European boycott of death penalty drugs lowers rate of US executions

New Death Penalty Information Center report claims there were 39 executions this year – the lowest number since 1994.

The European-led boycott of medical drugs used by US corrections departments to execute prisoners is having such an impact that it has driven the number of executions to an almost all-time low, a leading authority on the death penalty has concluded.

The year-end report for 2013 from the Death Penalty Information Center, based in Washington, records that there were 39 executions this year – only the second time since 1994 that the number has fallen below 40. The report says a major factor behind the slump in judicial killings has been the difficulty states that still practice the death penalty are encountering in finding a consistent means of ending life.

California, Arkansas and North Carolina have all had effective moratoriums for the past seven years because they have failed to settle on a workable lethal injection protocol. Several other states are turning to untested drugs or to lethal medicines improvised in single batches by so-called “compounding pharmacies” that are not subject to federal regulations.

“The goal-posts keep shifting under the death penalty states,” said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center and lead author of the report. “As soon as they move to a new protocol, the boycott spreads.”

The European Commission imposed tough restrictions on the export of anaesthetics to US corrections departments in 2011, and amid the squeeze a succession of states has been running out of their primary lethal drugs supplies. As a result, Florida has turned to midazolam hydrochloride, a drug never before used in executions, provoking an outcry that it might be inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on condemned prisoners.

Click here to read the full article

Source: The Guardian, December 18, 2013

USA: Death Penalty Sped Up By Some States

This piece comes to us [Huffington Post] courtesy of Stateline. Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts that provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy.

Supporters and opponents of capital punishment agree: The current death penalty is expensive, inefficient, and arbitrary. Some state legislatures have reacted to those faults by abolishing the death penalty, while others are trying to speed it up.

Since 2007, six states have abolished capital punishment—most recently Maryland, which did so this year. But other states, troubled by some of the same problems, have moved in the opposite direction:

• Republican lawmakers in North Carolina, which hasn’t executed any convicts since 2006, repealed the state’s Racial Justice Act. That law created an additional appeal for death row inmates who believed their death sentences were the result of racial bias. GOP legislators also ended medical licensing board restrictions that kept doctors and nurses from administering execution drugs.

• Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott recently signed a law that will speed up Florida’s execution process. The governor now must sign a death warrant within 30 days of the Supreme Court certifying that an inmate has exhausted all appeals. The execution date must be six months from the date of the warrant.

• California death penalty supporters are working on a citizens’ initiative for the 2014 ballot to restart the death penalty in that state. Last year’s attempt to end the death penalty on the ballot failed.

• And attorneys general in California and North Carolina are vigorously contesting lawsuits in state and federal court that claim their executions by lethal injection are “cruel and unusual,” and thus unconstitutional.

• In all three states, a death penalty backlog spurred frustrated lawmakers to act.

“We had a few of the states that had the most tied up death penalty systems decide that fixing wasn’t feasible and repealed the death penalty, but nobody’s happy with the status quo,” said Kent Scheidegger, general counsel for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a victims-rights organization. “So they’re left with the question, to borrow a phrase, mend it or end it?”

Speeding Up the Pace of Punishment

In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty after a 10-year moratorium. Since then, the court has consistently held that capital cases deserve extra scrutiny so that authorities don’t execute an innocent person. Death row inmates can file numerous state and federal appeals. Nationwide, the lag between handing down a death sentence and the actual execution averages 14 years.

In Florida, however, the average wait is 22 years. The state’s new Timely Justice Act imposes a schedule on death penalty litigation to “discourage stalling tactics,” according to Scott.

“An inmate who has been on death row for 22 years has had a fair opportunity to discover all of the evidence needed to challenge his conviction,” Scott wrote in his signing message. That amount of time “is surely a crushing burden of uncertainty to the victims’ families,” he added.

Death penalty proponents have been especially active in North Carolina, where Republicans are firmly in control of politics in Raleigh for the first time in more than 100 years. Their top target was the Racial Justice Act, which Democrats narrowly pushed through in 2009 when they had a small legislative majority and control of the governor’s mansion.

