteacher, has come to view life as a gift, one "we shouldn't take away from anybody ... in the name of the people of Connecticut. It's not our right to take away a person's life.''

And:

LeBeau's vote was critical.

He is one of three Democratic senators, along with Andrea Stillman of Waterford and Edith Prague of Columbia, who once steadfastly supported capital punishment but now believe it is wrong.

While the House vote was largely driven by newer lawmakers, those three veterans made the difference in the Senate, which passed the measure 19-17.

A Courant blog also has, "Dr. Petit on Death Penalty Vote."  Petit's family was killed during a 2007 home invasion.

The Norwich Bulletin carries, "Death penalty should be repealed in Connecticut," by columnist Richard Meehan.  It appeared in the Sunday edition.

The state House of Representatives overwhelming voted to repeal the death penalty, sending he measure to the Senate, which passed it Friday. Gov. M. Jodi Rell, a death penalty proponent, will likely veto it if it clears the legislature.

My partner, Ed Gavin, president of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, testified in support of the repeal. The following are excerpts.

“Since 1973, [nationally] 130 prisoners on death row have been exonerated. The average time spent on death row was 9.5 years. DNA played a role in exonerating 17 death row prisoners.

“Connecticut is familiar with cases of actual innocence. James Calvin Tillman was officially exonerated by DNA testing on July 11, 2006. With the assistance of the Connecticut Innocence Project, a voluntary organization and part of the Public Defender Services, Tillman walked out of prison after serving 16 years on a rape and kidnapping conviction. On May 16, 2007 the Connecticut legislature unanimously voted to present Tillman with $5 million following his wrongful imprisonment.

“Miguel Roman served 20 years in Connecticut prisons before being set free based on similar DNA tests. He had been behind bars since 1988 for allegedly killing 17-year-old Carmen Lopez. Authorities reopened the case after the Connecticut Innocence Project asked them to conduct DNA testing on evidence from the crime scene. The results excluded Roman [who now] awaits final disposition of his case.

“In 2007-08 the annual cost of the Capital Defense & Trial Services Unit was $1,412,860, not including the expense of expert witnesses or payment for legal services to Special Public Defenders.

“The best estimate of true cost is $2,383,334, or 5 percent of the public defender budget. At the same time, the total number of capital cases, 61, handled at the trial level or on appeal and in habeas matters, represented .066 percent of the Division's total caseload. Thirty of these cases were death penalty cases pending, as well as seven habeas corpus cases in which the petitioner was under sentence of death.

Earlier coverage from Connecticut is here.

The Sotomayor Nomination - UPDATED

The New York Times reports, "Obama Selects Sotomayor for Court."

"Obama Chooses Sotomayor for Supreme Court," is the Washington Post report.

The AP dispatch is, "Sotomayor nominated for High Court_first Hispanic."

The Wall Street Journal has, "Obama Introduces Sotomayor as Court Pick."

"The Early Line on Sotomayor," is from Law.com.

And the New York Times Magazine has posted, "What's a Liberal Justice Now," by Jeffrey Rosen.  The article, written prior to the Sotomayor nomination, will appear in this coming Sunday's paper.

Anna Brew sent in, "The Sonia I Know," posted by Stephen Carter at Daily Beast.  The Beast has more reaction to the nomination here.

Indigent Defense in Harris County

Lise Olsen reports, "Attorneys overworked in capital cases," in today's Houston Chronicle.  It's a must-read:

Lawyer Jerome Godinich, chastised by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals this year for repeatedly failing to meet federal death penalty deadlines, has represented an average of 360 felony clients per year in Harris County — a caseload that surpasses every other similar attorney.

But even among other Harris County attorneys approved for death penalty cases, his heavy workload is no exception.

In all, 10 of 32 Harris County lawyers approved by judges to represent clients facing life or death sentences regularly exceeded the recommended limit of 150 felony clients per year — a standard established in 1973 and adopted by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the Houston Chronicle found. The lawyers, each assigned anywhere from one to 10 capital cases, simultaneously juggled 160 to 360 other felony clients each year, according to an analysis of official district court appointments from 2004-2009.

Stephen Bright, an expert in capital case representation who has taught at Yale and Harvard law schools and reviewed the Chronicle’s findings, said death penalty lawyers have no business handling nearly 400 clients in one year. “That’s way too many cases and would not leave time for any other cases, particularly capital cases.”

Some felony cases are resolved in minutes, while death cases can take a year. Heavy caseloads limit the time an attorney can devote to each indigent defendant, a job paid for with tax dollars.

Harris County District Court judges do not monitor caseloads of attorneys they appoint, even for death penalty cases. Through their rules, judges attempt to restrict how frequently felony and capital cases are assigned . Even those rules, adopted after one overloaded capital attorney committed suicide, have been repeatedly violated, the analysis showed.

The Chronicle review found 220 days in which capital-approved attorneys appear to have accepted more than the limit of five assignments per day. Some took as many as 10 cases. It also found a dozen examples where judges violated their own requirement that capital murder case appointments be spaced at least 60 days apart. In some cases, judges knowingly broke their own rule because of unusual circumstances. In others, there were “glitches” in an internal tracking system used to prevent that.

One lawyer twice accepted two capital cases on the same day. The first time, Attorney Laine Lindsey said he accepted two appointments from the same judge to replace a lawyer stricken with cancer. Later, two different judges asked him to take cases on the same day. Lindsey said he didn’t know about the rule and no one mentioned it.

Godinich took three capital appointments in less than one 60-day period in 2008. One client was found incompetent to stand trial after drinking toilet water, disrobing and claiming he was Jesus Christ II while in the Harris County jail; another was a 15-year-old who pleaded guilty to felony murder charges and accepted a life sentence without possibility of appeal; the third hired another lawyer.

Godinich has agreed to take as many as 10 simultaneous capital cases over the past five years, though only a few were death penalty cases.

Only one other attorney, Robert Morrow, has recently taken as many simultaneous capital cases, records show. But Morrow uses a team of legal interns and lawyers involved in a mentorship program to help with his assignments and specializes almost exclusively in capital work.

Two of the Harris County judges , Belinda Hill and Shawna Reagin, said it might help judges to receive reports on caseloads before making capital appointments, though both said numbers alone should not govern decisions.

The AP has this report, also via the Chronicle, based on Olsen's article.

One-third of Harris County attorneys approved to try death penalty cases are overworked and exceeded a national standard that recommended an annual limit of 150 felony clients, according to a newspaper investigation.

The Houston Chronicle's investigation found 220 days in which attorneys approved to represent clients facing life or death sentences appear to have accepted more than the limit of five assignments per day. Some took as many as 10 cases.

Ten of 32 Harris County lawyers approved by judges to represent clients facing life or death sentences regularly exceeded the limit of 150 felony clients annually, set up in 1973 and adopted by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.

The lawyers, each assigned anywhere from one to 10 capital cases, simultaneously juggled 160 to 360 other felony clients each year, according to an analysis of official district court appointments from 2004-2009.

"That's way too many cases and would not leave time for any other cases, particularly capital cases," said Stephen Bright. He is an expert in capital case representation who has taught at Yale and Harvard law schools and reviewed the newspaper's findings.

The newspaper said it also found at least 12 examples in which judges broke their own requirement that capital murder case appointments be spaced at least 60 days apart. A breakdown in an internal tracking system is also getting the blame.

Harris County District Court Clerk Loren Jackson said a tool could be built to track attorney appointments.

And two of the Harris County judges, Belinda Hill and Shawna Reagin, said it might help judges to receive reports on caseloads before making capital appointments, though both said numbers alone should not govern decisions

Earlier coverage of the problem in Harris County is here.

Another Warden Speaks

"Florida must abolish flawed death penalty," is the title of Ron McAndrew's Oped from the Sunday edition of the Orlando Sentinel.  McAndrew retired after 25 years in corrections including time as a warden in the Florida state prison system.

"Capital punishment: them without the capital get the punishment." Those were the last words of John Spenkelink, executed 30 years ago today in Starke for murdering traveling companion Joseph Szymankiewicz. Spenkelink was the first person executed in the state, the second nationwide after a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling reinstated capital punishment.

As a former Florida prison warden who carried out three electric-chair executions and shadowed five lethal-injection executions in Texas, I know that Spenkelink was correct: Most death-row inmates cannot afford experienced attorneys.

Once, I firmly supported capital punishment. Part of my job was to help strap prisoners into the electric chair, and signal the hooded executioner to administer the current. But each execution lessened my support. In Texas, I thought the more "civilized" executions by lethal injection would remove my repugnance. They didn't.

My change of heart was gradual and painful. At night I would awaken to visions of executed inmates sitting on the edge of my bed.

I began studying the reasons behind executions over the centuries. I was appalled to think I had been part of this ceremonial barbaric act committed to appease chest-pounding politicians attempting to appear "tough on crime."

An experience I had this January underscored my transformation. I was a speaker at the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's conference in Pennsylvania. In the conference venue one day, a man turned to me as I approached. Shockingly, the last time I saw this gentle soul was inside a Florida death-row prison cell; I was his warden.

We embraced. It was Juan Melendez, an exoneree who had spent 17 years, eight months and one day on death row for a crime he didn't commit. As his warden, I could have taken this innocent man from his cell into the death chamber.

Melendez's case is typical for many on death row. Substandard representation and prosecutorial misconduct are among the reasons for exonerations over the years — 133 men and women since 1973. Three men were exonerated this year. Florida leads the nation in exonerations since 1973 with 22.

And:

The lesson that I, and all of us, should learn post-Spenkelink is that capital punishment does not ensure public safety, and has no safeguards against wrongful executions. The 35 death-penalty states, Florida included, should abolish it, replace it with life without parole, and apply the savings where they would do the most good — helping homicide victims' survivors and funding effective law enforcement that protects our communities.

"Death Row Realism," was the October 2008 OpEd of a former California prison warden.

The Sotomayor Nomination - UPDATED

The New York Times reports, "Obama Selects Sotomayor for Court."

"Obama Chooses Sotomayor for Supreme Court," is the Washington Post report.

The AP dispatch is, "Sotomayor nominated for High Court_first Hispanic."

The Wall Street Journal has, "Obama Introduces Sotomayor as Court Pick."

"The Early Line on Sotomayor," is from Law.com.

And the New York Times Magazine has posted, "What's a Liberal Justice Now," by Jeffrey Rosen.  The article, written prior to the Sotomayor nomination, will appear in this coming Sunday's paper.

Anna Brew sent in, "The Sonia I Know," posted by Stephen Carter at Daily Beast.

Texas Increasingly Out of Step on Death Penalty

That's the title of David Fathi's OpEd in the Sunday edition of the Houston Chronicle.  Fathi is director of U.S. programs of Human Rights Watch.  LINK

Barring unexpected events, in the next few weeks Gov. Rick Perry of Texas will oversee his 200th execution since taking office in 2000. Perry has already allowed more executions than any other U.S. governor in modern history, far exceeding the 152 while George W. Bush was governor and the 50 overseen by Bush’s immediate predecessor, Ann Richards.

The United States is a global pariah for its continued embrace of the death penalty. In 2008 it was the world’s fourth-leading executioner, surpassed only by China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Since executions resumed in 1977, after a hiatus of several years, more than 1,161 U.S. prisoners have been shot, hanged, electrocuted, gassed or put to death by lethal injection.

Yet it is somewhat misleading to attribute this appalling record to “the United States.” Unlike in most other countries, criminal justice in the United States is largely a matter of state law and policy. Only three executions since 1977 have been carried out by the federal government; the rest have been carried out by the states, and the vast majority by a mere handful of states.

Texas alone, with 438 executions since 1977, accounts for more than one third of the total. Just three states — Texas, Virginia (103) and Oklahoma (89) — together account for well over half of all U.S. executions in the modern era. At the other end of the spectrum, 15 states and the District of Columbia do not permit the death penalty. Of the 35 states whose laws authorize capital punishment, two have carried out no executions since 1977, and five have carried out only one apiece. There is a strong regional cast to the death penalty in the United States, with 960 executions in the South since 1977, compared with four in the Northeast.

