The StandDown Texas Project

U.S. Execution, European Abolition

That's the title of a New York Times OpEd by Sylvie Kauffmann.  It will appear in tomorrow's print edition.  Kauffmann is the editorial director Le Monde.  Here's the beginning:

When Felix G. Rohatyn went to Paris as the American ambassador in 1997, he expected the most controversial subject he’d face to be the famous French mistrust of “American hegemony.” To his surprise, the No. 1 issue turned out to be the death penalty.

The “enormous revulsion of the French” over the issue, he told me in 2001 after his return to New York, was eye-opening, as was his friendship with Robert Badinter, the French minister of justice who, under President François Mitterrand, led the fight for the abolition of capital punishment in 1981.

“All those demonstrations, in front of the embassy and the consulates, showed how really passionate people were,” Mr. Rohatyn said. “And in the end, I thought they were probably right.”

Two recent magazine articles — one French, the other American — demonstrate that while the issue has not gone away in Paris, it has taken a new turn in the United States. There has been a big change in American attitudes toward capital punishment during the last decade, and Europe has played a part in it.

The American magazine article is Pamela Colloff's Texas Monthly article on former TDCJ spokeswoman Michelle Lyons.

Related posts are in the international and silent actor trauma category indexes.

Barry Scheck Urges Clemency for Max Soffar

"Let an innocent man spend his last days at home," is Barry Scheck's commentary at the Texas Tribune's TribTalk.  Here's the beginning of this must-read:

Max Soffar, an innocent man on death row in Texas, has just a few months to live. 

He’s dying of liver cancer, and his last wish is to hold his wife, Anita, in his arms.

His lawyers continue to present evidence of his innocence to the courts. But a false confession Soffar signed 34 years ago, as a drug-addled and brain-damaged youth, will likely keep him locked away — unless Gov. Rick Perry intervenes.

Soffar is spending his last days locked in a cell the size of a small bathroom for 23 hours per day. His only breaks are for brief showers and recreation in a cage. Aside from the guards who shackle him and the medical staff who care for him, he has no human contact. Soffar sees his wife and others allowed to visit him but, separated from them by glass, can’t touch them. He sits on a metal stool bolted to the floor, peering through the window, straining to position his cancer-ravaged body comfortably.

Earlier coverage of Max Soffar's case begins at the link.  Related posts are in the clemency and OpEd category index.

A Corrections Expert Speaks Against Capital Punishment

Today's Louisville Courier-Journal publishes the OpEd, "Why I'm against death penalty," by Allen Ault.  He's now Dean of the College of Justice & Safety at Eastern Kentucky University.  Here's the beginning of this must-read:

Capital punishment is not a theoretical concept for me. I have murdered five human beings for a state.

At the time of these deaths, I was director of the Georgia Department of Corrections. Ironically, the executions were carried out in the same maximum security prison where I had previously served as warden. As a result of these experiences, I became a strong opponent of capital punishment. I am against the death penalty because:

• It does not act as a deterrent.

• It is costly (for example, California has spent more than $5 billion for 17 executions).

• It is not applied to the most egregious cases.

• The criminal justice system that administers it is extremely imperfect; over the past decade, nearly 150 death row inmates have been exonerated.

• It is illogical for the state to teach citizens not to kill by killing.

The final reason for my opposition is a particularly personal one—the heavy toll capital punishment exacts from the individuals who have to carry out the sanction.

Corrections officials are expected to commit the most premeditated murder imaginable. You follow a policy book and even have rehearsals.

Related posts are in OpEd and silent actor trauma category indexes.

Continuing Coverage of Oklahoma Execution Changes

"Hamilton: No defense for the death penalty," is the OpEd by Arnold Hamilton in the Journal-Record.  He's the editor of the Oklahoma Observer.

In 2014 – yes, the 21st century – state legislators are busy hunting for constitutionally acceptable alternatives to the state’s troubled lethal injection protocol.

How about using nitrogen? Firing up the electric chair? Redeploying the firing squad? Can the guillotine be far behind?

State Rep. Mike Christian, R-Oklahoma City, infamous for saying the condemned can be fed to lions for all he cares, is leading the between-legislative-sessions charge to make sure Oklahoma has some way – any way – to impose society’s ultimate punishment.

As is so often the case, the state’s elected eye-for-an-eye zealots are asking the wrong questions. They are missing a golden opportunity to lead an important public discussion about the worth and wisdom of the death penalty itself in modern-day Oklahoma.

Tulsa Public Radio posts, "Inmates' Attorney Questions Updated Protocols," by Matt Trotter.

The attorney for Oklahoma death row inmates suing the state says recently released protocols don't do enough to prevent another problematic execution.

Oklahoma’s revised execution protocols lay out four state-approved chemical combinations. Dale Baich said a cocktail of midazolam and hydromorphone won’t work.

"It's an experiment that failed in Ohio, and it's an experiment that failed in Arizona," Baich said. "I don't understand why the state would even pick that as one of the choices."

Earlier coverage from Oklahoma begins at the link.

Cruel and Usual Punishment in Jails and Prisons

That's the title of a Los Angeles Times OpEd by by attorney Martin Garbus.

The 8th Amendment bans cruel and unusual punishment. Yet it happens every day in prisons across the country. Putting aside capital punishment, which I would argue is cruel and unusual on its face, Americans are ignoring a host of horrific conditions that inmates are subjected to. This is not only morally and constitutionally dangerous; it is also bad public policy, because the prisoners being badly treated today will be back in our communities tomorrow.

As a litigator and constitutional lawyer, I have heard appalling stories from the nation's prisons and jails. One prisoner described to me how he was handcuffed to the bottom of his bunk in his underwear day after day for months. Another described how his cell was located directly beneath broken toilet pipes, which meant the cell smelled horribly of urine and excrement. I've heard how cells are unbearably hot or cold and how four prisoners are confined to spaces intended for two, with only one set of bunk beds. I've heard about showers that produce only scalding or icy water and about how, when cell toilets overflow, staff are in no hurry to fix them or to clean up.

Related posts are in the incarceration and OpEd category indexes.

Ohio Shouldn't Risk Executing Innocent

That's the title of a Cincinnati Enquirer OpEd written by by Jim and Nancy Petro.  He's the former Attorney General of Ohio.  They are the authors of False Justice: Eight Myths that Convict the Innocent.  Here's the beginning:

Throughout our lives together, we have held differing views on the death penalty. Nancy has always opposed it; I have generally supported the right of the citizens of a state to establish the death penalty as a consequence for the most heinous crimes.

Despite this difference, our views of the justice system have always shared a commitment to fairness, accuracy and public safety.

As a legislator, I voted in favor of reinstating Ohio's death penalty law in 1981. As attorney general, I oversaw 18 executions in accordance with Ohio law, but increasingly I struggled with my views on the death penalty. It's one thing to consider the law in the abstract; it is much different and more difficult to make decisions in a state process that concludes with the taking of a human life.

Nancy's view was unwavering: She believes the death penalty sends a message of vengeance to our children, diminishing the value of all human life and the culture. Increasingly, we both recognized that it is impossible to implement without a substantial risk of catastrophic error.

Over time, our views came together. My work gave me an up-close view of our death penalty in practice, which is much different from theory or intention.

Earlier coverage from Ohio begins at the link.  The state currently has a moratorium on executions due to lethal injection issues.

The Petros were members of a Constitution Project panel on wrongful convictions in 2011.

Opinion Roundup

The Chico News & Review publishes the editorial, "Innocent on death row."

Earlier this month two North Carolina men who had served 30 years in prison, one on death row, were exonerated when it was shown they were innocent victims of a broken justice system.

In an ironic twist, it turns out that 20 years ago Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia cited the death-row inmate, Henry Lee McCollum, as someone eminently deserving of being executed for his brutal crime—a crime we now know he didn’t commit.

"Ending the Penalty of Death," is commentary by Laura Finley at CounterPunch.

Almost three years ago, the state of Georgia likely executed an innocent man. Despite no physical evidence connecting Troy Davis to the August 19, 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia, despite the fact that numerous witnesses implicated Sylvester “Redd” Coles, who was the individual to accuse Davis of the murder, despite the fact that police never seriously investigated Coles as a suspect, and despite the fact that seven of nine state trial witnesses later recanted or changed their stories,  the state of Georgia went ahead with the execution of Troy Davis on September 21, 2011…the International Day of Peace, no less.  While there are so many issues with the death penalty, in light of the upcoming anniversary of Georgia’s murder of Troy Davis, I am focusing this piece on issues of innocence, which are, of course, generally coupled with police and prosecutorial failings.

Related posts are in the editorial and OpEd category index.  You can also jump to news of the North Carolina exonerations and the execution of Troy Davis.

A Missouri Exoneree's OpEd

Today's Kansas City Star publishes the OpEd, "Burton: Two recent exonerations cause new concern about the death penalty," by Darryl Burton.

Since my exoneration in 2008 of a murder I didn’t commit, there have been over a dozen exonerations just in Kansas and Missouri, including that of Reginald Griffin, who was wrongfully sentenced to death and spent 30 years in prison before his release.

We can’t allow ourselves to grow numb to these injustices. The appalling facts in McCollum’s and Brown’s cases cry out for action, and remind us of the urgent need to end the death penalty.

And:

If this case teaches us anything, it teaches the importance of humility in our criminal justice system. In the aftermath of grave crimes, like those that have recently rocked the Kansas City area, there is understandable anger and a desire for the death penalty. But executions have no place in an imperfect system that sometimes convicts the innocent.

Earlier coverage of the North Carolina exonerations begins at the link.  Related posts are in the exoneration and OpEd category index.

George Parnham on the Case of Scott Panetti

"Scott Panetti is not competent for execution," is the title of an OpEd written by Houston attorney George Parnham in today's Austin American-Statesman.  Here's the beginning of this must-read:

Do you remember Scott Panetti? He is pretty unforgettable. Panetti is the man with paranoid schizophrenia who was allowed to represent himself, while on trial for his life, wearing a make-believe Western cowboy outfit. He insisted on defending himself and attempted to summon dozens of witnesses, including John F. Kennedy, the pope and even Jesus Christ.