The law aimed to address North Carolina’s history of racial bias in the justice system by allowing death row inmates to argue, using statistical evidence, that race was a “significant factor” in prosecutors’ decisions to seek the death penalty. In the first four appeals under the law, inmates proved that North Carolina prosecutors dismissed black jurors at a much higher rate than white jurors in death penalty cases.

“We showed that prosecutors over the last 20 years had consistently excused blacks at twice the rates of whites,” said Tye Hunter, director of the North Carolina Center for Death Penalty Litigation. “It was true 20 years ago and was just as true five years ago, and it was true all over the state. It was quite amazing and consistent and the prosecutors just hated it.”

In prosecutors’ notes, defense attorneys found references to black jurors as “blk. wino-drugs” or “thugs.” The prosecutors also had noted whether the juror came from a “respectable black family” or lived on a street that was predominantly black. Prosecutors also dismissed black jurors with mixed feelings about the death penalty, while retaining white members who also expressed misgivings.

But opponents of the Racial Justice Act argued that it effectively placed a moratorium on the death penalty by providing yet another appeal to convicted murderers. Each motion under the law created months of work for the prosecutor’s office, said Peg Dorer, director of the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys.

“For nearly a decade, liberal death penalty opponents have orchestrated legal challenges to impede the law in North Carolina. Justice delayed is justice denied,” said North Carolina Republican State Sen. Phil Berger.

Obstacles Remain

But even with the repeal of the Racial Justice Act, there are obstacles preventing executions from moving forward. North Carolina is defending its three-drug lethal injection method in both state and federal court, and it cannot execute anybody until those lawsuits are resolved. According to the attorney general’s office, there are multiple cases pending and no timeframe for when they might end.

There’s also a worldwide shortage of the anesthetic sodium thiopental which is used in the three-drug cocktail in North Carolina and other states, forcing states to look for alternative drugs and litigate the constitutionality of the choice.

“Many states will have to change their method of execution, which means regulatory changes that have to be approved and lengthy court challenges,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, in an interview with Capitol Ideas. “In many states, this could take months, if not years, delaying executions.”

Finally, almost all of North Carolina’s 161 death row inmates, regardless of race, have submitted motions under the recently repealed racial justice law. It isn’t clear whether those motions are still valid, and the uncertainty is likely to spur more litigation.

Dieter also suggested that North Carolinians may blanch at the concrete effects of repealing the law. In a recent poll, 55 percent of North Carolinians said they would likely vote to replace the death penalty with life without parole, if the savings were spent on solving more murders and assisting victims. Sixty-eight percent said they would vote to replace the death penalty with life without parole if the offender had to work to pay restitution to the victim’s family.

“In North Carolina, the legislative changes seem to have put the death penalty on the fast track, but the people may not want to see multiple executions in a short time,” Dieter said. 

Source: Huffington Post, June 19, 2013

North Carolina Repeals Racial Justice Act, Death Row Inmates Lose Ability to Claim Racial Bias

North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act of 2009 prohibits the seeking or imposing of the death penalty based on a person’s race. State representatives no longer think systematic racism in capital punishment cases is a problem. The North Carolina House voted 77-39 Wednesday to repeal the law. SB 306 will repeal the RJA.

As noted by Raw Story, a judge in Fayetteville threw out the death sentence in the case of Marcus Raymond Robinson on April 20, 2012. Robinson argued that when he was sentenced in 1994, prosecutors made a concerted effort to keep qualified black jurors from serving.

There are now 152 people on death row in the state. Without the RJA, they can no longer claim racial bias played a rolling in their sentencing in order to have their sentence converted to life without parole.

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina called RJA “a historic civil rights law that seeks to address racial bias in the state’s death penalty system.”

“The Racial Justice Act has made it possible to shine a light on widespread and indisputable evidence of racial bias in North Carolina’s death penalty system that needs to be addressed,” said ACLU-NC Policy Director Sarah Preston in a statement. “Even those who support the death penalty should agree that capital sentences must be handed down impartially and with respect for due process, yet this bill makes it harder, if not impossible, to achieve that goal.”

Some representatives thought the act was deeply flawed.

“No one wants actual racial discrimination," said Rep. Skip Stam, R-Wake, to the House on Tuesday. "What we don’t want also is for race to be used for a pretext – a pretext in order to stop the death penalty.”

