The StandDown Texas Project

Ohio Roundup

There is news on two cases with execution dates set.  "Gov. John Kasich denies clemency for death row inmate Abdul Awkal," is the Cleveland Plain Dealer report by Joe Guillen.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Wednesday denied clemency for Abdul Hamin Awkal, who gunned down his wife and brother-in-law in a Cleveland courthouse in 1992.

Awkal, 53, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday at the Lucasville prison.

Kasich's denial follows the recommendation of the Ohio Parole Board, which voted 8-1 on May 18 to deny clemency.

And:

Awkal's attorneys have long claimed that he was insane at the time of the shootings, and they told the Parole Board that he had a traumatic upbringing in Lebanon and a family history of mental illness.

In another case, AP Legal Affairs Writer Andrew Welsh-Huggins posts, "Attorneys want psychologist to view condemned Ohio inmate's parole board clemency interview."  It's via the Republic.

Attorneys for a condemned Ohio inmate have asked the state Supreme Court to allow a psychologist to view the parole board's interview with the inmate as part of the clemency process.

The attorneys say having the psychologist present is needed to determine the mental competency of John Eley, scheduled to die July 26 for killing a Youngstown convenience store owner in 1986.

Eley's mental competency has long been questioned but the prisoner refuses to cooperate with efforts to have him evaluated, the attorneys said in a lawsuit filed ahead of Thursday's parole board interview.

"Every attorney who has represented Mr. Eley has believed him to be mentally ill," Eley's federal public defenders said in the lawsuit. "However, because of his mental illness and borderline intellectual functioning, Mr. Eley refused time and again to cooperate with experts, and has therefore never been fully diagnosed or even evaluated."

And:

Eley's public defenders make two points: Eley's mental competency has been questioned back to the days of his trial, and he has refused to cooperate over the years with any attempts to have him tested.

Eley has also refused all mental health evaluations while on death row in recent years, the lawsuit said.

The Supreme Court established standards to assess whether severely mentally ill inmates are competent to be executed in a 1986 case, Ford v. Wainwright; more via Oyez.

Related posts are in the mental illness and Scott Panetti indexes. Panetti's case involves the question of competency to be executed.  I've recently added a competency category index listing.

Mental Illness an Issue in Scheduled Ohio Execution

"Ohio Set To Execute Severely Mentally Ill Inmate Next Week," is Ian Millhiser's post at Think Progress Justice.

On June 6, Ohio is scheduled to execute Abdul Awkal for the murder of his estranged wife and brother-in-law unless Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) grants a pending clemency petition, or a court steps in with a last minute order. Here are the facts about the mental health of the man set to be executed next Wednesday:

• Survived a Civil War: In 1975, when Abdul was sixteen years old, a civil war erupted in his home country of Lebanon. Abdul lived through this war for eight years before he was able to escape to Michigan to live with family members. Although Abdul never sought treatment during his first months in the United States and thus was not diagnosed with a mental illness until sometime later, he said that he spent his first four months in America sitting on his brother’s couch — behavior an Ohio clemency board said was “as if he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
• History of Mental Breakdowns: Abdul eventually found work as a gas station attendant. About a year after he arrived in the United States, however, he was wrongfully accused of stealing from his employer. According to the Ohio Supreme Court, he then suffered a mental breakdown. Abdul “became hysterical, cursing and breaking things, vomited and then collapsed.” He was taken to a Detroit hospital in a straitjacket and later released with instructions (that he disregarded) to seek psychiatric treatment. Some time later, Abdul suffered at least one more mental breakdown as his marriage to the woman he eventually killed became increasingly dysfunctional. A mental hospital again told him to seek psychiatric care, but he did not follow up because he says he could not afford treatment.

Related posts are in the mental illness index.

Arizona Lethal Injection Litigation

Today's Arizona Republic reports, "Media asks to witness Arizona lethal-injection preparation."  It's written by Michael Kiefer.

Last week, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge questioned why the media had not demanded to witness how Arizona Corrections officials prepare death-row prisoners for execution, and on Tuesday, a media association rose to the challenge.

The First Amendment Coalition of Arizona Inc. filed a motion in federal court to intervene in a federal lawsuit filed by several Arizona death-row prisoners challenging the state's lethal-injection procedures.

U.S. District Court Judge Neil Wake denied the coalition the right to intervene, which would have made them plaintiffs in the case. But he did allow the journalists to have "amicus" status, meaning they can file briefs related to the case and still argue the right to witness how executioners insert IV catheters that deliver the lethal drugs.

One of the prisoners, Samuel Lopez, faces execution June 27. He was supposed to be put to death on May 16, but the Arizona Supreme Court stayed the execution because three members of the state's clemency board had not yet undergone sufficient training to consider Lopez's clemency request.

At issue, as the 9th Circuit judge wrote, is that "the state insists upon extreme secrecy" in its executions. Attorneys for Lopez and the other defendants have repeatedly detailed how state executioners have struggled to insert the catheters that carry the lethal drugs into prisoners' arms and usually end up surgically implanting a catheter in the prisoners' femoral veins, located in their groin areas.

One prisoner who was executed, Robert Towery, was allegedly denied the ability to speak to his attorneys when the medical team was unable to find a vein in his arms and instead installed the femoral catheter.

And:

The First Amendment Coalition includes the Arizona Newspapers Association, Arizona Broadcasters Association, Arizona-New Mexico Cable Communications Association, Society of Professional Journalists and Arizona Press Club.

KPHO-TV reports, "First Amendment organization challenges execution secrecy," by Morgan Loew.

The Arizona First Amendment Coalition has filed a motion in federal court that may shed new light on Arizona's controversial execution process.

 

The motion to intervene cites problems the Department of Corrections has had in administering the lethal injection to condemned inmates, as well as the public's First Amendment right to view all aspects of the execution process.

 

The motion asks the federal judge to allow a member of the media to witness the entire execution process. Right now, witnesses are limited to the final stage of the execution.

The motion comes on the heels a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that indicates Arizona's execution process is draped in more secrecy than the processes in other states.

Earlier coverage of Arizona lethal injection and clemency issues begins at the links.

Texas' June Execution Date Withdrawn

The Dallas Morning News reports, "Man’s execution date in Dallas County murder case delayed to allow DNA testing."  It's by Jennifer Emily.

The execution of a man convicted in a Dallas County murder more than two decades ago has been delayed at the request of the district attorney’s office to allow further DNA testing.

Bobby Lee Hines was scheduled for lethal injection June 6 for the murder of 26-year-old Michelle Wendy Haupt at her Carrollton apartment. State District Judge Don Adams approved the delay Friday.

Court records do not provide details about the testing, and the district attorney’s office declined to comment through Jamille Bradfield, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Craig Watkins.

Hines’ attorney, Lydia Brandt, said in an email that testing involves DNA found on Haupt’s nail clippings.

“The DNA report recites that there is a one in two probability that Bobby Hines is a possible contributor,” Brandt wrote. “This is akin to saying one out of two people, who are randomly walking down the Dallas streets, is a ‘possible’ contributor. So the DNA test results do not prove Bobby Hines is the perpetrator.”

Brandt said that further testing is possible.

“The Dallas DA and the defense are in negotiation about further DNA testing,” she said.

According to TDCJ, the next scheduled Texas execution is July 18.  Four additional executions are currently scheduled in 2012.

Pardon From Kasich Is Rare

That's the title of aColumbus Dispatch report subtitled, "So far, governor granting only 5 percent of appeals mostly from ex-convicts."  It's by  Alan Johnson.

Gov. John Kasich has used his executive clemency power moderately during his 16 months in office, sparing the lives of two convicted killers but approving only 5 percent of other requests.But Kasich has done far better than his predecessor, Ted Strickland, in keeping up with clemency requests. Strickland made no decisions for nearly three years in office and rushed to complete hundreds of cases in his last few months as governor.In 412 clemency requests decided thus far, Kasich released no one from prison. However, he did block the executions of Shawn Hawkins of Hamilton County and Joseph Murphy of Marion County. Both were convicted of murder and sentenced to death; Kasich commuted their sentences to life without parole.

Kasich refused to grant clemency in six other murder cases; all resulted in executions.

Records obtained from Kasich’s office show that he approved pardons in 14 older, less-serious cases for former prisoners who wanted to clear their criminal records for employment or education purposes or, as one ex-offender asked, so he could “live out his life as a free man.”

The most high-profile case involved Kelley Williams-Bolar, an Akron mom who was jailed for fraudulently switching her children to a neighboring school district. Kasich went against the recommendation of the Ohio Parole Board and used his unfettered clemency power to reduce Williams-Bolar’s two felony convictions for tampering with records to first-degree misdemeanors.

And:

Kasich rejected clemency in 386 cases overall and has 278 others to decide. More clemency requests arrive daily.

Under state law, he must have a recommendation from the Ohio Parole Board before acting.

Kasich’s 5 percent approval record, which places him among the most-conservative governors in terms of exercising clemency power, probably will change over time.

Strickland approved roughly 20 percent of the 1,615 cases he handled between 2005 to 2010, most for pardons involving low-level, nonviolent offenses. He also spared the lives of convicted killers.

Former Gov. Richard F. Celeste, a Democrat, granted 67 clemencies just before leaving office in 1991, wiping out death sentences for eight killers and shortening prison time for 26 female inmates who were victims of battered-woman syndrome.

Former Govs. Bob Taft and George V. Voinovich each approved less than 10 percent of the clemency requests they received.

"Convicted Murderer Denied Clemency," is the AP report via the Ohio News Network.

The Ohio Parole Board recommended Friday that the governor deny clemency for a man sentenced to death for killing his estranged wife and brother-in-law in a basement room at a courthouse in 1992.

Abdul Awkal is slated to be put to death June 6 in one of 11 executions scheduled over the next two years.

Awkal's lawyer argued the 53-year-old man suffers from severe mental health problems and should be spared, but the state said Awkal carefully planned the killings and should be executed.

The parole board voted 8-1 against recommending mercy, with most members concluding that Awkal planned the shooting and that it wasn't the result of a psychotic breakdown.

While he had asserted remorse, "he clearly blames the victims for allegedly creating the circumstances that forced him to kill them," the board said. Its decision goes to Gov. John Kasich, who has the final say on whether to grant clemency.

Related posts are in the clemency index.  In 2005, Texas Appleseed and the Texas Innocence Network published, "The Role of Mercy: Safegaurding Texas Justice Through Clemency Reform," which examined best practices in executive clemency.  The Appendix contains comparative state information.

Idaho to Switch to Single-Drug Protocol

The Spokane Spokesman-Review carries the AP filing, "Idaho to use one drug in executions," written by Todd Dvorak.

Idaho’s executioners will use one drug to carry out a lethal injection scheduled next month, bringing the state in line with other death penalty states switching from a three-drug mixture, the state’s corrections chief said Friday.

The state execution team will administer a single, lethal dose of the surgical sedative pentobarbital during the scheduled June 12 execution of convicted murderer Richard Leavitt, said Brent Reinke, director of the Department of Corrections.

His decision marks a departure from Idaho’s most recent execution in November, when a mixture of three chemicals, including pentobarbital, was used to execute Paul Ezra Rhoades in the state’s first execution in 17 years.

Reinke said the single-dose injection complies with the newest version of the state’s execution policy, which also allows the state the options of returning to the three-drug mixture later.

The switch was also driven in part by the difficulty of obtaining the other two drugs that were used on Rhoades. Pentobarbital is an anesthetic used to put condemned inmates to sleep before other lethal drugs are administered, but it is lethal in higher doses.

"One Drug Injection For Idaho’s Next Execution," is Scott Ki's Boise Public Radio, KBSX-FM.  There is audio at the link.

Idaho inmate Richard Leavitt is scheduled for lethal injection on June 12th.  That will come seven months after the state used a mixture of three drugs to execute Paul Rhoades.  Idaho Department of Correction officials said today based on what they learned from that execution, they’ll now use just one drug.

Rhoades died after an injection team administered three drugs.  One sedated him.  Another stopped his breathing. And the last stopped his heart.  Brent Reinke directs the Idaho Department of Correction.   He says, "The first drug was pentobarbital. That will be the primary and only drug we use in this execution."

Reinke says he made that choice based on availability of the sedative, legal challenges, and the fact that other states use just one drug.  Rhoades’s attorneys argued that a three drug combination would leave him conscious and in pain during the injection.  A federal judge rejected that argument.

Earlier coverage from Idaho begins at the link.

Missouri to Use Propofol in Lethal Injection Executions

There is extensive lethal injection news from Missouri, Idaho, Mississippi, and Texas this past weekend.  Let's begin in Missouri.

"Missouri finds a drug option for executions," is Tony Rizzo's Kansas City Star report.  The St.Louis Post-Dispatch runs the article as, "Missouri executions may restart with drug propofol," through McClatchy News.  Here's an extended excerpt:

The state of Missouri is back in the execution business with a drug that’s never been used to put prisoners to death in the United States.

Stymied by a chemical shortage affecting every death-penalty state, the Missouri Department of Corrections said this week that it now will carry out death sentences with propofol, a widely used surgical anesthetic that also was a factor in singer Michael Jackson’s death.

Attorneys representing some of the state’s death row inmates learned of the plan Thursday after corrections officials met with some inmates and informed them of the new protocol.

Defense attorneys said it’s too early to say what, if any, legal challenges might be mounted in regard to the new one-drug execution protocol that replaces Missouri’s previous three-drug cocktail.

“It’s something we will have to look at very carefully,” said Joseph Luby, an attorney with the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic in Kansas City. “Propofol has no track record in executions.”

Missouri is the first state to formally adopt the use of propofol, also known by the brand name Diprivan, for use in lethal injections, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

“No one has used it yet,” Dieter said. “Other states may have considered it.”

Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University in New York and nationally known expert on lethal injection issues, called it a “pretty extraordinary development” that raises many questions.

“I would anticipate legal challenges,” she said.

