AP reports, "11th Circuit Will Hold Hearing On Siebert Execution Stay," via WTVM-TV in Alabama.
The full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today agreed to hold a hearing at the request of the Alabama attorney general's office on the stay of execution granted by a
three-judge panel for multiple-murderer Daniel Lee Siebert.But the court did not lift the stay that blocks Siebert's lethal injection that had been set for 6 p.m. today.
He claimed his cancer medication would counteract with a lethal injection and inflict unnecessary pain. The 53-year-old Siebert has been on Alabama's death row for more than 20 years and has terminal pancreatic cancer.
A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit yesterday reversed a Montgomery district judge's order and granted the stay of execution.
Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw asked the full 11th Circuit to hear the case. Today, the full court agreed to a hearing, but did not immediately set a date.
The Birmingham News has, "State's new execution procedure detailed."
Under a new procedure intended to ensure that Alabama's condemned inmates are unconscious when executed, a prison guard will call the inmate by name, brush his eyelashes with a finger and pinch his arm, a Department of Corrections spokesman said Thursday.
Gov. Bob Riley announced Monday that a new execution procedure had been adopted, but disclosed no details. Thursday, Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett discussed the new procedure, which will come after a drug causing unconsciousness is administered, but before the administration of drugs meant to kill the inmate.
"It's simply a consciousness check after the first drug has been administered," Corbett said.
The addition to the state's execution protocol was developed after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a Kentucky case challenging the constitutionality of that state's lethal injection procedure. Alabama keeps most details of its execution procedure secret, but lawyers representing Death Row inmates have said that Alabama's procedure was identical to Kentucky's before the change was made.
According to court filings in death penalty cases, Alabama, Kentucky and most other states use a combination of three drugs to execute prisoners. Lawyers representing convicted killer Thomas Arthur said in court documents that Alabama uses Thiopental, Pavulon and potassium chloride.
Arthur was issued a 45-day stay last month pending implementation of the new procedure. A new date for his execution has not been set.
And:
"These additional steps are by no means sufficient to ensure that the inmate will be unconscious," said Elisabeth Semel, director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. The clinic represents Death Row inmates.
Death penalty protocols typically are developed and used in secrecy, meaning qualified medical personnel don't have input, and the result is a system that can suffer catastrophic failure, she said.
The Huntsville Times has an editorial, "Facing legal realities."
Siebert suffers from pancreatic cancer. He has, at most, a few months to live. He's being treated for his disease. And an oncologist says mixing the three-drug cocktail that would take Siebert's life with his cancer medication could cause pain that might violate the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
The federal judicial panel had another reason, beyond Siebert's claims, to stay the execution. Those judges, and federal judges across the nation, are awaiting a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on a case filed by a Kentucky inmate who also faces execution. He has challenged lethal injection as an inhumane method of capital punishment.
And he has some science on his side. Evidence shows that some lethal injections aren't the blissful slipping into unconsciousness followed by heart stoppage that its proponents claim for it.
So the federal panel, in granting the stay, said it will wait until the highest court of the land, possibly next year, addresses the issue.
To no one's surprise, the court's decision doesn't sit well with state Attorney General Troy King or Gov. Bob Riley. A state prosecutor will appeal the decision. If he doesn't, the chances of the state being able to execute anyone else - despite a change in its lethal injection procedure to address previous court challenges - would be nil until the Supreme Court's definitive ruling.
The Tuscaloosa Times has an editorial, "Halt executions for review of rules."
Still, the fact that the appeals court ruling left Riley in a difficult situation is yet another argument for a state moratorium on the death penalty to allow for a thorough review of the process, incorporation of relevant higher court rulings and an initiative in the Legislature to resolve the many problems associated with the administration of capital punishment in Alabama.
The lethal injection category index is here.
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