Click here to read the full article

Sources: Opposing views, Raw Story, The New York Times, June 7, 2013

USA: Executioners offer sage advice on death penalty

Several years ago, I tried to get inside the head of an executioner. Not literally, of course. I was writing a fictional story about a prison guard whose job included carrying out the death penalty through lethal injection. To understand what an executioner’s life was like, I did extensive research. I talked to people who worked at prisons, though none would say they had done that job or give me the name of anyone who had.

They did describe the process of lethal injection, and online I was surprised to find a point-by-point guide. My protagonist, as I portrayed him, essentially compartmentalized the job. During an execution, he and another prison guard would administer drugs at the same time. One administered lethal drugs, the other non-lethal. Neither knew who did what so neither could be sure which one of them was the actual executioner.

My lead character felt twinges of discomfort about his work. But after each execution, he and his coworker had little trouble meeting for beers. It was just a job. Real-life executioners are telling a different story.

Several are now saying that they are haunted by their jobs of killing people convicted of crimes, even sometimes heinous crimes, in the name of the state. A few, like former prison warden Ron McAndrew of Florida and former Virginia chief executioner Jerry Givens, are now vocal death penalty opponents who have traveled from state to state advocating against it. Yes, there are some former executioners who support the death penalty.

This is an issue, after all, where views in this country are decidedly split. In 2010, CNN told the story of an executioner who recounted his experience on a firing squad execution of a killer. Like my fictional protagonist, he called the event “anti-climactic. Another day at the office.” “I’ve shot squirrels I’ve felt worse about,” he said. Still, growing numbers of former executioners are shining a light on a little-discussed part of the death penalty. The men and women who carry out death sentences are often collateral damage.

As N.C. lawmakers push through legislation this session that bill sponsor Thom Goolsby forthrightly says is aimed at restarting executions, this rarely heard perspective should factor into the debate. Long mute on their experiences, several executioners are now acknowledging the trauma they endure having engaged in these killings.

Many have turned to drugs and alcohol to handle the emotional toil of what one former Georgia Department of Corrections executioner dubbed, “scripted and rehearsed murder.” It’s not hard for some to think of it that way. On the death certificate of executed prisoners in several states, the cause of death is listed as “homicide.”

That’s how it’s been listed in North Carolina. Givens, who carried out 62 death sentences in Virginia over 17 years, some by lethal injection and others by the electric chair, said that word, “homicide,” haunts him. Seeing it on official paperwork, describing what he did, “how could it not?” he said to a Newsweek reporter. Sen. Goolsby, who introduced his bill last week, said the state has “a moral obligation to ensure death-row criminals convicted of the most heinous crimes imaginable finally face justice.” “Victims’ families,” he said, “have suffered for far too long.

It’s time to stop the legal wrangling and bring them the peace and closure they deserve.” Anti-death penalty former executioners have a different take. “We have an alternative that doesn’t lower us to the level of the killer: permanent imprisonment,” says McAndrew who has experienced two murders in his own family and as warden oversaw the botched 1997 execution of a Cuban refugee that led Florida to switch to lethal injections. “It is cheaper, keeps society safe and offers swift justice to the victims.”

Givens offers this additional insight. He came close one time to executing an innocent man. The inmate was exonerated for his crime not long before the planned execution. “If I carry out the execution, I have to carry the burden with me until I die that I took an innocent life,” he said. North Carolina has a troubling track record of wrongful murder convictions, convictions that have been overturned only in recent years as inmates have gained access to DNA that can prove their innocence.

A story that ran in the Observer on Sunday about the wrongful conviction of Joseph Sledge, in an N.C. prison for 34 years for two murders DNA evidence has now absolved him of, should give us pause. He was sentenced to life for what many would call a heinous crime. Had he gotten the death penalty that Goolsby and others say such heinous crimes deserve, he would have been executed by now – wrongly so.

And a Mecklenburg County jury’s sentence this week for Andre Hampton in the horrific beating death of his 23-month-old son once again spotlights the capriciousness of the application of the death penalty.

As a heinous crime, this beating – which made even law enforcers cringe at its cruelty – no doubt qualifies. Yet jurors recommended life instead. By contrast, Samuel Flippen, the last person executed in the state, received the death penalty for killing his 2-year-old stepdaughter. North Carolina has not had an execution since 2006. Lawmakers should think long and hard before starting up this flawed practice again. Former executioner Ron McAndrew has it right. There is a better way.