Panetti’s delusional courtroom performance was not simply painful to watch. It was a mockery of civilized society.

If Texas executes Panetti, it would be another travesty. He would go to his death convinced that he is being executed for preaching the gospel, not for the 1992 murder of his in-laws in Kerr County. The U.S. Supreme Court should intervene and prevent this gross injustice. The court needs to announce a clear standard for determining competency for execution that will provide guidance for the lower courts.

For more than 30 years, Panetti has suffered from severe mental illness. In the decade leading up to the crime, he was hospitalized 14 times for schizophrenia, manic depression (bipolar disorder), auditory hallucinations and delusions of persecution and grandiosity. At one point, he buried his furniture in his backyard because he believed the devil was in his furniture. By all accounts, his mental condition has gotten worse in prison.

Earlier coverage begins at the link.  Related coverage is in the Scott Panetti category index.

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.  The Court revisited the ruling in 2007 in  Panetti v. Quarterman is via Oyez.

What Will Doom the Death Penalty

That's the title of an OpEd in today's New York Times by Daniel LaChance.  It's subtitled, "Capital Punishment, Another Failed Government Program?"  LaChance is an assistant professor of history at Emory University, in Atlanta.

TO opponents of the death penalty, recent accounts of botched executions and DNA-based exonerations of death-row prisoners have revived hope that judges and voters will finally see capital punishment for what it is: an intolerable affront to human dignity.

But while such optimism is understandable, it is misplaced. Support for capital punishment is, in fact, in decline — but it’s less the result of a moral awakening on the part of the public than a symptom of a 40-year-plus process of disillusionment.

And:

Resources for fighting the death penalty are scarce, and for too long, abolitionists have spent them appealing to the humanistic ideals they wished most Americans shared, instead of one they actually do: distrust of government. Arguing that the death penalty is an affront to human dignity just doesn’t work. But portraying it as another failed government program just might.

Related posts are in the OpEd category index.

Editorials & Commentary on the North Carolina Exonerations

Today's New York Times publishes the editorial,"The Innocent on Death Row."

Cases of capital prosecutions based on flimsy evidence or marred by prosecutorial misconduct, not to mention racial bias, are distressingly common. Yet, even as death-penalty supporters insist that only guilty people are sent to their death, it is now clear that Justice Scalia was prepared 20 years ago to allow the execution of a man who, it turns out, was innocent.

How many more remain on death row today? Can the American people be assured that none will be killed by the state? For this reason alone, the death penalty must end.

"A death penalty symbol goes free," is the Charlotte Observer editorial.

Perhaps you remember Henry Lee McCollum.

His is a name that comes up regularly when the death penalty is discussed, because the crime for which he was convicted – the brutal 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl – tests the thresholds many of us have regarding when someone should or shouldn’t be put to death.

McCollum, of Robeson County, was part of a death penalty debate between U.S. Supreme Court justices in 1994, and he was featured in a 2010 mailing from the N.C. Republican Party that attacked a Democratic state senator for being soft on the death penalty. The mailing featured a picture of McCollum and described his crimes in detail.

And now, it turns out those crimes are not his.

And:

Can there be a clearer argument against the death penalty? It is this simple: Be it sloppy police work or prosecutorial misconduct or flawed eyewitness testimony, people are wrongly convicted of murder. Some are sentenced to death. And it is not rare.

"DNA frees the innocent, raises questions," is the Fayetteville Observer editorial.

Authorities missed or ignored previous signs of their innocence. They signed police-prepared statements only after hours of aggressive interrogation. Both have been described as mentally impaired. Some aspects of their "confessions" include impossible details that don't fit the known facts. When police did have belated doubts, fingerprint analysis they requested wasn't carried out prior to their trial.

We're glad they have been set free and thankful for DNA. But more of a reckoning may be in order. Maybe we should question everything about the system that failed in 1983, some of which is still with us today.

Dahlia Lithwick writes, "A Horrifying Miscarriage of Justice in North Carolina," at Slate.

Those who believe that we don’t execute the undeserving in America—or who aren’t too concerned about that possibility anyhow—have an ally in Justice Antonin Scalia. He famously insisted in Kansas v. Marsh that “"it should be noted at the outset that the dissent does not discuss a single case—not one—in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops by the abolition lobby.”

That same Scalia, in an unrelated case before the Supreme Court 20 years ago, name-checked McCollum as the reason to continue to impose the death penalty. In that case, Callins v. Collins, Justice Harry Blackmun famously announced in dissent that he would no longer “tinker with the machinery of death” and would never again vote for the death penalty in any case. As Blackmun put it at the time: “The problem is that the inevitability of factual, legal and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.” In response, Scalia questioned why Blackmun hadn’t chosen a more grisly murder to make this announcement, specifically citing McCollum’s case as the more appropriate vehicle to announce that position. Scalia noted that all sorts of cases of truly horrendous murders came before the court, “For example, the case of an 11-year-old girl raped by four men and then killed by stuffing her panties down her throat. How enviable,” he wrote, “a quiet death by lethal injection compared with that!” Never mind that “quiet death by lethal injection” has little to do with how our executions are carried out these days.

When McCollum’s own case came before the high court, Scalia voted not to hear it. Blackmun again wrote a dissent from that decision, again chastising Scalia for failing to understand the stakes: “Buddy McCollum is mentally retarded,” he explained. “He has an IQ between 60 and 69 and the mental age of a 9-year old. He reads on a second grade level. This factor alone persuades me that the death penalty in his case is unconstitutional.” Interestingly, Blackmun never seems to have doubted McCollum’s guilt. He simply believed the man was mentally unfit for execution. What a difference a few decades of DNA exonerations make!

"I just freed an innocent man from death row. And I’m still furious," is the Washington Post OpEd written by Ken Rose, one of the attorneys in the case.

It took the Innocence Inquiry Commission, working for four years and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, to finally prove my client’s innocence. Sadly, only a handful of defendants ever get that kind of attention and resources. In many other cases, biological evidence is lost, contaminated or never existed to begin with.

Now, with Henry finally free, some people expect me to feel satisfied, or even happy. The truth is: I am angry.

I am angry that we live in a world where two disabled boys can have their lives stolen from them, where cops can lie and intimidate with impunity, where innocent people can be condemned to die and where injustice is so difficult to bring to light.

As I lie awake at night, mulling over the maddening details of this case, I wonder: How many more Henry McCollums are still imprisoned, waiting for help that will never come?

"DNA shows a fifth confess to crimes they never committed," is Jerry Mitchell's column in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

When I was younger, I presumed anyone who confessed to a crime was guilty — but DNA is now teaching us that is far from the case.

About a fifth of those proven innocent by DNA testing in recent years in the United States had confessed to crimes they never committed, according to studies by the Innocence Project and others.

The latest case comes from North Carolina, where two mentally disabled half-brothers confessed to the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in 1983 — only to insist later the confessions were coerced.

Earlier coverage of the North Carolina exonerations begins at the link.

The Myth of a Kinder, Gentler Execution

That's the title of commentary at Philadelphia public radio station WHYY-FM NewsWorks.  It's by Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education at New York University.

Did Joseph Wood suffer when he was executed in Arizona last month?

Some witnesses reported that Wood gasped over 600 times during his July 23 execution by lethal injection, which took nearly two hours. But one official said that Wood "appeared to be snoring," while another stated flatly that the inmate "did not endure pain." We'll never know.

But here's what we do know: the quest for a pain-free mechanism of capital punishment is a fool's errand. As Amherst professor Austin Sarat shows in a terrific new book, we have spent two centuries trying to put people to death without putting them in discomfort. And it hasn't worked.

Earlier coverage of Austin Sarat's latest book begins at the link.  Related posts are in the botch category index.

An OpEd by Erwin Chemerinsky

"How the Supreme Court Protects Bad Cops," is Erwin Chemerinsky's OpEd in the New York Times.  He's the dean of the UC-Irvine School of Law.

In recent years, the court has made it very difficult, and often impossible, to hold police officers and the governments that employ them accountable for civil rights violations. This undermines the ability to deter illegal police behavior and leaves victims without compensation. When the police kill or injure innocent people, the victims rarely have recourse.

Related posts are in the law enforcement and Supreme Court category indexes.

Continued Arizona Botch Commentary

Jurist posts, "Botched executions & evolving standards of decency: What can we learn from Wood's death?"  It's by Sacha Baniel-Stark, a student at New York University School of Law.

The botched execution of Wood joined the botched execution in Ohio and two botched executions in Oklahoma to become at least the fourth botched execution so far this calendar year. All four have raised questions about the efficacy of lethal injection protocols; the manner of execution is often kept confidential and approved drugs are quickly expiring, raising significant concerns about what drugs are being used and how states are getting them. (For a recap of some of these issues, see Kimberly Newberry's June 2014 JURIST piece.)

Wood's case, however, has created some unique waves, even in this fraught area of law. Before his execution, Wood moved to stay the execution, arguing that he and others had a First Amendment right to know the protocol that would be used to kill him. The motion was ultimately denied, but along the way Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, had occasion to weigh in on the issues (PDF) that are plaguing the system today.

Judge Kozinski's opinion, a dissent from the denial of en banc review of Wood's motion to stay his execution, argued that capital punishment by lethal injection is fundamentally flawed and that we as a society ought to return to execution by firing squad. Judge Kozinski's argument has three main reasons for this: First, "attacks" to executions will continue so long as lethal injection is used because of the secrecy surrounding drugs and execution protocols. Second, lethal injections are less effective than other, more seemingly primitive methods; Judge Kozinski favors the guillotine and death by firing squad, ultimately concluding the latter is favored because it is 'foolproof' but would still be relatively socially acceptable. Third, Judge Kozinski argued that if we are to put people to death—and it is a "we," for criminal prosecutions are done in the name of the people and criminal punishments are authorized on our behalf—we should do so without allowing ourselves to fall victim to the charade that executions are calm and dignified events. As he stated, "if we are willing to carry out executions, we should not shield ourselves from the reality that we are shedding human blood."

Earlier coverage of Arizona's botched execution begins at the link.