Missouri’s last execution took place in February 2011. Since shortly after that, the state has been unable to obtain the anesthetic that puts inmates to sleep before they are injected with two other chemicals that stop the lungs and heart. Officials also had been unable to obtain an alternative drug that some states had adopted to take its place.

And:

In early 2010, shortages of sodium thiopental began cropping up, and in early 2011 the only domestic supplier announced it would no longer manufacture the drug.

States also had difficulty obtaining it from foreign sources, and on March 27, a federal court in Washington, D.C., banned any importation of sodium thiopental and ordered the Food and Drug Administration to contact every state that it believed had any foreign-manufactured thiopental and instruct them to surrender it to the FDA. It also permanently prohibited importation of the drug.

With thiopental in short supply, some states began to substitute another anesthetic, pentobarbital, for use in the three-drug method.

In February 2011, Ohio began using pentobarbital by itself to execute prisoners. Earlier this year, Arizona became the second state to switch to one-drug executions using pentobarbital.

Dieter, with the death penalty information center, said pentobarbital has been used, either by itself or in combination with other drugs, in the last 45 executions in the United States.

But last July, its Danish manufacturer announced that it was imposing restrictions on how pentobarbital was distributed to prevent its use in executions.

Since its on-hand supply of thiopental expired in March 2011, Missouri had been unsuccessful in finding it or pentobarbital.

In announcing its new protocol this week, Missouri Department of Corrections officials did not comment on when they obtained the new drug or where it was obtained.

MissouriNet reports, "Corrections Department adopts new drug for lethal injections," by Mike Lear.

The state Department of Corrections has approved a new drug for use in lethal injections to carry out the death penalty.

In a statement, the Department says it has adopted a one-drug protocol [PDF] using propofol, otherwise known as Diprovan. This replaces a three-drug method used previously.

Earlier coverage of lethal injection issues from Missouri begins at the link.

re here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/18/3617850/missouri-finds-a-drug-option-for.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/18/3617850/missouri-finds-a-drug-option-for.html#storylink=cpy

The Staley Case

"Steven Staley capital case reveals another glaring flaw in Texas death penalty," is the editorial in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Staley has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic who has severe delusions when he isn't taking antipsychotic medication.

For years now, his defense team has argued that it would violate the Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment to forcibly medicate Staley to make him lucid enough to comprehend his execution. Prosecutors also argue that the drugs are for Staley's benefit. But clearly having him mentally healthy enough to execute benefits the state, not Staley.

The case has wended its way through the courts, with execution dates being set and then lifted because of the difficulty of finding the correct balance.

In 2006, state District Judge Wayne Salvant in Fort Worth allowed the state to forcibly medicate Staley. But that was appealed, and the issue still isn't settled. Staley was set for execution today, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay Monday, so the debate will continue.

Staley certainly must be punished for wantonly taking a life. Is forcing him to take dangerous drugs just to make him competent long enough for the state to kill him the only way to accomplish the societal goal of enforcing the rule of "Thou shalt not kill"?

If the answer is "yes," that's one more glaring flaw in Texas' capital punishment system.

If the answer is "no," commuting Staley's death sentence to life imprisonment would achieve punishment without the disturbing precedent that would be set by drugging him to administer a fatal injection.

Earlier coverage of Steven Staley's case begins at the link.

Arizona Supreme Court Stays Execution Over Clemency Board Issue

Today's Arizona Republic reports, "Arizona's high court issues stay of execution."  It's by Michael Kiefer.

Questions about the competency of Gov. Jan Brewer's recent appointees to the state clemency board prompted the Arizona Supreme Court to stay today's scheduled execution of death-row prisoner Samuel Lopez, saying he is entitled to a fair hearing before the board.

The state high court's decision late Tuesday was not a permanent reprieve for Lopez, who was sentenced to death for the 1986 rape and murder of a Phoenix woman. The justices set a new execution date of June 27, allowing time for issues raised by the recent clemency-board appointments to be worked out.

Lopez's defense team claimed that he was denied a fair clemency hearing on May 7 because three members of the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency were improperly appointed and had not undergone mandatory training.

The high court in its order Tuesday only acknowledged the lack of training and set the new execution date to allow the instruction to take place.

And:

Earlier Tuesday, a three-judge appeals panel denied a motion claiming that Lopez's attorneys had failed to present adequate mitigating evidence during his trials and early appeals.

A separate three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit criticized the Arizona Department of Corrections for repeatedly altering its manner of execution with each prisoner -- what the judges referred to as a "rolling protocol" -- but a majority did not think it merited a stay of execution. A key issue was the department's apparent inability to insert catheter lines into the arm veins of the condemned prisoners. Generally, when that fails, a doctor inserts a line surgically into an artery in the prisoner's groin.

The judges did not think the lapses in protocol rose to the level of "cruel and unusual punishment" forbidden by the U.S. Constitution. One dissenting appeals judge, however, objected to the secrecy the department maintains in its executions and called on the media to push for access to observe the pre-execution procedures, as has been done in other states.

"Arizona delays execution to provide training time," is the AP filing, via KTAR.

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday postponed a scheduled execution to provide time for newly appointed members of the state clemency board to undergo required training before they hold a hearing for the condemned man.

Samuel Villegas Lopez had been set for execution Wednesday for the murder of a Phoenix woman.

The Supreme Court granted a stay requested by his lawyers on the grounds that Lopez was denied a fair chance for clemency because a majority of the Board of Executive Clemency's members have yet to undergo four weeks of required training.

The court said it wasn't directly ruling on that issue, but it rescheduled Lopez's execution for June 27. It said the postponement served the ``interests of justice'' by providing the five-member board with time for the training and for holding a clemency hearing for Lopez.

The court rejected another claim by Lopez's lawyers that some board members recently appointed by Gov. Jan Brewer are unqualified for failing to previously demonstrate an interest in corrections. That's a requirement under state law.

ReutersLegal posts, "Arizona top court stays execution over clemency hearing."  It's by Tim Gaynor.

The Arizona Supreme Court rescheduled his execution for June 27 so that attorneys could address claims that he was denied a fair clemency hearing because some members of the state clemency board had not received a mandated four-week training course.

"We conclude that the interests of justice are best served by staying the pending execution and forthwith issuing ... a new warrant of execution, for June 27," the court said in its ruling.

"The period between now and the new execution date will allow training of new board members and a clemency hearing to be subsequently held by the board," it added.

He had been due to die by lethal injection at 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning, at the state prison in Florence, some 60 miles southeast of Phoenix.

Lopez would be the fourth Arizona inmate to be executed this year in Arizona, and the 32nd since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1992.

Earlier coverage from Arizona begins at the link. 

CCA Issues Stay for Steven Staley

"Court Stays Execution of Mentally Ill Inmate," is Brandi Grissom's post at the Texas Tribune.  It's also available via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday stayed this week’s scheduled execution of Steven Staley, a severely mentally ill inmate who was convicted of a 1989 robbery and murder at a Fort Worth Steak and Ale restaurant.

The stay came after defense lawyers argued that the state was violating Staley's constitutional rights by forcing him to take powerful anti-psychotic drugs so that he could be considered mentally competent for execution. On the heels of the stay, John Stickels, a lawyer for Staley, said that a psychologist on Monday spent three hours with the inmate at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston and had concluded that after two weeks without his medication he was no longer competent.

"He is delusional again. He believes there is a big conspiracy orchestrated by the state and that everybody, everybody, is part of the conspiracy," Stickels said. "He believes that he was wrongfully convicted because of the conspiracy."

The execution was stayed until the Court of Criminal Appeals takes further action.

Staley’s case presents a unique question for the courts. His lawyers argue that it is unethical and unconstitutional for the state to forcibly medicate Staley so that he can be executed. Prosecutors in Tarrant County, though, argue that Staley’s treatment is in his “best medical interests,” not solely so that he can be executed, and that his condition has improved over the years.

"Texas inmate set to die Wednesday gets reprieve," is the AP filing by Michael Graczyk.  It's via the Austin American-Statesman.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday stopped this week's scheduled execution of a convicted killer whose mental health had become an issue in his appeals.

The state's highest criminal court gave a reprieve to Steven Staley, 49, who was set for lethal injection Wednesday evening in Huntsville for the 1989 shooting death of a Fort Worth restaurant manager during a botched robbery.

"This is great," said Staley's attorney, John Stickels. "I'm very happy."

Prosecutors contended Staley was competent for execution, but Stickels in his appeal to the court said that was accomplished only because a state judge in Fort Worth improperly ordered Staley be given drugs to make him competent so the state of Texas could kill him.

The appeals court spent much of the ruling's three pages recounting Staley's case in the courts and only in a final paragraph specifically addressed the appeal, saying the court had determined the execution should be halted "pending further order by this court."

It gave no reason. Justice Lawrence Meyers dissented from his eight colleagues but issued no dissenting opinion.

"I don't know what's next," Stickels said. "It just orders the execution stayed and doesn't order anything else. I'm not going to do anything until they tell me."

And:

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled forcible medication is appropriate if it's likely to make the condemned inmate competent, if the side effects wouldn't be worse than the benefits and if it's in the prisoner's best medical interests. The Supreme Court hasn't addressed the issue.

Earlier coverage of Steven Staley's case begins at the link.

More LI News From Missouri

"Shortage of key drug puts executions in limbo," is the title of Tony Rizzo's report for the Kansas City Star.

Years of complex legal wrangling could not derail the death penalty in Missouri.

But a nationwide shortage of a key drug used to execute prisoners has left the state unable to carry out executions now or in the foreseeable future.

Missouri is not alone.

Shortages of the drug, or others like it, are affecting every state that uses lethal injection to carry out its capital punishment sentences.

“It will reach the crisis point by the end of the year,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, based in Washington, D.C. “Maybe we’ll see a new drug emerge, but I’m not sure what that might be.”

Officials with the Missouri Department of Corrections did not respond to requests for comment on the department’s death penalty protocol.

But details about the state’s inability to procure new supplies of the drug in question were revealed in a ruling earlier this week by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in a challenge to Missouri’s execution protocol brought on behalf of 16 men sentenced to death.

“The DOC is unable to carry out the challenged protocol as written, and it appears unlikely it ever will,” the court noted in its opinion.

Because of that inability, the court ruled that the prisoners’ challenge was moot. The court ruled that if Missouri has to adopt a new protocol using a different drug, then ruling on the old protocol was pointless.

Earlier coverage of Missouri lethal injection issues begins at the link.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/11/3607127/shortage-of-key-drug-puts-executions.html#storylink=cpy

The Case of Steven Staley

Emily Bazelon writes, "Texas Wants To Drug a Prisoner So They Can Kill Him," at Slate.  It was posted Friday afternoon.  Staley is scheduled to be executed May 16.

Can the state force a person to take drugs in order to execute him? That is the grisly question raised by the case of Steven Staley, a convicted murderer who believes polygraph machines are controlling and torturing him. Even though he’s psychotic, Staley is scheduled to be executed next week, based on a judge’s order requiring him to take medication he has refused. If Texas actually goes ahead with this deeply disturbing plan, it will be the first state, as far as I can tell, to drug someone in order to carry out a death sentence. That is a distinction that no one on the planet should want to have.

And:

Staley was found competent to stand trial back in 1991. The standard is low: A defendant has to be able to understand the charges against him and consult rationally with his lawyer so he can aid in his own defense. The standard for competency at execution was set by Ford v Wainwright, a 1986 case in which the Supreme Court said that the Eighth Amendment’s bar against cruel and unusual punishment forbids execution of the “insane.” Indeed, at the time no state permitted such an execution. The court quoted British judges in the 17^th century worrying about the “miserable spectacle” of “extream inhumanity and cruelty” presented by executing a “mad man.” It served no retributive purpose, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote, to execute a person “who has no comprehension of why he has been singled out.” He also noted “the natural abhorrence civilized societies feel at killing one who has no capacity to come to grips with his own conscience or deity.”

The problem with Ford is that the justices’ holding didn’t match their rhetoric. A defendant can be executed as long as he shows some rational understanding that he is about to die and why. Many people with serious mental illness can grasp those basic facts, at least on some level. Among the many examples of seriously mentally ill people who have been found competent to be tried and executed is Scott Panetti, a delusional schizophrenic who represented himself in 1995 dressed in a purple cowboy suit. Panetti tried to call Jesus Christ and John Kennedy as witnesses.

The lastest AP report is, "Texas death row inmate's mental health questioned," by Michael Grazcyk.  Here's an extended excerpt:

The outcome of legal wrangling about condemned killer Steven Staley's mental health is likely to determine if the former laborer is put to death this week in Texas for a slaying almost a quarter-century ago in Fort Worth.

Prosecutors contend he's competent to be executed. His lawyer says Staley is severely mentally ill, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and has been observed catatonic or lying on the floor of his jail cell covered in urine.

Staley, 49, faces lethal injection Wednesday evening for the fatal shooting of a Steak and Ale restaurant manager who was taken hostage during a botched robbery in October 1989. The arrest of Staley and two accomplices after a wild 20-mile car and foot chase ended a series of robberies, assaults and at least one other killing as the trio wreaked havoc in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

In a written statement, Staley implicated himself in the slaying of 35-year-old Bob Read. And since he arrived on death row in 1991, his mental competence became an issue as his punishment neared.

Prosecutors say he's legally competent, and state District Court Judge Wayne Salvant has ordered him to be medicated, by force if needed.

"If he was found not to be competent, the trial judge would just withdraw the (execution) date," said Jim Gibson, an assistant district attorney in Tarrant County, where Staley was tried and convicted.

Staley also has been examined by psychologists, who determined the prisoner was competent.

"Everybody agrees he's competent," Gibson said. "... I think the issue is going to be why he's competent."

Staley's lawyer, John Stickels, calls the competency artificial.