A few death penalty facts

• The majority of countries in Western Europe, North America and South America – more than 139 nations worldwide – have abandoned capital punishment in law or in practice. The United States stands with Iraq, Iran and China as a major advocate and user of capital punishment.
• The South accounts for 80 percent of all U.S. executions but still has the highest regional murder rate.
• In the U.S., California has the most people on death row - 724, followed by Florida (411) and Texas (304)
• North Carolina has 163 on death row - 84 blacks; 65 whites; 4 Latinos, 9 Native Americans; 1 Asian (as of Oct. 12, 2012)
Samuel Flippen was the last person executed in North Carolina, in 2006.
• Five people have been executed in the U.S. this year – one each in Virginia, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia and Ohio.
• Last week, Maryland became the 18th state to abolish the death penalty.

Source: The Charlotte Observer, Editorial. Fannie Flono writes on news, politics and life in The Carolinas. Her column appears on the Editorial pages of The Charlotte Observer.

Poll: North Carolina residents reject death penalty; Respondents favor life without parole and restitution

North Carolinians would rather have convicted killers pay restitution to their victims' families if they spend the rest of their lives behind bars, according to a new poll.

A survey by Public Policy Polling found 68 % of North Carolina residents support replacing the death penalty with life in prison without parole, if offenders are required to work and pay restitution to the families of their victims. A majority of respondents who identified themselves as politically conservative said they favor ending the death penalty and redirecting dollars spent on it to helping victims.

"All over the country, the death penalty is rapidly losing support, and North Carolina is no exception," said Tye Hunter, executive director of the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation, which provides free legal representation to death row inmates. "Sensible people of all political affiliations see that the death penalty is not effective in deterring crime and is a poor use of taxpayer money."

Public Policy Polling surveyed 600 North Carolinians by telephone between Feb. 7-10. 44 % of respondents identified themselves as conservative while 26 % identified as liberal. The remainder called themselves moderates. The poll revealed:

--68 % supported ending the death penalty so defendants could work and pay restitution.

--63 % supported ending the death penalty if the money now spent on capital punishment was redirected to crime fighting.

--55 % supported ending the death penalty if the money was redirected to solving cold cases and assisting victims.

Among conservatives, support for abolishing capital punishment was strongest if offenders were required to pay restitution. 65 % of those who called themselves "somewhat conservative" and 50 % of those who were "very conservative" supported switching to life in prison without parole.

"The days when the death penalty enjoyed near-universal support are clearly over. Across the country, poll after poll has shown that," said Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling. "These results show that people in North Carolina are willing to consider alternatives to capital punishment.

More states are moving toward abolishing capital punishment. Maryland is on the verge of becoming the 5th state to abolish the death penalty in 6 years. No one has been executed in North Carolina since 2006 and no new death sentences were handed down in 2012, which hadn't happened in 35 years. There are 152 men and women on North Carolina's death row.

"The goal of both parties is to keep the people of North Carolina safe, and it is clear that the death penalty is no longer the best way to do that," Hunter said. "It's time to work together to find more efficient and effective ways to deter crime and help victims."

Source: The Charlotte Post, March 4, 2013

Unresolved challenges put death penalty on hold in N.C.

North Carolina has not executed an inmate in six years because issues with the state medical board and unresolved litigation have led to a de facto moratorium. So while the state continues to pay for costly capital trials, no one is actually being put to death.

Prosecutors face a litany of hurdles when seeking death. For one, jurors have shown a growing reluctance to impose the penalty, a shift that some scholars attribute to a string of highly publicized exonerations. Even after a death sentence is secured, ongoing appeals and litigation challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection, the state's sole execution method, have tied up executions for the indefinite future.

With 46 executions since 1976, North Carolina had been among the most active users of capital punishment, according to data from the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, based in Washington, D.C.

But recent years have seen a turnaround. Even before the state's moratorium took hold, executions had grown exceedingly rare for several reasons. The number of death sentences handed out has trended downward since 2000, dropping from 18 that year to three in 2007, according to Isaac Unah, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The decline coincides with the state's creation of the Office of Indigent Defense Services, which scholars say is the single biggest contributor to the drop.