Death Penalty Debate Isn’t Simple for Families of Victims

That's the title of an OpEd in the Saturday Washington Post written by Laura Friedman of St. Louis, Missouri.  Here's the beginning:

Botched executions in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona and continuing problems with lethal-injection drugs have put the death penalty back in the news. After a brief moratorium following Oklahoma’s debacle, my state, Missouri, has resumed executing its death-row prisoners. One of the condemned men there murdered the wife of the man I would later marry.

The Missouri Department of Corrections keeps victims such as my husband informed of killers’ appeals by sending periodic, bureaucratic letters. After almost 15 years of this type of communication, the latest notification told us that the killer has exhausted his appeals of the jury’s verdict. His execution date will be set soon.

For most people, the death penalty debate falls along ideological lines — liberals are opposed and conservatives are in favor. But for the families of victims, the debate is not so simple and the solution is not so clear. They cringe when they hear left-leaning commentators repeatedly describe the chilling details of a botched execution without repeating the far more chilling details of the crime the condemned man committed. But they also cringe when they hear right-leaning commentators who promote the sanctity of life but do not question state-sanctioned death.

The killing that forever changed my husband’s life is the kind of crime that reinforces the beliefs of both sides.

Earlier coverage from Missouri begins at the link.  Related posts are in the victims' issues category index.

An OpEd by Michael Morton on the Todd Willingham Case

"Prosecutors are not above the law," is the title of Michael Morton's OpEd in today's Dallas Morning News.

Three years ago, I sat in a Texas prison cell despite DNA evidence that proved my innocence. The prosecutor who had the power to set me free initially refused to acknowledge that miscarriages of justice occur.

In 1987, the murder case against me consisted solely of junk science, with a heavy dose of prosecutorial misconduct. Thank God it was not a capital case. If I had faced the death penalty, I would have been executed years ago.

Cameron Todd Willingham was not so fortunate. Although efforts were made to stop his execution, Willingham — who I believe was innocent — was executed Feb. 17, 2004.

Willingham, a victim who initially suffered the unspeakable loss of his children, Amber, Karmon and Kameron, ultimately died a victim of what appears to be the most egregious deprivation of federal constitutional rights. He cannot be brought back from the grave, but the prosecutor who violated his federal civil rights can and should be federally prosecuted and held accountable.

Earlier coverage of Todd Willingham's case begins at the link.  More on Michael Morton and his post-exoneration work is also available.

Tennessee OpEd

"Conservative pastor changes mind on death penalty," is Kevin Riggs OpEd in the Tennessean.  He's pastor of Franklin Community Church.

Because there is an issue that I want to talk about, and where I land on this issue has been the result of much prayer, study, debate and restless nights. Where I land on this issue is different from where I started and what I was taught in my conservative church and Bible college.

The issue is capital punishment. The reason for bringing it up now is because Tennessee is scheduled to execute 11 inmates over the next two years, the first in October.

Because I spent the majority of my life in favor of capital punishment, I know the arguments and understand the Scriptures used to support it. Today I also know the arguments and understand the Scriptures used to support doing away with it. Both views have their strengths and weaknesses. Both views can be defended from the Bible. However, I now oppose the death penalty, and I want to share at least a couple of reasons why.

And:

Honestly, I would have to admit that one reason I was pro-death penalty for so long is that the issue simply wasn't important to me. I didn't have the time or energy to think about it. I think that is how a lot of people feel. But now is the time for all of us to think and pray about it. I still don't care for labels, but if you want to label me, you can count me as opposed to the death penalty.

More on conservative opposition to capital punishment, at the link.  Related posts are in the politics and religion category indexes.  Earlier coverage from Tennessee begins at the link.

Opinion Roundup

"That problematic penalty," is the Boulder Daily Camera editorial, signed by Erika Stutzman for the Colorado paper's editorial board.

The State has become a ghoulish executioner.

Ohio became the most recent state to either end or halt the death penalty, as states around the country grapple with what has become an unacceptable part of our criminal justice system. A handful of states have recently, and rightfully, more or less permanently stepped away from the practice, finding it arbitrary, too costly, and in order to eliminate the very real risk that someone wrongfully accused could be put to death.

We had hoped the death penalty would end here in Colorado, too. Not because we believe there are innocent men on death row at present, but because it highlights how arbitrary the penalty can be. Where one commits a crime seems to factor in more than anything at all; the color of a convict's skin plays a role. Someone white could commit a heinous crime in Boulder and die in prison; if he were a young black man in Aurora committing the exact same crime, he might face death row.

Black people in Colorado's make up just 4.3 percent of the state's population. All three men on Colorado's death row are black, and were under the age of 21 when convicted. All three were prosecuted in Arapahoe County.

Wisconsin's Kenosha News publishes the editorial, "States should reconsider death penalty."

It was a botched execution in Kenosha that led to Wisconsin banning capital punishment.

Other states may have had other reasons for ceasing to use the death penalty, but in Wisconsin there was a direct link between a gruesome public execution and the Legislature’s decision to ban capital punishment.

Other states ought to be thinking the same way this year. There have been at least three executions that were eerily similar to the 1851 hanging of John McCaffery in Kenosha. The sheriff used a gallows that hoisted the prisoner into the air instead of dropping him through a trapdoor, which would break the prisoner’s neck and kill him instantly. McCaffery visibly struggled for five minutes in the noose and slowly strangled. It took 18 minutes before he was pronounced dead.

He was the first and last prisoner executed in the state of Wisconsin. A law banning capital punishment was passed in 1953 and is still in effect.

"Why executions can't (and shouldn't) be sterilized," is Kenneth Goodman's OpEd in the Arizona Republic.  He's a professor of medicine and philosophy at the University of Miami.

One might think that after some 4,000 years of drafting rules to govern the death penalty, we might be able to get it right. But we can't.

And as Arizona's botched, bungled and blundered execution last month of Joseph Rudolph Wood again makes clear, the notion that health professionals are most appropriate agents for killing prisoners is a sad and ghastly mistake.

A society convinced it needs to kill killers is in a tight spot. The guillotine is gruesome; hanging is old-fashioned; firing squads are messy; gas chambers evoke Nazi death camps; electric chairs are macabre and have unintended consequences. (Since 1890, the only form of execution with no botched attempts is the firing squad.)

Earlier coverage of Arizona's botched execution begins at the link.  Related posts are in the botch, editorial, and OpEd category indexes.

Opinion Roundup

The New York Law Journal posts, "Tinkering With the Machinery of Death," commentary by Walter P. Loughlin.  He's a partner at K&L Gates in New York, who represented Ernest Willis, pro bono.  Willis was released and exonerated in 2004, after serving 17 years on Texas death row.,

The spectacle in Arizona was at least the fourth botched execution this year. In January, an Oklahoma prisoner was heard to scream that he felt his body was burning as the lethal drugs were administered.³ One week later, an Ohio prisoner was seen to gasp for air for 25 minutes before being pronounced dead.⁴ Last April, again in Oklahoma, a prisoner writhed in pain as the drugs were pumped into his body tissue instead of his bloodstream. Prison officials halted the execution. The prisoner died of a heart attack.⁵ These are not isolated instances. It has been estimated that up to 7 per cent of lethal injection executions have historically gone awry for one reason or another.⁶

Ray Krone writes the OpEd, "The Death Penalty Is Too Broken To Be Fixed," for the Daily Caller.  He's the 100th person who was sentenced to death and later exonerated.  Krone is the co-founder of Witness to Innocence.

I spent more than 10 years in Arizona prisons for a crime I didn’t commit, including almost three years on death row.

I’m a lifelong Republican. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania playing Little League Baseball and Pee Wee Football. I served six years in the U.S. Air Force. I was honorably discharged, steadily employed, and had no criminal history.

Before this happened to me, I supported the death penalty. Fry ‘em. They don’t deserve to live. All that sounds different when people are talking about you and you were at home asleep at the time of a brutal murder.

"The death penalty is expensive, ineffective," is by Tom Markgraf for the Oregonian.

What if, instead of spending millions on killing criminals, we could use that money to help the families who are victims put their lives back together, with therapy, counseling and restitution? Wouldn't that be a more positive, effective use of money?

In every state with the death penalty, jurors have the option of sentencing murderers to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  It's cheaper to taxpayers and keeps violent offenders off the streets for good.  More important, it allows mistakes to be corrected.  In California, where 3,300 criminals have this sentence, seven people sentenced to life without parole have been released because they were able to prove their innocence.

Ending this practice makes financial and practical sense.

Related posts are in the OpEd category index.

The Need for an Independent Arizona Review

The Sunday Arizona Republic publishes the OpEd, "2-hour execution needs an independent review," by Paul Charlton, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, and Rick Romley, a former Maricopa County Attorney.

On July 23, Arizona joined the list of states that have recently had inhumane and perhaps unconstitutional executions when the death of Joseph Rudolph Wood by lethal injection took almost two hours to complete.

There is much we don't know about the death of Wood, but one thing we do know is that an independent investigation is needed to get to the bottom of what went so terribly wrong and how can we prevent it from happening again.

"Investigation or whitewash? DOC's review of execution," is by Arizona Republic columnist EJ Montini.

Following the long, ugly execution of Joseph Wood, Gov. Jan Brewer issued a statement that read in part, "While justice was carried out today, I directed the Department of Corrections to conduct a full review of the process. One thing is certain, however, inmate Wood died in a lawful manner and by eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer."

Really? DOC should investigate DOC? Even after Director CharlesRyan already said publicly that the execution was not botched?

Gee, I wonder what the department's findings will be?

Democratic State Sen. Ed Ableser released statement Friday calling for an independent investigation.

It's what the governor should have demanded from the start. And what the rest of us should demand now.

Earlier coverage of Arizona's botched execution begins at the link.

Much More Arizona Commentary

The New York Times Taking Note blog posts, "Why the Death Penalty Is Doomed," by Jesse Wegman.

Alex Kozinski, a federal judge on the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, has gone on the record saying he is “generally not opposed to the death penalty.” But his opinion in a recent case may nevertheless find itself in the history books one day — in the section explaining why the death penalty in America finally ended.

"An Agonizing Execution," is by Serge Schmemann for the New York Times Sunday Review.