"The state has given him enough psychotropic drugs that the judge found he met the definition to be competent to be executed," said Stickels, who is asking the courts to halt the execution. "The whole reason he's been medicated is to make him competent to be executed."

Staley's previous attorney called him "too nuts to be executed" when the courts stopped a scheduled execution in 2005. And Stickles said Staley's severe mental illness has existed for several years and has been exacerbated by the forced drug regimen Stickles argues was illegally ordered by Salvant.

If lower courts refuse to stay the execution, Stickles said he'll take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which he said has not addressed the question of involuntary medication for the purposes of execution.

Earlier coverage of Steven Staley's case begins at the link.

 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial on Missouri Drug Shortage

"Shortage of key drugs may suspend death penalty in Missouri," is the title of today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial.

Missouri's bizarre recent history with its capital punishment procedures got more bizarre this week. A federal appeals court in St. Louis said Tuesday that there was no reason for it to rule on a challenge to the state's lethal injection protocol because the Department of Corrections could no longer obtain one of the three drugs specified in the protocol.

"The DOC is unable to carry out the challenged protocol as written, and it appears unlikely it ever will," wrote a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Court of Appeals.

Does that mean capital punishment is over in the state of Missouri? Probably not. The court noted that George A. Lombardi, the director of the Department of Corrections, has the authority to rewrite the execution protocol to allow the state to substitute a different drug in its lethal injection procedures.

Some of the 33 states that still have the death penalty are using a substitute drug in the three-drug sequence used in nearly all U.S. executions since the early 1980s. One state, Ohio, has used the substitute in a one-drug procedure. But now the substitute is hard to find, too.

And:

Among Missouri's 47 condemned men, the most immediate beneficiary of the drug shortages is Michael Tisius, 31, who faces an Aug. 3 execution date for the murders of two Randolph County jailers in 2000. His execution almost surely will be stayed.

This would be an ideal time for Missouri to follow the lead of 17 other states and forego capital punishment. It's expensive and serves no deterrent effect. Its administration is always arbitrary and capricious. Missouri so botched its procedures in the mid-2000s that a federal judge suspended executions until the state fixed the problems. Only two men have been executed since 2005.

Enough already.

Earlier coverage of Missouri lethal injection issues begins at the link.

Arizona Suit Filed Over Clemency Board Appointments

"Arizona death-row inmate sues Brewer," is Amanda Lee Myers' AP report, via KTAR.

Lawyers for an Arizona death-row inmate set for execution next week have sued Gov. Jan Brewer and the state's clemency board, arguing that three newly appointed board members were picked to ensure that no recommendations for clemency in high-profile or controversial cases land on the governor's desk.

In a filing in Maricopa County Superior Court late Wednesday, attorneys for inmate Samuel Villegas Lopez ask Judge Joseph Kreamer to declare the new board members' appointment null and void so the interview process can begin anew. He also asks her to delay the execution until the matter is resolved.

Arguments in the lawsuit are set for Monday, two days before Lopez's scheduled execution.

The lawsuit, written by defense attorneys Julie Hall and Denise Young, says that the selection committee for the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency questioned potential board members about how they would vote on controversial or high-profile cases.

``They resulted in a board designed to not forward recommendations to the governor in high-profile or controversial cases,'' the attorneys wrote.

Brewer overhauled the board last month, a move that her spokesman Matt Benson said at the time was designed to ``bring fresh insight and fresh blood'' to the board.

Benson said Thursday that the lawsuit is without merit, that the board and the committee acted within the law and that the governor is confident the court will agree with her.

"Arizona death-row inmate sues Brewer," is the Arizona Republic report written by Bob Ortega.

Attorneys for an inmate facing execution next week filed a petition in Maricopa County Superior Court seeking a stay of execution and asking to have three recent appointments to Arizona's Board of Executive Clemency declared null and void.

The petition calls last Monday's clemency hearing for convicted murderer Samuel Lopez "a sham." It argues that Gov. Jan Brewer violated the state Open Meeting Law and other statutes in her appointments of a majority of the five-member board last month, and that the appointments "were designed to, and did, result in a board that would never forward a recommendation for clemency to the governor in any controversial or high-profile case."

Lopez's attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry, walked out of Monday's clemency board hearing after telling the board she couldn't participate in the hearing until it was determined whether the board was legally constituted and could hear the case. To participate, she said, would waive her client's rights. The board adjourned the hearing without taking action, and members had been unable to say whether Lopez would have another hearing.

The petition echoed other arguments Henry had raised: The new members, who joined the board two weeks ago, hadn't completed the four weeks of training mandated by state law; and new member Brian Livingston, as executive director of the Arizona Police Association, a registered police lobbyist, and a member of the Phoenix Police Department when it investigated Lopez's crime in 1986, had a conflict of interest and should have recused himself.

If Superior Court Judge Joseph Kreamer were to grant the petition, it could nullify the board's actions in more than 60 other cases it has considered since the new members began taking part in hearings April 23. It also would force Brewer to begin the appointment process from scratch, potentially causing significant delays in other clemency hearings. Kreamer can't grant a stay of execution, but the petition asked him to send the request for a stay to the Arizona Supreme Court.

Brewer's spokesman, Matthew Benson, said the appointments fully complied with the law and the suit is without merit.

Earlier coverage of Arizona clemency issues begins at the link.  Related posts are in the clemency index.

Missouri Out of Lethal Injection Drug

"Lack of sodium thiopental makes lethal injection challenge moot," is by Scott Lauck at Missouri Lawyers Media.

A challenge to Missouri’s practice of lethal injection is moot because the state has run out of the drug used as an anesthetic and can’t obtain any more, a federal appeals court said Monday.

The suit had been brought by a group of death row inmates who alleged that they suffered a risk of severe pain during executions because the state uses nonmedical personnel to administer the lethal drugs in a manner not approved by the Food and Drug Administration or the drugs’ manufacturers.

Missouri uses a “cocktail” of drugs to administer the death penalty: sodium thiopental, which renders the prisoner unconscious; pancuronium bromide, which relaxes his muscles; and potassium chloride, which stops his heart.

The state’s stock of sodium thiopental, however, expired more than a year ago, and the drug’s domestic manufacturer, Hospira, doesn’t make it anymore. And in March, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia blocked importation of foreign-made sodium thiopental into the United States.

“The [Missouri Department of Corrections] is unable to carry out the challenged protocol as written, and it appears unlikely it ever will,” Chief Judge William Jay Riley wrote. Judges Lavenski R. Smith and Bobby E. Shepherd concurred.

According to the 8^th Circuit’s opinion, the Department of Corrections has not yet found a substitute anesthetic. Despite the plaintiffs’ urging, the court declined to weigh in on the constitutionality of Missouri’s lethal injection methods, saying the claims were tied to the specific drugs used.

And:

The last Missouri inmate to be executed was Martin Link on Feb. 9, 2011. Another inmate, Michael Andrew Tisius, is scheduled to be put to death on Aug. 3, according to an order issued last week by the Missouri Supreme Court. But it’s not clear if the state has the drugs it needs to carry out the execution.

A Department of Corrections spokesman, Chris Cline, didn’t immediately respond to a request for an update on the state’s lethal injection protocol.

The case is Ringo et al. v. Lombardi et al., 11-2839.

Arizona Clemency Board Delays Consideration

The AP filing is, "Arizona death row inmate's case up for review," by Amanda Lee Myers.  It's via KTAR.

Arizona's largely new clemency board on Monday delayed considering the case of a death row inmate set for execution next week after the man's defense attorney said three new board members didn't have the legal authority to make such a decision.

Samuel Villegas Lopez's attorney had asked the five-member board to delay her client's execution and a decision about whether he deserves mercy over questions about the legality of the three new members' appointment by Gov. Jan Brewer.

Attorney Kelley Henry told the board members that the new members didn't get the four weeks of training required under Arizona law and there were other problems surrounding their appointment.

``We just have to start the training process. We don't have to complete it,'' new board Chairman Jesse Hernandez told The Associated Press. ``We are in the process of training. We are within the law.''

Hernandez said Henry wanted to stop the hearing, and when she couldn't, she and her legal team walked out.

``I ended the meeting,'' Hernandez said. ``We wanted to give Mr. Lopez a fair hearing. But (his lawyers) decided to exit the process. I presume it was a legal maneuver on their part to buy Mr. Lopez time.

``We did not make a ruling. What happens now is we are waiting for their response, to see if they want to come back for another hearing or go to court,'' Hernandez added.

In a one-sentence emailed response, Henry said ``we are reviewing our legal options'' but she didn't elaborate.

Dale Baich, a federal public defender in Phoenix, said ``the question about the board's legal authority to act needs to be addressed before it can give full attention and consideration to the clemency request by Mr. Lopez. The governor should direct the attorney general to move to vacate the execution date so that the legal questions can be sorted out.''

The article notes that Lopez' execution date is May 16, and notes concerns about the state's lethal injection procedure. 

Earlier coverage of Arizona clemency issues begins at the link.

Clemency & Lethal Injection Issues Raised in Arizona

"Lawyers fighting Arizona death-row inmate's upcoming execution," is the AP report by Amanda Lee Myers.  It's via the Republic.

Lawyers for an Arizona death-row inmate are fighting his upcoming execution, arguing in one filing that three newly appointed clemency board members are unprepared to consider his arguments for mercy and in another, that the state Department of Corrections is violating his constitutional rights.

Samuel Villegas Lopez's attorneys filed the first request with the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, often a death-row inmate's last chance to argue that they don't deserve to be executed.

Lopez, 49, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on May 16 at the state prison in Florence in what would be the fourth execution in Arizona this year.

In the Tuesday filing, attorney Kelley Henry argues to the clemency board to recommend delaying Lopez's execution so that three newly appointed board members, including its chairman, can get additional training on considering death-penalty cases.

Gov. Jan Brewer overhauled the five-member board last month, replacing two voting members and longtime Chairman Duane Belcher with three new people in what some defense attorneys and anti-death penalty advocates said was a political move.

In his filing, Henry cites an Arizona law that says each new board member must undergo a four-week course before beginning their new duties.

"Indeed it appears that if the newly appointed board members were to vote on Sammy Lopez's application, such vote would be in violation of the statute," according to the filing. "This board should not sit in judgment on Sammy Lopez's very life without proper training and preparation."

And:

The board is expected to consider Henry's request on Monday at a hearing in Florence. Lopez is expected to attend.

In a separate filing in federal court also Tuesday, Lopez's attorneys ask that his execution be put on hold because the Arizona Department of Corrections has continuously violated and changed its own written protocol for executing death-row inmates.

Attorneys argue that a new execution protocol released in January loosened requirements for those who inject inmates with lethal drugs and gives far too much discretion to corrections Director Charles Ryan to make last-minute changes.

Today's Arizona Republic reports, "Halt to execution sought over inconsistent procedures."  It's by Michael Kiefer.

Attorneys for an Arizona prisoner who is scheduled to die later this month on Tuesday asked for a preliminary injunction against his execution because the state Department of Corrections repeatedly varies from its own policies in carrying out death sentences.

Samuel Lopez is scheduled to be executed on May 16 for the murder of a Phoenix woman in 1987.

Similar arguments were knocked down in U.S. District Court last December and again in February. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals weighed in on the February case and put Corrections Department lawyers on notice, though the court allowed two executions to go forward. A third execution since then was carried out in April.

The argument has swirled since 2007, when the Department of Corrections and attorneys representing prisoners began hammering out a protocol for executions. Tuesday's filing claims that the protocol has been changed numerous times, most recently in January, and that the department has not been able to adhere to it.

In February, for example, the department switched from a three-drug to a one-drug protocol two days before an execution because it discovered that one of the other required drugs had passed its expiration date. In March, a federal judge ruled that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had illegally allowed Arizona and other states to import death-penalty drugs from England in 2010 and 2011.

Among the ongoing issues have been the backgrounds and qualifications of the medical staff who perform the executions, and their repeated use of a catheter that is surgically implanted in an artery in the prisoner's groin.

"I'm astounded that Arizona is the only state that has to perform surgery to carry out an execution," said Assistant Federal Public Defender Dale Baich.

In a memorandum accompanying Tuesday's motion for preliminary injunction, Baich noted that the so-called femoral catheter was used in the February execution of Robert Towery and the April execution of Thomas Kemp, even though autopsies showed that both men had suitable veins for easy catheter insertion in their arms.

Towery, the memorandum said, was stuck 11 times in his arms, wrist and groin before the execution doctor succeeded in inserting a catheter in his groin.

Earlier coverage of Arizona clemency and lethal injection issues begins at the links.

Los Angeles DA Joins Move to Push California Executions

Reuters posts "Prosecutors seek to resume California executions after 6-year ban."  It's by Dan Whitcomb, via the Chicago Tribune.

Los Angeles prosecutors asked a judge on Wednesday to order the execution of two condemned killers using a single drug for lethal injections, a move intended to end a 6-year hold on the death penalty in California over the method used by the state.

The move comes days after Democratic Governor Jerry Brown told prison officials to consider using the single-drug execution protocol, and ahead of a November ballot measure that seeks to repeal capital punishment in the state.

A federal judge halted all California executions in 2006 after finding that the three-drug method that has been used for lethal injections in the state carried the risk of causing the inmate too much pain and suffering before death. California revised its protocol, but an appeals court has blocked a resumption of executions over the same objections.

Motions filed by Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley's office in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday asked that the warden of San Quentin State Prison put convicted murderers Mitchell Carleton Sims and Tiequon Aundray Cox to death by the single-drug protocol or show cause why the executions cannot proceed.

Sims, 52, and Cox, 46, have both been on California's death row at San Quentin, near San Francisco, for more than a quarter century.

"It is time Sims and Cox pay for their crimes," Cooley said. "I am joining with the California District Attorney's Association and other district attorneys throughout California in asking the Superior Courts throughout the state to hold these killers responsible for the lives they took so many years ago."