Click here to read the full article

Source: Star News, October 3, 2012

North Carolina: Council hears death penalty findings

Appalachian State University government and justice studies professor Matt Robinson and global studies major Amanda Moore spoke to the Boone Town Council about the death penalty Thursday as part of a regional education campaign.

Robinson published a report in March 2011 summarizing data and scientific studies related to the death penalty in North Carolina. He presented 5 key findings that he said support the abolishment of the death sentence in the state.

"Now is a good time to summarize these studies for policymakers - from the local level to the state level and beyond," said Robinson.

Capital punishment is extremely rare in North Carolina, Robinson said, noting a decline in death sentences since 2001 and that no executions have taken place since 2006.

Executions are no greater a deterrent to murder than alternative sanctions such as life without parole, he said. Murder rates are low despite reduced use of the death sentence, he noted.

"Yet we continue to pay for it and maintain the system," he added, stating that studies show that capital punishment costs more than life imprisonment.

Those sentenced with the death penalty are more likely to be black, male and poor, and a number of innocent people have been sentenced to death - 7 people have been freed from North Carolina's death row since 1973 for being wrongly convicted, the report found.

Moore summarized information on the use of the death sentence globally, noting the United States is among a small portion of countries still using the sanction.

"The United States still remains an anomaly," she said.

Robinson said he would be back in the future seeking action from the council on the subject of death penalty - likely in the form of a resolution.

Source: Wautauga Democrat, August 24, 2012

North Carolina lawmakers override race-bias death-row veto

(Reuters) - North Carolina's Republican-led legislature voted on Monday to override Democratic Governor Beverly Perdue's veto of a law that will limit the ability of death-row prisoners to use statistical evidence of racial bias to challenge their sentences.

The move effectively negates the hot-button Racial Justice Act, which was signed into law in 2009 by Perdue when Democrats controlled the state's General Assembly. The law directed judges to reduce a death sentence to life in prison if defendants could prove that racial bias factored into their punishment.

Lawmakers who viewed the landmark law as an attempt to undermine the death penalty wrote new legislation to gut it, only to see Perdue veto the rollback last week on the grounds that it rendered the original law meaningless.

But legislators on Monday gathered the three-fifths majority needed in the House of Representatives and Senate to override Perdue's veto. They had fallen short in January of enough votes to override a gubernatorial veto of similar rewrite legislation passed in 2011.

Proponents of Monday's move said statistical evidence alone was insufficient to prove racial discrimination in jury selection, or to overturn a death sentence.

Click here to read the full article

Source: Reuters, July 2, 2012

North Carolina House committee votes to remove TVs for death row inmates

RALEIGH - A divided House committee agreed Wednesday to prohibit North Carolina death-row prisoners from watching television despite the warning by Central Prison's warden that removing TVs could increase violence among the condemned inmates.

The measure is a direct response to a convicted killer's letter - printed in a newspaper in January -in which he boasted of being a "gentleman of leisure" on death row, watching color TV and taking frequent naps. He wrote, "Kill me if you can, suckers."

Republican Rep. Tim Moore, who is shepherding the bill through the House, said Danny Hembree's letter was galling and caused a ruckus in Gaston County, where Hembree was convicted last year of killing a 17-year-old girl and dumping her body in South Carolina. Moore told the judiciary subcommittee hearing the bill none of the 156 prisoners awaiting execution should receive the TV privilege.

"To think he's there watching TV, that other murderers are there watching television, having that benefit, that's just not right," said Moore, who lives in nearby Cleveland County. "Anything we can do to make death row a less pleasant place, we should."

Central Prison Warden Kenneth Lassiter told the committee that television is a management tool for prisoners and its privilege is already limited. Lassiter said the bill, if approved, would have "the potential to escalate security issues at the facility."

"It will create an environment that violence could increase due to the fact that the inmates are idle," he said. "It's an isolated situation on death row, so inmates don't have the normal movement of other inmates inside the facility."

"They're not living the life of luxury," Lassiter said.

The bill's next stop is the House, where lawmakers are expected to weigh that warning against trying to make a get-tough statement on criminals.