CNN Opinion posts, "Botched executions can't be new norm," by Megan McCracken and Jennifer Moreno.

Four men -- Michael Wilson, McGuire, Clayton Lockett and Wood -- have been subjected to bungled executions this year. Although the drugs, doses and other details of the procedures differed in each execution, the commonality between them is that the departments of corrections used experimental drug combinations and shielded crucial aspects of their practices in secrecy.

Even in the aftermath of the executions, the lack of transparency continues. While governors in both Oklahoma and Arizona have called for reviews of the problematic executions, no outside authorities have been brought in to conduct the investigations.
Internal investigations are insufficient to the task. Departments of corrections cannot be allowed to provide pat explanations that leave central questions unanswered, minimize errors and hide relevant information about what went wrong.

"Death penalty becomes cruel and usual: Column," is by James Alan Fox, a regular USA Today contributor.

The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits punishments deemed to be cruel and unusual, a standard to which capital punishment does not rise, at least according to the U.S. Supreme Court. But with yet another botched execution, the third over the past six months, the cruelty is becoming pretty usual.

It was disturbing enough that the state of Arizona last week took nearly two hours to execute convicted double-murderer Joseph Rudolph Wood, during most of which time he appeared to witnesses to be gasping for breath and grunting in pain. To me, however, equally disturbing is how many people rejoiced over the poor excuse for justice.

"Let's look at the death penalty with statistics instead of emotion," is Scott Martelle's post at the Los Angeles Times Opinion LA blog.

The details matter. In Ohio, Dennis McGuire was seen writhing and gasping as his execution took place, after a doctor warned that the planned dosage of midazolam would not be sufficient to render McGuire unconscious to the point where he would not suffer from the ensuing injections. McGuire reacted pretty much the way the doctor warned he would, struggling to breathe from "air hunger." Still, Arizona decided to use that very same protocol this week in executing Joseph Wood. We know how that went, nearly two hours in all, including hundreds of gasps for breath, as reported by journalist witnesses.

"Arizona pays the price for execution secrecy," is by Mark White, the former Texas governor, in the Arizona Republic.

But for now, Arizona faces the consequences of a culture of secrecy that has enveloped its political leadership. Leading up to the botched execution of Joseph Wood, the state refused to provide information about the origin and safety of the drugs to be used and also refused to provide information concerning the training and skill of the personnel involved in carrying out the execution.

The Washington Times publishes, "A conservative case against the death penalty," by columnist Drew Johnson.

The death penalty is an affront to all we hold dear as conservatives and libertarians. It is a disastrous policy that fails at its goal of preventing crimes, it wastes taxpayers' hard-earned money, it has almost certainly been responsible for killing innocent Americans and it empowers government with the authority to kill its own citizens.

"The Death Penalty Is Big Government At Its Worst," by Casey Given at the Daily Caller.

Death row defendants may offer other options like the firing squad as a solution to lethal injections’ ills. However, no alternative can shorten the drawn-out appeals process that inevitably arises in each death row case. Be it by lethal injection, firing square, or a hangman’s noose, the death penalty will leave victims’ families waiting years for closure. The more humane solution to relieve suffering, save tax dollars, and keep the state’s monopoly of violence in check is to sentence convicted killers to life in prison, where they will spend the rest of their existence living with the agony of their crime. Isn’t that punishment enough?

"A modest proposal: Let our executions match our rhetoric," by Michael Bazemore in the News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina.

The botched execution this week in Arizona of a convicted murderer who spent nearly two hours gasping for air as he died is just one more reason to question the whole enterprise of capital punishment. It is morally untenable.

The Toronto Star posts, "The U.S. is one lousy executioner," by Heather Mallick.

When a nation kills its own citizens — even the incontrovertibly guilty — it steps deep into the moral mire, so deep that it isn’t better than any other country, as it claims.

Earlier coverage of Arizona's botched execution begins at the link.

9th Circuit Stays Arizona Execution Over Drug Secrecy

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling in Wood v. Ryan is available in Adobe .pdf format.  Also available, a dissent in the case and other documents.

"Court Delays Execution Over Secrecy With Drugs," is the New York Times report by Erik Eckholm.

A federal appeals court has delayed the imminent execution of an Arizona man, saying he has a legal right to details about the lethal injection drugs to be used and about the qualifications of the execution team.

The ruling on Saturday, by a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, contrasted sharply with recent decisions by other state and federal courts defending states’ rights to keep information about drug sources secret.

“This is the first time a circuit court has ruled that the plaintiff has a right to know the source of execution drugs,” said Jennifer Moreno, an expert on lethal injection law at the Death Penalty Clinic of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.

The appeals court ruling came four days before the scheduled execution of Joseph Wood, who was convicted of the killings of two people and sentenced to death.

But Arizona officials were not backing down. On Sunday, the state appealed to the Ninth Circuit for reconsideration by a wider panel of judges and it appeared possible that the state would appeal all the way to the United States Supreme Court if necessary.

"Court: No execution unless Arizona reveals drug source," is by Michael Kiefer of the Arizona Republic, via USA Today.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Saturday that Arizona must divulge information about the drugs and executioners it will use to put a man to death Wednesday or the execution will not go forward.

Joseph Wood, who killed his estranged girlfriend, Debra Dietz, and her father, Eugene Dietz, in Tucson in 1989, is scheduled to die July 23.

But his attorneys at the Federal Defender's Office in Phoenix filed suit claiming he had a First Amendment right to know who supplied the drugs that will be used to kill him and the qualifications of the executioners who will carry it out.

Two of the judges in a panel of three sided with Wood; the third dissented.

At issue is a new drug combination that Arizona has turned to because it cannot obtain the drugs it normally uses for executions. That combination, and one of the drugs in particular, a Valium relative called Midazolam, has caused apparent "flawed executions," as the court called them, in Ohio and Oklahoma.

AP coverage is, "Execution of Ariz. inmate is postponed," via the Boston Globe.

A federal appeals court has granted an Arizona death row inmate’s request to postpone his execution until prison officials reveal details on the two-drug combination that will be used to put him to death.

The preliminary injunction granted by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a lower federal court. It was issued Saturday, four days before the scheduled execution of Joseph Rudolph Wood.

Without weighing in on the ‘‘ultimate merits’’ of Wood’s case, the court wrote: ‘‘Wood has presented serious questions going to the merits of his claim, and that the balance of hardships tips sharply in his favor.’’

"Federal appeals court grants stay to Arizona death row inmate," the Los Angeles Times report by Maya Srikrishnan, via the Chicago Tribune.

Dale Baich, Wood's attorney, praised the court’s decision. “There is a continuing and intensifying debate over lethal injection in the country,” Baich said. “It’s important that specific and detailed information be provided so the public can know about how safely and reliably the death penalty is administered.”

According to court documents, the state argued that the information Wood seeks would offer “little value to the public debate,” and that releasing the information could deter drug manufacturers from providing drugs for lethal injections and could leak the identities of the execution team members who administer the drugs.

The Guardian posts, "Court tells Arizona to reveal provenance of death penalty drugs before execution," by Dominic Rush.

An appeals court ruled on Saturday that Arizona must divulge details about the drugs and qualifications of the medical personnel it plans to use to kill a death-row inmate, Joseph Wood, on Wednesday. If such details are not made available, the execution will be stopped.

Additional coverage includes:

"Appeals court puts Arizona execution on hold over drugs details," by David Schwartz for Reuters, via Yahoo News.

MSNBC posts, "No execution until Arizona reveals death penalty drugs, court says," by David Ingram.

"Appeals court delays Arizona execution over unknown drug combo," at Al Jazeera America.

"Federal Appeals Court Halts Arizona Execution Due To Secret Drug Cocktail," by Ian Millhiser for Think Progress.

Today's Arizona Republic publishes the OpEd,"Improve execution process with greater transparency," by attorney Dan Barr.

Until relatively recently, information about how executions are conducted has been publicly available. The Arizona Department of Corrections used to make execution-related information available when asked. Three years ago, the DOC turned over information about its lethal-injection drugs to death-row prisoners.

In 2013, when the DOC refused prisoners' requests for information about the drugs, a federal court ordered disclosure for three reasons: Executions have historically been open to the public; the DOC has previously disclosed this type of information; and prisoners have First Amendment rights of access to government information related to their executions.

Public access to government information about the manner in which prisoners are put to death improves the execution process itself by allowing the public to engage in informed debate.

Earlier coverage of Joseph Wood's lethal injection challenge begins at the link.

Can a Jury Believe What It Sees?

That's the title of an OpEd in today's New York Times by UCLA Law prof Jennifer L. Mnookin.  It's subtitled, "Videotaped Confessions Can Be Misleading." Here's the beginning:

LAST week the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal law enforcement agencies instituted a policy of recording interrogations of criminal suspects held in custody. Only a minority of states and local governments have a similar requirement, but the new rule, which applies to nearly every federal interrogation, will most likely spur more jurisdictions to follow suit. It’s not far-fetched to think that such recordings may soon become standard police practice nationwide.

Supporters of the practice present recordings as a solution for a host of problems, from police misconduct to false confessions. But while there are lots of good reasons to require them, they are hardly a panacea; in fact, the very same qualities that make them useful — their seeming vividness and objectivity — also risk making them misleading, and possibly even an inadvertent tool for injustice.

Earlier coverage of the change in federal policy begins at the link.  Related posts are in the custodial interrogation and false confessions category indexes.

A Law Enforcement Take on Capital Punishment

"Too many negatives to preserve death penalty," is the OpEd by Marshall Frank in today's TC Palm, in Florida.  Here's the beginning of this must-read:

Many folks are pleased that Brevard County cop killer Brandon Bradley was sentenced to death for the deliberate and horrible murder of Deputy Barbara Pill. If anything would justify capital punishment, this would be at the top of the list.

About the same time Bradley was being sentenced, another ruling came down from the Florida Supreme Court. It ordered a new trial for death row denizen Paul Hildwin, after DNA tests showed that the real killer of Vronzetti Cox in Hernando County was the victim’s boyfriend, not him. Hildwin, who claimed innocence since his arrest, has spent nearly 30 years in a 6- by 9-foot cell, 24 hours a day, ostensibly an innocent man.

