As so often happens in Texas with a crowded schedule of executions, a variety of individual capital issues are moshing up against each other. We have at least two issues bumping together right now; the status of scheduled lethal injection executions in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's cert grant in Baze, and the scheduled execution of Honduran citizen Heliberto Chi, who was not advised of his right to contact his home government under the Vienna Convention on Consular Notifications when he was arrested in California.
I'm going to start with the reporting by Ralph Blumenthal and Linda Greenhouse in today's New York Times, " Texas Planning New Execution Despite Ruling ." Later in this post I'll include AP and Reuters dispatches. In the next post I'll link to the Texas coverage. Here's the first excerpt from the Times:
A day after the United States Supreme Court halted an
execution in Texas at the last minute, Texas officials made clear on Friday
that they would nonetheless proceed with more executions in coming months,
including one next week.
Though several other states are halting lethal injections until it is clear
whether they are constitutional, Texas is taking a different course, risking a
confrontation with the court.
“The Supreme Court’s decision to stay convicted murderer Carlton Turner’s
execution will not necessarily result in an abrupt halt to Texas executions,”
said Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Attorney General Greg Abbott of Texas.
“State and federal courts will continue to address each scheduled execution on
a case-by-case basis.”
Shortly before midnight on Thursday, the Supreme Court stayed the execution of
Mr. Turner, who had been scheduled to become the 27th Texas inmate executed
this year by lethal injection in Huntsville.
Although the court gave no reason for its order, Mr. Turner, convicted of
murdering his adoptive parents in 1998, had appealed to the court after it
agreed Tuesday to consider the constitutionality of lethal injection, the most
commonly used method of execution in the United States.
Several legal experts said the Supreme Court reprieve would be seen by most
states as a signal to halt all executions until the court determined, probably
some time next year, whether the current chemical formulation used for lethal
injections amounts to cruel and unusual punishment barred by the Eighth Amendment.
Eleven states had halted executions for that reason. On Thursday, Alabama
stayed an execution for 45 days to come up with a new formula.
“There is a momentum quality to this,” said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor
at Ohio State University who has a blog, Sentencing Law and Policy. “Not only
the Supreme Court granting the stay, but also the Alabama governor doing a
reprieve that is likely to lead to other states with executions on the horizon
waiting to see what the Supreme Court does. I’ll be surprised if many, and
arguably if any states other than Texas, go through with executions this year.”
On his blog on Friday, Professor Berman predicted that there would be few if
any executions in the country for the next 9 to 18 months, while the court
deliberates and, later, as lower courts parse the meaning of its eventual ruling.
Texas, which has a history of confrontations with the Supreme Court over its
prerogatives in criminal justice, does not appear interested in waiting. That
forces lawyers for condemned prisoners to appeal each case as high as the
Supreme Court.
And:
David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston who handled Mr.
Turner’s appeal, said it was still too early to proclaim that a de facto
national moratorium was in place. If Mr. Chi’s case goes to the high court and
it issues a stay, Professor Dow said, that would clearly indicate that the
justices will grant such appeals until a final decision is made.
He said he expected the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to agree eventually
and begin granting the stays itself, removing the need to go to the Supreme
Court. The Texas court split, 5 to 4, on Thursday in denying Mr. Turner’s appeal.
And:
The stay for the Texas execution was issued two days after the court did not
stop Texas from executing another inmate, Michael Richard, leading to some
confusion about its intentions.
Lawyers in the case on Tuesday said their appeal had been turned down because
of an unusual series of procedural problems.
Professor Dow said the computers crashed at the Texas Defender Service in
Houston while lawyers were rewriting his appeal to take advantage of the high
court’s unexpected interest in lethal injection.
Because of the resulting delay, the lawyers missed by 20 minutes the 5 p.m.
filing deadline at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin, where the
appeal had to go first before moving to the Supreme Court.
The Texas court refused their pleas to remain open for the extra minutes.
Because the lawyers missed that crucial step, Professor Dow said, the Supreme
Court had to turn down the appeal, and Mr. Richard was executed.
But on Thursday, with a more carefully crafted appeal for Mr. Turner, and the
Texas court’s closely split rejection, the Supreme Court called a halt to
another lethal injection.
AP has, "Lethal Injection Under Scrutiny," reported by Ron Word in Florida.
Foes of capital punishment argue that if the inmate is not properly
anesthetized, he could suffer extreme pain without being able to cry out.
That could happen in a number of ways: The executioner could inaccurately
calculate the dosage needed for an inmate of a given body weight. Or the
executioner could fail to administer the full amount, mix the drug improperly,
or wait too long between giving the anesthesia and the lethal substance.
In Missouri, a doctor who participated in dozens of executions was quoted
recently as saying he was dyslexic and occasionally altered the amounts of
anesthetic given.
A botched execution in Florida last year illustrated another way a lethal
injection could go awry: Angel Nieves Diaz needed a rare second dose of
chemicals - and the execution took a half-hour, twice as long as normal -
after the needles were mistakenly pushed clear through his veins and into the
flesh of his arm. That left chemical burns in his arm that opponents say
probably caused him extreme pain.
During the process, Diaz appeared to grimace. But he did not specifically say
he was suffering. And a state panel was unable to determine if Diaz had been
properly sedated or if he felt pain.
Reuters has, "U.S. executions seen on hold as method challenged."
In Texas, the most active capital punishment state by far, Gov. Rick Perry has
signaled that it will be business as usual in the state's busy death chamber.
But the U.S. Supreme Court granted a convicted murderer there a stay late on
Thursday.
"I think the signal from the Supreme Court last night is that we will have a
moratorium until the Kentucky litigation is resolved. It is essentially a de
facto moratorium," said Jordan Steiker of the University of Texas at Austin
School of Law.
"I think most jurisdictions will put executions on hold in any case and in
Texas I think the Supreme Court is withdrawing the option. I think the
political actors in Texas regrettably lack the restraint to allow the federal
litigation to run its course," he said.
The lethal injection index is here.
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