New evidence could clear death row inmate Rodney Reed.

I am very pleased to read that there is new evidence which could finally clear Rodney Reed, who has been on death row in Texas since 1998 and I send my very best regards to Rodney and to his mother, Sandra Reed, who has worked tirelessly to clear her son's name since his conviction. Good luck Rodney and Sandra.

Who is Rodney Reed?

http://www.freerodneyreed.org/who.html

"Rodney Reed has been on Texas’ death row since 1998. He was convicted for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites in the small town of Bastrop. Stacey’s brutal murder struck at the very heart of the community, not only for its brutality, but for the sinister chain of events it would set into motion. Rodney’s case is a troubling mixture of prosecutoral misconduct, police corruption, poor defense, and institutional racism. Evidence of Rodney’s innocence is overwhelming and the need for a new trial is indisputable.

Rodney was convicted on the basis of one piece of evidence. His DNA was found in a semen sample taken from Stacey’s body at the scene of the crime. Conventional wisdom would suggest such evidence is the nail in the coffin of any capital murder case, not least of all one including an alleged rape. However, Rodney’s court-appointed attorneys (two African American lawyers afraid to spend nights in a small Texas town like Bastrop) neglected to provide witnesses who would testify that Rodney and Stacey were engaged in a sexual relationship at the time of her tragic death. No other evidence in the case connected Rodney to Stacey or the crime scene. Yet, Rodney, his family, and his supporters would soon learn that evidence of a Black man engaged in sexual relationship with a white woman in a small Texas town would be more than enough to frame him for murder and send him to death row.

Stacey was also engaged to Giddings police officer Jimmy Fennell at the time of her murder. Witnesses would later testify – both inside and outside the courtroom – that Fennell had a violent temper and was prone to jealousy. During one of Rodney’s appeals, a fellow police academy graduate would swear under oath that she heard Fennell say he would strangle his girlfriend with a belt (in order to hide fingerprints) if she ever cheated on him. Stacey’s recorded cause of death was strangulation with a belt. Shortly following Stacey’s murder, Fennell was transferred to the Georgetown Police Department just north of Austin. Last year, a grand jury indicted him on abduction and sexual assault charges. The alleged victim was a woman in his custody."

An article in the Austin Chronicle, dated July 25th reports on new evidence submitted to the Court of Criminal Appeals on July 16th, which could clear Rodney.

"In a writ filed with the Court of Criminal Appeals on July 16, attorneys for death row inmate Rodney Reed are arguing that new evidence uncovered about the conduct of victim Stacey Stites' police-officer fiancé bolster Reed's claim of innocence. In court filings, Reed attorney Bryce Benjet tells the court not only that a witness has come forward to confirm that Reed and Stites were having an affair prior to her death, but also that there is additional evidence regarding Jimmy Fennell's apparent proclivity toward sexual violence."

The Austin Chronicle

Rodney Reed oral arguments before notorious judge March 19th

Oral arguments in the quest for a new trial for Rodney Reed will be heard on Wednesday March 19th at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The presiding judge of the CCA, Judge Sharon Keller, has come under fire recently for denying the appeal of Michael Richard -- the last person to be executed in Texas as national de facto moratorium on executions took effect -- because she was unwilling to keep the court open after 5 PM.

Rodney Reed deserves a new trial, where evidence of his innocence can finally be heard in court. Evidence was hidden by police and prosecutors that implicate another suspect in the murder of Stacey Stites. Read the attached fact sheet for an overview of the case. Rodney’s defense has long posited that Jimmy Fennell, the fiance of Stacey, is the more likely suspect in this crime. For recent developments surrounding Jimmy Fennell check out:

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/07/0107fennell.html

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/09/0309fennell.html

"Who is Rodney Reed?"

"Rodney Reed has been on Texas’ death row since 1998. He was convicted for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites in the small town of Bastrop. Stacey’s brutal murder struck at the very heart of the community, not only for its brutality, but for the sinister chain of events it would set into motion. Rodney’s case is a troubling mixture of prosecutoral misconduct, police corruption, poor defense, and institutional racism. Evidence of Rodney’s innocence is overwhelming and the need for a new trial is indisputable."

To read more about this disturbing case visit:

http://freerodneyreed.org/who.html

To voice your support for Rodney, you can call on one of these numbers:

TEXAS COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
(512) 463-1551

ATTORNEY GENERAL GREG ABBOTT
(512) 463-2100

If you live anywhere near the court, you can attend.

ATTEND ORAL ARGUMENTS IN THE CASE OF RODNEY REED
WEDNESDAY MARCH 19, 9 AM
TEXAS COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS 201 14TH STREET

Enter through glass doors on plaza which face out to Congress on north side of Capitol. The courtroom should be on the right, or ask at the desk for directions

Update: Rodney Reed's mother, Sandra, will be speaking at this event in Austin, Texas, on April 9th.

CEDP’s 2007 – 2008 National Speaking Tour
A Broken System – Crying out For Justice

In Austin, April 9, 2008
At UT, The Texas Union, Chicano Culture Room

Featuring Mothers of Texas Death Row Prisoners:

Anna Terrell - mother of Reginald Blanton
Lee Greenwood – mother of Joseph Nichols, killed March 7, 2007

Sandra Reed – mother of Rodney Reed

Also a “Live From Death Row” Event, with a live call from a death row prisoner.

So Save the Date!

Mumia Abu-Jamal; ruling near on jury.

"Ruling near on Abu-Jamal jury

A U.S. court is weighing race and other issues in death sentence.

By Emilie Lounsberry

Inquirer Staff Writer

In the nearly 26 years since his conviction for the murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner, the international tempest over Mumia Abu-Jamal has fixed primarily on this question: Did he do it, or was he framed by Philadelphia police?

Yet inside the chambers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Abu-Jamal's innocence or guilt is not the issue. Since May, three judges have been weighing whether to reinstate his death sentence, overturned in 2001. If they do, his last hope will be the U.S. Supreme Court, which hears fewer than 2 percent of all petitions filed each year.

The Third Circuit's decision, expected soon, will be based on knotty constitutional questions relating to the fairness of his 1982 trial in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court and subsequent state appeals:

Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday 27th January 2008

Here we read that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is deliberating on the question of whether Mumia Abu-Jamal had a fair trial in 1982, when he was found guilty of the murder of a police officer.

Who is Mumia?

"Mumia Abu-Jamal was serving as the President of the Association of Black Journalists at the time of his arrest. He was a founding member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Black Panther Party as a teenager. Years later he began reporting professionally on radio stations such as NPR, and was the news director of Philadelphia station WHAT. Much of his journalism called attention to the blatant injustice and brutality he watched happen on a daily basis to MOVE, a revolutionary organization that works to protect all forms of life--human, animal, plant--and the Earth as a whole."