Having served most of my 30-year police career in Miami-Dade County Homicide, I am usually (not always) more conservative than liberal. However, these kinds of cases, plus other factors, have swayed my thinking.

Capital punishment must be abolished. Here are five reasons why:

Related posts are in the law enforcement and OpEd category indexes.

CNN Opinion

The Opinion section of CNN is looking at the death penalty in two recent OpEds.

"5 ways to improve the U.S. death penalty," is by Robert Blecker of New York Law School.

3. Let's choose a better execution method.
Lethal injection -- which grabs headlines these days -- never was and never will be a good execution method.

The execution scene I witnessed resembled final goodbyes at a hospital or hospice for the terminally ill. The dying person lies on a gurney, wrapped in white sheets, an IV attached, surrounded by medical technicians with loved ones in attendance. We should oppose lethal injection, not because it might cause pain, but because it certainly causes confusion, wantonly merging punishment and treatment.

The firing squad seems to me the best of traditional methods, but a state might give a member of the victim's family a choice among available constitutional options.

"Death penalty is unchristian," is by Jay Parini, a professor at Middlebury College.

Two of the greatest writers of the19th century, Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy, passionately opposed the death penalty. Both were also Christians, and they understood perfectly well that the Sermon on the Mount makes it clear that, under the old dispensation, an eye for an eye was appropriate. But Jesus said bluntly that not only should we never kill anyone, but we must turn the other cheek, resisting evil in a nonviolent way. This wasn't something Jesus imagined was up for grabs.

Dickens, the Shakespeare of the novel, argued against capital punishment on many grounds, but he was especially concerned about the matter of determining guilt in such an absolute way. Can we ever really know for sure that someone did something? The death sentence is inevitably delivered by "men of fallible judgment, whose powers of arriving at the truth are limited, and in whom there is the capacity of a mistake or false judgment."

Tolstoy wrote a stirring essay in 1908 called "I Cannot Be Silent" in which he described a multiple hanging, and found it repulsive on every level. He noted the priest who attended the execution and how he mumbled something about God and Christ to the condemned.

Lethal Injection and Pharmacists

"Death penalty caught in web of pharmacy ethics," is the OpEd by Kelsey Kauffman for the South Bend Tribune of Indiana.

In any case, Indiana's experiment will be short-lived. Par Pharmaceutical has now joined the embargo on use of its products in executions. Eventually, Indiana will be forced to take the second option: to search for a "compounding" pharmacist who will create his own deadly brew that will, however painfully or slowly, cause the death of the recipient.

Only a handful of pharmacists in the entire nation have entered into such a bargain and all have insisted that it be done "on the down low." In agreeing to kill the recipients of their drugs, these pharmacists violate all the key tenets of the pharmacists' own Code of Ethics. The code states unequivocally that the primary obligation of a pharmacist is to individual patients, that concern for the well-being of the patient be at the center of professional practice, and that the pharmacist promote the right of the drug recipient to self-determination and participation in decisions about his or her own health.

Earlier news of pharmacists begins at the link.  Related posts are in the compounding pharmacy category index.

Can We Abide the Death Penalty Any Longer?

That's the title of a feature in the July/August edition of the American Spector with two commentaries.  First, "No Messing With Death," by Jesse Walker.

The typical conservative is well informed about the careless errors routinely made by the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Postal Service, and city hall. If he’s a policy wonk, he may have bookmarked the Office of Management and Budget’s online list of federal programs that manage to issue more than $750 million in mistaken payments each year. He understands the incentives that can make an entrenched bureaucracy unwilling to acknowledge, let alone correct, its mistakes. He doesn’t trust the government to manage anything properly, even the things he thinks it should be managing.

Except, apparently, the minor matter of who gets to live or die. Bring up the death penalty, and many conservatives will suddenly exhibit enough faith in government competence to keep the Center for American Progress afloat for a year. Yet the system that kills convicts is riddled with errors. And I’m not just referring to the ineptitude on display in that slapstick snuff film of an execution in Oklahoma this past April—the event that has gotten everyone talking about capital punishment again, whether or not it has actually changed anyone’s mind. I mean mistakes that are far worse.

"We Need the Deterrent," is the second commentary, by William Tucker.

There’s a concept in economics I think ought to be introduced into the public discourse. It’s called the “marginal value of wealth.” It means that the wealthier you become, the less each additional dollar means to you. That’s why we have environmentalism—because some people have grown so affluent that they really aren’t much interested in further economic development.

The same concept also applies to crime. There’s a “marginal value of safety” that people take into account when evaluating policies such as the death penalty. Most affluent Americans now feel safe enough in their suburban retreats or gated communities with private police patrols so that they can express more concern for a condemned criminal suffering a few minutes of pain in a botched execution than for what the person did to end up on death row in the first place. (As many have pointed out, all this blundering could be fast eliminated by returning to the firing squad.)

Related posts are in the OpEd category index.

San Antonio Express-News OpEd

"Time to end death penalty in Texas," is by Sam Millsap and Roger C. Barnes, in the San Antonio Express-News.  Millsap is a former Bexar County District Attorney; Barnes is chairman of the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of the Incarnate Word.

We sense that support for the death penalty in Texas is diminishing.

Consider:

 For the fifth year in a row, Texas had fewer than 10 death sentences in 2013, far less than the 48 recorded in 1999.

 The 16 executions in 2013 were less than half of the high mark of 40 in 2000.

Only 12 Texas counties in the past two years have handed down a death sentence.

Jurors in the last six years have rejected the death penalty in more than 20 Texas cases.

The death row population of 275 is the lowest it has been since 1989.

In short, prosecutors are seeking death sentences less often, juries are choosing life without parole rather than death and the number of executions is declining.

Earlier coverage of capital punishment in Texas begins at the link.

Jordan Steiker on the Texas Death Penalty

Today's San Antonio Express-News publishes an OpEd by Jordan Steiker, "Fewer executions but Texas still the death penalty leader."  He is the Judge Robert M. Parker endowed chair in law and director of the Capital Punishment Center, at the University of Texas School of Law.  Here's an excerpt from this must-read:

How did Texas become the leader of American executions?

Executions require something of a perfect storm. Prosecutors must seek death; defense lawyers must fail in their quest for a plea or a life sentence at trial; appellate judges must find the underlying trial to have been fundamentally fair; statewide prosecutors must defend the resulting death verdicts; post-conviction courts must sign off on the adequacy of representation and the conduct of prosecutors at trial; and executive officials must stand aside and permit the execution to go forward. While it rarely rains in Texas, this sort of perfect storm has become the norm rather than the exception.

To perform more than 500 executions, a state needs a lot of death sentences, and Texas was very successful in this regard for nearly a quarter-century, never falling below 20 a year from 1980 to 2004.

Earlier coverage from Texas begins at the link.  Also available, more recent commentary.  Related posts are in the OpEd category index.

Ohio OpEd

Saturday's Columbus Dispatch published the OpEd, "Death-penalty examination was balanced," by James Brogan.

It is unfortunate that The Dispatch editorial board already has concluded that a good number of the recommendations made by Ohio’s death-penalty joint task force are “unworthy of serious consideration” (“Get a second opinion,” Dispatch editorial, June 5).

Shortly after the task force, of which I was the chairman, issued its report, the Constitution Project’s Death Penalty Committee issued its report adopting reforms very similar to those in Ohio’s report.

And:

In the task force’s dissenting report, the authors claim the task force was strongly influenced by a pro-defense majority with an agenda of death-penalty abolition, not fairness.

Note that law enforcement had twice as many representatives on the commission as did the defense. The task force’s largest contingent were judges, who are trained to approach matters in an even-handed manner.

The Final Report & Recommendations and the Dissenting Report of the Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio's Death Penalty are available at the links.

Earlier coverage of Ohio's study commission begins at the link.  You can also jump to news of the Constitution Project's latest death penalty report.

A New OpEd Column From Linda Greenhouse

"Undecided," is the title of her latest OpEd column in today's New York Times.  Here's the beginning:

With the end of the Supreme Court’s term in view, the focus is naturally on the cases to be decided. So it’s worth pausing, before the final onslaught, over a case the court won’t be deciding, one that the justices turned away earlier this week although it cried out for their attention, and ours.

The question was whether a Pennsylvania prison inmate serving a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole for a murder committed in 1999 when he was 17 could get the benefit of a 2012 Supreme Court decision that found such sentences to be unconstitutional. The court’s ruling in Miller v. Alabama held that for offenders who committed murder before the age of 18, a sentence of life without parole could be imposed only after individualized consideration of the defendant’s age and circumstances.

In other words, the sentence is permissible at the end of the day, but it can’t be automatic, as it was at the time in more than half the states as an alternative to the death penalty, which a 2005 Supreme Court decision precluded for juvenile murderers. Pennsylvania has some 500 inmates, fully a quarter of the national total, currently serving no-parole life sentences for murder they committed as juveniles.

Related posts are in the juvenile category index.

North Carolina, Wyoming OpEds

"Time for death penalty in North Carolina to fade into the past," is Mia Harrison White's OpEd in the Greensboro News-Record on North Carolina.

Your May 4 editorial, “Justice botched,” is a perfect example of why we should replace the death penalty with life in prison without parole.

As a conservative Republican and former member of the General Assembly, I strongly believe in tough punishment for people like Clayton Lockett. However, as the distinguished columnist George Will once said, “Conservatives, especially, should draw this lesson. ... Capital punishment, like the rest of the criminal justice system, is a government program, so skepticism is in order.”

The botched execution of Lockett by lethal injection in Oklahoma graphically illustrates Will’s point.

And:

As a conservative seeking to find the best way to protect the citizens of this great state from crime, I believe the death penalty has had its day in North Carolina. It is time to begin the debate on replacing it with life in prison without parole.

"Shoot down death penalty," is by Rodger McDaniel for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

"Let's do it!"

Those were Gary Gilmore's final words before the last state-organized firing squad executed him in 1967.

"Let's do it!"

Those are the words of state Sen. Bruce Burns, R-Sheridan, who proposed returning to firing squads for executions.