The reasons for these state and regional variations are no doubt multiple and complex. The important point is that they show there is nothing necessary or unavoidable about the death penalty, nothing inherent in the American character that demands it.

Indeed, there are signs that Americans are turning against the death penalty. Just in the last 18 months, the citizens of two states — New Jersey and New Mexico — have, through their elected representatives, abolished capital punishment. The number of new death sentences imposed by juries has dropped dramatically in recent years, to about one third the number imposed annually in the mid-1990s.

And:

Texas will probably not abolish capital punishment anytime soon. But the good news is that more and more Americans seem to be getting the message that the death penalty is not necessary or inevitable. It’s a choice — and it’s a bad one.

TDCJ maintains this list of scheduled executions.

Tuesday

Returning from the Memorial Day weekend, there is a great deal of news and OpEds to report. 

I'll start with a Texas OpEd, then add links to the coverage of President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the Supreme Court seat of Justice David Souter.  Back to OpEds from a handful of states, and news that the Connecticut governor intends to veto the repeal bill passed by the state's General Assembly.

A Federal Capital Case in New Jersey & the Deterrence Argument - UPDATED

Does the death penalty deter?  Lawmakers opposing repeal measures in legislatures across the country this year often expressed their belief that the death penalty is a deterrent.

Cass Sunstein and Justin Wolfers were quite clear in their OpEd,"The Murky Evidence for and Against Deterrence," that appeared in the June 30, 2008 issue of the Washington Post, and noted here.

In short, the best reading of the accumulated data is that they do not establish a deterrent effect of the death penalty.

That didn't stop a New Mexico district attorney from misstating Sunstein's view during the repeal debate in that state earlier this year.

For those who want to dive deep into the statistics and empirical studies, there is no better authority on deterrence than Columbia Law prof Jeffrey Fagan.  A small sample can be found in this post; much more at his SSRN page.

Even the general public has concluded deterrence is a myth.  Since 1999, according to the Harris Poll, only a minority of those surveyed have believed that the death penalty deters.

And then there is the anecdotal evidence.  The most recent example appears in Thursday's New York Times: "Lawyer's Ways Spelled Murder, U.S. Is Charging," written by David Kocieniewsky.

He spent a decade as a top prosecutor, trying murder cases in New Jersey, drug cases in federal court and a wide range of offenses in the military justice system.

He went on to become one of the state’s most prominent defense lawyers, representing clients as varied as Abu Ghraib defendants, the rap stars Lil’ Kim and Queen Latifah and members of Newark’s notorious street gangs.

But federal authorities charged Wednesday that the success their former colleague, Paul Bergrin, had in defending drug dealers and gang leaders was based on a brutal calculus that he had boiled down to a phrase he repeated like a slogan: No witnesses, no case.

In an indictment unsealed on Wednesday in United States District Court in Newark, prosecutors accused Mr. Bergrin, 53, of orchestrating the murder of a confidential witness by leaking his name to drug dealers who shot him in broad daylight on a Newark street corner; of traveling to Chicago to hire a murderer to kill a witness in another case; of coaching some eyewitnesses to lie; and of paying others to change their stories or leave town on the day they were to testify.

The charges, which left Mr. Bergrin in federal custody and facing a possible death penalty, were a stunning development for a flamboyant man who owned a Mercedes and a Bentley, hobnobbed with movie stars and boasted of beach homes in New Jersey and the Caribbean.

Bergrin is far from the first law enforcement official to be accused of capital murder.  If those closest to the law -- those who fully understand the elements of a crime that can lead to a death penalty prosecution -- are not deterred just who is?

Let's give Mr. Bergrin the presumption of innocence, but death rows and execution chambers have seen others in law enforcement convicted, condemned, and undeterred.

Let me update with two comments from Jeffrey Fagan:

One is the evidence that not only does the death penalty not deter, but that when we isolate the cases that are death-eligible, we still find no evidence of deterrence, even in places like Harris County, which generates plenty of executions. 

Second, the overwhelming weight of the scientific data is that there may or may not be deterrence, but that the evidence is so fragile and inconclusive - with studies pointing in all directions - that we cannot morally justify the decision to take lives based on it. 

Petition & Amicus Filed on Behalf of Troy Davis

"New plea on innocence," is Lyle Denniston's SCOTUS Blog report.

Saying that no court has ever held a hearing on a Georgia death row inmate’s claim of innocence of a murder 20 years ago, and noting that the Supreme Court is his last hope, lawyers for Troy Anthony Davis have asked the Justices to order a full review in a lower court of the claim that someone else committed the crime and that key witnesses against Davis have recanted.

The plea for an “original” habeas writ — that is, one not pursued first in lower courts — was filed Tuesday in In re Davis (docket 08-1443).

The petition for a type of writ that the Court’s rules say is “rarely granted,” a type that will be granted only in unusual circumstances, can be found here.  An amicus brief supporting a new hearing was filed by a group of former prosecutors and judges, including former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson; it can be found here.

Because this is an original plea, there is no lower court ruling for the Justices to review.  However, the latest Eleventh Circuit Court decision, a 2-1 ruling on April 16 barring Davis from filing a new habeas plea in lower courts, can be found here.  A stay of Davis’ execution ran out on May 16, but no new execution date has been set. The state of Georgia has 30 days to reply to the new plea in the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court on Oct. 14 refused to review an earlier petition by Davis, seeking the Justices’ review of a Georgia Supreme Court ruling against him. That case was Davis v. Georgia (08-66).

UPI has sent out, "Death row inmate gets extraordinary brief," earlier today.

A group of former prosecutors and judges has filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of an inmate on death row in Georgia.

Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 after he was convicted of shooting an off-duty police officer in Savannah. A federal appeals court, ruling 2-1 in April, denied him a hearing to present evidence of innocence.

Those signing the brief, including former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr and former FBI Director William Sessions.

"Former judges push for hearing on Troy Davis innocence claim," for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Twenty-seven former judges, justices and prosecutors are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow death-row inmate Troy Davis’ innocence claims to be heard in federal court.

The filing comes a day after Davis’ lawyers filed their final legal bid. They are asking the nation’s highest court to send Davis’ case back so a judge can consider the recantation testimony of a number of key witnesses who testified for the state at the 1991 trial.

Davis sits on death row for the killing of off-duty Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989. MacPhail, a 27-year-old father of two and former U.S. Army ranger, was shot before he could draw his weapon.

Davis can make “an extraordinary showing through new, never reviewed evidence that strongly points to his innocence,” the judges’ and prosecutors’ filing said. To allow Davis’ execution without appropriate legal review is “a plain constitutional injustice,” the filing said.

Among those signing the friend-of-the-court brief were former Deputy U.S. Attorney General Larry Thompson; two former state Supreme Court chief justices, including Norman Fletcher of Georgia; nine former U.S. attorneys, including former Georgia congressman Bob Barr and former FBI Director William Sessions; three former judges from the federal appeals court in Philadelphia; and former state attorneys general from Florida and New Jersey.

In a 2-1 decision in April, the federal appeals court in Atlanta rejected Davis’ request for an evidentiary hearing. The court, which had postponed Davis’ execution, extended the stay for 30 days. That expired Saturday.

The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer carries the AP report, "Judges, prosecutors support Troy Davis appeal."  It's written by Shannon McCaffrey.

Officials have not yet set a new execution date. A spokeswoman for Chatham County District Attorney Larry Chisolm said he would not move forward with the plans to execute Davis until his appeals had been exhausted.

Lingering questions about his guilt have attracted international attention. Seven of nine key witnesses against Davis have recanted their testimony against him.

Prosecutors have maintained the case is closed.

On Tuesday, Davis' lawyers filed a last-ditch appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the justices to issue a rare writ that has only been granted three times in the last 100 years. The appeal said that to execute Davis without a full and fair hearing on his claims of innocence would be unconstitutional.

The filing said Davis' new evidence of innocence "eviscerates the state's case against him."

"Despite substantial new evidence of his innocence, no court has ever held a hearing to assess the scores of new witnesses that show Mr. Davis is innocent," the appeal said.

Earlier coverage of the Davis case begins with this post.

News Coverage of Washington Lethal Injection Hearing

"State's lethal "cocktail" challenged in death-penalty suit," is Jennifer Sullivan's Seattle Times report.

Lethal-injection drugs administered by the state in carrying out capital-punishment sentences result in cruel and unusual punishment for the condemned, attorneys for three death-row inmates argued Thursday.

Two executions and the case of a third man on death row are on hold because of a civil suit challenging the state Department of Corrections' method of lethal injection. Defense attorneys said they are not arguing to save their clients' lives, only to change the type of heart-stopping medication given to the condemned and who administers them.

"This case is about suffocation and searing pain," said Seattle attorney Scott Englehard, who is representing death-row inmate Jonathan Gentry.

In their opening statements, the inmates' attorneys criticized the state's lethal-injection protocols for lacking supervision by state-licensed doctors and nurses and for insufficient training and medical expertise for the execution-team members.

Englehard honed in on the three-drug cocktail used by state execution staff, saying only one fatal drug should be used. That drug, sodium thiopental, is enough to end a life without the combination of the two other drugs, which often yield painful results, he said.

Assistant Attorney General Sara Olson countered by arguing that state protocols are in line with execution methods in Kentucky, whose system was upheld last year by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The suit is being argued before Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham, who is expected to release a decision sometime after the four-day trial.

The Olympian has, "State death penalty on trial," written by Jeremy Pawlosky.

Attorneys with the Perkins Coie firm in Seattle, which represents plaintiff Darold Stenson, argued in filings that if the state Department of Corrections administered only one drug in its lethal injections – sodium thiopental – there would be a reduced risk of “excruciating pain before death.”

The current lethal injection protocol includes three drugs, administered in the following order: sodium thiopental, a barbiturate that renders an inmate unconscious; pancuronium bromide, a paralyzing drug; potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

The state Attorney General’s Office, which represents the Corrections Department, argued that the U.S. Supreme Court already has rejected the inmates’ claims that the current three-drug combination is unconstitutional.

Attorneys for Corrections also reject the plaintiffs’ claims that Washington’s constitution offers broader protection against cruel punishment than the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution bars “cruel and unusual punishment,” while the language in Washington’s constitution bars “cruel” punishment only.

During Thursday’s court proceedings, plaintiff Stenson testified from the State Penitentiary in Walla Walla via videoconference. He testified that he is a diabetic and under medical care at the prison. He said medical personnel have had difficulty finding his veins for intravenous lines and to draw blood. One of Stenson’s attorneys, Sherilyn Peterson, has argued in court filings that Stenson runs a greater risk of suffering unnecessary pain under Corrections’ lethal injection protocols because of his medical condition.

Curt Woodward's AP report, "Death row trio begin challenge," is in today's Tacoma News Tribune.

The lawsuit doesn’t seek to end lethal injections in Washington. Instead, it argues the state’s procedures should be changed to give stronger assurances that an executed inmate won’t be subjected to improper suffering and pain.

State lawyers, however, say the Department of Corrections’ methods withstand constitutional tests because they’re substantially similar to procedures in Kentucky, whose system was upheld last year by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Washington, like roughly three dozen states, uses a combination of three drugs to knock out, paralyze and kill a condemned inmate. Washington death row inmates may opt for hanging instead. The last execution in Washington was the lethal injection death of James Elledge in 2001.

And:

Inmates argue that more humane alternatives exist — using a larger dose of sedative to kill an inmate, rather than adding paralytic and heart-stopping drugs, or having a doctor or nurse involved. Presently, a doctor is employed only to certify an executed person is dead.

Assistant State Attorney General Sara Olson, the state’s lead lawyer in the case, argued that Washington’s existing policy gives proper assurances that a lethal injection will be carried out as required under the federal and state constitutions.

Under the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Kentucky’s lethal injection method, Washington doesn’t need to prove its procedures eliminate all risk of pain, Olson said.

Rather, the inmates must prove Washington’s procedures represent a substantial, intolerable risk of harm — and since Washington’s policies closely mirror Kentucky’s, the plaintiffs’ arguments don’t clear that hurdle, the state said.

It’s not enough to argue that Washington’s procedure could be administered incorrectly, and the plaintiffs’ arguments incorrectly presume that the state intends to administer the procedure haphazardly, Olson said.