The Scene
In 1981, Mumia worked as a cab driver at night to supplement his income. On December 9th he was driving his cab through the red light district of downtown Philadelphia at around 4 a.m. Mumia testifies that he let off a fare and parked near the corner of 13th and Locust Streets. Upon hearing gunshots, he turned and saw his brother, William Cook, staggering in the street. Mumia exited the cab and ran to the scene, where he was shot by a uniformed police officer and fell to the ground, fading in and out of consciousness. Within minutes, police arrived on the scene to find Officer Faulkner and Mumia shot; Faulkner died. Mumia was arrested, savagely beaten, thrown into a paddy wagon and driven to a hospital a few blocks away (suspiciously, it took over 30 minutes to arrive at the hospital). Mumia somehow survived.

The Trial
The trial began in 1982 with Judge Sabo (who sent more people to death row than any other judge) presiding. Mumia wished to represent himself and have John Africa as his legal advisor, but before jury selection had finished, this right was revoked and an attorney was forcibly appointed for him. Throughout the trial, Mumia was accused of disrupting court proceedings and was not allowed to attend most of his own trial. Sabo lived up to his nickname of “Prosecutor in Robes.”

The Evidence
The prosecution claimed that the shot which killed Faulkner came from Mumia Abu-Jamal’s legally registered .38-caliber weapon, contradicting the medical examiner’s report that the bullet removed from Faulkner’s brain was a .44-caliber. This fact was kept from the jury. Moreover, a ballistics expert found it incredible that police at the scene failed to test Mumia’s gun to see if has been recently fired, or to test his hands for powder residue. One of the most damning prosecution claims was that Mumia confessed at the hospital. However, this confession was not reported until nearly two months after December 9th, immediately after Mumia had filed a brutality suit against the police. One of the officers who claims to have heard the confession is Gary Wakshul. However, in his police report on that day he stated, “the Negro male made no comments.” Dr. Coletta, the attending physician who was with Mumia the entire time, says that he never heard Mumia speak.

The Witnesses
The star prosecution witness, a prostitute named Cynthia White, was someone no other witness reported seeing at the scene. During the trial of Billy Cook (Mumia’s brother) just weeks before Mumia’s trial, White gave testimony completely contradictory to what she stated at Mumia’s trial. Her testimony at Billy Cook’s trial placed someone at the scene who was not there when police arrived. This corroborates the other five witness accounts that someone fled the scene. In a 1997 hearing, another former prostitute, Pamela Jenkins, testified that White was acting as a police informant. Other sworn testimony revealed that witness coercion was routinely practiced by the police. In 1995, eyewitness William Singletary testified that police repeatedly tore up his initial statement--that the shooter fled the scene--until he finally signed something acceptable to them. The following year, witness Veronica Jones came forward to testify that she had been coerced into changing her initial statement that two men fled the scene. Witness Billy Cook, who was present the whole time, has stated very clearly that Mumia is absolutely innocent.

The Sentence
Due to police manipulation of witnesses, fabrication of evidence, and the rights of the defense severely denied, Mumia was found guilty. He was sentenced to death during the penalty phase based solely on his political beliefs. Mumia has been unjustly separated from his family for twenty-two years, with the threat of death looming over his head.

New Witnesses
In 2001, court stenographer Terri Maurer-Carter came forward and stated that in 1982, before Mumia’s trial began, she heard Judge Sabo say, “Yeah, and I’m going to help them fry the n****r.” He was referring to Mumia. This backs up evidence of judicial bias and racism in Mumia’s case. In the same year, esteemed Philadelphia journalist Linn Washington stated that on the morning of December 9th, 1981, he went to the scene to report on it--and no police were present. This backs up prior claims that police didn’t handle the crime scene properly.

The Confession
In 1999, Arnold Beverly confessed to killing Officer Faulkner. This confession is validated by a lie detector test administered by eminent polygraph expert Charles Honts. Despite concrete evidence supporting this confession, the Philadelphia District Attorney has refused to investigate, and the courts have not even allowed it to be heard. The injustice continues . . .

The Decisions
On December 18th, 2001, Judge Yohn issued a decision on the Habeas Corpus petition
in Federal District Court. He upheld Mumia’s unjust conviction, but challenged the sentencing phase (the death sentence). This means there could be a new sentencing hearing after all appeals are resolved, but the only options are life in prison with no possibility of parole or another death sentence. This is not justice. There is massive evidence of Mumia’s innocence and he should be absolutely free. Mumia’s legal team
filed an appeal of this decision in January of 2002. Mumia remains on death row until
all appeals by both sides are heard.

Judge Pamela Dembe’s November 21, 2001, rejection of Mumia’s request to reopen the PCRA hearings was appealed by Mumia’s legal team. Judge Dembe based her decision almost entirely on the Peterkin case, which has just been overturned! On October 8, 2003, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected the appeal, stating that the Beverly confession cannot be heard due to time limitations. The court also stated that Terri Maurer-Carter’s testimony is irrelevant. The struggle continues.

The Movement
A broad international movement has formed in support of Mumia. Celebrities such as Danny Glover, Ossie Davis, and Susan Sarandon, world leaders like Nelson Mandela, Danielle Mitterand (former First Lady of France), and Fidel Castro, governing bodies
such as the Japanese Diet, 22 members of the British Parliament, and the European Parliament have all recognized the blatant injustice in this case and have called for a new trial at the very least. Millions of people throughout the world have taken to the streets to protest his unjust imprisonment.

Mumia’s case has been a unifying point for many social struggles because it concentrates issues vitally important to our future, such as the rise in prison populations, police brutality, the death penalty, persecution of political dissent, and the continuation of white supremacy and racism in the U.S. From death row, Mumia has continued to speak out for all who are oppressed through his journalism. He has published four books, and his weekly columns are published throughout the world. His case is one of the most important social justice fights of our time.

Write To Mumia

Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

http://www.freemumia.com/who.html

US Supreme Court Argues Lethal Injection Issue

On the day that the Supreme Court was due to start the debate on the constutionality of death by lethal injection, the Chicago Tribune published a very interesting article.

Chicago Tribune 7/01/08

"By James Oliphant |Washington Bureau

January 7, 2008

WASHINGTON - Angel Diaz died. And died. And died.

Several minutes into his execution in 2006, the Florida inmate's mouth was moving and he was gasping for breath. Twenty minutes later, he was still breathing.

That same year, Ohio inmate Joseph Clark took even longer to die. As he was injected with the drugs to first anesthetize him, then paralyze him and then finally kill him, he raised his head and exclaimed: "It don't work." According to the medical examiner's report, Clark was conscious for almost an hour."