Wyoming, like other states, is having a hard time finding the drugs necessary to mix a prisoner's final cocktail.

We saw what happened when Oklahoma experimented on an inmate last month. No one wants that repeated here.

And there is a man on death row awaiting the outcome of his appeals. Legislators and the Department of Corrections feel a sense of urgency about finding an alternative.

One option apparently not on the table is abolishing the death penalty. There are good reasons to do so, but not good politics. It's easier to tell the voters how to kill someone than it is to explain why the state should not do so.

Earlier coverage from North Carolina and Wyoming, at the links.  Also available, more on conservative opposition to capital punishment.

Opinion Roundup

Today's Concord Monitor publishes the OpEd, "My Turn: Making the death penalty even more barbaric," by Jonathan P. Baird.  He's a Administrative Law Judge in New Hampshire.

The death penalty has fallen on hard times. The international community has largely rejected and abolished its use. No other Western democracy besides the United States resorts to the death penalty, and it is widely considered barbaric in Europe. Only a handful of outlier nations cling to this nasty old practice. Not great when you are in the company of Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and North Korea.

Making things even worse, executions of late have not gone smoothly. I thought we were past the days of flames shooting out of people’s heads. However, we just had the spectacle of the state of Oklahoma botching the lethal injection execution of Clayton Lockett.

Lockett was alive quite a while after the time the state had expected he would be dead. Witnesses reported that he twitched and writhed in pain. He tried to lift himself off the gurney to which he was strapped. This went on until Oklahoma state officials drew the shades so observers could not see more. Later the state officials called off Lockett’s execution, but it turned out he was already dead from heart failure.

"The bad business of Indiana executions," is Dave Bangert's column in the Lafayette Journal & Courier.

Putting people to death isn’t so good for business, it seems.

Not that Indiana is listening, yet. Which is surprising. Because if there’s one thing the General Assembly and the governor’s office can get behind, it’s catering to the call of a corporate complaint.

But as a New Jersey company flinches over its drug being held up as a makeshift substitute in this state’s death row executions, Indiana has reached another time for when the General Assembly and Gov. Mike Pence need to ask: Is the death penalty really worth it?

As if a business begging, “Please, don’t use our product that way,” isn’t enough, consider the price in every other way — ethically, judicially and in dollars and cents. Capital punishment keeps getting harder to buy as ultimate justice. And not just because companies don’t want their products used to put down another killer.

Earlier coverage from New Hampshire, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Tennessee at the links.  Related posts are in the column and OpEd category indexes.

From Arizona

The Arizona Republic publishes commentary from Stuart Warner, "Why does The Republic care about lethal injections?"

Florida, Ohio, Oklahoma and now Arizona are among those experimenting with midazolam. The drug primarily is used to treat insomnia, but it's also used in surgeries to prevent the patient from remembering the unpleasantness of the procedure. I doubt you would remember your execution, but who can say for sure?

Anyway, the results so far haven't been pretty. A midazolam-spiked execution last October in Florida left the accused lingering uncomfortably in death. The press got worse after Ohio and Oklahoma. Oklahoma has already delayed its next execution while it considers the merits of midazolam. The Supreme Court delayed indefinitely an execution in Missouri, which is secretive about its methods but has acknowledged possessing a backup supply of midazolam, according to St. Louis Public Radio.

Lastweek, Arizona gave the go-ahead for Wood's execution. It's the state's job to kill him, but until it does, it's our job to make sure his death is done right.

Earlier coverage from Arizona begins at the link.  Also available, more on midazolam.

Linda Greenhouse on the Meaning of Oklahoma's Botched Execution

"Still Tinkering," is the title of Linda Greenhouse's latest New York Times commentary.  The paper's former Supreme Court reporter is now a contrubing OpEd writer.  Here's the beginning of this must-read:

Twenty years have passed since Justice Harry A. Blackmun, at age 85 and just months away from retirement, renounced the death penalty. “From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death,” he declared.

There’s been an awful lot of tinkering going on lately.

Oklahoma’s botched attempt last month to carry out an execution with a previously untried combination of lethal drugs from secret sources shone a spotlight on how states are scrambling to deal with the increasingly unreliable supply of the ingredients of the once standard three-drug cocktail. Clayton D. Lockett, the condemned Oklahoma murderer who was seen writhing and moaning after the badly administered first drug failed to render him fully unconscious, died of an apparent heart attack nearly two hours after officials had started trying to kill him.

Given the Roberts court’s conservative trajectory, it may seem a waste of energy even to wonder whether that incident, or the disarray on the whole lethal injection front, might persuade the justices to take another look at the death penalty.

Earlier coverage from Oklahoma begins at the link.

California Ballot Initiative to Speed Up Executions Hits Bump

"State death-penalty reform initiative pushed to 2016," is the AP report, viat the Manteca Bulletin.

A coalition of law enforcement officers, prosecutors and crime victims announced Friday that it will wait until November 2016 to place a death-penalty reform measure on the ballot.

Backers of the proposed initiative to speed up executions and save money said this delay gives them more time to raise money, build support and gather signatures.

The initiative would have limited appeals by prisoners facing the death penalty and removed them from special death-row housing. It would have also required death row prisoners to work in prisons to pay restitution to victims’ families. Former Govs. George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Gray Davis announced in February they would push to reform a system crippled with waste and inefficiency.

Scott Martelle writes, "Good news: Effort to speed up California's death penalty delayed," for the os Angeles Times Opinion LA blog.

Amid great fanfare this year, a prominent group of California politicos — including former Gov. Pete Wilson and Gray Davis — threw their support behind a fall 2014 ballot initiative that would have amended the state Constitution to speed up executions. Organizers announced late last week, though, that they were pushing the effort back to the 2016 election to give themselves more time to raise money and collect signatures — which is political shorthand for the effort failed to gain enough support.

And:

The best solution? Just ban the practice. We came close two years ago when a ballot initiative to abolish executions failed with 48% of the vote; a new run at it might do better were it to come up again, especially given the botched executions this year in Ohio and Oklahoma. California should join the other 18 states that have abolished the death penalty and instead devise a more pragmatic, cheaper and morally defensible way to deal with those convicted of murder. The killers don’t belong in society; they shouldn’t be coddled; but they also shouldn’t be killed by their government.

Today's San Jose Mercury News publishes the OpEd, "San Francisco DA says end the death penalty," by George Gascon.

The truth is, the death penalty is broken beyond repair, will always risk innocent lives, and is a waste of taxpayer dollars. The only viable solution is to replace it with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Arriving at my current views involved a process that was both highly analytical and deeply emotional. Like many people, I have gone through an evolution in my thinking that has led me to believe that the death penalty is irreparably flawed and marred by a history of incorrect information.

My journey began with the realization that in my 30 years in law enforcement, the death penalty has had no impact on public safety. Strengthening families and neighborhoods, holding criminals swiftly accountable and ensuring that every child receives a quality education are more effective in deterring violent crime than remote threats of execution.

Earlier coverage of the proposed California ballot initiative begins at the link.

Cincinnati Enquirer Editorial & OpEds

The Sunday Cincinnati Enquirer published the editorial, "It's time to review the death penalty."  There are infographics at the link.

The death penalty has long been controversial, but opinions are shifting. A solid majority of Americans still favor the death penalty, but it is a shrinking number. Just a generation ago, 78 percent favored capital punishment and only 18 percent opposed it, according to the Pew Research Center. That has shrunk to 55 percent in favor and 37 percent opposed.

The task force recommendations are not unanimous and a dissenting minority report from some of the prosecutors in the group, which includes Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, will be released. The final recommendations also need the review of Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor.

The death penalty is the law in Ohio, but opinions are evolving. If reforms are made, they should be done to improve the public's trust that the law is being applied fairly, justly and impartially.

The Enquirer also publishes OpEds on the subject.  "The death penalty is unfair and should be eliminated," is by Bill Gallagher, a criminal defense attorney.

In 1981, Ohio reintroduced the death penalty as the ultimate punishment for what the law called "the worst of the worst" offenders. However, today's application of the death penalty has departed so far from the intent of the 1981 law that its own author, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer, now calls for its repeal.

A 2007 study by the American Bar Association underscores the massive failure of Ohio's death penalty. The study found Ohio fell short in 93 percent of the ABA's recommended guidelines for a fair and accurate death penalty system. To address Ohio's unacceptable inability to fairly apply and carry out the death penalty, a task force was formed by the Ohio Supreme Court and Ohio State Bar Association. Hamilton County's own prosecutor, Joe Deters, along with other legal experts were appointed and will soon release a report with 56 recommendations to make some incremental progress toward fairness in Ohio's death penalty.

"For 'worst of the worst' we seek ultimate punishment," is the OpEd by Joe Deters, the Hamilton County prosecutor.

The death penalty is a subject on which almost everyone seems to have a strongly held opinion.

People generally are either strongly in favor or strongly opposed to the death penalty.

However, it is the law in Ohio and as the elected prosecutor for Hamilton County, I will enforce it.

Earlier coverage of the Ohio death penalty study commission begins at the link.  Also available, more recent, unrelated, Ohio news.

Austin Sarat on Botched Executions

"What botched executions tell us about the death penalty," is the Boston Globe OpEd by Austin Sarat.  He's a professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.  His latest book, Gruseome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty, is published by Stanford University Press.  Here's the beginning:

Earlier this month, the New Hampshire State Senate deadlocked on a vote to repeal the state’s death penalty, tying 12 to 12 and leaving the law in place. The vote, though a disappointment to opponents of capital punishment, was hardly a serious blow to the abolitionist cause. There is just one person on New Hampshire’s death row, and it has no execution chamber. No one has been put to death there since Howard Long was hanged in 1939.

But in keeping its death penalty, New Hampshire did preserve a strange distinction: It is one of three states where hanging still is a legal method of execution.

If it seems surprising, even brutal, that hanging would still be technically legal in 2014, that’s because the evolution of the death penalty in America has been so closely entwined with our belief in technological progress. As executions have evolved from one method to the next—from hanging to electrocution, from electrocution to lethal gas, from electrocution and gas to lethal injection—supporters have proclaimed the dawning of an era of more humane executions while denouncing previous methods as barbaric and unreliable. The story of execution in the United States is partly a story of technology making a final punishment less painful and cruel.