On the important question of whether an inmate is fully unconscious during Washington’s lethal injections, the state’s procedure calls for the prison superintendent to closely observe the condemned inmate for signs of consciousness, and allows the superintendent to order a second dose of sedative, Olson said.

Earlier coverage starts with yesterday's post.

Texas Law of Parties to Remain in Place

"Veto threat dooms change in death penalty law," is Mike Ward's report in today's Austin American-Statesman.

Death penalty opponents have long decried a Texas law that allows the state to impose the ultimate punishment — execution — on people who have not killed anyone.

Legislation to change that was working its way toward Gov. Rick Perry's desk Thursday, when its sponsor said a threatened veto forced him to drop the controversial provision that would have exempted participants in capital crimes who did not pull the trigger.

"We wanted that provision to stay in, but the governor's office made it clear they would veto the bill if that went through," said state Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen.

Hinojosa amended the legislation to require only separate trials for co-

defendants in capital murder cases in which one or more of the defendants did not kill anyone.

Though he was not satisfied with the change, Hinojosa said, "we're not going to get any progress on this area of law until we get another governor. I realize that, so we do what we can."

Perry's office did not return phone calls Thursday evening.

And:

As approved by the House last week, the bill would have made a significant change in the state's death-penalty law, a change vehemently opposed by prosecutors and cheered by death-penalty opponents.

Under current law, multiple defendants in a capital murder case can face execution, even though not all caused a death.

Texas has been criticized nationally in past years for cases in which the triggerman cut a deal with police and escaped execution, while a co-defendant who did not kill anyone was executed.

Although other states also hold accomplices responsible for others' crimes under the so-called law of parties, few of those states have a death penalty. None executes as many people as Texas, which has put to death more than 400 people since the state resumed executions in 1982.

Prosecutors in the past have argued that if defendants participate in a crime, even if they stood and watched an accomplice commit murder, they should be held equally accountable — and several have been sentenced to death.

After the disputed wording was deleted Thursday, the bill was passed unanimously by the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, the last stop before the measure goes to the full Senate for a vote.

More on HB 2267 is here.  Related posts are in the law of parties/felony murder rule index.  Earlier this year Virginia Governor Tim Kaine vetoed legislation that would have expanded the state's death penalty, allowing capital punishment for a non-triggerman accomplice.

Connecticut Senate Approves Death Penalty Repeal

"Death Penalty Abolition Gets Final Legislative Approval In Senate," is by Jon Lender and Daniela Altimari for the Hartford Courant.

In a historic action -- which may be rendered short-lived by a gubernatorial veto -- the state Senate narrowly gave final legislative approval early Friday to a bill that would abolish the death penalty in Connecticut.

The 19-17 Senate vote came at 4:11 a.m., after nearly 11 hours of impassioned debate in the Senate chamber, and eight days after the state House of Representatives' approval of the bill by a 90-56 vote.

Now the question is whether the bill will ever become law, because Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has steadfastly said that she supports capital punishment, and repeated that Thursday.

Asked at the Capitol whether she would veto the death penalty abolition bill, Rell said: "I haven't seen it, but you know how I feel about the death penalty. I've always believed that there are some crimes that are so heinous that it deserves the death penalty."

State Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, said minutes after Friday's vote that he hopes Rell will reconsider that position.

"History has been made in the state legislature," Williams said. "We have seen a sea change in the state House of Representatives and the state Senate, and I think it reflects something that's going on across the country. ... I think it's very important that we stress that what we're talking about now is a very certain sentence of life in prison, without the chance of parole. ... I would hope the governor would reflect upon the evidence."

Eighteen of the Senate's 24 Democrats voted for the abolition bill, and were joined by a lone Republican, Sen. Andrew Roraback of Goshen.

Leading up to Thursday's make-it-or-break-it debate in the Senate, lawmakers had argued the question in preliminary votes on both philosophical and pragmatic grounds.

They disputed whether the death penalty is necessary for justice and prevention of crime, or whether it's a barbaric punishment that should be abandoned because it turns the government into a killer.

Abolition advocates said that as a practical matter, only one killer has been executed in Connecticut in the past 49 years -- serial killer Michael Ross in 2005, and only after he wanted to die and waged a legal fight to do so. They said the endless appeals that now have 10 convicted killers sitting on death row are frustrating and unfair to family members of victims.

The Connecticut Post hass AP's, "State Senate abolishes death penalty."

Much of the Senate debate after midnight was monopolized by Republicans who support the death penalty. They proposed more than 25 amendments, including some exempting killers whose victims were police, children or pregnant women.

The hours-long dialog drew accusations of filibustering by the majority Democrats. Sen. Ed Meyer, D-Guilford, referred to the GOP's parade of amendments, which often included a recitation of graphic details of infamous murders, as the "tyranny of the minority." He criticized his leadership for not changing the rules to stop such a tactic.

"We need a rules change so that this can't go on," said Meyer. "It never ever should happen again."

But Republicans denied they were filibustering and argued it would be a mistake for Connecticut to abolish its death penalty.

"If someone poses a risk and they are put to death, that risk is gone," said Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, a ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

There are 10 men on Connecticut's death row, including three who committed their crimes in the 1980s. The legislation would not retroactively affect their cases.

Anne and Fred Stone of Farmington have been following the capital punishment debate at the state Capitol. Their 37-year-old son Ralph was stabbed to death and robbed by an assailant who broke into his Washington, D.C. condominium in 1997.

While the killer was never arrested, Anne Stone said she would not want that person put to death.

"The death penalty wouldn't do anything for our grief," she said. "It wouldn't do anything for us."

But Dr. William Petit, whose wife and two daughters were killed in a 2007 home invasion in Cheshire, has urged lawmakers to preserve the death penalty.

"If you allow murderers to live, you are giving them more regard, more value than three women who never hurt a soul and played by all of society's rules for all their short lives," he told lawmakers in March.

The Day carries, "Senate votes to abolish death penalty,"  byTed Mann.

"Today’s there been a shift — history has been made in the state legislature," said Senate President Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn.

But before that history could happen, partisan acrimony virtually derailed the workings of the chamber, as the death penalty bill ran head-on into a deliberate slow-down effort by the Senate’s 12-member Republican minority, prompted by the minority party’s anger at the management of business in the Senate.

Republicans filed 26 amendments on the bill, eventually calling five, and finally withdrew their remaining amendments from consideration after securing an agreement from Williams not to force a debate on reform of the state probate courts even later into Friday morning.

After the vote, Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, the bill’s chief proponent and the co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, sounded tired but jubilant.

“This was a historic day for our chamber and for our state,” McDonald said. “I would encourage the governor to take some time and reflect on the magnitude of what the people’s chambers have said today, and to consider anew the continued viability or utility of the death penalty in a civilized society.”

The bill, already passed with bipartisan support in the House of Representatives last week, faced a far stiffer challenge in the Senate, and now from Rell, a Republican who supports capital punishment.

Even as debate on the bill began at 5:23 p.m., those counting votes were less than certain that supporters could gather the 19 votes needed for passage.

Their work was just beginning. The first amendment to the bill wasn’t called until well after midnight, at which point the senators had already engaged in a lengthy and emotional debate on the propriety and efficacy of the death penalty as a public safety measure, corrective to wrongdoers, retribution on behalf of survivors and solace to the aggrieved.

Supporters of abolition argued that the death penalty is ultimately “unworkable,” because the appeals afforded to condemned inmates in order to comply with the state and U.S. Constitutions inevitably draw out the post-sentencing period for years and even decades, prolonging agony for the survivors of their victims.

And, they argued, the most severe punishment was not that levied on the 10 men on Connecticut’s death row, but that issued to 46 other individuals also convicted of brutal murders in Connecticut: Life imprisonment with no chance of ever being released.

“You don’t know their names,” said McDonald. “They have been put into prison and told, ‘That is where you will die.’ The names we know are those who still demand our attention because they are under a sentence of death.”

Connecticut has put just one prisoner to death in the last 48 years: serial killer Michael Ross, who was executed in 2005, only after he had dropped his appeals and asked to receive his death sentence.

Earlier coverage from Connecticut begins with this post.  The legislation is HB 5459. in the Connecticut General Assembly.

Connecticut Senate Debate to Begin Shortly

That's the word from Ben Jones of Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty.  You can follow the debate on HB 5459, here, Live Stream 2.

Earlier coverage from Connecticut is here.

Revisit Death Penalty Bill

That's the title of an OpEd in today's Denver Post written by the sponsors of HB 1274, Morgan Carroll and Paul Weissmann.  LINK

On the final day of the 2009 legislative session, the Senate failed by one vote to repeal the death penalty in Colorado and to transfer the money spent on endless legal battles to solve unsolved homicides instead. But while House Bill 1274's prospects of passing have ended, the debate over the policy continues.

Colorado is a de facto no-death-penalty state already, so the debate is really less relevant than one over the use of limited resources. Colorado has executed only one person in the last 40 years. During the same time period, there have been 1,435 unsolved homicides in the state.

The crime committed by Gary Lee Davis, the last executed murderer in Colorado, was horrific. But it was likely not more horrific than the thousands of murders before or since. Prosecutors in Colorado rarely seek the death penalty and jurors rarely apply it, yet we still spend $4 million of taxpayer funds yearly on legal expenses related to the death penalty.

Those resources can be better spent, and that was the goal of House Bill 1274.

Two years ago, the legislature, in a near unanimous vote, created a statewide cold case homicide team in the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. That "team" consists of only one person, though, because the legislature has never funded it. The goal of this cold case team is to get a new set of eyes, with new technology, to take a fresh look at unsolved homicides in Colorado. Except in high-profile cases like the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, this is a fresh look that unsolved cases rarely get.

HB 1274 would have spent the resources we use to both prosecute and defend death penalty cases to try to solve murders. As the Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons put it, this bill would have traded "vengeance for justice."

That was the primary goal of this bill. The debate on the Senate floor had less to do with the choice of how we spend resources and the effort to crack unsolved homicides, and instead focused more on the death penalty itself.

And:

The morality of the death penalty can be debated all day long and it will never be resolved. Similarly, you can debate the deterrent factor of the death penalty and never resolve that question. But you cannot debate the finality of the death penalty.

It is true that Colorado does not have the problems with the death penalty that other states have had. The two people on death row in the state — Nathan Dunlap and Sir Mario Owens — are both guilty of their crimes.

But a society has zero margin of error when choosing to put its own citizens to death. If someone is wrongly imprisoned, as Colorado resident Tim Masters was for nine years, they can be released, as Masters eventually was. Had Masters been killed by the state, society's error would have been gut-wrenchingly irreversible. There is simply no acceptable level of risk for a wrongful execution of an innocent human being.

Yet to date, there have been 130 exonerations nationwide, indicating that innocent people do get sentenced to death. Both sides of the death penalty debate agree that if society is going to use the ultimate punishment, it must also use the ultimate due process, and that costs time and money.

While we are intensely disappointed that the legislation failed this year, we know this debate will continue, both in the Capitol chambers and across the state. We hope the discussion will proceed informed by a careful assessment of the significant costs that the current capital punishment policy consumes, and the negligible benefits it provides.

Coverag of the Colorado legislative session begins with this post.

In the Aftermath of the Missouri Execution

"Dennis Skillicorn is dead, but the Public Interest Litigation Clinic is still very much alive," is by Nadia Pflaum at the Pitch.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon never called Dennis Skillicorn's lawyer at the Public Interest Litigation Clinic to say that he'd denied Skillicorn's petition for clemency. Scott Holste, the governor's press secretary, wrote up a press release that was sent to media outlets shortly after 5 p.m. yesterday, but nobody notified Jennifer Merrigan, Skillicorn's lawyer. As a result, Skillicorn himself didn't find out that he was denied clemency until after Merrigan read it on the The Kansas City Star's Web site, almost an hour after the press release had been issued.

An hour might not seem like much, unless it's one of someone's final hours on earth. And it's more than an act of courtesy to let a condemned man's lawyer know that the petition has been denied -- it's part of the legal process.

In today's Kansas City Star, Tony Rizzo has, "Execution protocol passes test; 13 more on death row in Missouri."