"At issue is the three-drug sequence. The first drug, sodium thiopental, is an anesthetic intended to cause unconsciousness. The second, pancuronium bromide, is a neuromuscular blocking agent that causes paralysis. The third, potassium chloride -- which is found in road salt -- is used to cause cardiac arrest and death.

Effective application of the drugs is critical. If the anesthetic doesn't function properly, the next two drugs cause excruciating pain. The neuromuscular paralyzer produces the sensation of suffocation in a conscious person. And an effect of the second agent is that the inmate cannot speak or relay that the anesthetic did not work. Advocates for changing the procedure have pushed for a single drug protocol involving a barbiturate, but no state has adopted it."

Chicago Tribune January 8th

"Court weighs lethal cocktail
Justices' reactions range from derisive to deeply concerned"

"WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court grappled with detailed questions of medical science and the pharmacology of death Monday, all against the backdrop of a larger, more overriding concern -- whether inmates have a constitutional right to an execution that is as painless as possible.

The justices heard a challenge brought by two condemned Kentucky prisoners contesting the state's lethal injection procedure. The inmates contend that the protocol, which involves the sequential use of three drugs to numb, paralyze and kill the prisoner, carries with it an unconstitutional risk of extreme pain.

The claim met with hostility from several members of the court, with Justice Antonin Scalia openly ridiculing it. "This is an execution, not surgery," he griped.

The inmates, Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling, argue that Kentucky uses poorly trained personnel to administer the drugs, creating an unnecessary risk of harm. The key to the process is effective application of the first drug, sodium thiopental, a barbiturate intended to anesthetize the inmate in advance of the second and third drugs, which can cause excruciating pain otherwise.

The inmates' lawyer, Donald Verrilli, contended that Kentucky, as an alternative, could use a shot of the barbiturate without the other drugs. Death might take longer, he said, but there would be no risk of pain.

But that was where Verrilli ran into trouble. Several justices complained that the science behind Verrilli's statement wasn't borne out in the lower court record.

"There's a risk of harm generally when you're talking about the death penalty," said Justice Stephen Breyer. He said he was bothered by studies that said the single dose wasn't as effective as the three-drug protocol. "I'm left at sea," Breyer said.

Breyer also was concerned about Verrilli's contention that medical personnel needed to be involved in the executions. (The state forbids it by law.) He noted that doctors consider such work a breach of medical ethics and wondered if anti-death penalty forces were trying to halt executions altogether by insisting on a procedure that could not be carried out in a practical way.

Thirty-six states use a procedure similar to Kentucky's, and a de facto moratorium on executions has in been in place nationwide since the court agreed to hear the Kentucky case.

Arguing for the state, lawyer Roy Englert conceded that if sodium thiopental was administered incorrectly, the prisoner would indeed suffer extreme pain. But, he said, the state had training and procedures in place to guard against it. He said that close monitoring of an inmate by medical professionals during the execution wasn't necessary because if the anesthetic didn't work properly, the inmate "would be awake and screaming."

But critics of the three-drug protocol say the second drug, pancuronium bromide, is a muscle-paralyzing agent that prevents inmates from alerting authorities to their pain. And Englert was pushed by Justice John Paul Stevens to explain why the paralyzer was even necessary.

"It does bring about a more dignified death," Englert said, "for the inmate and the witnesses."

"The dignity of the process outweighs the risk of excruciating pain?" Stevens shot back.

Stevens conceded that the lack of evidence in the record about risks in Kentucky's procedure -- the state has executed only one prisoner since it instituted the lethal injection regime -- meant it was unlikely the court would rule against the state. But, Stevens said, "I'm horribly troubled by the fact that this second drug causes a risk of excruciating pain."

That left the justices in a bit of a bind. At the end of the argument, there appeared to be two roads the court could take. The first involves sending the case back to the original trial court in Kentucky for further proceedings on the state's methods, including whether there might be a better pharmacological alternative.

That idea was not palatable to Scalia, who complained that it would cause a "nationwide cessation of executions while the trial court finishes its work."

The second would be for the court to rule in favor of Kentucky, holding that its procedures are constitutional. That, warned Justice David Souter, would invite another challenge from a state with a more extensive history involving flawed executions.

"We want some kind of definitive decision here," Souter said.




----------

joliphant@tribune.com

Uzbekistan and South Korea but not US Presidential Candidates.

From January 1st Uzbekistan the death penalty has been abolished in Uzbekistan.

Interfax Politics

"Starting from January 1, 2008, the death penalty in Uzbekistan has been
abolished. In addition, the right to sanction arrests has been delegated to
courts starting from the New Year's," the Uzbek Supreme Court told Interfax.

These decisions are based on the presidential decrees 'On the abolition of
the death penalty in the Republic of Uzbekistan' of August 1, 2005 and 'On
delegating the right to sanction arrests to courts' of August 8, 2005."

On Sunday December 30th South Korea passed a milestone of 10 years since the last execution, becoming an abolitionist state in practice, with a bill pending to make the abolition formal.

The Indian Catholic

"On Dec. 30, the country marked 10 years since its last executions, thus becoming an abolitionist country "in practice" as defined by international human rights monitor Amnesty International. The last executions, of 23 death-row inmates, took place on Dec. 30, 1997.

The activists held their public celebration of the occasion in the courtyard of the National Assembly in Seoul. The Preparatory Committee for the Celebration of the Abolition of the Death Penalty, which brings together campaigners from religious, political and civic groups, organized the event. Participants demanded that lawmakers pass a pending bill to abolish the death penalty."

"Catholic Bishop Boniface Choi Ki-san of Incheon told the gathering, "South Korea has become the 134th country to abolish the death penalty in practice or in law. This shows that our country has become 'developed' in human rights.

So, Uzbekistan, a police state, has joined the ranks of countries to abolish the death penalty. South Korea just passed 10 years without an execution. The U.S. is becoming more and more isolated in its use of the death penalty.

What of the American presidential candidates and their views on the death penalty? John Nichols of Madison's Capital Times considers that most candidates are wrong in their support of the death penalty. While Uzbekistan and South Korea join the ranks of abolitionists, and the United Nations has called for a moratorium on state executions, most presidential candidates seem to be in favour of the USA's retaining the death penalty.

Capital Times Madison Wisconsin

"The death penalty is a ridiculously ineffective and even more ridiculously expensive tool for fighting crime. It is a permanent punishment, yet it is applied unevenly and unreliably. It is dramatically racist in its application. It is even more dramatically biased along class lines.

It is cruel, and it is unusual. It has been banned by the civilized world."

And, of course, there is the matter of it being immoral when weighed against any moral code that can see beyond the "eye for an eye" fantasy that Mahatma Gandhi correctly observed "leaves the whole world blind."

