"Mississippi on pace to have most executions since 1950s," is the AP report, via the Mississippi Press.
With four executions so far and two scheduled this month, Mississippi is on pace to have more executions in 2012 than it has had in any year since the 1950s.
The last time Mississippi executed more than four inmates in any single year was in 1961, when five died in the gas chamber. There were eight executions in each of the years 1955 and 1956. In those days, inmates were put to death for crimes like armed robbery, rape or murder. Today, the only crime punishable by death in Mississippi is capital murder -- a murder that happens during the commission of another felony.
The increase in executions comes as fewer people are being sentenced to death across the country. Some experts say the upward trend in Mississippi isn't likely to last.
Don Cabana, a former Mississippi corrections commissioner and author of the book, "Death At Midnight: The Confessions of an Executioner," said the increase "was absolutely predictable" and has more to do with timing and the pace of appeals than anything else.
"You have a number of people who have been sitting on death row for a long time whose cases kind of simultaneously, or in close proximity, started exhausting their appeals," Cabana said.
Three of the men executed so far this year were convicted of crimes committed in 1995 and the other was convicted in the 1990 stabbing deaths of four children.
Jan Michael Brawner, who's scheduled for execution on Tuesday, was convicted in the 2001 killings of his 3-year-old daughter, his ex-wife and her parents in Tate County. Gary Carl Simmons Jr., scheduled to die by injection June 20, was convicted of shooting and dismembering a man in Pascagoula over a drug debt in 1996.
And:
Jim Craig, an attorney who has worked on appeals for death row inmates, believes there's more to it than that.
Craig said that seven out of 11 men executed in Mississippi since 2008 were represented on appeal by the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel when it was led by attorney Bob Ryan, who took over the office in 2002. Glenn S. Swartzfager took over the office in 2008.
In a 2006 affidavit obtained by The Associated Press, Ryan described a situation in which the office lacked manpower and funding and he sometimes relied on trial summaries when filing appeals in numerous cases. At one point, he was essentially "the sole counsel on 21 cases," he wrote in the affidavit.
Craig says he's convinced that some of those men would be alive, either still appealing their cases or having their death sentences reduced, if they had better representation. Craig said many appeals were filed based only on the court transcript, and the post-conviction office didn't bother to interview witnesses.
"This is more than just the usual things moving at the usual speed. This is a breakdown in the system of providing lawyers to poor people when the state is trying to execute them," he said.
Also from the Mississppi AP, "Stay sought in execution set for Tuesday," via the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.
The Mississippi attorney general's office argued Friday that the state Supreme Court should not grant a stay of execution for an inmate scheduled to die by injection Tuesday.
The Mississippi Supreme Court, in a 4-4 vote decision this week, denied a rehearing on previous arguments in the case of Jan Michael Brawner.
In court procedures, a tie vote usually means an earlier ruling stands. But Brawner's lawyer filed a motion for rehearing and asked for a stay, saying there's precedent in Mississippi that tie votes in death penalty cases favor inmates. Brawner claims his previous appeals lawyer didn't do a good job, and he wants an oral hearing on the matter.
Matt Steffey, a professor at the Mississippi College School of Law, said Brawner's attorney raises an interesting legal question.
Steffey said death penalty cases must be supported by a majority of the court, and previous rulings had been supported by a 5-3 vote. But in this particular ruling on the rehearing, the vote was 4-4.
Steffey said it's not clear if that means one of the justices no longer supports the death penalty in the case or just wanted to allow additional arguments.
"This is not a frivolous argument. If we care about fairness in process, and if the court's going to abide by the rule which requires a current majority to support the imposition of death, then these arguments need to be considered seriously," Steffey said.
"It will be critically important to see what happens with the next motion," he added.
Earlier coverage from Mississippi begins at the link.
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