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Cooley, said the district attorney had been working with prosecutors across the state for months on the strategy, and that it would soon be used against other convicted murderers in California.

"LA DA asks court to order execution of 2 inmates," is the AP filing, via the Sacramento Bee.

The county's top prosecutor is asking Los Angeles Superior Court to order the execution of two long-time Death Row inmates convicted in separate murders using a one-drug protocol adopted by other states.

In a release Wednesday, District Attorney Steve Cooley says both inmates have each been on San Quentin's Death Row 25 years.

And:

Executions in California have been on hold for years because of allegations that a three-drug execution cocktail could cause pain and suffering, but Cooley says a one-drug execution eliminates that risk.

"DA Asks Court to Order Execution of Two Death Row Inmates," is from KTLA News.

District Attorney Steve Cooley asked the Los Angeles Superior Court today to order the execution of two long-time Death Row inmates with a court-approved single-drug protocol currently used in other parts of the country.

In motions filed by Deputy District Attorney Michele Hanisee, the court was asked to order the executions of Mitchell Carleton Sims, 52, and Tiequon Aundray Cox, 46, each of whom have been on San Quentin?s Death Row for a quarter of a century.

Earlier coverage of California lethal injection issues begins at the link.

Texas Execution Scheduled for Wednesday

Texas is scheduled to carry out its sixth execution of 2012, tonight in Huntsville.  It would be the state's 483rd post-Furman execution since 1982.  Texas has far and away the most active execution chamber in America, accounting for more than 37% of the nation's executions.

The San Antonio Express-News reports, "1996 slaying victim's family awaits killer's final hours," by Michelle Mondo.

For more than 15 years, David Cook's mother waited for the day her son's convicted killer would be executed.

Barring last minute appeals, that day has been set for a second time and Anthony Bartee, 55, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday. If the execution proceeds as planned, it comes two months after Bartee received a stay from his first scheduled date in February.

And:

David Dow, Bartee's attorney won the stay just days before the Feb. 28 execution date because DNA testing previously ordered had not been done on hairs found on the victim's hand. Those results were returned in mid-April and the report showed the mitochondrial DNA — shared by maternal relatives — matched that of David Cook.

State District Court Judge Mary Román ruled the results wouldn't have impacted the outcome of the trial and said Bartee's new execution date would not be withdrawn. Dow appealed that decision Monday arguing that glasses and cigarettes collected at the time of the killing should also be tested.

Dow also is asking his client's sentence be commuted to life without parole or that he get a 120-day reprieve to go over additional tests.

Earlier coverage of the case begins at the link.

Bartee's execution would be the 244th execution conducted under the administration of Rick Perry.  He became Governor of Texas upon the resignation of George W. Bush in December 2000.  152 men and women were executed in five years under Governor Bush's tenure.

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

To date, there have been 18 executions in the nation this year; a total of 1,295 post-Furman executions since 1977.

Last night, Oklahoma executed Michael Selsor; He had been on the state's death row since 1976.  It was Oklahoma's third execution of 2012. 

Reuters posts, "Oklahoma executes man sentenced to death twice," written by Steve Olafson.  It's via the Chicago Tribune.

A convicted Oklahoma killer who was spared execution once but asked for a new trial and was sentenced to death a second time was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday.

Michael B. Selsor, 57, was the 18th person executed in the United States this year and the third person executed in Oklahoma in 2012. He was pronounced dead at 6:06 p.m. local time (1106 GMT) at the state prison in McAlester, Oklahoma, a prison spokesman said.

And:

Selsor was sentenced to death in 1976, but later that year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Oklahoma's capital punishment law was unconstitutional and his sentence was modified to life in prison.

With Oklahoma's death penalty briefly in limbo, the state's criminal appeals court decided in 1976 that former death row inmates whose sentences were modified would not face the death penalty again should they win new trials. The death penalty in Oklahoma was restored in 1977.

Selsor sought a new trial and received one in 1998. But again he was found guilty and sentenced to death.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals in 1997 overruled one of its earlier rulings affecting inmates like Selsor, opening the death penalty option at his new trial, according to one of his lawyers Gary Peterson.

Selsor immediately appealed his second death sentence but was told he had no right to be warned that Oklahoma law could be changed to make him eligible for the death penalty at his second trial, Peterson said.

"It's a tragic story," Peterson said. "He just had the legal rug pulled out from under him."

TDCJ notes that seven additional executions are currently scheduled for 2012.

Oklahoma Using Lethal Injection Drug Stock

The Tulsa World reports, "Limited drug supply may hinder executions," by  Cary Aspinwall.

When (and if) Michael Selsor's death sentence is carried out Tuesday, Oklahoma will only have enough supply of its lethal injection cocktail to execute one more inmate.

The pentobarbital that Oklahoma has used for the first part of its three-step execution process is in short supply nationally, and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections has nearly exhausted its remaining doses with the executions of Gary Welch and Timothy Stemple earlier this year.

"We're still exploring our options," DOC spokesman Jerry Massie said.

Pentobarbital became the first step of Oklahoma's three-part lethal injection formula in 2010, after sodium thiopental supplies ran short and a federal judge blocked states from using foreign-manufactured versions of the drug.

In the second and third steps of Oklahoma's lethal injection, vecuronium bromide stops respiratory function and potassium chloride stops the heart, Massie said.

According to Board of Corrections reports, as many as seven executions are possible in Oklahoma this year, which would be double the annual average. In 2001, the state executed a record 18 inmates.

Unless the governor intervenes, Selsor is scheduled to die Tuesday at Oklahoma State Penitentiary for his role in the shooting death of a Tulsa convenience store manager during a 1975 robbery spree that left at least three other people injured. He was originally sentenced to death, but that sentence was commuted to life in prison after the state's death penalty law was found unconstitutional. An appeals court granted him a new trial in 1998, and another jury found him guilty and once again sentenced him to die.

The World also carries the AP filing, "Anti-deat penalty group vow to protest upcoming Selsor execution," by Tim Talley.

Earlier Oklahoma lethal injection news begins at the link.  Related posts are in the execution date and lethal injection indexes.

Texas Execution Scheduled for Thursday

A stay issued by a federal district court earlier this week has been lifted by the 5th Circuit.  The ruling in Adams v. Thaler is available in Adobe .pdf format.

"Court order restores scheduled Thursday execution," is Michael Graczyk's AP filing, via the Houston Chronicle.

The execution of a Texas prisoner convicted of a robbery-abduction 10 years ago that left an East Texas man dead was back on schedule for Thursday in Huntsville after a federal appeals court overturned an order that halted the punishment.

Beunka Adams won a reprieve Monday from a federal district judge in Texarkana, but the Texas attorney general's office challenged the ruling as improper, saying the judge had no jurisdiction and the appeal itself was improper. Adams' attorneys contended he had deficient legal help at his trial and in early stages of his appeals.

A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit agreed with the state Wednesday and overturned Adams' reprieve.

Adams' lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. Attorney Thomas Scott Smith said an additional appeal would go to the high court Thursday.

And, this excerpt contains a quote from Cherokee County District Attorney Elmer Beckworth:

Adams was tried for capital murder under the Texas law of parties, which makes an accomplice equally culpable as the actual killer. A fellow inmate in the Cherokee County Jail testified Adams bragged to him that he did the shootings, but Beckworth said evidence from Cobb showed Cobb was the gunman.

Adams execution would be Texas' fifth execution in 2012, the state's 482nd post-Furman execution since 1982.  It would be the 243rd execution conducted under the administration of Rick Perry.  He became Governor of Texas upon the resignation of George W. Bush in December 2000.  152 men and women were executed in five years under Governor Bush's tenure.

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

TDCJ notes that five additional executions are currently scheduled for 2012.

To date, there have been 16 executions in the nation this year; a total of 1,293 post-Furman executions since 1977.

Earlier coverage of Adams' case begins at the link.

Arizona Board of Executive Clemency

"Arizona executions: Governor remakes clemency board," is Amanda Lee Myers' AP report, via the Tri-Valley Central.

Gov. Jan Brewer has overhauled Arizona’s five-member board that often is the last chance for death-row inmates to seek mercy, a move that comes with the state on pace for one of its busiest years for executions.

The three new members of the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency were confirmed by the Senate this week at Brewer’s recommendation and can begin considering cases immediately.

They will have to decide whether to recommend mercy for a death-row inmate who is scheduled to be executed next month — a lengthy process that involves poring over hundreds of documents and sitting in on a complicated, often emotional, hours-long hearing before they must reach a decision.

The outgoing members have a reputation among prosecutors, defense attorneys and anti-death-penalty advocates for being fair and open-minded, especially its now-former chairman and executive director, Duane Belcher.

Belcher had been on the board since 1992 after first being appointed by then-Gov. Fife Symington, a Republican. He was reappointed in 2003 by then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat.

Although Belcher reapplied to the board after his term expired, Belcher said the board’s nominating committee declined to interview him.

“I was told that they were going in a different direction and that I’m not included in that,” he said.

Belcher said he doesn’t know exactly what that means and has been asking himself that question over and over again.

And:

His replacement is Jesse Hernandez, who is the outreach and government affairs director for Republican Rep. David Schweikert and founded the Arizona Latino Republican Association. He wrote on his resume that he also served overseas with the U.S. Army’s Military Police Corps.

The other two outgoing board members are Marilyn Wilkens and Ellen Kirschbaum, both appointed to the board in 2010 by Brewer. They are replaced by Brian Livingston, executive director of the Arizona Police Association and a former longtime Phoenix police officer, and Melvin Thomas, former warden of a private Arizona prison that houses inmates convicted of drunken driving.

The replacements come as Arizona is on pace to match its busiest year for executions since establishing the death penalty in 1910 and become among the busiest death-penalty states in the nation.

The most inmates Arizona has executed in a given year was seven inmates in 1999.

The article notes that an execution is scheduled in Arizona this Thursday.  Related posts are in the clemency index.

Texas Execution Stayed by Federal District Judge

"Judge grants reprieve to death row inmate," is the AP report, via the Austin American-Statesman.

A 29-year-old convict scheduled to die this week for a fatal shooting during a robbery and abductions at an East Texas convenience store has won a reprieve from a federal judge.

Beunka Adams was set for lethal injection Thursday evening in Huntsville for the September 2002 slaying of 37-year-old Kenneth Vandever outside Rusk. Vandever and two women were abducted during the robbery, one of the women was raped, and all three were shot. The women survived.

U.S. District Judge Michael Schneider in Texarkana ruled that the execution should be delayed until the courts review allegations that Adams had poor legal help in the early stages of his appeals.

According to TDCJ, five additional executions are currently scheduled, including one for May 2.

From Delaware

Today's Wilmington News Journal reports, "Filing puts execution on hold."  It's written by Sean O'Sullivan.

A federal judge on Wednesday indefinitely delayed Friday's scheduled execution of convicted killer Shannon M. Johnson, saying he needed more time to "digest" a massive legal filing by the Delaware Federal Public Defender's Office, which is seeking to stop the lethal injection.

Johnson, 28, waived all his remaining appeals to speed his execution and was declared competent to waive those legal rights by Superior Court Judge M. Jane Brady last month.

However, federal defenders acting on behalf of Johnson's sister, Lakeisha Ford, argue that Johnson is not competent due to mental illness and substandard intelligence and a state court competency review was flawed.

Johnson was convicted in 2008 of the murder of 25-year-old Cameron Hamlin. Hamlin's father, Vandrick, was in the courtroom Wednesday and seemed taken aback by the turn of events.

Afterward, he was briefly speechless before saying that he was disappointed by U.S. District Chief Judge Gregory M. Sleet's ruling to stay Johnson's execution.

State prosecutors and Johnson's court-appointed attorney, Jennifer-Kate Aaronson, also seemed stunned by the ruling and objected to the delay. Deputy Attorney General Paul Wallace described the lengthy brief filed by public defenders on Friday -- six days before the execution -- as a ploy designed "to ensure they get a stay."

"It is Mr. Johnson's view that he has been accorded all constitutional due process," Aaronson told Sleet.

Wallace told Sleet that the state would appeal the issue to the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Earlier coverage of the case begins at the link.  Related posts are in the volunteer index.

Georgia Pardon Board Stays Execution to Consider Clemency

Today's Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports, "Execution of Taylor County inmate stayed by paroles board."  It's by Jim Mustian.

The state Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday stayed the execution of Daniel Greene, a Taylor County prisoner who had been scheduled to die by lethal injection this week for fatally stabbing Bernard Walker, his former schoolmate, in 1991.

After a clemency hearing that lasted several hours, the board said in a statement that it needed more time “to examine the substance of claims offered by Greene’s representatives.” The board, which has the sole authority in Georgia to commute death sentences, noted that the stay can be lifted at any time, at which point the five-member panel will announce its decision.

The board has granted three stays since 2008 — including one to Troy Anthony Davis in 2007 — but clemency was later denied in all three cases and the inmates were executed, said Steve Hayes, the board’s director of communications. The board last commuted a case to life without parole in 2008.

At the same time the board was considering Greene’s fate, Taylor County Sheriff Jeff Watson was visiting with his former high school football teammate on Georgia’s death row. Watson spent about an hour with Greene and said he left feeling “blessed.”

“You could tell he was resolved to the fact that he had done wrong. He was being punished and it wasn’t anybody’s fault but his,” Watson said in a telephone interview. “He’s got incredible faith. All he wanted to talk about was forgiveness.”

The board’s decision offered Greene new hope just hours after a federal judge denied a lengthy motion by his attorneys to stay the execution. The court rejected a flurry of last-minute defense arguments, including claims that Greene was improperly denied a mental health expert at trial.