Yet, for the most part, the candidates for the 2008 Democratic and Republican presidential nominations are death penalty supporters -- or, perhaps even more objectionably, they are death penalty apologists.

One candidate, Mike Huckabee, is a death penalty practitioner. Huckabee notes that, as governor of Arkansas, he had to "carry out the death penalty more than any governor in the history of my state." This is, Huckabee claims, "not something I'm proud of."

Yet Huckabee's embarrassment was not so great as to cause him to follow the lead of a fellow Republican, former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, by calling a halt to executions.

Huckabee's hypocrisy is writ large across his every action, so it is not surprising that the self-defined "Christian leader" continues the ancient Roman custom of state-sanctioned slaying of prisoners.

But Huckabee's no worse than proponents of expanding the death penalty. Republican Mitt Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, drafted legislation to reinstate the death penalty. Democrat Joe Biden, the senator from Delaware, authored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which expanded the federal death penalty to cover 60 new offenses.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton is a death penalty advocate who, as first lady, lobbied for expanding the list of federal crimes for which a prisoner could be killed.

Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani is another longtime fan of capital punishment, and he has even gone so far as to urge federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in specific cases.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton's closest competitor for the Democratic nod, is embarrassingly hypocritical on the issue. With death penalty abolitionists, he cites his work as an Illinois state senator to reform that state's capital punishment system. With death penalty supporters, he says allowing executions is a way of saying that "the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage."

John Edwards, who has made a strong play for progressive votes, also favors the death penalty. But Edwards at least says "we need reforms in the death penalty to ensure that defendants receive fair trials, with zealous and competent lawyers, and with full access to DNA testing."

That's similar to the stance taken by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. And it's a whole lot better than another Democrat, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who opposes the sort of moratorium on capital punishment -- in order to ensure that innocents are not executed -- that even some Republicans back.

The leading Democratic contenders are no more responsible or humane when it comes to the death penalty than mainstream Republicans such as Fred Thompson, the senator-turned-actor who played a tough prosecutor on TV, or Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Indeed, of the 16 men and women actively seeking the nominations of the two parties this year, only three have sided with death penalty abolitionists. Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, a Democrat, has argued for 35 years in favor of ending capital punishment. Similarly, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican who is at odds with his party's leaders on so many fronts, is an across-the-board foe of executions whose campaign says he always has and always will vote against capital punishment.

Once again, that aligns Paul with Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a steady and passionate foe of the death penalty, who says, "Morally, I simply do not believe that we as human beings have the right to 'play God' and take a human life -- especially since our human judgments are fallible and often wrong."

John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times.

John Nichols — 1/01/2008 9:11 am

So, there we have it. Of the 16 men and women actively seeking the nominations of the two parties this year, only three have sided with death penalty abolitionists. Uzbekistan has abolished the death penalty, South Korea has not executed anyone in ten years and will probably pass abolition into law, and in the USA, a country which considers itself to be civilised, thirteen out of sixteen presidential hopefuls are supporters of the death penalty. If South Korea has become a country, "developed in human rights," what can be said of the good old US of A and the person its citizens will elect as their next president? Developed in human rights? I think not.

Stan Tookie Williams

On Tuesday December 13th, 2005, Stan Tookie Williams was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin Prison, California.

CNN December 13th 2005

"SAN QUENTIN, California (CNN) -- Death did not come quickly for Stanley Tookie Williams, the co-founder of the violent Crips street gang who was executed by lethal injection early Tuesday for the 1979 robbery murders of four people in Los Angeles.

Witnesses and prison officials said Williams appeared to grow impatient as prison staffers searched for several minutes for a vein in his muscular left arm.

"Seventeen reporters witnessed the execution and gave their accounts afterward. (Watch the witnesses describe Williams' last minutes -- 10:04)

They said inserting the IVs to administer the lethal chemicals took nearly 20 minutes, with staff having particular difficulty getting a needle into Williams' left arm."

"The execution went ahead as scheduled after the U.S. Supreme Court late Monday rejected a last-ditch appeal.

The high court's ruling followed California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision to deny clemency for Williams.

So, who was Stan Tookie Williams? He was born in New Orleans on December 29th 1953 and became one of the early leaders of the notrious Crips gang in South Central Los in 1971. In 1981, Stan was convicted on four counts of murder and sentenced to death. He spent six and a half years in solitary confinement for assaults on prison staff and fellow inmates. Stan had led a very violent existence as a founder of the Crips, and his violent behaviour continued in prison.

After being released from solitary confinement, Stan's behaviour changed dramatically. He wrote several children's books advocating non-violence and an alternative to gangs. He wrote several books about his life, including an autobiography, "Blue Rage, Black Redemption." Holywood honoured Stan in 2004 with a film about his life, "Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story."

Stan maintained his innocence of the murders throughout his time on death row. Numerous appeals were posted and all were unsuccessful. The final avenue open to Stan was an appeal for clemency to the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who turned it down.

"Thousands of people signed online petitions calling for Schwarzenegger to commute the death sentence. Those who campaigned against the execution included celebrities, politicians, and Nobel laureates."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Williams

"In 1997, Williams wrote and posted on his website an apology for his role in creating the Crips. In 2004, he helped broker a peace agreement, called the Tookie Protocol For Peace, for what had been one of the deadliest and most infamous gang wars in the country, between the Bloods and the Crips, in both the state of California and the city of Newark, New Jersey. On the nomination of William A. Harrison, a minister from West Monroe, Louisiana, Williams received a letter from U.S. President George W. Bush commending him for his social activism, one of some 267,000 "Call To Service Awards" that were sent out."

Stan Tookie Williams was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his books which were intended to help disenfranchised youth.

The death penalty process does not seem to have space for nor embrace the possibility of redemption, that a person can be truly remorseful and, as in Stan's case, make very valuable contributions to society. Whatever his guilt or innocence in the four murders for which he had been convicted and sent to San Quentin, Stan Tookie Williams redeemed himself in his work for peace and reconciliation. It was a sad day when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger turned down the appeal for clemency. This decision led Arnold Schwarzenegger's home town in Austria to rename a sports stadium which had been named in Schwarzenegger's honour, so strong was the world-wide support for Stan.

Stan Tookie Williams is gone, but definitely not forgotten. A reprint of his autobiography, "Blue Rage, Black Redemption," has been published in November this year and hopefully many more people, especially the young and disadvantaged in American inner-cities, will hear the Tookie message of non-violence and alternatives to the gang culture.

Stan Tookie Wiliams, I salute you and honour you as a true example of the redemptive power of the human spirit. Rest in peace Tookie.