As lethal chemicals surged into Dennis Skillicorn’s arm early Wednesday, a new era in capital punishment began in Missouri.

The state’s new court-mandated and court-approved lethal injection protocol passed its first test without a hitch, according to prison officials who already are preparing to carry out Reginald Clemons’ execution next month.

And 12 more men, many long-term occupants of death row who have exhausted most avenues of appeal, are in line to follow one by one in the coming months.

Missouri’s execution hiatus since October 2005 had been prompted by legal challenges to the lethal injection process and the personnel assigned to carry it out.

Authorities developed a new protocol and chose new execution team members. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled the protocol constitutional. And the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the general method of lethal injection used in Missouri and most other states.

In the wake of those court rulings, then-Attorney General Jay Nixon asked the court to set execution dates for 14 Missouri death row inmates, including Skillicorn. Twelve of those requests still are pending.

There is no way to predict when or in what order the court will schedule executions, Supreme Court spokeswoman Beth Riggert said.

And:

Skillicorn requested clemency from Nixon, now the governor. In denying the request, Nixon cited Skillicorn’s involvement in three other killings, two in concert with Nicklasson, and the judgment of the jury that heard the evidence.

Attorneys for Skillicorn questioned Nixon’s ability to fairly consider clemency, since as attorney general he had contested all of Skillicorn’s appeals and asked the court to set his execution date.

In their final appeal filed late Tuesday night, they said Nixon’s office did not notify them of his decision to deny clemency. They learned it from the media.

“The denial of clemency, by a governor who was once the state’s chief law enforcement officer, raises profound questions about whether the ‘access’ to clemency in Missouri comports with state law and respects even the most minimal due process guarantees,” attorney Jennifer Merrigan wrote in the appeal.

Skillicorn, who has been involved in many positive activities during his incarceration, was supported in his clemency request by former and current prison workers and prominent state legislators.

Ohio Alters Lethal Injection Procedure

"Ohio lethal-injection execution procedures revamped to make sure inmate is sedated," is today's Cleveland Plain Dealer report by Reginald Fields.

To be sure the three-drug lethal injection process is working, Ohio's condemned killers will now get a pinch and shove along the way from the prison warden to check whether they are unconscious.

That may sound like kicking a man when he is down. But Ohio officials say the revamped procedures are intended to guard against charges that state executions are tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment.

"We were under no legal obligation or order that said that we needed to make these changes," said Greg Trout, chief legal counsel for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. "We just wanted our process to be as professional, dignified and humane as we can make it."

Ohio's lethal injection procedures have been challenged in local, state and federal courts and left the policy here susceptible to criticism.

The state has responded by "refining" its execution policy, Trout said, by putting in writing precautions that were already in place.

But a few new steps have been formalized.

First, the execution team will prepare a backup dose of a sedative, the first drug administered and intended to render the inmate unconscious to ensure he does not feel anything else.

After that drug is administered, a medic will check to ensure that the drug appears to have flowed through the inmate's veins properly. Then the warden marches into the room.

"The warden will call their name, shake their shoulder a bit and give the upper arm a pinch just to see if he responds," Trout said. "An unconscious person shouldn't respond. If there is no response, we assume the offender is unconscious."

If there are any signs of consciousness, the backup dose can be given.

And:

Daniel Wilson of Lorain County is scheduled to die on June 3 and would be the first Ohio inmate to be executed under the new rules.

Jeffrey Gamso, an Ohio defense lawyer who has defended clients in capital murder cases and is an outspoken critic of Ohio's execution procedures, is not impressed by the new rules.

"They are still using three drugs. There is no reason to use three drugs," said Gamso, the former legal director for the Ohio American Civil Liberties Union.

"Here is what we know about three drugs: two of them serve no purpose in getting the guy dead," Gamso said. "Our expert and the state's expert have said using three drugs increases the risk of causing excruciating pain. So this new policy, it's nibbling around the edges."

And:

In recent years, mishaps prolonged two executions in Ohio. Prison officials had trouble finding veins to insert shunts to carry the drugs when executing Christopher Newton in May 2007 and Joseph Clark in May 2006. Newton's took so long he got a bathroom break. Clark cried out that the injection "isn't working."

Earlier coverage from Ohio begins with this post.

Washington State Lethal Injection Hearing

"Hearing on constitutionality of lethal injection begins today," is Jennifer Sullivan's report in today's Seattle Times.

A four-day hearing beginning today in Olympia could determine the fate of two men whose executions are on hold -- as well as that of others on Washington state's death row.

Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham will hear from the lawyers for Cal Coburn Brown, convicted of murder in King County, and Darold Stenson, convicted of murder in Clallam County. The judge will also hear from lawyers for Jonathan Gentry, who is on death row but whose execution has not been scheduled.

Brown was slated to be executed on March 13, but the state Supreme Court stayed his case less than eight hours before he was to enter the death chamber. Stenson's case was stayed a week before his scheduled execution in November.

And:

Defense lawyers have argued that the drugs used by the state Department of Corrections for lethal injection could constitute cruel and unusual punishment if they don't work properly. There are also concerns that the drugs are not administered by a physician or a nurse anesthesiologist.

A similar issue had resulted in a de facto moratorium on lethal injection in many states last year after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up the case of two Kentucky death-row inmates who contended their executions could be carried out more humanely. At question was the three-drug sequence used in Kentucky.

The first drug, a barbiturate, is used for anesthesia. The second drug, pancuronium bromide, paralyzes the muscles with a suffocating effect. The third, potassium chloride, stops the heart and causes death. Opponents argued that searing pain could result if the anesthesia -- sodium thiopental -- does not work as intended.

By a 7-2 vote in April 2008, the high court ultimately rejected the constitutional attack on lethal injection.

Last month, the four-member team responsible for administering lethal injections to death-row inmates at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla resigned out of concern that their identities could become public as part of the Thurston County court case.

Earlier coveaage of lethal injection issues is here; related articles are in the lethal injection category index.

Execution Setting in Florida

Today's Orlando Sentinel has a lengthy report, "Only Florida's governors can say how they pick execution order."  It's written by Sarah Lundy.

Last month, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist decided it was time for John Marek and David Johnston to die.

Crist picked out Marek and Johnston from nearly two dozen death-row inmates whose appeals are exhausted. Exactly how he came to pick those two prisoners -- and why -- is a subject only the governor can answer.

He's not talking. And neither are former governors who have made similar decisions since Florida reinstated its death penalty in 1976.

"I don't know how they decide," said Marek's lawyer, Marty McClain, a veteran death-row attorney who has defended hundreds of inmates. "Over the years I have wanted to know the answer to that question."

He's not alone. Johnston's attorney, Todd Doss, has defended at least two dozen death-row inmates, and he asks this question in his latest effort to stop the inmate's execution.

"Mercy was extended to these other inmates and they were allowed to continue to live," he wrote in a 30-page motion filed in Orange circuit court. "The process can only be described as a lottery."

Florida gives the decision to initiate the state's ultimate punishment to the governor, who sets his own criteria in choosing the next to enter the death chamber. Other states, such as Texas, Georgia, Mississippi and California, place the responsibility on their court systems.

There are 392 prisoners on death row. Since 1979, Florida has executed 67 inmates, including two women, for their crimes. And over the years the selection of these condemned has remained a mystery.

"It's the epitome of how arbitrary it is," said Elisabeth Semel, director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California- Berkeley.

The article also has two sidebars, "Who should be executed next? Here's the list," and "Sentenced to die."  A one-page version of the article is here.

Will the Connecticut Senate Repeal?

The Greenwich Time reports, "State senate might pass death penalty bill," by Bryan Lockhart.

Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams Jr. said Monday he is close to having enough votes in the 36-member chamber to pass a bill this week replacing the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole.

"I think there is a chance that we might have 19 votes in the Senate, which would be historic. We would have the numbers to pass it," said Williams, D-Brooklyn.

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday 90 to 56 in favor of legislation abolishing executions of convicted criminals in Connecticut -- the first time any chamber of the General Assembly had passed the bill.

The Senate is in session today, Wednesday and Thursday.

"We don't have a firm, absolute count at this point," Williams said. "But if we had 19 votes, then it would be my intention to run the bill."

There are 10 individuals on death row in Connecticut.

Two of lower Fairfield County's five state senators -- Bob Duff, D-Norwalk and Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford -- support the legislation.

McDonald is co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which passed the bill in late March.

"We have the potential for the votes in the Senate, but certainly nothing that would approach the margins achieved in the House," McDonald said.

Duff said he agrees with death penalty opponents, who argue it is not a deterrent to crime and costs the state more in appeals than it would in sentencing an individual to life without parole.

Earlier coverge from Connecticut is here.

Nebraska Legislature Gives Initial OK to Lethal Injection Bill

"Lethal injection bill advances," is Paul Hammel's report in today's Omaha World-Herald.  The article also has a vote tally of the legislators.

The growing support for capital punishment within the Nebraska Legislature was clearly evident Tuesday.

Observers credited term limits and the exit of the Legislature's leading death-penalty foe, State Sen. Ernie Chambers, as the leading reasons.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us," said Jill Francke, statewide coordinator for Nebraskans against the Death Penalty.

Francke spoke after state senators gave 34-7 first-round approval for adopting lethal injection as the means of carrying out capital punishment.

Nebraska has been without a legal means of execution since the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled 14 months ago that electrocution, the current method, violated the state constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Before the vote to advance lethal injection, lawmakers voted down two amendments brought by death-penalty opponents, including a 33-13 drubbing of an effort to repeal capital punishment.

The margin of victory was stark compared with two years ago, when a similar repeal attempt mustered 24 votes - one fewer than a majority in the 49-member Legislature. Last year, an attempt to do away with the death penalty lost 28-20.

The winds of change blew in with term limits, which brought a total of 36 new senators into the Legislature in 2006 and 2008.

Term limits also removed Chambers, the fiery north Omaha senator who for much of his 38 years in office stalled and filibustered debate to prevent adoption of lethal injection and promote repeal of the death penalty.

"He was very persuasive, such that I wondered if he had some training in hypnotism," said Sen. Tony Fulton of Lincoln, a death-penalty supporter.

New senators, Fulton said, simply reflect Nebraskans' support of the death penalty.

Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, whose lethal injection proposal served as the platform for the repeal try, said campaigning for office required the new legislators to form an opinion about the death penalty.

"It's an issue they get asked about a lot," Flood said.

Of those elected in 2008, 10 voted to support the death penalty and six voted to repeal it.

Sen. Danielle Nantkes of Lincoln, a leading opponent, said capital punishment is more complicated than people believe, requiring more than one or two terms to digest.

"These are highly complex technical, legal and policy issues that require a lot of time to gain an understanding of," she said.

Chambers, over the years, might have helped shape the opinions of other senators he served with, said Sen. Amanda McGill of Lincoln, a death-penalty foe. But that was before the law changed, limiting senators to two four-year terms.

Five senators who voted in 2007 to repeal the death penalty voted against repeal Tuesday.

Today's Lincoln Journal Star carries Nancy Hicks', "Nebraska lawmakers advance lethal injection bill."

State senators are on their way to making lethal injection Nebraska’s method of execution, after about 10 hours of debate covering religious, ethical and practical death penalty issues.

Senators gave 34-7 first-round approval Tuesday to the lethal injection bill (LB36).

They also voted 33-13 to reject an amendment that would have repealed the death penalty.

The more than 30-vote majority supporting the death penalty indicates the measure will make it through the next two stages of debate and become law this year.

Gov. Dave Heineman supports the measure.

“We do have the death penalty. We don’t have a method,” said Sen. Mike Flood, who sponsored the bill. “That is what we are doing today. We are making the method available.”

Nebraska has not had an execution method since the Nebraska Supreme Court decided in April 2008 the electric chair was cruel and unusual punishment.

The bill that got the first-round OK on Tuesday provides that the state will use lethal injection to carry out the death penalty but gives few details on the process.

The procedure — including the type of drugs and how they will be administered — will be determined by the state Department of Correctional Services, using the state’s public rule-making process that requires public hearings.

The bill protects the identity of execution team members and exempts any licensed medical professional involved in an execution from discipline.