And:

The paroles board heard from about 10 representatives of Greene, “mostly teachers and preachers” who said that Greene’s violent rampage was uncharacteristic of the young man they’d known as a gentle giant, said Mark Shelnutt, the Columbus attorney who as a young prosecutor sat second chair to District Attorney Doug Pullen during Greene’s trial. Shelnutt said he addressed the board at length about the decision-making process prosecutors used at the time to determine whether to seek capital punishment in a case. “Most of the people that testified were people that knew him, like school teachers that talked about what a great kid he was in high school and also what a great kid Bernard Walker was and that it was a tragic situation,” Shelnutt said, “but obviously they didn’t think he should get the death penalty.”

Shelnutt said board members were attentive and seemed to be taking their decision seriously. “I left there thinking that he has a chance,” Shelnutt said of Greene. “I think they really want to do the right thing.”

One supporter of Greene was Patty James Bentley, a Taylor County Commissioner who wrote a letter to the board requesting it commute Greene’s sentence to life without parole. Bentley, who is running for state representative, recalled a time after she became pregnant at age 15 when she considered dropping out of high school because of the ridicule she was facing from her classmates.

“All throughout that year, Daniel always talked to me, told me not to listen to those crazy people, and did things to try and bring my spirits up when I felt down,” she wrote. “He made me feel like I was somebody.

“... I don’t know where I would be this day if Daniel had not reached out to me and treated me with kindness and dignity,” she added.

"Pardons board delays condemned Ga. man's execution," is the AP filing by Greg Bluestein.  It's via the Macon Telegraph.

The Georgia pardons board on Tuesday delayed the planned execution of a former high school football player who was set to die this week for killing an ex-classmate in 1991, saying it needed more time to consider the condemned man's case.

The decision grants Daniel Greene a reprieve of up to 90 days, though it could be lifted long before that. He had been scheduled to die on Thursday at the state prison in Jackson for killing 20-year-old Bernard Walker as Walker was rushing to help a store clerk who had been robbed and stabbed by Greene.

And:

In a videotaped interview, Greene confessed to the crimes and said he needed the money to buy crack cocaine. But he later said he couldn't remember committing the crimes or giving a confession to police, adding an acquaintance had given him a cigarette that day that may have contained a drug.

Greene, who was a standout defensive lineman in high school, had to be tried in Clayton County because of all the media coverage in his hometown. He was convicted in December 1992 of murder, robbery and assault and was sentenced to death.

"Parole board grants stay of execution," by Bill Rankin in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The board, after a lengthy clemency hearing Tuesday, notified lawyers of its decision to stay the execution of Daniel Greene, Jeff Ertel, one of Greene's lawyers, said.

Numerous Taylor County residents spoke to the parole board, asking its members to grant Greene clemency and spare him from execution, Ertel said.

The board said the stay will not exceed 90 days.

In a statement, the board said the purpose of the stay is "to allow for additional time to examine the substance of claims offered by Greene’s representatives at today’s clemency appointment and any additional information that becomes available."

The board said it may lift the stay at any time and grant clemency, commuting the death sentence to life or life without parole, or deny clemency.

Related posts are in the clemency index.

A Delaware Volunteer

"Delay of killer's execution sought," is the title of Sean O'Sullivan's report for the Wilmington News Journal.  Here's the beginning:

The Delaware Federal Public Defender's Office is seeking to stop the execution early Friday of convicted killer Shannon Johnson, who last month waived all of his appeals in order to speed his lethal injection sentence.

This is at least the third time federal defenders have tried to force their way into the case and represent Johnson, despite the fact that Johnson already has court-appointed counsel and has stated repeatedly that he does not want the assistance of federal defenders and does not want his execution delayed.

In the 88-page brief filed in U.S. District Court late Friday, Chief of the Capital Habeas Unit Julie Brain argues that despite a lengthy competency hearing in Delaware Superior Court this fall, Johnson is not competent to waive his appeals and is ineligible for the death penalty.

Brain argues that her office has authority to step in and force a delay in Johnson's execution because it is now acting on behalf of Johnson's sister, Lakeisha Ford.

Johnson's attorney, Jennifer-Kate Aaronson, said Saturday that she has received notice of the federal defender's civil action and said her client expected that "an estranged family member would file a petition against his wishes, at the expense of taxpayers."

"Mr. Johnson remains committed to waiving all appeals and hopes his execution proceeds as scheduled in a few days," she said, adding she is preparing a response to the petition on Johnson's behalf.

Officials with the Delaware Attorney General's office could not be reached for comment.

Though Johnson has been deemed competent on several occasions, and has appeared lucid and articulate in his appearances in court, federal defenders wrote that Johnson "suffers from a debilitating combination of mental disorders, including mental illness and severe brain damage."

Related posts are in the volunteer index.

Ohio Editorial & News Roundup

"Flaws in law, judicial questions and costs of capital cases reinforce the moral imperative to end capital punishment," is the Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial.

A federal judge has opened the door for Ohio to resume executions. That doesn't mean the state has to -- or should -- begin executing prisoners again.

In fact, this would be the ideal time for Ohio to repeal its capital punishment statute, as this page long has advocated.

One of the Ohio law's authors, current state Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer, has become a very public critic of how the death penalty is applied.

Others who have expressed reservations about capital punishment include former state prisons director Terry Collins, who oversaw 33 executions, and former Ohio Attorney General James Petro, who helped Pfeifer draft the statute when they were in the General Assembly and who has co-authored a book about wrongful convictions. Petro, for one, is not yet ready to say that Ohio should abolish the death penalty.

And:

Ohio's conduct of executions has faced sharp scrutiny since 2009, when executioners tried for almost two hours to insert a needle into the veins of Romell Broom before then-Gov. Ted Strickland halted the proceedings. Broom remains on death row.

Prison is where Broom belongs until natural death claims him. Wiles, too. This is no defense of the horrors they committed. But taking their lives in the name of justice is wrong.

The AP posts, "Condemned Ohio inmate won't appeal execution," by Andrew Welsh-Huggins, via the Newark Advocate.

A condemned inmate scheduled to die next week for killing a teenager during a 1985 farmhouse robbery has decided not to appeal a judge's order allowing the execution, his attorney said Friday.

If put to death, 49-year-old Mark Wiles would be the first inmate executed in Ohio in six months following legal fights over the state's lethal injection policies.

Wiles attorney Allen Bohnert told The Associated Press that Wiles was not appealing but declined to say why or comment further.

Wiles' decision came two days after Gov. John Kasich refused to spare him, a decision that upheld the Ohio Parole Board's ruling to deny Wiles clemency.

And:

Attorneys who have represented Wiles before the Ohio Parole Board called the state's clemency system arbitrary and unpredictable and said Wiles was not the "worst of the worst" for whom capital punishment was designed.

The Youngstown Vindicator editorial is, "Get executions back on track for Portage, Trumbull killers."

Two noteworthy developments this week in Connecticut and Ohio reinforce the highly contentious debate over the death penalty.

In Connecticut, the state Legislature approved an outright abolition of capital punishment, making The Constitution State the 17th in the nation to outlaw the death penalty. In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich denied clemency for a Portage County murderer after a federal judge ended a five-month moratorium on executions over legal complaints that Ohio had not followed its own lethal-injection protocol properly.

In Connecticut, we recognize the abolition of capital punishment as a predictable outcome for that region: Only one state in the entire Northeast — New Hampshire — continues to respect the logic behind the death penalty and keeps it on the books.

In Ohio, we welcome the developments as a sign that the state has learned from its past transgressions in the use of lethal injection and as a harbinger that this state will continue to maintain the death penalty for the worst of the worst of cold-blooded murderers.

Earlier coverage from Ohio begins at the link.

Stay Issued in Controversial Oklahoma Case - Updated

"Stay issued for Okla. death row inmate set for execution today," is the breaking news from the McAlester News-Capital.  It's by Rachel Petersen.

A stay was issued for an Oklahoma State Penitentiary death row inmate who was scheduled to be executed today at 6 p.m. in the prison’s death chamber.

“A federal judge stayed Garry Allen’s execution Wednesday afternoon,” said OSP Warden’s Assistant Terry Crenshaw. U.S. District Judge David L. Russell issued the stay, ruling that Allen’s claims that he is insane and ineligible for the death penalty should be reviewed, the Associated Press reported. Allen has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and his attorneys argue his mental state deteriorated on death row.

“Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has filed a notice of appeal to the stay of execution,” Crenshaw said. If the appeal to the stay of execution is granted by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, officials at OSP have “measures in place to carry out the execution according to court orders.”

Garry Thomas Allen, 56, was previously set for execution on Feb. 16, but Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin granted a 30-day stay of execution for the condemned man. She said the stay was issued so her legal team could have more time to consider a 2005 recommendation by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to commute his sentence to life.

“Having thoroughly reviewed the arguments and evidence presented in this case, I have determined that clemency should be denied in this case, and that the sentence of death be carried out,” Fallin wrote in an executive order filed March 13.

And:

The U.S. Supreme Court and state law prohibit execution of inmates who are insane or mentally incompetent.

UPDATE - On Friday the Suprme Court refused to lift the district court stay.  The AP post is, "US Supreme Court declines to lift stay of execution for Oklahoma death-row inmate," via the Washington Post.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a stay of execution for a convicted Oklahoma killer who says he is insane and ineligible for the death penalty.

A federal court ordered the stay Wednesday and gave Garry Allen’s attorneys 15 days to appeal. An appeals court approved that ruling Thursday. Oklahoma’s attorney general referred the case to the nation’s highest court, which upheld the stay Friday.

The Supreme Court established standards to assess whether severely mentally ill inmates are competent to be executed in a 1986 case, Ford v. Wainwright. more via Oyez.

In its next term, the Court will hear two cases dealing with competency to be executed.  Earlier coverage of these Arizona and Ohio cases begins at the link. 

Earlier coverage of the Allen case in Oklahoma begins at the link.

Related posts are in the mental illness and Scott Panetti indexes. Panetti's case involves the question of competency to be executed.

Clemency Roundup - News From Arizona, Ohio, Oklahoma

The Arizona Republic reports, "Arizona death-row inmate Kemp will not seek mercy."  It's by Michael Kiefer.

Citing "the futility of the process," an Arizona Death Row prisoner Monday chose not to apply for clemency before his scheduled execution April 25.

Thomas Kemp was sentenced to death for a 1992 murder in Tucson, and late last month, the Arizona Supreme Court set a date for his execution.

Normally, about a week before an execution, a condemned prisoner has a hearing before the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, which can recommend to the governor that a death sentence be commuted to life in prison or recommend a reprieve, a stay of execution pending further consideration.

If the prisoner chooses not to attend the clemency hearing, it takes place at the board's offices in Phoenix. If the prisoner wishes to testify, he or she must do so while wearing handcuffs, leg irons and belly chains from a cage in a secure auditorium inside a prison building in Florence.

The board seldom recommends clemency, and even if it does, the governor still has to grant it.

"Arizona inmate set for execution in 2 weeks won't seek mercy from clemency board," is the AP filfing by Amanda Lee Myers.

Thomas Arnold Kemp, 63, is set to be executed by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence on April 25.

Duane Belcher, executive director of the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, told The Associated Press on Monday that Kemp recently declined to petition the board for a lighter sentence.

"In light of the board's history of consistently denying requests for commutations, my impression is that a hearing in my case would be nothing short of a dog and pony show," Kemp wrote in a March 29 letter provided to the AP through Kemp's Tucson attorney, Tim Gabrielsen.

"A hearing provides public humiliation of the prisoner without any chance that the board might actually recommend a commutation," Kemp wrote.

Every inmate executed in Arizona has the right to petition the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency to either reduce their sentence to life in prison or delay their execution for more legal wrangling. Few decline that right.

The board has recommended delaying the death penalty in just one inmate's case in the last 20 years, possibly longer, Belcher said.

That inmate, Walter Hinze LaGrand, still was executed on March 3, 1999, in Arizona's gas chamber because then Gov. Jane Hull disagreed with the board and allowed the execution to proceed.

Belcher said the process is not futile, adding that many times individual board members vote to show an inmate mercy, although they have been in the minority.

Ohio News Network posts, "Faith leaders want mercy for Ohio death row inmate," by AP.

More than 200 religious leaders are asking Ohio Gov. John Kasich to spare a man scheduled for execution next week for fatally stabbing a 15-year-old boy during a farmhouse burglary.

Ohioans to Stop Executions and People of Faith Against the Death Penalty say they submitted a Monday letter to Kasich on behalf of about 230 faith leaders. They ask that the sentence of 49-year-old Mark Wiles be commuted to life in prison without parole.

The Ohio parole board has recommended against clemency.

Wiles' attorney says he's remorseful and has accepted responsibility for his actions in the 1985 slaying in Portage County.

"Okla. anti-death penalty group wants commutation," is the Oklahoma AP report, via the Muskogee Phoenix.

Members of an anti-death penalty group said Monday they have little hope that Gov. Mary Fallin will commute the death sentence of an Oklahoma inmate scheduled to be executed Thursday.

Three members of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty met with Fallin’s general counsel, Steve Mullins, to urge the governor to reverse her decision to deny clemency for Garry Thomas Allen, 56.

Allen’s attorneys contend he was mentally impaired when he killed 24-year-old Lawanna Gail Titsworth, the mother of his two children, on Nov. 21, 1986, in Oklahoma City. They say he had been self-medicating for an underlying mental illness, and that his mental condition had worsened.

Coalition board member James T. Rowan said the group does not expect Fallin to change her mind about clemency. He said Mullins indicated during the meeting that Allen’s clemency request “was a close case.”

And:

A spokesman for Fallin, Alex Weintz, confirmed the group met with Mullins and discussed Allen’s case. Weintz said Fallin appreciated their input but that there was no change in the status of the case.

“The execution is still scheduled for Thursday,” Weintz said.

Fallin denied clemency for Allen on March 13, but the coalition asked her to reconsider based on the state Pardon and Parole Board’s 4-1 recommendation in 2005 that Allen’s death penalty on a first-degree murder conviction be commuted to like in prison.

Earlier coverage from Arizona, Ohio, and Oklahoma begins at the links.

Related posts are in the clemency index.