UN Assembly calls for death penalty ban

Bangkok Post Breaking News

Tuesday 18th December.

"New York (dpa) - The UN General Assembly on Tuesday voted 104-54 to adopt a moratorium on the death penalty, defeating vocal opposition from countries that maintain the practice does not violate human rights.

Countries that favour ending the death penalty are a uniformed bloc, arguing the practice "undermines human dignity" and that a moratorium "contributes to the enhancement and progressive development of human rights."

"There is no conclusive evidence of the death penalty's deterrence value and that any miscarriage or failure of justice in the death penalty's implementation is irreversible and irreparable," the proponents said in the resolution adopted by the 192-nation assembly. There were 29 abstentions.

The resolution submitted by more than 90 countries, including most Europeans nations, voiced concern about the continued use of the death penalty and demanded that the UN "establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty."

It called on countries that still apply the death penalty to respect international standards that provide safeguards guaranteeing the rights of sentenced prisoners and to "progressively restrict the use of the death penalty and reduce the number of offences for which it may be imposed."

Countries that opposed the moratorium renewed their criticism before the vote, a replay of the debate last month in the human rights committee of the assembly. Opponents included the block of 13 Caribbean nations and others like Singapore, which accused Europeans of imposing their values on other sovereign nations.

There are 134 countries that have abolished the death penalty.

But countries that continue to use it, like the United States and China, have remained mostly silent during the whole debate.

Despite Washington's official stance on maintaining the death penalty, New Jersey on Monday became the first US state to abolish the sentence in more than 40 years, as Governor Jon Corzine signed into law a measure eliminating it.

New Jersey joined 13 other US states that do not allow executions.

"Today New Jersey evolves," Corzine, a Democrat, said in a statement. "This is a day of progress for us and for the millions of people across our nation and around the globe who reject the death penalty as a moral or practical response to the grievous, even heinous, crime of murder."

Before the final vote in the UN General Assembly Tuesday, the human rights committee voted 99-52, with 33 abstentions, last month to approve the moratorium, and sent the draft to the 192-nation assembly for a final vote.

The issue split the committee into two camps, with the Europeans, led by Italy, on one side against mostly small countries in the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East that said the death penalty is not a human rights issue."

Jon Corzine Signs Abolition Into Law

On Monday 17th December, Jon Corzine, Governor of New Jersey signed into law the bill approved by the state's Assembly and Senate last week. Although New Jersey re-adopted the death penalty in 1982, following its reinstatement by the Supreme Court in 1976, New Jersey has not executed anyone since 1963.

"The measure spares eight men on the state's death row. On Sunday, Corzine signed orders commuting the sentences of those eight to life in prison without parole.

Among the eight spared is Jesse Timmendequas, a sex offender who murdered 7-year-old Megan Kanka in 1994. The case inspired Megan's Law, which requires law enforcement agencies to notify the public about convicted sex offenders living in their communities."

New York Times

New York Times editorial, Saturday December 15th. "A Long Time Coming."

"It took 31 years, but the moral bankruptcy, social imbalance, legal impracticality and ultimate futility of the death penalty has finally penetrated the consciences of lawmakers in one of the 37 states that arrogates to itself the right to execute human beings."

This is the opening paragraph in what I think is an excellent editorial. The author reports on a couple of recent cases where convictions have been overturned. One of the best reasons for ending the death penalty; it's not easy to apologise to the dead!

"New Jersey’s decision to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole seems all the wiser coming in the middle of a month that has already seen the convictions of two people formerly on death row in other states repudiated. In one case, the defendant was found not guilty following a new trial."

The United States of America is the most powerful of the western civilised nations, but in keeping the death penalty on its statutes, who is it keeping company with?

"By clinging to the death penalty, states keep themselves in the company of countries like Iran, North Korea and China — a disreputable pantheon of human mistreatment. Small wonder the gyrations of New Jersey’s Legislature have been watched intently by human rights activists around the world."

So, lawmakers of Texas, the state which has executed more people than any other since reinstatement of capital punishment, take note. The time has come to consider what place executions have in a civilised world.

"In a sense, the practical impact of New Jersey’s action may be largely symbolic. Although there are eight people on New Jersey’s death row, the moratorium was in place, and the state has not put anyone to death since 1963. Nevertheless, it took political courage for lawmakers to join with Governor Corzine. Their renunciation of the death penalty could prick the conscience of elected officials in other states and inspire them to muster the courage to revisit their own laws on capital punishment.

At least that is our fervent hope."

New York Times Editorial

New Jersey Abolishes The Death Penalty

On Thursday 13th December, the New Jersey Legislature followed up Monday's approval by the State Senate, and in a vote of 44-36 made NJ the first state to abolish the death penalty. The US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, but New Jersey has not executed anyone since 1963. New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has said he will sign the bill into law when it arrives on his desk.

The Guardian

"A New Jersey state commission found in January that the death penalty was expensive to administer, had no deterrent effect and carried the risk of killing an innocent person. It was, said the commission, "inconsistent with evolving standards of decency".

"We would be better served as a society by having a clear and certain outcome for individuals that carry out heinous crimes," Corzine said."

I think that, "clear and certain outcome," is a very important factor in abolishing the death penalty. Prisoners will not be sitting on death row, year-after-year, waiting to be taken on their last walk, or to hear last minute news about their latest appeal. The families of victims will achieve some level of closure and not be waiting for the next round of publicity given to the person found guilty of murder. And just as important, no innocent person will be put beyond the oportunity to experience the proof of innocence or to walk free.

The abolition of the death penalty in New Jersey would seem to just write into law what the state has been doing in practice since 1963, but it is a very important piece of legislation. The state legislature has voted for what the Governor calls, "...evolving standards of decency," and I congratulate those who have worked doggedly to get this legislation onto their statute books.

Now what about Texas? Time for that state to look carefully at its standards of decency?

Rodney Reed On Death Row In Texas

Information taken from the Daily Texan online.

Daily Texan online

Rodney Reed has spent the last ten years on death row in a Texas prison. He was found guilty of the murder of 20 year-old Stacey Stites, whose body was dumped by the side of a road in Bastrop, Texas, eleven years ago.

Rodney is a black man who was found guilty of the crime by an all-white jury, in spite of what the lawyers presenting Rodney's appeal for a new trial, report as strong evidence linking other people to the crime.

"......including Stites' fiance Jimmy Fennell, to the murder. Last week, Fennell, who is now a police officer in Georgetown, Texas, was indicted by a grand jury on a charge of sexually assaulting a woman in custody at gunpoint, and he was placed on administrative leave from his job. At the time of Stites' death, Fennell was a police officer in Giddings, a town just east of Bastrop."