The bill is modeled after a Kentucky law that has met U.S. Supreme Court challenge, Flood said.

But Lincoln Sen. Danielle Nantkes, a death penalty opponent, said that was a narrow decision by a “fractured Supreme Court.”

Death penalty supporters and opponents agree that any new law will be tested through court cases.

Earlier coverage of the Nebraska legislation begins here.

Missouri Executes Skillicorn Hours After Texas Execution

"Convicted killers executed in Mo., Texas," is Jim Salter's AP report, via Google News.

Two death row inmates spent some of their last moments apologizing for their crimes before they were put to death six hours apart in Texas and Missouri, which executed its first convict in four years.

In a lengthy, written final statement, Dennis Skillicorn expressed sorrow for the 1994 murder of a Richard Drummond, who stopped to offer help after a car carrying Skillicorn and two other men stalled along Interstate 70.

"The last 15 years I've lived daily with the remorse of my actions," Skillicorn wrote. "And I am deeply sorry for all the Drummond family has been forced to endure."

Early Wednesday, Skillicorn mouthed words to his wife and two spiritual advisers as the first drug was administered to him. Soon, he appeared unconscious. He was pronounced dead at 12:34 a.m., 11 minutes after the procedure began.

His execution was the first in Missouri since Marlin Gray was put to death in October 2005.

Supporters wanted Skillicorn's sentence commuted to life in prison, calling him a role model for other inmates. Skillicorn chaired a prison hospice program, co-founded a program that teaches inmates to be better parents, and compiled a book aimed at persuading juvenile offenders to turn their lives around.

To date, there have been 29 executions in America during 2009 -- 15 of those in Texas.  1,165 men and women have been executed in the country since executions resumed following the Supreme Court's ruling in Gregg v. Georgia.

I'll be adding a commentary on the failure of executive clemency, reflected in these two cases.

Texas Execution

Texas carried out its 15th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It was the state's 438th execution since 1982, and the 199th execution under the administration of Governor Rick Perry.  Texas has far and away the most active death chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions. 

AP has this report on the execution of  Michael Riley, via the Houston Chronicle.

An East Texas man apologized repeatedly Tuesday as he was executed for fatally stabbing a convenience store clerk during a robbery more than two decades ago.

"I know I hurt you very bad," Michael Lynn Riley said to his victim's relatives, including her two daughters and husband. "I want you to know I'm sorry. I hope one day you can move on and, if not, I understand."

Brandy Oaks said she accepted Riley's apology and was pleased to hear it. She was 4 when her mother, Wynona Harris, was killed.

"This is a difficult day and there are no winners on either side," she said.

To date, there have been 28 executions in the nation this year.

According to TDCJ, five more Texas executions are scheduled this year; the next, June 2.  Capital Defense Weekly notes execution dates in other states. 

In Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon has denied a clemency appeal from Dennis Skillicorn, who is scheduled to be executed in about three hours, shortly after midnight.  The Kansas City Star reports, "Missouri prepares for Skillicorn execution."  Appeals are pending, but attempts to stay the execution in the courts have not been successful in the past week.

Texas carried out its 15th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It was the state's 438th execution since 1982, and the 199th execution under the administration of Governor Rick Perry.  Texas has far and away the most active death chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions. 

AP has this report on the execution of  Michael Riley, via the Houston Chronicle.

An East Texas man apologized repeatedly Tuesday as he was executed for fatally stabbing a convenience store clerk during a robbery more than two decades ago.

"I know I hurt you very bad," Michael Lynn Riley said to his victim's relatives, including her two daughters and husband. "I want you to know I'm sorry. I hope one day you can move on and, if not, I understand."

Brandy Oaks said she accepted Riley's apology and was pleased to hear it. She was 4 when her mother, Wynona Harris, was killed.

"This is a difficult day and there are no winners on either side," she said.

To date, there have been 28 executions in the nation this year.

According to TDCJ, five more Texas executions are scheduled this year; the next, June 2.  Capital Defense Weekly notes execution dates in other states. 

In Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon has denied a clemency appeal from Dennis Skillicorn, who is scheduled to be executed in about three hours, shortly after midnight.  The Kansas City Star reports, "Missouri prepares for Skillicorn execution."  Appeals are pending, but attempts to stay the execution in the courts have not been successful in the past week.

Texas carried out its 15th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It was the state's 438th execution since 1982, and the 199th execution under the administration of Governor Rick Perry.  Texas has far and away the most active death chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions. 

AP has this report on the execution of  Michael Riley, via the Houston Chronicle.

An East Texas man apologized repeatedly Tuesday as he was executed for fatally stabbing a convenience store clerk during a robbery more than two decades ago.

"I know I hurt you very bad," Michael Lynn Riley said to his victim's relatives, including her two daughters and husband. "I want you to know I'm sorry. I hope one day you can move on and, if not, I understand."

Brandy Oaks said she accepted Riley's apology and was pleased to hear it. She was 4 when her mother, Wynona Harris, was killed.

"This is a difficult day and there are no winners on either side," she said.

To date, there have been 28 executions in the nation this year.

According to TDCJ, five more Texas executions are scheduled this year; the next, June 2.  Capital Defense Weekly notes execution dates in other states. 

In Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon has denied a clemency appeal from Dennis Skillicorn, who is scheduled to be executed in about three hours, shortly after midnight.  The Kansas City Star reports, "Missouri prepares for Skillicorn execution."  Appeals are pending, but attempts to stay the execution in the courts have not been successful in the past week.

Texas carried out its 15th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It was the state's 438th execution since 1982, and the 199th execution under the administration of Governor Rick Perry.  Texas has far and away the most active death chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions. 

AP has this report on the execution of  Michael Riley, via the Houston Chronicle.

An East Texas man apologized repeatedly Tuesday as he was executed for fatally stabbing a convenience store clerk during a robbery more than two decades ago.

"I know I hurt you very bad," Michael Lynn Riley said to his victim's relatives, including her two daughters and husband. "I want you to know I'm sorry. I hope one day you can move on and, if not, I understand."

Brandy Oaks said she accepted Riley's apology and was pleased to hear it. She was 4 when her mother, Wynona Harris, was killed.

"This is a difficult day and there are no winners on either side," she said.

To date, there have been 28 executions in the nation this year.

According to TDCJ, five more Texas executions are scheduled this year; the next, June 2.  Capital Defense Weekly notes execution dates in other states. 

In Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon has denied a clemency appeal from Dennis Skillicorn, who is scheduled to be executed in about three hours, shortly after midnight.  The Kansas City Star reports, "Missouri prepares for Skillicorn execution."  Appeals are pending, but attempts to stay the execution in the courts have not been successful in the past week.

Texas carried out its 15th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It was the state's 438th execution since 1982, and the 199th execution under the administration of Governor Rick Perry.  Texas has far and away the most active death chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions. 

AP has this report on the execution of  Michael Riley, via the Houston Chronicle.

An East Texas man apologized repeatedly Tuesday as he was executed for fatally stabbing a convenience store clerk during a robbery more than two decades ago.

"I know I hurt you very bad," Michael Lynn Riley said to his victim's relatives, including her two daughters and husband. "I want you to know I'm sorry. I hope one day you can move on and, if not, I understand."

Brandy Oaks said she accepted Riley's apology and was pleased to hear it. She was 4 when her mother, Wynona Harris, was killed.

"This is a difficult day and there are no winners on either side," she said.

To date, there have been 28 executions in the nation this year.

According to TDCJ, five more Texas executions are scheduled this year; the next, June 2.  Capital Defense Weekly notes execution dates in other states. 

In Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon has denied a clemency appeal from Dennis Skillicorn, who is scheduled to be executed in about three hours, shortly after midnight.  The Kansas City Star reports, "Missouri prepares for Skillicorn execution."  Appeals are pending, but attempts to stay the execution in the courts have not been successful in the past week.

Texas carried out its 15th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It was the state's 438th execution since 1982, and the 199th execution under the administration of Governor Rick Perry.  Texas has far and away the most active death chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions. 

AP has this report on the execution of  Michael Riley, via the Houston Chronicle.

An East Texas man apologized repeatedly Tuesday as he was executed for fatally stabbing a convenience store clerk during a robbery more than two decades ago.

"I know I hurt you very bad," Michael Lynn Riley said to his victim's relatives, including her two daughters and husband. "I want you to know I'm sorry. I hope one day you can move on and, if not, I understand."

Brandy Oaks said she accepted Riley's apology and was pleased to hear it. She was 4 when her mother, Wynona Harris, was killed.

"This is a difficult day and there are no winners on either side," she said.

To date, there have been 28 executions in the nation this year.

According to TDCJ, five more Texas executions are scheduled this year; the next, June 2.  Capital Defense Weekly notes execution dates in other states. 

In Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon has denied a clemency appeal from Dennis Skillicorn, who is scheduled to be executed in about three hours, shortly after midnight.  The Kansas City Star reports, "Missouri prepares for Skillicorn execution."  Appeals are pending, but attempts to stay the execution in the courts have not been successful in the past week.

Return to Connecticut

"A Change Of Heart On Death Penalty," is the title of Susan Campbell's must-read column in today's Hartford Courant.

I remember my step-cousin Bobby as a heavy-set, fun-loving kid devoted to collecting and selling stamps and coins. He was a wheeler-dealer who probably could have been a fabulous businessman, given the right choices.

We lost track of one another. I went off to college, and Bobby went off dealing drugs. For a while, he sold cocaine, and in the summer of '94, he ended up battered and stabbed in an Oklahoma ditch. Two men attacked him at his home, then chased him across the street to continue beating and stabbing him, at one point with a broken bottle.

Court documents say Bobby was left to "languish and die," although he was able to rise up on one elbow and tell police the name of one of his attackers. The cause of death was exsanguination. He bled to death.

The men were found guilty of first-degree murder, and Bobby's family — his parents and brother — asked that they be put to death. In her victim-impact testimony, my Aunt Gayle — a lovely, churchgoing woman from whom Bobby got his sense of humor — talked about the futility of nursing her twin 3-year-old grandsons through their nightmares. She spoke of how difficult it was to explain that, no, Daddy wasn't coming home, but, yes, he could see them from heaven.

Of her dead son, she said that he had loved God and had even gone on church crusades as a youth. "And in his adult years," she said, "he strayed from God, but we had always hoped he would come back to what he was taught and what he believed. God does promise us that."

One of Bobby's killers was given life without parole. The other sits on Oklahoma's death row.

And:

Then, five years after my step-cousin was killed, my friend Paul Laffin was stabbed and killed behind the Hartford homeless shelter where he worked, and his loving family asked to pray for and with the killer. We were still standing in the hospital hallway waiting to hear if Paul had pulled through, and even when he didn't, his family insisted on forgiveness, and they asked that we redirect our anger from Paul's killer to a health-care system that doesn't provide nearly enough care for the mentally ill.

Paul's killer was mentally ill, and the death penalty wouldn't have been an option, but as I stood listening to Paul's wounded family, I had to lean against the hospital wall. The Laffins opened a door to grace, and those of us who witnessed that had to step through.

I would never take from my step-cousin's family their anger or hurt. That wasn't just a battered corpse in the ditch. That was their son, brother, father.

But while we're talking about the death penalty in the next few weeks, I am sitting quietly with this: Fifteen states do not have the death penalty on their lawbooks. I hope Connecticut joins them.

The Connecticut Law Tribune carries, "Proposal Would Speed Up Death Penalty Appeals," by Christian Nolan.

It is long delays like these that prompted Chief State’s Attorney Kevin T. Kane to urge legislators to  hasten the process. His proposals include speeding up the time it takes to receive court transcripts and placing limits on habeas appeals.

“If the legislature does indeed want to have a death penalty that’s workable and not make believe… now is the time to pass these reforms,” Kane told lawmakers at a hearing this month regarding his proposals.

Truth be told, it’s unclear whether the legislature wants a death penalty at all. The state House of Representatives, dominated by Democrats, voted overwhelmingly last week to abolish capital punishment. However, the bill is widely viewed as facing a rocky road in the Senate, and Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has promised a veto.