Different states have different systems of executive clemency.  In 2005, Texas Appleseed and the Texas Innocence Network published, "The Role of Mercy: Safegaurding Texas Justice Through Clemency Reform," which examined best practices in executive clemency.  The Appendix contains comparative state information.

Ohio Gears Up for Resumption of Executions

The Sunday Akron Beacon Journal carried the editorial, "A governor’s choice."

On Wednesday, federal Judge Gregory Frost gave Ohio permission to proceed with the death penalty. The judge long has been frustrated with the state’s “consistent inconsistency” in applying its rules for lethal injection. Now the state is positioned to end what has been a six-month moratorium on executions. Mark Wiles is schedule to die in 10 days.

Wiles has been on death row for 26 years, convicted for killing Mark Klima of Portage County, bright, promising, 15 years old and dreaming of becoming a doctor. Wiles once worked for the Klima family on its horse farm. In attempting to burglarize the home, he encountered the young man and stabbed him to death.

Two weeks ago, the Ohio parole board unanimously ruled against clemency. It rejected altering the sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. That leaves the final decision with the governor, who would do well to view the choice in a larger context, weighing the details of the case and the way the state should conduct capital punishment. There is a strong argument for Wiles living the rest of his life in prison.

And:

The deeper question for John Kasich, who has been thoughtful in these and similar matters, is: Whom should the state put to death?

"Ohio death penalty debate continues as executions start up again," is Marc Kovac's report for the Wooster Daily-Record.

Two Democratic state lawmakers continue to call for an end to the death penalty in Ohio, "raising fervent opposition" to Judge Frost's decision last week,

Reps. Nickie Antonio, from the Cleveland area, and Ted Celeste, from the Columbus area, are sponsors of legislation that would ban the death penalty, replacing it with life in prison without parole.

Last week, they pointed to Connecticut, the 17th state in the country that has ceased putting inmates to death.

"Moving forward with executions is a step backward for Ohio," Antonio said in a released statement. "Now is the time for Ohio to join policy leaders throughout the country and move to life without parole."

Celeste added, "Connecticut will soon be the fifth state in the past five years to abolish this barbaric, outdated form of punishment. Public opinion is clearly changing with regard to capital punishment, and I am hopeful that Ohio will soon be able to capitalize on this momentum as well."

"Sen. Brown stands firm against death penalty," is the Toledo Blade report by Ignazio Messina.

An Ohio state senator from Toledo said she would not be deterred from her desire to abolish the death penalty in the state, even after the sentence of death last week for convicted killer Anthony Belton and calls by some in the public for the penalty to be carried out in his case.

Edna Brown, a Democrat who recently launched a legislative effort to end capital punishment, said she does not want to get involved in individual cases, such as the murder of store clerk Matthew Dugan by Belton during a 2008 robbery.

"I did not follow the trial, but my concern is not with individual cases," Ms. Brown said. "My concern is with the process and possibility, as I have said previously, of an innocent person being executed. Whether someone is innocent or guilty is not where I stand. The death penalty should be eliminated."

And:

Ms. Brown is a sponsor of Senate Bill 270, which would strike references to capital punishment and the death penalty from state law. It is not expected to move within the Republican-controlled Senate.

Ms. Brown has said the most she hopes for now is additional hearings.

Earlier coverage from Ohio begins at the link.

Judge Frost's Ohio Lethal Injection Ruling

Jeff Gamso has posted Judge Gregory Frost's ruling in In RE: Ohio Execution Protocol Litigation, at his always excellent Gamso - For the Defense blog; listed in the left-column Essentail Law Blogs webroll.

Earlier coverage of Ohio lethal injection issues begins at the link.

Additional Coverage of Ohio Execution Protocol Ruling

Today's Cleveland Plain Dealer reports, "Ohio executions can resume with judge's ruling," by Reginald Fields.

Ohio's de facto moratorium on the death penalty is over.

The judge who halted capital punishment in January after slamming the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction for failing to follow its own procedures in carrying out executions issued an order Wednesday that will allow capital punishment to resume.

U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost of the Southern District of Ohio wrote that he was convinced the prison department had taken sufficient steps to improve its execution procedures while ruling that death row inmate Mark Wiles failed to prove otherwise in his bid to have the court stop his scheduled April 18 execution.

But even though he sided with the state, Frost -- as he has in prior rulings -- made it clear in a sometimes critical ruling that he is still a bit skeptical about Ohio's ability to administer the death penalty evenly each time.

"This court is therefore willing to trust Ohio just enough to permit the scheduled execution," Frost wrote. "The court reaches this conclusion with some trepidation given Ohio's history of telling this court what (they) think they need to say in order to conduct executions and then not following through on promised reforms."

And:

The state made its case during an eight-day trial in March in Frost's courtroom, which was the basis for Wednesday's ruling.

"Ohio's new procedures look good on paper. The words of those state agents who testified sound promising. No one questions their proper intentions," Frost wrote. "Procedures, promises and purposes are of little value if they are not fulfilled."

Frost's ruling does not address whether Ohio's lethal injection process is constitutional, and several inmates have filed separate cases arguing that it is not.

Inital coverage of Judge Frost's ruling begins the thread of Ohio lethal injection issues.

Florida Death Warrant Challenged

"Will Florida serial killer get lethal injection next week?" is the AP filing, via the Orlando Sentinel.

The Florida Supreme Court is hearing an appeal from a serial killer, who is set for execution next week.

Lawyers for 58-year-old David Gore plan to ask the justices to block the April 12 execution during oral argument Wednesday.

One contention is that Gov. Rick Scott was unconstitutionally influenced to sign Gore's death warrant by a meeting with a newspaper editorial board.

And:

Gore also contends his execution would be cruel and unusual punishment because he's already spent nearly 30 years on death row.

The issue of prolonged incarceration on Florida's death has been an issue in two recent cases.  Last year, Florida executed Manual Valle after more than 33 years on death row.  Supreme Court Justice Breyer's dissent to a rejected stay motion discussed the lengthy incarceration of death sentenced inmates.  Earlier this year Florida executed Robert Waterhouse after 31 years on death row.

Federal Judge Rules Ohio Lethal Injecection Executions May Resume

"Court: Ohio’s first execution in six months can proceed," is the title of Andrew Welsh-Huggins' AP post.  It's via the Chronicle-Telegram.  Here's an extended excerpt:

Ohio’s first execution in six months can proceed, a federal judge ruled today, saying the state is serious about following its own lethal injection procedures.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost ends an unofficial moratorium dating to November, when members of the Ohio execution team deviated from the official injection procedures when putting a Cleveland man to death.

The changes were minor — failing to properly check a box on a medical form, for example — but they angered Frost, who had previously criticized the state for failing to follow its rules.

The judge’s decision followed a seven-day trial over the state’s lethal injection process last month.

The ruling paves the way for the April 18 execution of Mark Wiles for stabbing a 15-year-old boy to death during a farmhouse burglary.

In July, Frost scolded the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction for what he called haphazard and embarrassing deviations to its own rules. In response, Ohio rewrote its policies and said it would follow them in the future. With those changes in place, Frost allowed the execution of Reginald Brooks in November for killing his three sons in 1982.

Following that execution, Frost again said the state hadn’t followed its rules. He criticized Ohio for switching the official whose job it is to announce the start and finish times of the lethal injection and failing to properly document that the inmate’s medical chart was reviewed.

Ohio argued the changes were minor deviations that didn’t affect the state’s ability to properly execute inmates.

The way Ohio puts inmates to death has been under scrutiny since 2009, when executioners tried unsuccessfully for nearly two hours to insert a needle into the veins of Romell Broom, sentenced to die for raping and killing a 14-year-old Cleveland girl. Then-Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, eventually called the execution off, and Broom remains on death row, arguing in court filings that Ohio shouldn’t be allowed a second try at executing him.

Frost has never found Ohio’s execution process unconstitutional, meaning the delays have been based on technical questions about lethal injection.

Earlier coverage of Ohio lethal injection issues begins at the link.  There is also additional Ohio death penalty news available.

Oklahoma

"Group asks Fallin to reconsider clemency," is the AP report via the Pryor Creek Times of Oklahoma.

An anti-death penalty group wants Gov. Mary Fallin to grant clemency to a man sentenced to die next week, and asked Monday that she give full weight to the Pardon and Parole Board's 2005 recommendation to commute his sentence.

The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty encouraged the public Monday to write letters to the governor and sign the group's petition. Coalition members argue that Garry Thomas Allen, 56, is mentally impaired and should not be put to death.

Allen killed the mother of his children, 42-year-old Lawanna Titsworth, on Nov. 21, 1986, in Oklahoma City. He was shot in the head during a struggle with an officer.

Fallin said she and her legal team gave Allen's case a thorough review, including interviews with family members of the victim and attorneys on both sides, and she has no plans to change her decision.

"I took quite a long time looking through his files," Fallin said. "I watched videos of him. I've read the files themselves. I've visited with his attorneys."

Garland Pruitt, president of the Oklahoma City chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, supported the anti-death penalty coalition at a news conference Monday at the state Capitol. The Rev. Adam Leathers and Sen. Constance Johnson also backed the group.

And:

The Pardon and Parole Board recommended 4-1 that the governor commute Allen's sentence to life in prison without parole. But Fallin rejected the recommendation last month and ordered him to die April 12.

Earlier coverage of Oklahoma clemency issues begins at the link.  Related posts are in the clemency index.

Different states have different systems of executive clemency.  In 2005, Texas Appleseed and the Texas Innocence Network published, "The Role of Mercy: Safegaurding Texas Justice Through Clemency Reform," which examined best practices in executive clemency.  The Appendix contains comparative state information.

Texas Execution Scheduled for Wednesday

Texas is scheduled to carry out its fourth execution of the year, Wednesday night in Huntsville.  It would be the state's 481st post-Furman execution since 1982. Texas has the most active death chamber in the nation, accounting for more than 37% of all modern executions in the nation.

It would be the 242nd execution conducted under the administration of Rick Perry.  He became Governor of Texas upon the resignation of George W. Bush in December 2000.  152 men and women were executed in five years under Governor Bush's tenure.

The AP report on the scheduled execution of Jesse Joe Hernandez is, "Dallas man to die for slaying of 10-month-old boy."  It's by Michael Graczyk, via WFAA-TV.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals last week rejected the appeal, and Hernandez's attorneys took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Their appeal to delay the punishment argued trial lawyers for Hernandez should have pursued evidence that the boy "likely would have lived had he not been prematurely removed from life support" because he had toxic levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital when life-assisting machines were turned off, according to Hernandez's attorneys. Ironically, it's the same drug Texas prison officials now use in the execution process.

The appeal also contended Hernandez's initial appeals lawyer was deficient for not investigating the case beyond the trial record and that failure cost Hernandez "through no fault of his own" his lone opportunity to raise substantive legal claims following his conviction.

If the first appeals lawyer had conducted an investigation of the trial lawyer's conduct, "he would have uncovered evidence demonstrating that trial counsel completely failed to raise the one issue that could have saved Jesse Hernandez's life -- that Hernandez was not responsible for the death of victim Karlos," Brad Levenson, director of the Texas Office of Capital Writs, wrote.

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

TDCJ notes that six additional executions are currently scheduled for 2012; the next is set for April 26.

To date there have been 11 executions in the nation this year; a total of 1,288 post-Furman executions since 1977.

The Alabama Lethal Injection Challenge

"Court revives Alabama inmate's execution appeal," is the AP report via the Montgomery Advertiser.

A federal appeals court has revived an Alabama death row inmate's challenge of his state's new three-drug lethal injection protocol.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday reversed a judge's decision that dismissed Thomas Arthur's appeal.

Deputy Alabama Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said the 11th Circuit ruling does not automatically stop Arthur's execution scheduled for March 29 at Holman Prison in Atmore. Defense attorneys still must ask a court to grant a stay.

And:

The three-judge panel's decision said the judge who dismissed Arthur's appeal should have considered whether the swap constituted a "significant change" to Alabama's execution protocol.

The 11th Circuit ruling in Arthur v. Thomas is available in Adobe .pdf format.  Earlier coverage of the Alabama lethal injection challenge begins at the link.

 

Supreme Court Rules on Ineffective Assistance Case

Tuesday's Supreme Court ruling in Martinez v. Ryan is available in Adobe .pdf format.  The ABA Criminal Justice Section provides this summary of the ruling:

In an opinion by Justice Kennedy, the Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.  The Court held that where, under state law, ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claims must be raised in an initial-review collateral proceeding, a procedural default will not bar a federal habeas court from hearing those claims if, in the initial-review collateral proceeding, there was no counsel or counsel in that proceeding was ineffective.  Justice Scalia filed a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justice Thomas.

"Court Ruling Could Affect Texas Death Row Cases," is Brandi Grissom's Texas Tribune report on the case and its implications.

Death row inmate Jesse Joe Hernandez, set to be executed next week for the 2001 death of a 10-month-old boy in Dallas, is hoping that a ruling Tuesday from the U.S. Supreme Court could give him another chance to prove that the tragedy was not entirely his fault. 

The nation’s highest court ruled that the failure of initial state habeas lawyers to argue that their client’s trial counsel was ineffective should not prevent the defendant from making that argument later on. Lawyers across the country, including those for at least two Texas death row inmates, were eagerly awaiting the court’s ruling in the Martinez v. Ryan case out of Arizona, which could expand appeals access for inmates.

“A procedural default will not bar a federal habeas court from hearing those claims if, in the initial-review collateral proceeding, there was no counsel or counsel in the proceeding was ineffective,” the court majority held.

Habeas lawyers investigate issues that could or should have been raised during a defendant’s original trial.

Brad Levenson, director of the Texas Office of Capital Writs, filed a petition with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday afternoon on behalf of Hernandez, arguing that his March 28 execution should be stayed, in part, because of the court’s ruling.