The evidence linking Jimmy Fennell to the murder of Stacey Stites is, according to the article, more compelling than that linking Rodney Reed.

"The amount of evidence pointing to Fennell in Stites' murder case is overwhelming. In two polygraph tests taken after Stites's murder, Fennell failed the question, "Did you strangle Stacy Stites?" According to a May 13, 1998, Department of Public Service report, fresh beer cans found at the crime scene contained DNA from Stites and two of Fennell's friends, police officers David Hall and Ed Salmela (the original investigator for the case). Furthermore, the truck alledgedly used to transport Stites' body contained fingerprints from only Fennell and Stites and was handed over to Fennell the day it was discovered. Fennell sold the truck the next day."

So, the truck which was allegedly used to carry the body contained fingerprints (allegedly) only from Fennell and Stites. It was returned to Fennell, who sold it the next day? There goes some of the evidence!

"The main evidence linking Reed to the murders is a semen sample containing Reed's DNA, which was taken from the scene of the crime. That can easily be explained by the sexual relationship he and Stites allegedly had before her death."


Beer cans at the scene of the dumped body, showing DNA from Stites and two of Fennell's friends, plus fingerprints in a truck, which was allegedly used to dump the body, only from Stites and Fennell. Semen from Rodney Reed at the scene. It appears to me that there is a strong case for a retrial.

"Reed has been sitting on death row for more than 10 years for a crime he very likely did not commit. The Bastrop County prosecutors should open the case and start a new investigation into his claims of innocence. In the meantime, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which has Reed's case in their hands, should order a new trial in which the jury can hear all of the new evidence."

More info at: Free Rodney Reed

New Jersey Nears Repeal of Death Penalty

New York Times, Tuesday 11th December, 2007. New jersey comes closer to repealing the death penalty after Monday's vote in the State Senate.

New York Times

"By JEREMY W. PETERS

Published: December 11, 2007

TRENTON, Dec. 10 — The New Jersey Senate voted Monday to make the state the first in the country to repeal the death penalty since 1976, when the United States Supreme Court set guidelines for the nation’s current system of capital punishment.

State Senator Raymond J. Lesniak, sponsor of a bill to repeal New Jersey’s death penalty, at the Senate Monday.

Approval in the Senate was seen as the biggest obstacle to the repeal, and in the end, it passed 21 to 16, receiving the bare minimum number of votes required in the 40-seat chamber. Three senators did not vote.

Legislators on both sides of the debate said they expected the measure to pass easily on Thursday in the General Assembly, where Democrats hold 50 of the 80 seats.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat and a staunch opponent of the death penalty, has said he would sign a measure ending executions.

“Today New Jersey can become a leader, an inspiration to other states,” Senator Robert Martin, a Republican from Morris Plains who voted for the bill, said during Monday’s debate.

For those opposed to capital punishment, New Jersey’s repeal would represent a victory that has eluded them in the modern history of the death penalty. Though legislatures across the country have tried to abolish capital punishment since 1976, none have succeeded. This year alone, the legislatures in Nebraska, Montana, Maryland and New Mexico have debated bills to repeal those states’ death penalties, but each measure failed, often by a slim margin.

So far, opponents of the death penalty have succeeded only through court rulings, including the decision in 2004 declaring New York’s capital punishment statute unconstitutional, or through moratoriums imposed by a governor, as in Illinois and Maryland.

“What New Jersey is going to do is have a legislature-initiated repeal, and that’s different,” said Frankin E. Zimring, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Opponents of the death penalty said Monday that they hoped New Jersey’s action would give new energy to movements in states that have recently voted down repeal bills, and would serve as a catalyst for other states to revisit their laws on capital punishment.

Diann Rust-Tierney, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said: “The New Jersey Legislature did the right thing. And we think we’ll be seeing more state legislatures saying, ‘We don’t want the death penalty.’”

While the Senate vote mainly broke down along party lines, four Republicans did break from the party leadership and vote for the bill. Three of them — Mr. Martin, James J. McCullough of Atlantic County and Joseph A. Palaia of Deal — will not be returning to the Senate when the new Legislature is seated next month. Three Democrats voted against the bill.

Earlier Monday, a bill to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison with no parole was approved on a 5-1 vote by the Assembly’s Law and Public Safety Committee.

Because the Senate voted during a lame-duck legislative session, legislators who might otherwise have voted against the bill were afforded some political cover — a factor that may have tipped the balance.

Mr. McCullough said Monday that he arrived at his decision over the summer after meeting with law enforcement officials and the family of a murder victim. “That’s the right thing to do,” he said. “I’m an outgoing senator.”

But opponents of the bill were sharply critical of Senate Democratic leaders for scheduling a vote during a lame-duck session, when issues of such import are seldom taken up.

“Why not let this go to the new session?” asked Senator Robert W. Singer, a Republican.

Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School who testified on Monday before the Assembly committee, called the process a “charade” and criticized lawmakers for not allowing for more time to debate the bill. “You’ll go where you want to go,” he said. “You’ll abolish the death penalty in New Jersey, and the world will watch.”

Since the legislative elections on Nov. 6, the process to repeal New Jersey’s death penalty has unfolded swiftly. The Senate president, Richard J. Codey, and the Assembly speaker, Joseph J. Roberts, both Democrats, placed bills abolishing capital punishment at the top of their agendas for the lame-duck session, and called for votes to be taken by the end of the year.

Supporters of the bill said the process was not rushed and pointed to a six-month-long review of the state’s capital sentence system by the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission, which found that the system was ineffective and recommended that it be replaced with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The state has not executed anyone since 1963. In addition, its procedures for carrying out an execution were declared unconstitutional in 2004 by a state appeals court, and the Department of Corrections has said it has no intention of rewriting them.

Yet prosecutors still seek the death penalty in some cases, and eight men are currently on death row at the New Jersey State Prison here.

The measure approved by the Senate gives the eight men 60 days to file motions to be resentenced to life in prison.

Mr. Codey, who sponsored legislation in the early 1980s that reinstated New Jersey’s death penalty, said the system plays a cruel hoax on murder victims’ families by giving them the false hope of an execution.

“The best thing to do for us as a society to do is to be honest with them,” said Mr. Codey, who more recently served as governor. “Don’t tell someone that we’re going to execute somebody when the reality is it’s not going to happen — at least here in the state of New Jersey. Maybe in Texas. Maybe in other states. But it’s not going to happen here in New Jersey, and we’ve got to accept that.”

David W. Chen contributed reporting.

Serving Life for Providing Car to Killers

Ryan Holle, 25, convicted of murder, is serving life without the chance of parole at the Wakulla Correctional Institution in Florida.

From Adam Liptak in the December 4th edition of the New York Times comes this very strange, to me, story of American justice.

"CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. — Early in the morning of March 10, 2003, after a raucous party that lasted into the small hours, a groggy and hungover 20-year-old named Ryan Holle lent his Chevrolet Metro to a friend. That decision, prosecutors later said, was tantamount to murder."

The friend used Ryan's car to drive three other men to the place where they intended to commit a burglary. Ryan was a mile and a half away at the time. The burglary went wrong and the eighteen year-old daughter of the marijuana dealer, they were robbing, was killed. It did not matter to the prosecution that Ryan was not there:

"He was convicted of murder under a distinctively American legal doctrine that makes accomplices as liable as the actual killer for murders committed during felonies like burglaries, rapes and robberies."

This is how the prosecutor justified the charge of murder against Ryan Holle.

"A prosecutor explained the theory to the jury at Mr. Holle’s trial in Pensacola in 2004. “No car, no crime,” said the prosecutor, David Rimmer. “No car, no consequences. No car, no murder"

"Most scholars trace the doctrine, which is an aspect of the felony murder rule, to English common law, but Parliament abolished it in 1957. The felony murder rule, which has many variations, generally broadens murder liability for participants in violent felonies in two ways. An unintended killing during a felony is considered murder under the rule. So is, as Mr. Holle learned, a killing by an accomplice.

India and other common law countries have followed England in abolishing the doctrine. In 1990, the Canadian Supreme Court did away with felony murder liability for accomplices, saying it violated “the principle that punishment must be proportionate to the moral blameworthiness of the offender.”

Countries outside the common law tradition agree. “The view in Europe,” said James Q. Whitman, a professor of comparative law at Yale, “is that we hold people responsible for their own acts and not the acts of others.”

This seems to be a reasonable view, "..we hold people responsible for their own acts and not the acts of others."

Especially not the acts of others, I would say, over which the person had no control and during which the person wasn't there.

"About 16 percent of homicides in 2006 occurred during felonies, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Statistics concerning how many of those killings led to the murder prosecutions of accomplices are not available, but legal experts say such prosecutions are relatively common in the more than 30 states that allow them. About 80 people have been sentenced to death in the last three decades for participating in a felony that led to a murder though they did not kill anyone."

Ryan Holle was not participating in a felony, though. After a raucous party, Ryan Holle lent his car to a friend, who subsequently used the car to drive to the scene of a crime.

"Mr. Holle, who had given the police a series of statements in which he seemed to admit knowing about the burglary, was convicted of first-degree murder."

He, "seemed to admit."? What kind of evidence is that? He seemed to admit knowing about the burglary, so he was responsible as an accomplice to first-degree murder?

"But Mr. Holle did testify that he had been told it might be necessary to “knock out” Jessica Snyder. Mr. Holle is 25 now, a tall, lean and lively man with a rueful sense of humor, alert brown eyes and an unusually deep voice. In a spare office at the prison here, he said that he had not taken the talk of a burglary seriously.

“I honestly thought they were going to get food,” he said of the men who used his car, all of whom had attended the nightlong party at Mr. Holle’s house, as had Jessica Snyder."

New York Times

Jeez! That is justice? A man wakes up with a hangover after a raucous party, lends his car to a friend, thinks they're joking about stealing the safe from the marijuana dealer, and is as guilty as the person who killed the girl?

"Not every state’s version of the felony murder rule is as strict as Florida’s, and a few states, including Hawaii, Kentucky and Michigan, have abolished it entirely.

“The felony-murder rule completely ignores the concept of determination of guilt on the basis of individual misconduct,” the Michigan Supreme Court wrote in 1980."

Ryan Holle was the only one of five men charged to be offered a plea deal of ten years in prison, which he turned down. To accept he would have to have accepted culpability for the murder, which he clearly was not prepared to do.

"The laws that they use to convict people are just — they have to revise them,” he said. “Just because I lent these guys my car, why should I be convicted the same as these people that actually went to the scene of the crime and actually committed the crime?"

Senate panel votes to abolish death penalty

The state of New Jersey is set to become the first to abolish the death penalty since it was reinstated by the US Supreme Court in 1976.


Tuesday, December 4, 2007

By MICHAEL RISPOLI
Gannett State Bureau

TRENTON

A state Senate committee Monday advanced a proposal to eliminate the death penalty in New Jersey, moving the state one step closer to becoming the only one to legislatively eliminate the punishment since it was reinstated nationally in 1976.

In front of a room spilling over with members of the public, the Senate budget committee took an hour and half of testimony for and against the measure to replace capital punishment with life without parole before approving the measure 8-4.

Public support for the bill came from those morally against the penalty and some victims' families saying the unused law -- no one has been executed in the state since 1963 -- harms families seeking swift justice.

Joined by over a dozen victims' family members, Vicki Schieber, whose daughter Shannon was raped and murdered in Philadelphia in 1998, said the death penalty and its long legal process is "not an answer to many of us who have been through this pain."

"There is no such word as closure, and going through the long, difficult, painful process of a trial puts much more pain and victim in the murder victim's families," said Schieber, a member of the Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights.

Not all victims' families felt this way. Linda Rusconi, whose sister was murdered in 2005, said, "It just doesn't seem fair or just to me to have her killer in prison hurting other guards and people, getting visitors, getting to read books, get to exercise and watch TV while we, my mother, myself, my sister's children . . . have to go visit my sister in the cemetery," Rusconi said.

Opponents of the bill want to refine the law and save the death penalty for the "most vicious, serious, grievous of murders," said ex-state Sen. John Russo.

"Clean it up, make it better," urged Russo, a member of the state's Death Penalty Study Commission, who did not agree with the commission's suggestion to repeal the law.

Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance, R-Hunterdon, tried to introduce an amendment to reserve the punishment for cop-killers, terrorists and those who rape and murder juveniles, but the amendment was not considered by the committee.

New Jersey has eight men on death row.

Some Democratic senators said although they previously favored the death penalty, they had changed their mind and voted in favor of the repeal.

Sen. Stephen M. Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said the current law gives victims' families "false hope."

"Families deserve closure. They deserve at least an attempt to move on with their lives. The death penalty doesn't give that to anyone," said Sweeney, who voted to abolish the death penalty.

The other tri-county senator on the panel, Martha Bark, R-Burlington, voted to keep the death penalty.

The budget committee took up the bill to review the potential savings the state could see as a result. Bill sponsor Sen. Raymond Lesniak, D-Union, called this "weakest reason to repeal the death penalty." While savings were brought up, the committee quarreled mostly over the principles of the bill and not its fiscal impact.