Kane proposes to shorten the amount of time court reporters have to complete the transcripts of all prior court hearings in the capital cases and get them to the attorneys handling the appeals.

Currently, it can take more than a year. Kane’s proposals would require court reporters to complete them within 90 days. If that time frame can’t be met, the reporter, no later than 10 days before the due date, must submit an affidavit with the state Supreme Court stating the reasons for the delay.

And:

Criminal defense lawyers including the public defenders do not support Kane’s proposals. Susan O. Storey, the state’s chief public defender, said the measures would do little more than raise hopes for the victim’s family without delivering a speedier appeals process.

“I think that if you really want death penalty reform, you can’t raise false hopes for victims’ families that you can substantially shorten this process. It’s not just my opinion, I think the cases show that,” Storey said.

Storey explained that the 90-day requirement for court transcripts may not be reasonable given limitations in transcribing technology. She said lawmakers should discuss the feasibility of the proposal directly with the court reporters.

Further, she said even if the transcripts were received by appellate lawyers in that short of time, it takes up to two years for the defendant’s counsel to read them and make the appropriate appeals. Then after the appellate lawyers brief their claims, it routinely takes another year for the court to issue a ruling.

Another reason for the delays, Storey explained, is the lack of defense attorneys in the state who are qualified to handle capital cases or their appeals. She said it entails an “exhaustive amount of work” that takes the lawyers away from their practices. Then, if unsuccessful, the attorney must deal with “the emotional impact of your client getting sentenced to death despite your best efforts.”

Storey also opined that Kane’s proposal placing limitations on habeas petitions may actually be unconstitutional. “The most effective way to achieve justice, morality, and finality in capital cases is to impose the sentence of life without possibility of release,” said Storey.

Earlier coverage from Connecticut is here.

Update From Nebraska

"Legislature rebuffs bid to repeal death penalty," is Paul Hammel's update for the Omaha World-Herald.

For a second straight day, opponents of the death penalty suffered a setback in the Nebraska Legislature.

Just before noon Tuesday, lawmakers rejected, 33-13, an effort to repeal capital punishment in Nebraska.

State Sen. Brenda Council, who represents north Omaha, had introduced an amendment to repeal the state's death penalty as debate began Tuesday morning.

Similar measures have been rejected three times in the past three years. But Council said she had been upfront in her plans to introduce a repeal measure during this year's debate on lethal injection.

The state has been without a legal means to carry out the death penalty for the past 14 months, after the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that electrocution -- the state's current method -- was unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

State Sen. Mike Flood, whose Norfolk district saw five people shot and killed inside a bank in 2002, introduced the lethal injection measure to "close the loophole" created by the Supreme Court ruling.

He said that some murderers deserve the ultimate sanction, and that the state's multi-tiered system of sentencing someone to death ensures that only the "worst of the worst" end up on death row.

The debate Tuesday was peppered with references to value systems, fairness, the Bible and even abortion and the taking of innocent life.

Council argued that the death penalty was inherently unfair, had been applied disproportionately to the poor and minorities, and did not serve as a deterrent.

And:

Monday, senators rejected on a 31-7 vote an amendment that would have severely narrowed who qualifies for the death penalty.

The amendment, similar to a law passed in Maryland this spring, would have limited the death penalty to only those murderers whose crimes was confirmed by DNA evidence, who confessed in a video recording or whose crime was caught on video.

State Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln, who introduced the failed amendment, said Nebraska needs to take extra care that it doesn't execute innocent people. He cited the recent exoneration of six people in the 1985 murder of a Beatrice woman.

The Lincoln Journal Star has posted Anna Jo Bratton's AP filing, "Nebraska lawmakers reject death- penalty repeal."

Nebraska lawmakers on Tuesday rejected an attempt to repeal the death penalty amid a discussion of changing the state’s method of execution to lethal injection.

The Legislature was debating a bill (LB36) that would give the state a legal means of carrying out the death penalty.

On Tuesday, Sen. Brenda Council of Omaha introduced an amendment to repeal the death penalty altogether. The amendment got only 13 votes; 33 senators voted against it.

And:

Council introduced a bill (LB306) to repeal the death penalty, but it was not expected to be debated by the full Legislature this year.

Passage of the lethal-injection bill seems likely: A pre-session survey by The Associated Press showed most lawmakers supported lethal injection.

Earlier coverage begins with yesterday's debate, here.

Texas Execution

Texas is scheduled to carry out its 15th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It would be the state's 438th execution since 1982; the 199th execution under the administration of Governor Rick Perry.  Texas has far and away the most active death chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions. 

AP has this report on the scheduled execution of  Michael Riley via the Houston Chronicle.

“It was all my doing,” he said of the killing. “It was something that shouldn’t have happened. I can’t get it out of my head.”

He turned himself in to the sheriff’s office a few hours after the murder after learning authorities were looking for him. He’d been seen outside the store just before the time of the attack by a man who’d made a milk delivery there. He confessed after detectives found his bloodstained coveralls containing money taken from the store in a field near his home.

Riley was convicted and sentenced to death in 1986, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1991 overturned the conviction, finding a potential juror was dismissed improperly. At his retrial in 1995, he pleaded guilty. At punishment, his lawyers argued for life in prison. Prosecutors sought death and jurors agreed with them.

Houston's KPFT-FM will host Execution Watch on the web and it's HD radio broadcast signal beginning at 6:00 p.m. (CDT), tonight.

According to TDCJ, five more Texas executions are scheduled this year; more are likely to be added by state district courts.  Capital Defense Weekly notes execution dates in other states, including that of Dennis Skillicorn, scheduled to be executed by Missouri shortly after midnight.

To date, there have been 27 executions in the nation this year.

Texas is scheduled to carry out its 15th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It would be the state's 438th execution since 1982; the 199th execution under the administration of Governor Rick Perry.  Texas has far and away the most active death chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions. 

AP has this report on the scheduled execution of  Michael Riley via the Houston Chronicle.

“It was all my doing,” he said of the killing. “It was something that shouldn’t have happened. I can’t get it out of my head.”

He turned himself in to the sheriff’s office a few hours after the murder after learning authorities were looking for him. He’d been seen outside the store just before the time of the attack by a man who’d made a milk delivery there. He confessed after detectives found his bloodstained coveralls containing money taken from the store in a field near his home.

Riley was convicted and sentenced to death in 1986, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1991 overturned the conviction, finding a potential juror was dismissed improperly. At his retrial in 1995, he pleaded guilty. At punishment, his lawyers argued for life in prison. Prosecutors sought death and jurors agreed with them.

Houston's KPFT-FM will host Execution Watch on the web and it's HD radio broadcast signal beginning at 6:00 p.m. (CDT), tonight.

According to TDCJ, five more Texas executions are scheduled this year; more are likely to be added by state district courts.  Capital Defense Weekly notes execution dates in other states, including that of Dennis Skillicorn, scheduled to be executed by Missouri shortly after midnight.

To date, there have been 27 executions in the nation this year.

Texas is scheduled to carry out its 15th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It would be the state's 438th execution since 1982; the 199th execution under the administration of Governor Rick Perry.  Texas has far and away the most active death chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions. 

AP has this report on the scheduled execution of  Michael Riley via the Houston Chronicle.

“It was all my doing,” he said of the killing. “It was something that shouldn’t have happened. I can’t get it out of my head.”

He turned himself in to the sheriff’s office a few hours after the murder after learning authorities were looking for him. He’d been seen outside the store just before the time of the attack by a man who’d made a milk delivery there. He confessed after detectives found his bloodstained coveralls containing money taken from the store in a field near his home.

Riley was convicted and sentenced to death in 1986, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1991 overturned the conviction, finding a potential juror was dismissed improperly. At his retrial in 1995, he pleaded guilty. At punishment, his lawyers argued for life in prison. Prosecutors sought death and jurors agreed with them.

Houston's KPFT-FM will host Execution Watch on the web and it's HD radio broadcast signal beginning at 6:00 p.m. (CDT), tonight.

According to TDCJ, five more Texas executions are scheduled this year; more are likely to be added by state district courts.  Capital Defense Weekly notes execution dates in other states, including that of Dennis Skillicorn, scheduled to be executed by Missouri shortly after midnight.

To date, there have been 27 executions in the nation this year.

Texas is scheduled to carry out its 15th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It would be the state's 438th execution since 1982; the 199th execution under the administration of Governor Rick Perry.  Texas has far and away the most active death chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions. 

AP has this report on the scheduled execution of  Michael Riley via the Houston Chronicle.

“It was all my doing,” he said of the killing. “It was something that shouldn’t have happened. I can’t get it out of my head.”

He turned himself in to the sheriff’s office a few hours after the murder after learning authorities were looking for him. He’d been seen outside the store just before the time of the attack by a man who’d made a milk delivery there. He confessed after detectives found his bloodstained coveralls containing money taken from the store in a field near his home.

Riley was convicted and sentenced to death in 1986, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1991 overturned the conviction, finding a potential juror was dismissed improperly. At his retrial in 1995, he pleaded guilty. At punishment, his lawyers argued for life in prison. Prosecutors sought death and jurors agreed with them.

Houston's KPFT-FM will host Execution Watch on the web and it's HD radio broadcast signal beginning at 6:00 p.m. (CDT), tonight.

According to TDCJ, five more Texas executions are scheduled this year; more are likely to be added by state district courts.  Capital Defense Weekly notes execution dates in other states, including that of Dennis Skillicorn, scheduled to be executed by Missouri shortly after midnight.

To date, there have been 27 executions in the nation this year.

Texas is scheduled to carry out its 15th execution of 2009, tonight in Huntsville.  It would be the state's 438th execution since 1982; the 199th execution under the administration of Governor Rick Perry.  Texas has far and away the most active death chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions. 

AP has this report on the scheduled execution of  Michael Riley via the Houston Chronicle.

“It was all my doing,” he said of the killing. “It was something that shouldn’t have happened. I can’t get it out of my head.”

He turned himself in to the sheriff’s office a few hours after the murder after learning authorities were looking for him. He’d been seen outside the store just before the time of the attack by a man who’d made a milk delivery there. He confessed after detectives found his bloodstained coveralls containing money taken from the store in a field near his home.

Riley was convicted and sentenced to death in 1986, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1991 overturned the conviction, finding a potential juror was dismissed improperly. At his retrial in 1995, he pleaded guilty. At punishment, his lawyers argued for life in prison. Prosecutors sought death and jurors agreed with them.

Houston's KPFT-FM will host Execution Watch on the web and it's HD radio broadcast signal beginning at 6:00 p.m. (CDT), tonight.

According to TDCJ, five more Texas executions are scheduled this year; more are likely to be added by state district courts.  Capital Defense Weekly notes execution dates in other states, including that of Dennis Skillicorn, scheduled to be executed by Missouri shortly after midnight.

To date, there have been 27 executions in the nation this year.

Supreme Court Adds Two Death Penalty Cases for Next Term

Today's Washington Post carries carries the AP report, "Decisions, Decisions, Decisions..."  The justices:

Accepted two death penalty cases that involve the issue of effectiveness of counsel.

The court will consider throwing out the death sentence for Holly Wood, a mentally impaired Alabama man who killed his former lover. His attorney, described in court papers as lacking criminal-law experience, failed to tell jurors that Wood has an IQ of less than 70 and had been classified as mentally retarded.

The justices will consider reinstating the death sentence for a convicted murderer in Pennsylvania who twice escaped from prison after being found guilty of bludgeoning and drowning a man planning to testify against him. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit said that Joseph Kindler's attorney was ineffective during the sentencing phase of his trial and that there were problems with the instructions given to the jury.

More on the Alabama case is in this AP report, "Supreme Court to review death penalty for mentally impaired Ala. man with inexperienced lawyer," via the Los Angeles Times.

Holly Wood was convicted in the shooting death of his former girlfriend, Ruby Lois Gosha, in 1993. She was killed by a shotgun blast to her head as she slept in her home in Troy, Ala.

A federal judge tossed out the death sentence on the basis of the poor performance of Wood's lawyer in the sentencing phase of his trial. The lawyer, described in court papers as lacking criminal law experience, failed to tell jurors that Wood has an IQ of less than 70 and had been classified as mentally retarded.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the death sentence, ruling that Wood had failed to show that the lawyers was unconstitutionally ineffective.