And:

Levenson said that even though Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling applies to claims made in federal court — not state writs like the one he filed — the same principle ought to apply.

“We’re saying the state courts should also take a look at these claims for the same reason the Supreme Court would take a look at them,” he said.

The ruling could also be a boon for death row inmate Rob Will, who was convicted in 2002 of fatally shooting a Harris County sheriff’s deputy. Will says that the man he was with that night was the real shooter and that he is innocent.

In January, U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison denied Will’s pleas for a new trial but wrote that he lamented doing so because of “disturbing uncertainties” raised about his guilt.

"Supreme Court Rules for Inmate With Double Claims of Ineffective Assistance; Scalia Detects a ‘Sham’," is Debra Cassens Weiss's ABA Journal report.

A prisoner who claimed he received ineffective assistance at trial and once again at his first opportunity to raise the claim on review got some help from the U.S. Supreme Court today.

The court, in an opinion (PDF) by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, refused to address whether convicted sex offender Luis Mariano Martinez had a constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel in the state collateral appeal. But the court held in a 7-2 opinion that ineffective assistance by the appellate lawyer could excuse Martinez’s failure to raise the ineffective assistance claim, allowing a federal court to consider the issue.

And:

“When an attorney errs in initial-review collateral proceedings, it is likely that no state court at any level will hear the prisoner’s claim,” Kennedy said. “And if counsel’s errors in an initial-review collateral proceeding do not establish cause to excuse the procedural default in a federal habeas proceeding, no court will review the prisoner’s claims. The same is not true when counsel errs in other kinds of postconviction proceedings.”

Also:

In a statement released Tuesday, ABA President Wm. T. (Bill) Robinson III applauded the decision. “This significant ruling will help ensure fairness and justice for many criminal defendants throughout the country, including those on death row,” he said. “Many defendants who received ineffective representation or no representation at all during their post-conviction proceedings have been unable to present claims concerning violations of their constitutional rights at trial in federal court. The court’s decision today recognizes the injustice of that circumstance.”

Courthouse News Service posts, "Ineffective Counsel Case Gets High Court Reboot," by Barbara Leonard.

The majority opinion gives an Arizona inmate clearance to belatedly challenge his defense attorneys as he appeals his conviction for sexual conduct with a child.

Luis Mariano Martinez is serving two consecutive terms of 35 to life in Arizona for two counts of sexual conduct with a person under the age of 15. Martinez's 11-year-old stepdaughter claimed she was abused, but later recanted. The state also admitted the girl's nightgown into evidence, pointing out that it had traces of Martinez's DNA.

Arizona appointed a new attorney to represent Martinez in his direct appeal, but the lawyer never claimed that Martinez's trial counsel was ineffective. In Arizona, inmates must bring such claims separately at state collateral proceedings. Martinez said the court-appointed appellate counsel failed to consult with him or inform him about what he needed to do to raise claims he believed his counsel had overlooked.

Armed with yet another attorney for his second notice of postconviction relief in the Arizona trial court, Martinez claimed that his trial lawyer had been ineffective for not challenging the prosecution's evidence.

The state rejected this petition, however, noting that Arizona law bars relief on a claim that could have been raised in a previous collateral proceeding.

Related posts are in the ineffective assistance of counsel index

Mississippi Prepares for Executions

AP posts, "2 executions scheduled in Mississippi," via WTVA-TV.

Mississippi authorities are preparing to execute two men this coming week.

One of them was an Eagle Scout and recent high school graduate when he was charged with sexually assaulting and killing a woman. The other is a habitual offender convicted of raping and beating a woman before running over her with his car.

Larry Matthew Puckett, the Eagle Scout, is 35 now. He's scheduled to die by lethal injection on Tuesday for the 1995 death of Rhonda Hatten Griffis of Forrest County.

William Mitchell, who is 61, is scheduled for execution on Thursday in the death of Patty Milliken, who was killed in Harrison County in 1995.

To date, there have been nine executions in the nation this year; a total of 1,286 post-Furman executions since 1977.

Arizona

"AZ on pace for busiest year in executions," is the AP filing by Amanda Lee Myers.  It's via ABC News and is also available from the Mojave Daily News.

With two executions already carried out so far this year and two more up for consideration next week, Arizona is on pace to match its busiest year for executions since establishing the death penalty in 1910 and be among the busiest death-penalty states in the nation, The Associated Press has determined.

If the Arizona Supreme Court approves of two more death warrants on Tuesday, and if the state carries out three additional executions of inmates likely to be at the end of the appeals process well before year-end, that would make seven executions for 2012.

That would match the 1999 total, the most ever in the state.

“We’re having a big year,” said Andrew Clemency, a public defender who specializes in death penalty cases in the Phoenix area and teaches about the subject at Arizona State University. “Arizona is becoming a major player in the death-penalty world, right up there with places like Texas or Georgia or Florida.”

Texas leads the nation in executions just about every year, and last year put 13 inmates to death. In comparison, Arizona executed four inmates last year. In 2010, Texas executed 17 inmates and Arizona put just one inmate to death.

Nationwide last year 43 inmates were executed in 13 states.

If Arizona puts seven inmates to death this year, it could become the second-busiest death-penalty state after Texas. Last year, Alabama executed the second-highest number of inmates at six.

The article notes that there are 128 death row inmates in Arizona.

Earlier coverage from Arizona begins with Death Watch Dairy; also, more on Arizona lethal injection issues.

OK Governor Says She Will Not Delay Stemple Execution

A day after members of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty met with Governor Mary Fallin, the governor has rejected a reprieve in the case of Shaun Stemple.  The governor has extended the reprieve issued in another case, however.

"Governor says she won't delay Tulsa killer's execution Thursday despite family's plea of innocence," is the Tulsa World report by Barbara Hoberock.

Gov. Mary Fallin's office said Tuesday that she does not intend to issue a stay of execution for Tulsa County killer Timothy Shaun Stemple.

Stemple, 46, is set to be executed Thursday for the 1996 killing of his wife, Trisha Stemple, 30.

His family met Tuesday with the Governor's Office to seek a stay to pursue evidence of his innocence.

They held a news conference with the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty to urge a stay.

The Pardon and Parole Board last month voted 4-1 to deny clemency to Stemple.

"We don't have the power to grant clemency without a recommendation from the (Pardon and Parole) board," said Alex Weintz, a spokesman for Fallin.

"Okla. Governor unlikely to stay execution," is the latest AP filing, via KRMG-TV.

The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty met with Fallin's deputy general counsel Rebecca Frazier to plead for a stay of execution.

Coalition co-chair Lydia Polley said Stemple's family has compiled evidence that was never presented in court.

Stemple was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of his 30-year-old wife, Trisha Stemple, who was beaten with a baseball bat and run over with a pickup truck in Tulsa.

"Group protests execution, claims too much doubt," is by La'Tasha Givens at KFOR-TV.

Led by the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, the Stemple family gathered at the State Capitol pleading for a stay of execution.

The family says there are theories from forensic pathologists who say the death of the victim was by car accident, not from murder.

The family says that evidence, as well as other items, never made it into court.

"When my sister in law died, my brother didn't even get to grieve her death. Within a few days, all fingers were pointing to him because he had life insurance and he had an affair," Janae Smucker said.

She says her brother is no killer.

"There is too much doubt," Sen. Consatnce Johnson said.

Supporters of Stemple have put together a website, Free Shaun.  There is also more on the case at the Oklahoma Coalition website.

In the other Oklahoma death penalty case, the Tulsa World reports, "Garry Allen execution again is delayed," by Cary Aspinwall.

Garry Thomas Allen is now scheduled to be executed April 12 after Gov. Mary Fallin issued an additional 26-day stay Tuesday.

Allen, 56, was set to be executed Saturday after a 30-day stay that was granted in February expired.

Last month, Fallin granted the 30-day stay from the original Feb. 16 execution date to allow time to evaluate the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board's clemency recommendation.

The governor met with the Federal Public Defender's Office, the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office and the victim's family to review Allen's case and, after examining the arguments and evidence, determined that clemency should be denied and the sentence of death shall be carried out, spokesman Alex Weintz said.

Earlier coverage of the Garry Allen case begins at the link.

Challenge to Alabama Pentobarbital Switch

Today's Florence Times Daily reports, "Inmate to challenge execution changes," by Mary Sell.

An attorney for death-row inmate Tommy Arthur on Monday said she wants a chance to argue in court that the procedure the state plans to use this month to execute her client may be unconstitutional.

Pro bono attorney Suhana Han argued in federal appeals court that an April 2011 change in Alabama’s execution procedure should have been significant enough to trigger an appeals process.

The change was a switch in the first of three drugs administered during the lethal injection process. The state switched to the drug pentobarbital in 2011, when supplies for sodium thiopental ran low.

Han argued Monday that pentobarbital, which causes unconsciousness, takes longer to act than sodium thiopental did and may not be as effective. It is a possible violation of the Eighth Amendment, which protects against cruel and unusual punishment, Han said.

And:

He is scheduled to die March 29. This is the fifth execution date set for Arthur.

Earlier coverage of this controbersial Alabama case begins at the link.  Related posts are in the lethal injection index.

Texas Execution

Texas carried out its third execution of 2012, last night in Huntsville.  It was the state's 480th post-Furman execution since 1982. Texas has the most active death chamber in the nation, accounting for more than 37% of all modern executions in the nation.

It was the 241st execution conducted under the administration of Rick Perry.  He became Governor of Texas upon the resignation of George W. Bush in December 2000.  152 men and women were executed in five years under Governor Bush's tenure.

"Condemned Magnolia man goes to death protesting innocence," is Allan Turner's Houston Chronicle report on the execution of Keith Thurmond. 

According to TDCJ five additional executions are currently scheduled for 2012; the next is set for March 28.

Arizona is scheduled to carry out its second execution of the year, later this morning.  The Arizona Republic reports, "Arizona today set to execute 2nd inmate in 8 days."

UPDATE - Reuters posts, "Arizona executes man for 1991 robbery-murder," via the Chicago Tribune.

To date there have been eight executions in the nation this year; a total of 1,285 post-Furman executions since 1977.

Texas Execution Scheduled for Wednesday

Texas is scheduled to carry out its third execution of the year, Wednesday night in Huntsville.  It would be the state's 480th post-Furman execution since 1982. Texas has the most active death chamber in the nation, accounting for more than 37% of all modern executions in the nation.

It would be the 241st execution conducted under the administration of Rick Perry.  He became Governor of Texas upon the resignation of George W. Bush in December 2000.  152 men and women were executed in five years under Governor Bush's tenure.

The AP report on the scheduled execution of Keith Thurmond is, "Texas man to die for killing wife, her boyfriend," via KTRK-TV.

Attorneys for the 52-year-old Thurmond are arguing lawyers earlier in his appeals process were "grossly deficient" in failing to track down background about the former mechanic's abusive childhood.

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

TDCJ notes that five additional executions are currently scheduled for 2012; the next is set for March 28.

To date there have been six executions in the nation this year; a total of 1,283 post-Furman executions since 1977.

Texas Execution: How Much Is a Death Worth?

That's the title of an article in the BBC News Magazine.  It's written by Daniel Nasaw.  It examines practices in several states, and the use of foreign-sourced drugs.  Here's a brief excerpt:

The cost of lethal injection drugs used in the US to kill criminals on death row has risen dramatically over the past year. The increase comes as their manufacturers move to prevent them being used in executions.

The state of Texas is scheduled to spend $1,286.86 (£811) to kill Keith Thurmond on Wednesday night.

And:

The cost of the death drugs has risen 15-fold since 2010, when the mixture cost the state $86 (£55).

That is because the drug formerly used to sedate the patient, thiopental sodium, is no longer available, having been pulled off the market in 2010.

As a result, Texas and several other states switched to another sedative, pentobarbital. The drug is significantly more expensive - and it may soon become impossible for capital punishment prisons to purchase.

"Even though it is a small amount in the big scheme of things, it represents one more spiralling expense that makes the death penalty less reliable and more costly," says Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington DC.

Recent posts on the stock, cost, and use of lethal injection drugs include:

• The Cost of Lethal Injection Drugs
• Oklahoma Also Running Low on Execution Drugs
• FDA Sued Over Lethal Injection Imports
• Judge Halts Killer's Ohio Execution, Scolds State
• Hospira Under Fire for Sales of Pancuronium, Used in Executions
• European Union Steps Up Pressure With New Controls

Related posts are in the lethal injection index.

Ninth Circuit Criticizes Arizona's Lethal Injection Protocol

"Court gives Arizona warning about execution protocol,"is the AP report via the Arizona Republic.  The ruling in Towery, Moormann v. Brewer is available in Adobe .pdf format.  Here's an extended excerpt from the AP article:

A federal appeals court panel on Tuesday issued a strong warning to Arizona officials who have continuously violated and changed their own written protocol for executing state death-row inmates.

In its ruling on Tuesday, the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco turned down a request to delay two upcoming executions -- that of Robert Henry Moormann on Wednesday and of Robert Charles Towery eight days later on March 8.

While the judges declined to delay the executions, they wrote that Arizona has forced the court "to engage in serious constitutional questions and complicated factual issues in the waning hours before executions."

"This approach cannot continue," the panel wrote. "We are mindful of the admonition requiring us to refrain from micro-managing each individual execution, but the admonition has a breaking point."

And unless Arizona officials make permanent changes, the judges wrote that the court might have to start monitoring each individual execution in the state to make sure the law is followed.

The ruling comes after the state Department of Corrections unexpectedly changed its execution protocol last month, one of multiple unannounced changes in recent years.

Defense attorneys argued to the court that the new protocol loosened requirements for those who inject inmates with the lethal drugs and gave far too much discretion to corrections Director Charles Ryan.

According to the new protocol, Ryan can decide with which and how many drugs to execute inmates and must give the inmates' one week's notice of what he decided.

But on Monday, less than 48 hours before Moormann's scheduled Wednesday execution, corrections staff realized that one of the drugs they had planned to use expired last month and is no longer available.

