The Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports, "Moeller questions source of lethal drug." It's written by John Hult.
The state of South Dakota wants to stop a death row inmate from asking any more questions about the procedure that will be used to kill him.
Donald Moeller, condemned to die for the rape and murder of 9-year-old Becky O'Connell 21 years ago, argues that he deserves the information to ensure the protection of his constitutional right to an execution free from unnecessary pain and suffering.
The state has stonewalled on his most recent information requests, characterizing the demands as desperate efforts to delay long-denied justice for O'Connell's family.
Such legal wrangling is typical in death penalty cases, but there is more to it in this case.
If Moeller's appeals draw out past the expiration date of South Dakota's current stock of execution drugs, the state could find itself unprepared for the execution, and it could be delayed further.
And:
The expiration date is listed as September 2012.
It was the state's decision early this year to buy the drug from Kayem Pharmaceuticals in Mumbai, India, that sparked Moeller's most recent line of appeals.
Other states had purchased the drug from British suppliers, and their import procedures ran afoul of Drug Enforcement Administration rules.
The agency's seizure of thiopental from Georgia forced that state to switch to pentobarbital, which it used last month in the controversial, high-profile execution of Troy Davis.
Meanwhile, Nebraska's Supreme Court stayed the execution of double-murderer Carey Dean Moore in part because of concerns about that state's stock of sodium thiopental from India.
Moeller's filings claim the Indian drug could be ineffective because the product hasn't been vetted by the Food and Drug Administration. But the state points out that the FDA never has approved or tested drugs for use in executions and produced a letter to that effect.
In court filings, South Dakota claims to have independently verified the quality of its drug stock from India. It also produced documents from the DEA and FDA clearing the product for entrance into the country.
"Costs in Donald Moeller case $1.5M and counting," appeared in the Argus Leader last month. It's by Steve Young.
Twenty-one years after the rape and murder of 9-year-old Becky O'Connell, justice remains unserved for her killer, Donald Moeller, and the tab to execute him unsettled.
An Argus Leader review of bills and charges for the prosecution, litigation and incarceration of the 59-year-old death row inmate shows South Dakota has paid at least $1,496,777 to try to put Moeller to death.
It's an imprecise figure, but perhaps the first comprehensive review of the costs of a capital punishment case in the state. It includes bills submitted to Lincoln County by prosecutors and defense lawyers for two trials, two convictions and two death sentences that Moeller has received for killing the girl May 8, 1990.
It also includes Moeller's incarceration at the Minnehaha County Jail leading up to his first trial, and charges for keeping him on death row post conviction. In that figure also are estimates by the attorney general's office for time spent litigating Moeller's numerous appeals through the years.
The issue of paying to put someone to death is a polarizing one that has and still is being debated in cash-strapped statehouses across the country. In 2009, 11 state legislatures considered bills to end capital punishment. Several of them - Illinois and New Mexico most recently - cited financial considerations in part for repealing their death penalty statutes. At least one group - South Dakotans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty - is bent on doing the same thing here.
Moeller did not respond to a written request for an interview. But Travis Schulze of Rapid City, coordinator of South Dakotans for Alternatives, said: "When you think of the money spent on death penalty cases in South Dakota, and we've executed what, one person, in 60 years, doesn't it make more sense to use those dollars to pay for more law enforcement, or to provide services to families of murder victims?"
And:
In South Dakota, the daily cost for its three death row inmates - Moeller, Charles Rhines and Briley Piper - is $60.62, or $22,126.30 a year, Department of Corrections spokesman Michael Winder said. The state figures per diem incarceration costs by facility, not individual housing units, he said. The three death row inmates are housed with 55 other inmates deemed to need segregation.
"I don't know if (other) states have separate units or facilities for their capital punishment inmates," Winder said. "If so, I would assume that would increase their costs."
Schulze noted that the $1.5 million spent at a minimum on the Moeller case is similar to what Kansas has invested in its death penalty cases. A 2003 study done by that state found that the median cost of a death penalty case through execution was $1.26 million, or 70 percent more than the median cost of $740,000 spent on comparable, non-death penalty capital cases.
No similar study exists in South Dakota. But national studies have shown that two out of three capital punishment cases are sent back by appellate courts because of trial error.
Earlier coverage of lethal injection issues in South Dakota begins at the link; the cost index has posts related to the expense of capital cases.
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