Earlier coverage of Gruesome Spectacles begins at the link. 

Related posts are in the books category index.

Barry Scheck on Race and Racism

"Stunning new case highlights how race bias corrupts juries," is the title of Barry Scheck's commentary at Salon.  His is co-Director of the Innocence Project.  Here's the beginning of this must-read:

Last month, Glenn Ford, an African-American man, walked out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary after spending thirty years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. One of the most important contributing factors to his death sentence? Racial discrimination in the selection of his all-white jury. In a community that is almost half African-American, the prosecutor struck African-American jurors with the flimsiest of excuses.

That kind of bias not only contributes to guilty verdicts for the innocent, it tilts the playing field toward death, particularly for defendants of color.

In North Carolina, the state Supreme Court has a chance to show the country that race bias should not be allowed to corrupt our jury system. Yesterday, that court’s justices heard arguments about three African-Americans and one Lumbee Indian who are serving life without parole, thanks to a lower court ruling that the discrimination in jury selection was a significant factor in their death sentences. The State of North Carolina would like to erase those facts and send the prisoners back to death row. Now the court will decide whether to recognize or ignore the dangers of racial discrimination in jury selection.

The four prisoners in the case have uncovered a mountain of evidence of discrimination in their cases and county, including a prosecutor’s handwritten notes in one of their cases. In it, he described prospective jurors differently by race. The white “country boy” who “drank” was “ok,” in contrast to the “black wino” who was excluded. Another African-American juror was “ok” because she was from “a respectable black family.”

Earlier coverage of Glenn Ford's exoneration and the North Carolina Racial Justice Act, at the links.

Related posts are in the race category index.

New Hampshire Senate Vote Expected Tomorrow

The Eagle Tribune reports, "N.H. Senate to decide on death penalty repeal; Some say Senate tie is possible."  It's by John Toole.

The state Senate takes up the death penalty repeal tomorrow.

“We think it will be very close,” said Arnie Alpert, spokesman for the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Today's Boston Globe publishes the editorial, "New Hampshire should abolish death penalty."

NEW HAMPSHIRE stands on the verge of repealing its death penalty, and needs just a few more senators to come out against the increasingly indefensible practice before a vote planned for Thursday. Momentum in Concord has been growing since the state House of Representatives passed a repeal measure in March in a bipartisan vote, and Governor Maggie Hassan has said she will sign the legislation should it make it out of the Senate. But enough senators — including Democrat Jeff Woodburn and Republicans Bob Odell, Russell Prescott, Andy Sanborn, and Jeanie Forrester — remain undecided to leave the measure’s fate in doubt.

By now, the undecided legislators have heard all the arguments against capital punishment. Death-penalty prosecutions are expensive, verdicts often reflect racial bias, and there’s little evidence that executions actually deter violent crime. Social attitudes have shifted, with more viewing the punishment as inhumane. And the possibility of executing a wrongfully convicted defendant looms over the whole debate; a state with a libertarian heritage like New Hampshire’s should regard with deep suspicion a punishment that can only make sense if the government has the right suspect 100 percent of the time.

"Another path toward inmate rehabilitation," is today's Concord Monitor editorial.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley called the possible repeal of the death penalty a “vote of conscience.”

A more exact phrase is difficult to imagine.

It is harder still to imagine conscience being absent in the consideration of any aspect of the criminal justice system, especially the rehabilitation of the men and women whom society at large prefers to be out of sight and out of mind.

"Why you should care about the state’s death penalty," is the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript OpEd by Tom Westheimer.

The N.H. House of Representatives has passed the bill and the Governor has said she will sign it. I realize some people disagree and respect that, but for me this is a historic opportunity to get “the State which acts on our behalf” out of the business of “Killing People to Show that Killing is Bad.”

Earlier coverage of the New Hampshire repeal legislation begins at the link.

What It Means if the Death Penalty Is Dying

That's the title of a new New York Times feature, Room for Debate.

Last week, lawmakers in New Hampshire heard testimony on a bill outlawing the death penalty. If passed, the law would make New Hampshire the 19th state to abolish capital punishment. The United States, the only country in the Americas to practice the death penalty last year, executed 39 people, four fewer than the year before, and Texas accounted for 41 percent of them, according to Amnesty International.

As executions become concentrated in fewer and fewer states and racial disparities continue, does the application of capital punishment make it unconstitutionally cruel and unusual?

It features short essays from six individuals.

• "Rare and Decreasing," by Richard C. Dieter, Death Penalty Information Center
• "Punishment Needs to Be Punishment," by Robert Blecker, author of The Death of Punishment
• "No Justice for Victims of Color," by Khalilah L. Brown-Dean, a political scientist
• "Of Course, It’s Cruel and Unusual," by Kirk Noble Bloodsworth of Witness to Innocence
• "Claims of Racial Disparity Are Misleading," by John McAdams, a political scientist
• "The Most ‘Unusual’ It’s Ever Been," by Paul Butler, Law professor and former prosecutor

More on the New Hampshire repeal legislation and the Amnesty International report at the links.

New Hampshire Commentary

"Death penalty solves nothing, former N.H. Supreme Court justices write," is the OpEd by Joseph Nadeau and John Broderick, at SeaCoast Online.  Both are former justices on the New Hampshire Supreme Court; Broderick is a former chief justice.

New Hampshire has not executed anyone for three quarters of a century. Yet, it registered the second lowest murder rate in the nation every year of this century. Our state is regularly ranked one of the safest in which to live; and by reported crime statistics was the safest in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The time has come to embrace New Hampshire history and abolish the death penalty.

There is no relationship between the death penalty and protection from murderers. Louisiana, a state with 28 executions since 1975, has had the highest murder rate in the nation every year since 1996. Mississippi, with 21 executions, was either second or third during that period. The other states with the lowest murder rates — Hawaii, Vermont, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Iowa — have no death penalty.

We do not doubt that those who support capital punishment do so from a sense of outrage at the horror of murder, and in the belief that executions serve a necessary purpose. We share that outrage, but for us the question must be asked: What purpose is served by executions?

And:

Eliminating state executions says nothing about criminals who kill, but it says a great deal about a society that does not. For us, the principle for any killing is the same: The intentional taking of human life, except in self-defense or in the defense of others, is not acceptable no matter who does the killing. Abolishing the death penalty will not compromise public safety, but it may replace rage with reason, retribution with self-respect, and enrich the character of our people as a whole.

Earlier coverage from New Hampshire begins at the link.  The state's repeal legislation is expected to be heard by a Senate committee next week.  It has already passed the House.

More Reaction to Kansas Legislation

"Top Kansas judge criticizes bill that would tie judicial changes to funding," is the report by Brad Cooper in today's Kansas City Star.

The highest-ranking judge in Kansas lashed out at lawmakers Monday for tying critical court funding to an administrative overhaul of the judicial system.

Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawton Nuss, in an opinion essay sure to fuel a long-simmering fight with legislators, blasted lawmakers’ insistence on decentralized budgets for the judicial system and a new method for choosing chief district judges.

Those changes, which would effectively strip some authority from the Kansas Supreme Court, are part of legislation that includes funding the courts need to stay open at full strength beyond June.

The OpEd by Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nuss, also in today's Star, is, "Kansas Legislature threatens judges’ independence."  He's been Chief Justice since 2010. and a member of the Court since 2002.

Last year certain legislators tried to change the people’s constitutional process for selecting Kansas Supreme Court justices. Several sought endorsement of their proposal by the Kansas District Judges Association (KDJA). After the endorsement attempt failed, one of these legislators vigorously denied linking support for changing the selection process to providing funding of overdue pay raises for judicial branch employees.

But in a recent legislative proposal, linking money to other court issues can no longer be denied. It is glaring.

Instead of pay raises, this time legislative money is being offered to keep all Kansas courts open after July 1 — in direct exchange for some important judicial branch restructuring. More specifically, the money would be given if the KDJA now endorsed the “package deal” which includes changing the statewide unified court system in two fundamental ways.

Earlier coverage of the Kansas legislation begins at the link.

Continued Examination of the Montour Case in Colorado

Today's Denver Post publishes the OpEd, "Montour juror: Death penalty is wrong," by Nate Becker.  Here's the beginning:

I was one of the 18 jurors who were empaneled in the trial of Edward Montour in Douglas County District Court recently. Our job was to determine guilt and, if we found the defendant guilty, to then determine whether or not Montour should be sentenced to death.

Let me start by saying that I think the final outcome of this trial was just and right for both sides. But the games played to get there and the refusal by the district attorney's office to turn over evidence and to seek truth and justice in this case were objectionable.

The millions of taxpayer dollars spent seeking the death penalty instead of improving and updating corrections facilities, providing better law enforcement and corrections training, improving mental health treatment or trying to prevent violent crime are shameful. Having a death penalty does not prevent crime. It simply costs the people of Colorado millions of dollars and somehow gives us some false sense of security and justice.

"Edward Montour case: Juror blasts 'abhorrent' prosecution," is by Alan Prendergast in Last week's Westword.

The experience left at least one juror deeply frustrated over the waste of time and money devoted to the case -- and deploring the "shameful" behavior of the prosecution in doggedly seeking the death penalty.

This pursuit continued even after evidence surfaced that Montour had been wrongfully convicted for the crime that sent him to Limon in the first place.

Nate Becker, it should be noted, works on the financial side of a criminal defense law firm specializing in DUIs. But attorneys on both sides of the Montour case considered him impartial enough to serve as one of the twelve jurors (and six alternates) selected out of a pool of more than 2,100 candidates over the past two months. The panel was dismissed last Friday -- two days after hearing opening arguments in the case, and hours after the Eighteenth Judicial District Attorney's Office, led by George Brauchler, hammered out the deal with Montour's defense team.

In a letter to Westword, Becker describes what attorneys shared with him after the case was over.

You can read the entire letter at the link.  It's a first-person must-read.

"Father's embrace of son's killer took years and lessons," is the Denver Post news report by Jordan Steffen.