The Alabama case is Wood v. Allen, 08-9156.

More on the Pennsylvania case is in this AP report, "High court to rule in Pennsylvania death case," via Google News.

The justices said they will hear an appeal filed by prosecutors in Pennsylvania after the federal appeals court in Philadelphia upheld a lower court order throwing out the death sentence against Joseph Kindler for killing one-time accomplice David Bernstein in 1982.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Kindler's lawyer was ineffective at the sentencing phase of his trial and also found problems with the instructions given to the jury.

State courts had never decided on Kindler's claims. Instead, those courts said Kindler forfeited the right to be heard on those issues because of his escapes.

The Pennsylvania case is Beard v. Kindler, 08-992.  More at this SCOTUS Blog post.  Both cases will be taken up in the Supreme Court's next term which will begin in October 2009.  The Court's current term ends later next month.

Experts: Harris Co. Taking Risks With Lawyer Appointment System

It's the kind of journalism that is becoming increasingly rare for newspapers and almost never seen on television.  Today, Houston's KHOU-TV has the above-styled report.  It's reported by Mark Greenblatt, and it's a must-read.  LINK

Judges in Harris County gave attorney Jerome Godinich more than $250,000 of work in each of the county’s last two fiscal years, assigning him to work for defendants who can’t afford their own lawyer.

The defendants were charged with anything from drug possessions to capital murder. 

But some national experts say the way Harris County judges select attorneys to do this kind of defense work raises serious questions.

“I regard it among the most flawed system of a major metropolitan area in the country,” Indiana Law professor Norm Lefstein said. 

What's at issue is attorney case loads. You see national and state laws agree that if you are charged with a crime, you have a right to an attorney, even if you can’t afford one.

But here in Harris County, the judges select lawyers for the indigent, rather than an independent body.    What’s more? The 11 News Defenders have discovered no one seems to be minding the store from courtroom to courtroom in Harris County, allowing many attorneys to take on so many cases experts warn it may be endangering the rights of the accused.

“You have to care about it if you care about justice in Harris County,” said Lefstein, who also used to run the public defenders office in Washington D.C.  He says Harris County is the largest metropolitan area in the nation without a public defenders office. It also has a number of attorneys who exceed nationally recognized defense attorney case load limits developed by the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals with funding from the U.S. Department of Justice.

In fact, a KHOU analysis of Harris County data from fiscal years 2002-2009 reveals nearly all of the top earning attorneys, who each made more than one million dollars over that time period, also exceeded those national case load recommendations or nationally-recognized recommendations about capital crime case loads.

“The more you do and the quicker you do, sometimes the more slipshod you do it, the more you are rewarded,” said Lefstein, who in addition to his position as director of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, also served as an Assistant United States Attorney and as a staff member in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice. He also served as Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Criminal Justice in 1986–1987.

More recently, the National Right To Counsel Committee asked Lefstein to serve as a lead reporter for a new 213-page report, “Justice Denied”, released in April and detailing research on what it calls “the pressing indigent defense crisis in America.”   

The report in question is, Justice Denied: America’s Continuing Neglect of our Constitutional Right to Counsel, the issuance of which was noted here.

Here's more from the KHOU report:

In relation to Harris County, Lefstein expressed concerns about the lack of any form of oversight regarding the workload an attorney can end up with as he accumulates appointments from court to court.  

“It raises all kinds of risks,” he said.

Take Jerome Godinich, who made $1.5 million since fiscal year 2002.  In 2008 he had activity on at least 177 felony cases.   However, the National Advisory Commission recommends taking on no more than 150 cases per year, with the attorney taking on no other kind of work or cases in any other court or on private retainer. But that very same year, Godinich also had activity on at least 6 capital murder cases. 

National experts like Lefstein and others say an attorney should handle no more than 3 capital murder cases in a year, and nothing else.

“He’s running an enormous risk,” Lefstein said.

KHOU attempted to contact Godinich for comment numerous times without any response from him.   So we went to the Harris County Courthouse, where we found him.

KHOU: I just wanted to know- do you think your case load had anything to do with why you’ve missed some important filing deadlines?

Godinich: No.

You may remember Godinich’s name, as the Houston Chronicle previously reported that he missed crucial filing deadlines in not one, but two death penalty appeal cases he was involved with in the last four years.

Related articles are in StandDown's indigent defense category index.

Eyes Turn to Missouri

Monica Davey writes, "Executions Debated as Missouri Plans One," for today's New York Times.

Officials in this state are preparing to execute a prisoner for the first time since 2005, when criticisms about the state’s lethal injection method emerged and one doctor who carried out executions acknowledged being dyslexic and sometimes “improvising” when it came to the amounts of chemicals he administered.

That doctor will no longer take part, and a United States Supreme Court ruling last year upheld a lethal injection procedure similar to the one Missouri will use, but some lawmakers, including some prominent Republicans, say they have lingering questions about the state’s system of capital punishment.

The focus of those questions has shifted some, no longer centering on the method of execution but turning toward which prisoners are condemned and which are not, and whether those choices make sense.

“I still favor the death penalty, but I just want to make sure we put the right people to death,” said State Representative Bill Deeken, a Republican, explaining why he last week proposed delaying the death penalty for two years more until a study can determine whether it is meted out fairly in this state. “At this point, we just do not know.”

In 2006, a federal judge had found the state’s methods so chilling that he ordered a stop to executions — and a remaking of the system here — until state officials issued a protocol for lethal injection that satisfied him.

At 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, Dennis J. Skillicorn is to be executed for his role in the murder of Richard Drummond, a businessman who had offered help to Mr. Skillicorn and two others when he saw their car broken down on the side of a road one night in August 1994. Mr. Drummond was forced to drive to a remote area, then was shot and killed, and the men drove away in his car.

And:

On Monday, the State Supreme Court rejected a request for a stay, and lawyers for Mr. Skillicorn filed a similar request with the United States Supreme Court. They have three other appeals pending in the federal courts, and met on Monday with counsel to Mr. Nixon, who previously served as attorney general.

Mr. Nixon declined interview requests. His aides said he was giving Mr. Skillicorn’s clemency request “a full and fair review.”

"Religious leaders seek clemency for Skillicorn from governor," is Chris Blank's AP report via the Kansas City Star.

Religious leaders who have worked in prison with convicted killer Dennis Skillicorn urged Gov. Jay Nixon on Monday to spare his life.

Skillicorn, 49, is scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, and state and federal courts so far have rejected requests for delays. Skillicorn would be the first person executed in Missouri in almost four years.

Speaking to reporters Monday at the state Capitol, several people who have worked with Skillicorn in prison said his death sentence should be lifted. They said his counsel to fellow inmates makes society safer.

"Dennis is a very good apple, if you will," said Sam Finley, who has worked with Skillicorn through Master Life, a Bible study and service organization. "He's a positive apple in a big bushel. If you take that apple out, something's going to replace that apple."

While in prison, Skillicorn has assisted with terminally ill prisoners, a family strengthening program for inmates and their children, a national death row newsletter and efforts to set juvenile offenders straight.

His supporters say the former Kansas City man has turned his life around during his latest stint in prison.

And:

One of the people who says Skillicorn should be spared is Jack Pyle.

Pyle — now 60 years old and living in the Fort Worth, Texas-area — said he was being held on drug-related charges at the Clay County, Mo., jail in 1994 when he met Skillicorn. Pyle said that Skillicorn warned him to take control of his life while pointing to himself as an example for the consequences of not doing that. The two have stayed in touch through letters and phone calls.

"He showed me that my thinking was so flawed, and he pointed it out to me that if I didn't get my act together, I was going to be where he is today. And that hit home," Pyle said. "It took a while, I didn't come around overnight. But he was determined, he will persevere."

Deciding whether to grant clemency will be up to Nixon, who until January led the attorney general's office that defended Skillicorn's conviction. Spokesmen for Nixon have said the governor believes in the death penalty as a deterrent to crime but will consider clemency requests that are submitted.

The St. Joseph News-Press columist Ken Newton's latest is, "State back in business of executions."

Stuck behind bars, killers convert with regularity. Incarceration provides time to find just the right words.

But this case provides a twist. The inmate put his words into action. He edited a magazine called Compassion, whose prisoner-written articles focus on healing for victims. He involved himself in a prison hospice, extending dignity to the deaths of imperfect souls. He helped raise money for scholarships that went to the family members of murder victims.

Does the good done in a latter-day life offset the evil done earlier?

Are laws established to create a better society or exact punishment?

Those questions will be answered after midnight.

In the evening hours, vigils and prayer services will be held in connection with the execution. In St. Joseph, an event begins at St. Francis Xavier Church at 6 p.m. In Savannah, a vigil starts at 7 p.m. at St. Francis Chapel in the LaVerna Heights Building.

Prayers will be said for the soon-to-die convict and for the souls of murder victims.

There is another view. In response to one Skillicorn story, an online posting contained these words: “End it, put him down like a dog if it had bitten you more then once.”

Since 1994, there have been about 5,900 murders in Missouri. Most of those years, the state conducted executions.

Call it vengeance, or call it justice. In a majority-rules nation, the state resumes its killing concern.

Earlier coverage is here.

Nebraska Legislature Continues Death Penalty Debate

Nebraska legislators are continuing their debate of LB 36 at this time.  You can watch the debate in streaming video at this link.

Here's the news coverage from yesterday's lengthy debate.  "Death penalty foes lose Round 1," is Paul Hammel's report in the Omaha World-Herald.

After an emotional debate that extended into the evening Monday, state senators rejected a proposal to severely narrow who could receive the death penalty.

The 31-7 vote came as the Nebraska Legislature debated, on first round, a bill that would change the method of execution in the state from electrocution to lethal injection.

Nebraska has been without a legal means to carry out capital punishment for 14 months, since the State Supreme Court ruled that electrocution was unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

Monday's rejected amendment, offered by Lincoln Sen. Bill Avery, was based on a law recently passed in Virginia.

It would have limited who qualifies for the death penalty only to those murderers whose crime was confirmed by DNA evidence, who confessed in a video recording or whose crime was caught on video.

Avery said the recent case of the Beatrice 6, in which DNA evidence exonerated six people years after they were convicted and imprisoned for a 1985 murder, is a reason to require conclusive proof before an execution.

"We have an obligation — if we are to use lethal injection — that we get it right," Avery said. "This is the least we can do. It's the best we can do to ensure justice."

But State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, chief sponsor of the lethal injection bill, said the amendment would have created a new, higher burden of proof for death penalty cases.

"He's watching 'CSI.' There simply is not DNA evidence in every case," Flood said. "That is a fantasy you see on television."

Flood, the speaker of the Legislature, said his bill was drafted to reflect the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in a Kentucky case, which upheld as constitutional a similar protocol for using lethal injection.

And:

Another proposed amendment is expected to be debated during second-round consideration.

Introduced by Ewing Sen. Cap Dierks, it would require public defenders or other defense attorneys who are appointed as lead counsel for death penalty cases to have at least five years' experience in criminal cases.

Nebraska is the last state to use electrocution as its sole means to carry out the death penalty.

Flood noted that the Legislature has debated measures to repeal the death penalty three times in three years but declined each time to take that step.

The lethal injection bill appears to have plenty of support: In a show of strength, lawmakers voted 34-4 to pass a committee amendment to LB 36.

Flood said Nebraska's death penalty system has several safeguards to ensure that only "the worst of the worst" get the state's ultimate penalty.

Nantkes criticized the Attorney General's Office for issuing a recent statement saying the death penalty has no fiscal impact, a year after its top capital case attorney, J. Kirk Brown, said the expenses were "staggering."

Nancy Hicks writes, "Nebraska senators debate lethal injection," for the Lincoln Journal Star.

Senators did not take a  first-round vote but are expected to do so Tuesday morning when they return.

There is no way to make the death penalty fair, said Omaha Sen. Brenda Council. “The death penalty is inherently arbitrary. It is inherently capricious. It is inherently discriminatory.”