The Office of Legislative Services determined it could not accurately quantify the total costs or savings of the bill due to a number of variables. OLS did, however, find moving inmates from the Capital Sentence Unit to the general prison population generated an estimated $32,481 savings per inmate annually, and the state could save $1.46 million annually from Office of the Public Defender trial costs based on the average number of capital-punishment cases per year.

The measure now heads to the full Senate for a vote which could come as early as next Monday. Lesniak said he expects the bill to pass, but conceded "it'll be close."

Lance said the Senate Republicans' caucus will not take a party position and that each GOP lawmaker will be advised to vote their conscience.

Legislative leaders have pushed to have the measure voted on before the current legislative session expires Jan. 8. Along with the expected Senate vote, an Assembly committee is set to take up similar legislation next Monday, with a vote expected in the lower house Dec. 13.

Reach Michael Rispoli at mrispol@gannett.com

Courier Post Online

New Jersey And The Death Penalty

There are currently eight men, their ages ranging from 30 to 70 years old, on New Jersey's Capital Crimes wing and it is said they have more chance of dying of old age than they have of being executed. Their ages range from 30 to 70 years old.
New Jersey has not executed a single person since the United States Supreme Court permitted executions to resume in 1976. The last execution in NJ was in 1963. New Jersey is now on track to become the first state to repeal the death penalty. A bill that would abolish New Jersey’s death penalty was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee this spring and is now on a fast track to be considered by both houses within weeks. Senator Richard J Codey, Senate President said he plans to bring the bill to a vote by the full chamber by the end of the year. Gov. Jon S. Corzine has said that he will sign the measure into law if it reaches his desk.

Recently the Supreme Court of the United States placed all executions across all states on hold, pending an enquiry on whether death by lethal injection breached the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which states that punishment should not be, "Cruel and unusual."

Execution by lethal injection. A look at some of the published articles.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field (ewriglyfield@...) is a graduate student in sociology and a member of the International Socialist Organization.

Badger Herald

“Thursday, November 15, 2007
Last month, without much fanfare, it became clear that there is a de facto moratorium on executions in the United States. The Supreme Court indicated it will put all executions on hold while it evaluates the constitutionality of the lethal injection procedure used across the United States.

From an article in New College Clarion by Jessica Ablamsky, reported May 2007 in:

Yahoo Group CEDP

Writing about execution by lethal injection in an article titled, “Behind the Curtain - How Modern Day Executioners Botch Their Job”

Protocol

"Lethal injection protocols vary from state to state, but generally the condemned
is strapped to a gurney. Two needles are then inserted into usable veins. The
needles are connected to long tubes that run through a hole into another room,
where one or more executioners release the lethal drugs. After a signal from the
warden, the curtain is raised and the inmate is exposed to the witnesses who
watch from another room. After the inmate makes his final statement, the lethal
drugs are injected.

The first drug is a fast acting barbiturate that ideally renders the inmate
unconscious. The second drug paralyzes the inmate and stops the lungs. The third
drug, the killing drug, stops the heart. A lot of the current controversy
surrounding the lethal injection has come from doctors who have testified in
court that if the fast acting barbiturate wears off before the inmate dies, then
he will feel the pain of suffocation during the execution but be unable to cry
out because of the paralytic drug.”

Those who administer the drugs.

"And the guys who do that, they're not doctors. They weren't during Willet's
tenure at least. No one was. Not the people who tied the restraints, not people
who inserted the IV, not the executioner. "The only place a doctor comes in� he
comes in and does all the things a doctor does to pronounce death," said Willet.( Former warden of the Huntsville Unit, the prison where
Texas' death row population goes to die.)"

Behind the scenes

"But, before the curtain that veils witnesses from the death chamber opens,
technicians sometimes struggle for up to an hour to insert the IVs into an
inmate's veins so that the lethal drugs can flow. The serenity of the lethal
injection, that just going to sleep, is due to a paralytic drug that is
administered as part of the lethal injection process. This drug that saves
witnesses from having to view involuntary spasms as the inmate dies, and saves
the public from having to hear about them, prevents the inmate from crying out
if the painkiller wears off before their heart stops."

Botched executions

Bennie Demps: June 2000

"On June 8, 2000, Bennie Demps was executed by lethal injection by the state of
Florida. Technicians struggled for 33 minutes to insert two IVs into Demp's
veins. When the curtain opened, Demps was already strapped down, with needles
inserted. During his final statement he said, "They butchered me back there. I
was in a lot of pain. They cut me in the groin, they cut me in the leg� This is
not an execution, this is murder," according to the Miami Herald. Demps said the
medical examiner would find a wound on his leg that technicians sutured back up.
"I was bleeding profusely," Demps said.

When Demps was killed, the lethal injection was new to Florida. Florida had
switched from electrocution to the lethal injection only months before. "This
being a fairly new procedure at the time, I did not have any expectations," said
George Schafer, Demps' lawyer, who witnessed the execution.

Everyone assumed that when the method of execution changed from electrocution
to lethal injection that it would be more humane, and that assumption needs to
be reexamined," Schafer said."

Joseph L. Clark: May 2006

"On May 2, 2006, Joseph L. Clark was executed by the state of Ohio using the
lethal injection, the sole method available in that state. After the curtain
opened, with the IV already in place, Clark raised his head and body and said,
"It don't work. It don't work," five times, according to an article in the
Canton Repository by Paul Kostyu. The curtain was closed, and witnesses heard,
"moaning, crying out and guttural noises," according to the Columbus Dispatch.
The curtain did not reopen for another 30 minutes. It took the state an hour and
a half to kill Joseph Clark."

Is there a Doctor in the Room?

"Clearly this whole lethal injection procedure is borrowed from the medical
profession," said Richard Dieter, Director of the Death Penalty Information
Center, an anti-death penalty group. "Now you have prison guards and non medical
personnel performing medical procedures," he said. To conduct the lethal
injection without an unnecessary amount of pain, a doctor would needs to oversee
the procedure. "They'd have to be willing to step in if necessary and
intervene," said Dieter, "I don't think that doctors are willing to do that."

Thirty five botched executions

"There have been at least 35 botched executions in 13 states, according to
information compiled by Michael Radelet, a professor at the University of
Colorado who studies the death penalty, and Deborah Denno, a lawyer and
professor at Fordham University who is an expert in death penalty law. Of those
botched executions, 14 were in Texas, which does the most executions each year.
Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, and Oklahoma each had 3 botched executions, Arkansas
had 2, while Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, South Carolina, and
Virginia each had 1 botched execution."

Doctors in the USA are very reluctant to become the State's executioners.
First of all, do no harm. It is not within the principles of a doctor's professional ethics to become a killer for the state. So, medically unqualified personnel have been administering what amounts to complex medical procedures. Time for this to be be stopped and I applaud the Supreme Court for taking up this issue and putting all executions on hold.