Gripping a tiny container of his son's ashes in one hand, Bob Autobee stretched out toward Edward Montour with the other.

Montour smiled back as Autobee slowly waved and nodded with reassurance.

It was the kind of tender exchange familiar to old friends, brothers or a father and son — not a convicted killer and the father of the man he brutally beat to death.

The brief moment was a 10-year journey for Autobee, whose remarkable emotional trek led him out of crushing hate and to a place not only of forgiveness, but embrace.

Earlier coverage of the Montour case and the Autobee family begins at the link.

Commentary From New Hampshire

"The Road to Repeal: Death Penalty Calculations in N.H.," is the editorial published by the Valley News.

New Hampshire stands closer today to abolishing the death penalty than at any time since 2000, when then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen vetoed a repeal measure that had passed both houses of the Legislature.

Last week, the House overwhelmingly approved an abolition bill, setting the stage for consideration by the Senate. The bill’s prospects there are considered uncertain, but by no means hopeless. Gov. Maggie Hassan, unlike her immediate predecessors, has said she would sign such a bill into law. If this finally comes about, New Hampshire would join an expanding list of states that have done away with capital punishment in recent years, including New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Illinois, Connecticut and Maryland.

Regrettably, there is one consideration that casts a long shadow over the state’s decision. The bill would not apply retroactively, leaving unchanged the status of the lone occupant of death row in New Hampshire. He is Michael Addison, who was convicted of killing a Manchester police officer in 2006.

SeaCoast Online publishes the OpEd, "Forgiveness takes precedence over wrath," by Robert Azzi.

In an early battle in defense of Islam's still-struggling first community in Medina, the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law Ali brought a traitor to his knees and was about to kill him when the man spat in his face. Ali sheathed his sword, knowing that to strike out of anger rather than out of acting for justice would be a sin.

Don't strike out of anger.

Next Sunday, I will join an interfaith moving vigil in Hampton to support New Hampshire's death penalty repeal effort. HB 1170 has passed the House and it's now with the Senate — please join us!

Earlier coverage from New Hampshire begins at the link.

Solitary Confinement Roundup

"After 20 Hours in Solitary, Colorado’s Prisons Chief Wins Praise," is the news report in the Sunday New York Times by Erica Goode.  Here's the beginning:

The cells where inmates are kept in solitary confinement at the state penitentiary here are 7-by-13-foot boxes arranged in semicircular tiers. When the warden, Travis Trani, heard that Rick Raemisch, Colorado’s new chief of corrections, intended to spend a night in one of them, he had two reactions.

“I thought he was crazy,” Mr. Trani recalled. “But I also admired him for wanting to have the experience.”

Mr. Raemisch has been in his job for just over seven months, having stepped in after his predecessor was shot to death a year ago Tuesday by a former inmate who had spent years in solitary. During that time, Mr. Raemisch has gained a reputation as an outspoken reformer and has made clear that he wants to make significant changes in the way the state operates its prisons.

Last month, Raemisch wrote an OpEd for the New York Times about his experience, "My Night in Solitary."

AT 6:45 p.m. on Jan. 23, I was delivered to a Colorado state penitentiary, where I was issued an inmate uniform and a mesh bag with my toiletries and bedding. My arms were handcuffed behind my back, my legs were shackled and I was deposited in Administrative Segregation — solitary confinement.

I hadn’t committed a crime. Instead, as the new head of the state’s corrections department, I wanted to learn more about what we call Ad Seg.

Most states now agree that solitary confinement is overused, and many — like New York, which just agreed to a powerful set of reforms this week — are beginning to act. When I was appointed, Gov. John Hickenlooper charged me with three goals: limiting or eliminating the use of solitary confinement for mentally ill inmates; addressing the needs of those who have been in solitary for long periods; and reducing the number of offenders released directly from solitary back into their communities. If I was going to accomplish these, I needed a better sense of what solitary confinement was like, and what it did to the prisoners who were housed there, sometimes for years.

In Texas, the Houston Chronicle reports, "Prisons study ways to reduce solitary confinement," by James Pinkerton.

The Texas prison system has more than 7,100 inmates in solitary including 2,400 who are mentally ill, among the highest in a nation. The practice is being questioned by legislative leaders, civil right groups and even the union representing Texas prison guards, who all say the policy is too harsh, expensive and dangerous to the public since many inmates are released directly from solitary.

State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said he warned Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials this month if the agency does not rein in the use of solitary - known as administrative segregation - a federal judge may end up overseeing reforms as the result of a civil rights suit. Whitmire said defending the policy of putting mentally ill inmates in solitary confinement, which courts in other states have found to be unconstitutional, would be difficult.

"They've reduced their numbers," said Whitmire, a Houston attorney who chairs the Senate's criminal justice committee, "but they still are not good enough."

Returning to Colorado, today's Denver Post reports, "Evan Ebel's hit list suggests ongoing threat to officials," by Kirk Mitchell.

New details are emerging in the investigation into the murder of Colorado prisons director Tom Clements that indicate parolee Evan Ebel didn't act alone and that nearly two dozen people were targeted.

Among new findings by The Denver Post:

• A federal official who had no dealings with Ebel said he was named on a hit list found in Ebel's black Cadillac DeVille two days after Clements was killed on March 19, 2013.
• Another government official said Ebel's hit list contained the names of more than 20 officials — far higher than previously known.
• That same source said one official on the hit list is concerned about the lack of information coming from the El Paso County Sheriff's Department, the lead investigative agency in the Clements case.

Those whose names appeared on the hit list remain fearful a year later because of a mystery that Ebel, a parolee who was killed in a shootout with Texas authorities on March 21, 2013, can't answer. Did Ebel act alone, on behalf of a prison gang "shot caller" or at the behest of someone else?

Related posts are in the incarceration category index.  You can also jump to coverage of the murder of Tom Clements.

Oklahoma OpEd

"Oklahoma's secrecy over execution drugs is wrong," is the Oklahoman OpEd by Oklahoma State University professor Joel Senat.

A recent lawsuit filed by two Oklahoma death row inmates should remind opponents and proponents of the death penalty why open government is crucial to an informed public’s oversight of its policymakers.

The inmates, scheduled for March executions, sued the Department of Corrections because Oklahoma law keeps secret — even from the prisoners and the courts — the supplier of the lethal injection drugs used in its executions. The statute even exempts the purchase of the drugs from the state’s Central Purchasing Act. Such secrecy in government typically breeds corruption, incompetency and inefficiency.

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

Tsarnaev Commentary

Syndicated Columnist Diane Dimond writes, "Execution unlikely for Tsarnaev."  It's via the Albuquerque Journal.

Another reason I doubt this young man will be condemned to execution has to do with the current public perception of capital punishment.

Nationally, the latest Gallup poll indicates that public support for the death penalty continues to decline. Only about 60 percent of Americans support the idea these days. But in the state of Massachusetts – where any Tsarnaev trial is likely to be held – a Boston Globe poll conducted statewide last fall revealed only 33 percent of residents wanted Tsarnaev to get the death penalty and 57 percent said he should be sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.

It is a fact that federal prosecutors don’t like to bring a case to court that isn’t a slam dunk.

Another fact: It will be difficult to seat a death penalty qualified jury in a state like Massachusetts. Once a potential juror says he or she cannot vote for capital punishment, they are disqualified.

"No more killing, no more death," is Rev. Jared Cramer's OpEd in the Grand Haven Tribune in Michigan.

Tsarnaev’s alleged actions are indeed heinous. The murder, the violence, the terror with which this moment gripped Boston are all horrendous realities that cannot be ignored. However, killing Tsarnaev will not solve anything. It will not deter other would-be terrorists. It will not bring back those who have died. It will not even save the state money.

And, most importantly, for Christians, it will take away a reality that is fundamental to our faith — the opportunity for penitence and forgiveness.

There should be no more killing, no more death, added to this tragic event.

Earlier coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing case begins at the link.

Related posts are in the federal death penalty category index.

Kentucky OpEd

"A case for repealing the death penalty," is the OpEd by David Floyd, a member of the Kentucky General Assembly, published in the Louisville Courier-Journal.

On Feb. 12, I held a press conference in the Kentucky Capitol to introduce House Bill 330, my bill to repeal the death penalty. Truthfully, I don’t believe that many people have thought deeply about capital punishment, and, I admit, I had insufficiently pondered it as well.

My initial opposition formed through a spiritual lens, so in 2007 I joined others in cosponsoring legislation to repeal the death penalty. But I was the only conservative legislator in a group of liberals.

And:

Conservatives want a government that will balance budgets, cut waste and eliminate programs that do not make fiscal sense.

Kentucky’s death penalty is a program that costs a lot while accomplishing little. We’ve spent well more than $100 million on the death penalty since 1976 — and executed three people. Having a death penalty is clearly wasting taxpayer dollars, while a penalty of life without the possibility of parole makes much better economic sense.

Earlier coverage from Kentucky begins at the link; also available, more from conservative opponents of the death penalty.

Another Hall v. Florida Preview

The SCOTUSblog case file for Hall v. Florida contains all briefing.

Today's Los Angeles Times publishes the OpEd, "Intellectually disabled but on death row: The troubling case of Freddie Hall," by Marc J. Tassé.  He is a past president of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.  Here's the beginning:

Shortly after his birth in 1945, Freddie Hall's family knew that something was different about him. And later, he was slow to learn, to walk and to talk, and it was challenging for his family to understand his speech. He was raised under difficult circumstances in an impoverished and abusive home, the 16th of 17 children, and showed early signs of serious intellectual and developmental delays.

Hall's elementary school teachers also noticed his problems with learning and recommended a special education teacher, as shown in school records dating from the 1950s. His fourth-grade, sixth-grade, seventh-grade and eighth-grade teachers all wrote that he was "mentally retarded." There is no indication that Hall ever received the special educational support that his teachers recommended. After being "socially promoted" through school, Hall dropped out in the 11th grade.

As an adult, Hall is illiterate and cannot perform basic math. Clinicians who have conducted psychological evaluations of him have said that his functioning is comparable to that of a first-grader.

Earlier coverage of Hall v. Florida begins at the link.  The case will be argued at the U.S. Supreme Court next Monday.