“While we talk about the 11 people on death row, believe me I can take you over to the Lincoln Correctional Center where there are over 100 inmates who are there for taking the life of another. Many of whom have taken lives of others before. And all of whom will be back in our communities,” she said.

“Who decides the worst of the worst? Is it the most recent worst of the worst? Is it the one people are talking about now?”

But opponents were in the minority. There were two votes taken Monday that indicated how much support the lethal injection bill had — in both cases supporters had more than 30 votes.

Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk reminded senators that the Legislature has already spoken on the death penalty, refusing to repeal the death penalty three times in the past three years.

“If we are going to have a death penalty, we have to have a method of execution,” said Flood, sponsor of the bill (LB36).

Right now the state has no legal method of execution since the Nebraska Supreme Court last year decided the electric chair, the state’s only execution method, is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

The AP report is, "Neb. lawmakers debate lethal injection bill," by Nate Jenkinss, via the Freemont Tribune.

Nebraska lawmakers look ready to approve lethal injection as the sole method of execution after more than a year without legal means to carry out the state's death-penalty law.

The Legislature debated for six hours on Monday, but didn't vote on, the measure (LB36) to replace the electric chair with lethal injection, using a lethal, but undetermined, combination of drugs.

A relatively small group of opponents emerged during the debate, making it likely the bill has the needed support to pass. And a pre-session survey by The Associated Press showed most lawmakers supported lethal injection.

The debate is scheduled to resume Tuesday morning.

Nebraska has been without a means of execution since February 2008, when the state Supreme Court ruled the electric chair was unconstitutional because it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

Nebraska was the only state with electrocution as its sole means of execution. Lethal injection is available as a means of carrying out the death penalty in all the other 34 states that have capital punishment.

"It doesn't make sense to have the death penalty in our statutes and no way of carrying it out," said Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, the main sponsor of the lethal-injection measure (LB36).

Earlier coverage begins with this post.

Troy Davis

"Death row's revolving door: Courts mull post-trial proof," is Kevin Johnson's USA Today report examining the controversial Georgia case of Troy Davis.

The timeline of TroyDavis' 18 years on death row reads like most other condemned prisoners' slow shuffle to the execution chamber.

His appeals chart a legal marathon from a courtroom in Savannah, Ga., to the U.S. Supreme Court. The execution date for Davis, convicted of killing a police officer, has been set three times — and three times the courts or Georgia officials have granted extensions.

What doesn't exist in the docket entries or trial transcripts is a formal airing of evidence discovered after Davis' conviction that, his lawyers say, could win his freedom. Seven of nine prosecution witnesses have recanted their testimony implicating him since his 1991 trial.

Davis' attorneys and advocates for the wrongfully convicted say his case, set for another U.S. Supreme Court appeal this week, represents one of possibly dozens in which courts are reluctant to consider evidence discovered after conviction that might exonerate inmates on death row.

Laura Moye, a deputy director of AmnestyInternational USA, which supports Davis' appeal, says the "question of innocence doesn't seem to be as much of a priority for the courts as the craving for finality."

The courts' treatment of post-conviction evidence — revised witness statements, fresh forensic information — is drawing increased attention. During the past several days, calls for new evidence reviews were at the core of major developments in three prominent death cases, including the Davis challenge:

• Davis' latest stay of execution expired Saturday, and his lawyers plan to petition the U.S. Supreme Court this week for a hearing to consider the new witness statements, says Jay Ewart, one of Davis' attorneys.

New York Daily News columnist Errol Louis' latest is, "Save Troy Anthony Davis: Georgia is set to execute a man who may well be innocent."

The State of Georgia has been trying to execute Troy Anthony Davis for more than 15 years, despite compelling evidence that he did not commit the murder for which he is sentenced to die.

Davis has been to death's door three times - most recently, he was 90 minutes from execution - rescued each time by heroic lawyering. But his luck may be running out.

And:

The only remaining hope is a pardon from Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue - an act of mercy we should all demand on Tuesday, or however long it takes to rescue Davis from an unjust death.

Earlier coverage begins with this post.

California's 'Dysfunctional' Death Penalty

"'Dysfunctional' death penalty racks up 28-year, $5-million tab," I Maura Dolan's LA Times report examining one troubled case.

When Chief Justice Ronald M. George described California's death penalty as "dysfunctional," he might have had in mind the curious case of Michael Ray Burgener.

Burgener, sentenced to death for murder in 1981, has yet to complete his automatic appeal before the San Francisco-based California Supreme Court. His case has ping-ponged from trial courts to appeals courts over 28 years, and he still does not know whether he will be sentenced to die from lethal injection or spend the rest of his life in prison.

Given how long his appeals are taking, there is not likely to be any practical difference.

"This is the fourth published opinion on appeal arising from defendant Michael Ray Burgener's murder of a convenience store clerk on Halloween morning 1980," Justice Marvin R. Baxter wrote in a May 7 ruling for a unanimous state high court, "and it may not be the last."

Burgener's tale illustrates why executions remain relatively rare in California and why old age is the most common cause of death on death row. He was sentenced to death in the 1980s, when capital punishment cases began to escalate and courts grew overwhelmed. The pace of justice, always slow when it comes to the state's death penalty, can grind to a near halt when new judges and new lawyers take over an old case.

The judge who presided at Burgener's penalty retrial is dead. The judge who replaced him is now dead. The attorney who defended Burgener at trial is dead. And the prosecutor who won the guilty verdict no longer works for the Riverside County District Attorney. None of the state high court justices who heard his first appeal are on the court anymore.

And:

Santa Clara University Law Professor Gerald F. Uelmen, who served as executive director of a state commission that examined criminal justice, called Burgener "a great example" of the cost of imposing death instead of life without parole.

Uelmen said that by the time Burgener's appeals are exhausted, the cost to the state could total $5 million more than the expense of a life term without parole. An inmate on death row costs $92,000 a year more than an inmate in regular prison, Uelmen said.

On top of that, Uelmen estimated the state's legal tab for Burgener's appeals "has come to well over $400,000.

"The guy may set some kind of record by the time it comes to the ultimate decision," Uelmen said. "It just shows that in California, a sentence of death is usually a sentence of life without parole, except it costs us a lot more."

Related coverage is in the cost index. Thanks to Natasha Minsker for forwarding.

Editorial Roundup

"Missouri legislature: Few accomplishments, many missed opportunities," is the Kansas City Star editorial from the Sunday edition.

Missouri lawmakers stuck with tradition and ended the 2009 legislative session with a blizzard of papers tossed into the air.

Sweeping up afterward, we find a modest stack of accomplishments, a pile of mistakes and near misses, and a heap of missed opportunities.

And:

With executions resuming after a three-year hiatus, the legislature continues to balk at funding a study to look at concerns that administration of the death penalty is flawed in Missouri. The House authorized a study this year, but the Senate never acted on the measure.

Today's Wichita Eagle carries the editorial, Kansas Views on Death Penalty..." a roundup of editorials on various topics from papers around the state.

Gov. Mark Parkinson revealed an interesting perspective on the state's death penalty when he said he would be open to re-evaluating it.

As a state senator, Parkinson helped draft the law, which Kansas enacted in 1994. He said the purpose was to give murder defendants an incentive to plead guilty for a prison sentence without possibility of parole for 40 years.

If the death penalty achieves that, it could be one benefit of it. But maybe it still doesn't make it good justice. Maybe it isn't entirely right to use the threat of execution to pressure a defendant into a plea bargain.

This much we know: Life in prison is the best, most appropriate, conscientious -- and, apparently, cheapest -- punishment for murder. We should not need the death penalty to deliver that sentence. It should be the standard punishment, period.-- Hutchinson News

The original Hutchinson News editorial, "Death penalty," appeared in Frdiay's paper.  It references newly sworn-in Governor Mark Parkinson:

He added that "if the evidence over the last 15 years shows that this has been poor public policy or that it hasn't been imposed in a fair and equitable manner, which I think often is the criticism, I'd be happy to look at it."

The governor's open-mindedness is good to see. Kansas legislators are likely to give the death penalty law some more debate in their 2010 session and a closer look in the interim.

Some legislators this year proposed abolishing it just for the sake of expense. A 2003 audit showed that death penalty cases have cost the state $1.2 million on average compared to $740,000 for other murder cases. That isn't the only reason - certainly not the best reason - to do away with the death penalty, but if it resonates with some legislators it is a valid, and practical, point to consider.

Earlier coverage from Missouri and Kansas can be found at the links.

North Carolina Legislation

"State Senate takes up death penalty," is the title of Mike Hixenbaugh's report in the Rocky Mount Telegram.

A bill initially intended to protect racial minorities from discriminatory sentencing in capital cases also — to the disappointment of its original sponsors — might reactivate the death penalty in North Carolina.

In a major twist last week, the bill known as the Racial Justice Act was approved by the N.C. Senate, but not before Republican leaders added an amendment removing obstacles to carrying out executions. Because of pending litigation in the N.C. Supreme Court, a death-row prisoner hasn’t been executed in North Carolina since August 2006.

N.C. Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, the amendment sponsor, said failing to carry out capital punishment for people convicted of murder has been “a miscarriage of justice.”

The amendment affirms a Supreme Court ruling that said the N.C. Medical Board couldn’t punish doctors who participate in executions. The amendment also said the N.C. Council of State, a panel of statewide elected officials, no longer has to sign off on execution protocols.

The amendment pleased Republicans, who have tried since last year to get Democratic legislative leaders to take a stand on the death penalty hiatus.

But the bill’s N.C. House sponsor, N.C. Rep. Larry Womble, called it shameful to tack efforts to restart the death penalty onto a bill that, he said, is “simply about fairness.”

“I wasn’t pleased with any of the things the Senate did,” said Womble, D-Forsyth. “A lot of people have the misconception that this is a death penalty bill. This bill is dealing with fairness, dealing with equity, so that we do not wrongfully commit anybody.”

The article notes that the bill is expected to receive House consideration, "in coming weeks."  Earlier coverage of the issue is here.

Connecticut Editorials

"Death Penalty Repeal Advances," is the Hartford Courant editorial.

During the past five years, three states — New York, New Jersey and New Mexico — have abolished the death penalty for capital crimes. Connecticut's House of Representatives took this state a step closer to joining them by voting 90-56 Wednesday to repeal its capital punishment statute. We hope the state Senate follows suit and that Gov. M. Jodi Rell's support for the death penalty can be overcome.

The state shouldn't be in the business of killing people. Besides, the evidence shows that in some states, the ultimate penalty is more likely to be unfairly imposed on members of minority groups. Further, it's a chilling fact that some defendants who have been sentenced to death have later been found not to have committed the crime. This state's making such a mistake shouldn't be an option.

People on both sides of the issue agree that Connecticut's capital punishment statute is nearly unworkable because of lengthy, costly appeals. Only one death-row denizen in almost half a century, serial killer Michael Ross, has been executed — and that's because he wanted to die and cooperated with the state in getting the job done in 2005.

The legislature's Judiciary Committee voted in March to abolish the death penalty, setting up a debate in the full legislature between those who want to make the death penalty statute more workable and those who want to repeal it. The House made its decision this week by an impressive margin.

And:

Justice would be better served if Connecticut's death penalty statute were repealed and replaced with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release for those convicted of the most serious crimes.

The New Britain Herald editorial is, "Keep the death penalty for a few special cases"

The state House of Representatives has voted to abolish the death penalty but Gov. M. Jodi Rell will have the final word. We’d like to suggest that she consider the following:

To date, 238 people in the United States, including some in Connecticut, have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 17 who served time on death row, according to The Innocence Project. The causes range from eyewitness misidentification, improper forensic science, false confessions, government misconduct, snitches and other false testimony and just plain bad lawyering.

The fact is, despite the best efforts of our judicial system, mistakes are made, mistakes that, once a defendant has been executed, can’t be undone. The 238 people freed by The Innocence Project served an average of 12 years in prison before release, so sometimes exoneration takes time.

That means the death penalty should be used only in cases where the police, the judge and the jury are very sure of the guilt of the convicted felon. Since eyewitnesses have often proven unreliable, their testimony should be supported by strong forensic evidence.

Both editorials appeared in Sunday editions of the newspapers.  Earlier coverage from Connecticut is here.