They then notified Moormann and his attorneys that he would be executed with just one drug, pentobarbital.

The late notice violates the department's new written execution protocol.

ASU Cronkite News posts, "Federal court panels refuse to block two looming Arizona executions," by Dustin Volz.

Separate panels of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals released a flurry of opinions this week rejecting appeals by death-row inmates Robert Henry Moormann and Robert Charles Towery.

Moormann, 63, is currently scheduled to be executed at 10 a.m. Wednesday for the 1984 murder and dismemberment of his adoptive mother while on a three-day furlough from prison.

Towery, 47, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection March 8 for the 1991 robbery and murder of a Valley man.

Their attorneys were pursuing last-minute appeals Tuesday night, including appeals to the full 9th Circuit court and, possibly for Moormann, an emergency stay of execution appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The latest AP update on the Moormann case is, "Arizona death-row inmate set to be executed today."

If Moormann's execution proceeds, it will be the first time the state executes an inmate using a one-drug method, as opposed to its long-standing three-drug protocol. The switch was made after corrections officials realized Monday that one of the three drugs had expired.

Arizona would join Ohio, Texas and several other states that last year made the switch to pentobarbital after the only U.S. manufacturer of the execution drug sodium thiopental said it would discontinue production.

In July, the only U.S.-licensed manufacturer of pentobarbital announced it would put the drug off-limits for executions. And a company that bought the pentobarbital line in December is required to also keep it from use by prisons for executions.

Once states use up their current supplies of pentobarbital, executions could be delayed across the country as they look for yet another alternative.

Another Arizona inmate, Robert Charles Towery, is set to be executed on March 8 for killing a man while robbing his home in 1991.

Earlier coverage of Arizona lethal injection issues begins at the link.

Texas Execution Scheduled for Wednesday

Texas is scheduled to carry out its second execution of the year, Wednesday night in Huntsville.  It would be the state's 479th post-Furman execution since 1982. 

It would be the 240th execution conducted under the administration of Rick Perry.  He became Governor of Texas upon the resignation of George W. Bush in December 2000.  152 men and women were executed in five years under Governor Bush's tenure.

The AP report is, "Leader of notorious Texas 7 gang to die Wednesday," by Michael Graczyk, via the Austin American-Statesman.

George Rivas already was saddled with 17 life prison terms when he told a Dallas County jury he deserved death for organizing the largest-ever jailbreak from a Texas prison and then killing a suburban Dallas police officer.

And:

Attorneys say his appeals are exhausted. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has rejected a clemency request. And Rivas acknowledges he's ready to die for fatally shooting Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins 11 years ago.

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

TDCJ notes that five additional executions are already scheduled for 2012; the next is set for March 7.

To date there have been four executions in the nation this year; a total of 1,281 post-Furman executions since 1977.

Arizona is also scheduled to carry out an execution on Wednesday.  The AP post is, "AZ Supreme Court refuses stay of execution," via the Arizona Daily Star.

The Arizona Supreme Court on Monday again refused to stay the scheduled execution of death row inmate Robert Henry Moormann.

Lawyers for Moormann, 63, also are asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stop Wednesday’s pending execution.

And:

Moormann’s attorneys claim he was diagnosed in early childhood as being mentally retarded and therefore the state can’t execute him.

They have asked the federal appeals court in San Francisco for a preliminary injunction over questions regarding Arizona’s lethal-injection protocol.

The Arizona Department of Corrections gave notice that it plans to use a one-drug protocol for the pending execution and not the three-drug system it has used previously.

Related posts are in the execution date and lethal injection indexes.

Alabama Roundup

Andrew Cohen posts, "Another Death Row Debacle: The Case Against Thomas Arthur," at the Atlantic.  Here's the beginning:

Another month, another man on death row, another excruciating case that illustrates just some of the ways in which America's death penalty regime is unconstitutionally broken. This time, the venue is Alabama. This time, the murder that generated the sentence took place 30 years ago. And this time, there is an execution date of March 29, 2012, for Thomas Arthur, a man who has always maintained his innocence. He also has the unwelcome distinction of being one of the few prisoners in the DNA-testing era to be this close to capital punishment after someone else confessed under oath to the crime.

Late last month, I profiled the wobbly capital conviction against Troy Noling in Ohio and there are remarkable similarities between it and the Arthur case. Both involve white defendants. Both include contentions of innocence and allegations of bad lawyering at trial. Both include a lack of physical evidence linking the defendants to the crime. Both include crucial witness testimony that borders the farcical. And both include state officials reluctant to permit sophisticated DNA testing that might definitively answer questions about whether the defendants committed the murders they will die for.

Arthur's attorneys are even willing to pay for that testing, the few thousand bucks it would be, and the testing could be completed by the execution date. It is here where prosecutors and judges lose me when they prioritize "finality" in capital punishment cases at the expense of "accuracy." It would cost Alabama nothing to let Arthur's lawyers do the testing. And it might solve a case that already has cost the state millions of dollars. Instead, Alabama wants to finally solve its Arthur problem by executing him. No matter how the new DNA test could come out, the state is more interested in defending its dubious conviction.

The Arthur case is also the topic of Andrew Rosenthal's New Yort Times blog post, "Is Alabama About to Execute an Innocent Man?"

Last Wednesday, Alabama scheduled the execution of Thomas Arthur for March 29. I object to the death penalty under all circumstances, but Mr. Arthur’s case is particularly troubling, because it’s possible that he’s innocent.

Mr. Arthur has been on death row since 1982 for the murder of Troy Wicker. He was not an upstanding citizen. At the time of the killing, Mr. Arthur was an inmate at the Decatur Work Release Center serving a sentence for a previous conviction (for second-degree murder). But his character shouldn’t distract us from the facts: No physical evidence linked him to the murder; no murder weapon was found; another man, Bobby Ray Gilbert, confessed to the crime under oath.

DNA testing of evidence in 2009 failed to place Mr. Gilbert at the scene, and a Jefferson County Circuit Court judge ruled that he had lied. This logic seems flimsy. Remember, there’s no DNA evidence proving that Mr. Arthur committed the crime, either.

Mr. Arthur has requested advanced DNA testing of a wig worn by the killer, which could help establish his innocence (or his guilt, for that matter). The Alabama authorities have so far opposed additional testing—despite the fact that Mr. Arthur’s counsel has offered to pay for it and that it could be completed before his execution date.

 Earlier coverage of the Tommy Arthur case begins at the link.

There is also other case news from Alabama, one involving the state's judicial override on death sentences and the other involving indigent defense costs.  First, "Attorney weighs new legal challenge in Henderson case," by Jim Mustian of the Ledger-Enquirer, via the Macon Telegraph.

More than four months after a Lee County jury recommended life in prison for Gregory Lance Henderson, the convicted cop killer’s fate remains in the hands of Circuit Court Judge Jacob A. Walker III.

The judge will decide whether to accept the jury’s 9-3 vote against capital punishment or override it and send the Columbus man to Alabama’s death row. But defense attorney Jeremy W. Armstrong of Phenix City has been exploring a fresh legal challenge to Henderson’s eligibility for execution that could change the equation in an emotional case that shook the East Alabama law enforcement community.

Henderson was found guilty in October of running over and killing Lee County deputy sheriff James W. Anderson during a September 2009 traffic stop in Smiths Station, Ala. His sentencing, initially set for Jan. 31, has been postponed twice, most recently because Armstrong has sought to determine whether Henderson is mentally retarded and therefore legally immune to capital punishment.

The development could delay the case indefinitely if additional testing is warranted. Walker has scheduled a hearing Wednesday to discuss a new sentencing date and Armstrong’s recent motion for continuance.

Coverage of Alabama's practice of judicial override begins at the link. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that the execution of those with mental retardation is unconstitutional; more on Atkins v. Virginia, via Oyez.  As I often point out, mental retardation is now generally referred to as a developmental or intellectual disability.  Because it has a specific meaning with respect to capital cases, I continue to use the older term.  Related posts are in the mental retardation index.

"Alabama wants Amy Bishop trial judge to cancel order for payments to expert witnesses," is by Brian Lawson for the Huntsville Times.

Attorneys for the Alabama Comptroller's Office want the judge in the Amy Bishop capital murder case to vacate his orders for payments to defense expert witnesses and testing, according to a court filing today.

Bishop is set to go on trial March 19 on charges she killed three fellow University of Alabama in Huntsville biology faculty members and attempted to kill three other university employees on Feb. 12, 2010.

The trial date may be in some doubt as Bishop's court- appointed attorneys have asked Circuit Judge Alan Mann to delay the trial until the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals rules on the state's refusal to accept Mann's orders to make payments for expert witnesses and related testing of Bishop by a neurologist.

And:

Alabama Comptroller David White argues in the filing that a new Alabama law governing payments to expert witnesses does not cover the Bishop case since it began before the law was passed. Previously, Alabama law did not include prior payments to expert witnesses before a case ended. The practice has been criticized by defense attorneys who argue it leaves them either paying for experts out of their own pockets, or being forced to try and find experts, often not as well-regarded in their fields, who are willing to wait months or years to be paid.

The most recent coverage from Alabama concerned the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Maples v. Thomas.

Lethal Injection Roundup - Arizona, Nebraska News

"Federal judge declines delaying 2 Arizona executions," is Michael Kiefer's Arizona Republic report.

A federal judge on Thursday denied a preliminary injunction that would have stopped or postponed two upcoming executions because of recent changes in the Arizona Department of Corrections protocol for lethal injection.

U.S. District Court Judge Neil Wake has consistently ruled in favor of the corrections department against allegations made by the Federal Public Defender's Office, which asked for delay in the executions of Robert Moormann and Robert Towery. The men are scheduled to die Feb. 29 and March 8, respectively.

The federal defender argued that the new protocol, which went into effect Jan. 12, lessens the qualifications required of executioners, gives too much discretion to Corrections Director Charles Ryan, and eliminates the possibility of the condemned to meet with their attorneys in person on the morning of their executions, among other things.

Wake denied the request.

In December, Wake ruled that lapses by the corrections department in following its own protocol did not violate prisoners' rights. The corrections department subsequently amended its protocol, in effect institutionalizing the lapses.

Dale Baich of the Federal Public Defender's Office said he planned to appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

From Nebraska, the Omaha World-Herald reports, "Court grants Ryan a stay of execution."  It's by Joe Duggan.

Legal questions over how Nebraska obtained one of its lethal injection drugs led the Nebraska Supreme Court on Thursday to stay the March 6 execution of Michael Ryan.

The former religious cult leader filed an appeal Feb. 13 in Richardson County District Court that alleged the state plans to use a stolen supply of sodium thiopental to carry out his execution. The appeal is pending before District Judge Daniel Bryan.

On Thursday, the high court ruled the appeal is “sufficient cause to warrant a stay.”

"Supreme Court halts Ryan execution," by Kevin O'Hanlon in the Lincoln Journal Star.

The Nebraska Supreme Court on Thursday issued a stay of the March 6 execution of death-row inmate Michael Ryan.

In a one-page order signed by Chief Justice Mike Heavican, the court said it was issuing the stay because Ryan has an appeal pending before Richardson County District Judge Daniel Bryan Jr.

In that appeal, defense lawyer Jerry Soucie of the Nebraska Commission of Public Advocacy argues that Ryan was sentenced to die in the electric chair, which the state no longer uses. 

Ryan was convicted in the cult-related 1985 killings of James Thimm, 26, and Luke Stice, 5, near Rulo. He was sentenced to death for Thimm's murder.

Soucie also is challenging Nebraska's purchase of one of the three lethal injection drugs needed for an execution.

Nebraska switched to lethal injection after a 2008 state Supreme Court ruling that said the electric chair was unconstitutional and cruel and unusual punishment. At the time, Nebraska was the only state with electrocution as its sole means of execution.

And:

Late last year, Nebraska prison officials said they bought sodium thiopental made by Naari, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Switzerland. In fact, they bought the drug from a middleman who bought it from Naari and then sold it to the state.

Soucie filed documents with the high court saying Harris and his company, Harris Pharma LLP, were not authorized to sell the drug. The shipping manifest from Naari to Harris Pharma, dated Sept. 30, 2011, says: "Samples have no commercial value. Samples not for sale. Free trade sample." Further, it says the drug is "for test and evaluation purpose."

That, Soucie contends, means Harris misappropriated the thiopental from Naari, and Nebraska prison officials are in possession of stolen property.

The pharmaceutical company, Naari, has asked the state to return the drug, saying it was obtained by deception.

Soucie hailed Thursday's order.

"It gives us an opportunity to try to determine the facts concerning the actions of the Department of Correctional Services ... in regards to the ... Naari purchase," Soucie said.

The ruling in Nebaska v. Ryan is available in Adobe .pdf format.

Earlier lethal injection coverage from Arizona and Nebraska begins at the links.  Related posts are in the lethal injection index.

Next Texas Execution Date Withdrawn for DNA Testing

The Houston Chronicle posts "San Antonio man set to die next week wins reprieve," by Michael Graczyk of AP.

An ex-con convicted of killing a San Antonio man and stealing his prized motorcycle won a stay of execution Thursday when a judge in Houston agreed to new forensic tests.

Anthony Bartee, 54, had been scheduled for lethal injection Tuesday evening in Huntsville.

Bartee's lawyers argued in appeals that more DNA testing should be conducted on two strands of hair found in victim David Cook's hands. A third strand of hair was tested earlier and identified as belonging to the 37-year-old victim. Prosecutors argued the other two were scientifically insufficient for meaningful tests.

"What we're doing now is looking into which labs are capable of doing the testing in the shortest amount of time," Rico Valdez, an assistant Bexar County district attorney who handles capital case appeals, said.

State District Judge Mary Roman withdrew the execution warrant Thursday.

According to TDCJ, five Texas executions are currently scheduled, including one for February 29.