Click here to read the full article

Source: AP, FayObserver.com, June 7, 2012

LETTER: "Death row is no life of luxury"

I would like to respond to the recent to the recent media coverage concerning the conditions of life on death row.

Despite what has been suggested by Danny Hembree, who does not speak for nor represent the views and opinions of those of us on death row, this is no life of leisure. In fact, Mr. Hembree had been on death row only two months when he wrote his letter claiming that he was a “gentleman of leisure watching color TV in the AC.” This is certainly not what life is like on death row.

The true reality of life on death row is that every day is a life of fear, regret and humiliation. As a death row prisoner, my every day is consumed with the stress of waiting to die. Every moment is a countdown awaiting a court decision. I’m on edge every time my name is called for a legal visit. I’m afraid of receiving that letter stating that another round of my appeals has been denied, bringing me closer to that final moment. This is no life of leisure.

I am a man who is not trusted. Not believed. I am always a suspect. When an infraction is committed, I have no presumption of innocence. I’ve lost friends and associates in society who now view me disgracefully as a convicted murderer unworthy to live. I’m housed in a special management unit solely for the condemned.

I don’t enjoy the privileges that most general population prisoners are allowed. While most are allowed contact visits, all of my visits are behind glass with absolutely no contact. While other prisoners are allowed frequent telephone privileges, I am permitted one 10-minute phone call a year to my relatives. There are no rehabilitative programs to occupy my time like other prisoners are allowed. No AA, educational classes, no jobs.

Instead, I live in a cell the size of a bathroom. My window provides a view only of the prison. I am allowed no more than two cubic feet of personal property, and my every day is spent literally waiting to die.

Since I have been here, I have witnessed many men escorted to the death chamber over the years never to return. Mr. Hembree has no idea what it’s like to witness this walk of no return, and the hushed terror stamped into the eyes of every face that sees it.

This is no life of luxury, and I am no gentleman of leisure. I live every day with the fear of standing before my God and accounting for my deeds. My days and nights are filled with regret. Regret for the hurt I have caused and the lives I have ruined, including my own.

Any comforts that I have been afforded, whether it’s the privilege of being allowed to watch television or being protected from the elements of the cold or heat, are mercies that I am grateful for. Not something that I am audacious enough to say I deserve, but a mercy waiting for someone to die.

Michael J. Braxton
Raleigh

Michael Jerome Braxton, 39, was sentenced to death for the 1996 killing of another inmate at the Caledonia Correctional Center in Halifax. At the time of the killing, Braxton was already serving a life sentence for the killing of another person in a 1994 robbery in Wake County.

Source: gastongazette.com, June 8, 2012

Gradual death of a failed experiment

The death penalty experiment that began in the USA in 1976 when the US Supreme Court gave the green light to executions to resume under revised capital laws took another step towards its eventual demise this week when Connecticut became the 17th abolitionist state. The governor signed the bill abolishing the death penalty into law on 25 April.

Connecticut is the 4th US state in 5 years to legislate to abolish capital punishment. In addition, last November the Oregon governor imposed a moratorium on executions and called on the legislature there to reconsider the death penalty, and earlier this week the Secretary of State for California confirmed that repeal of California’s death penalty will be put to the popular vote at the election in November 2012.

California accounts for 1 in 5 of the USA’s death row inmates; if repeal is approved, this would be the biggest chunk of the US death penalty edifice to fall in the past 40 years.

In North Carolina, which accounted for 5 % of the USA’s executions in the decade from 1997, there have been no executions since 2006. While this court-ordered suspension in state killing comes in the context of litigation over lethal injection issues, the abolitionist cause in the state was done no harm when, on 20 April 2012, a state judge handed down a landmark ruling under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act, overturning a death sentence on the grounds of systemic racial discrimination in jury selection in capital cases. There are 150 more cases pending under the Act.

On the other side of the equation, however, executions continue apace in the USA and serve as a reminder that there is much more to do before the USA joins the majority of the world in abandoning this cruel punishment.

There have been 17 executions so far this year and it is possible that in 2012, the combined judicial death toll since 1976 in just three states – Texas, Oklahoma and Virginia – will reach 700.

And at the national level, while there has not been a federal execution for nearly a decade, the US administration is adding to its regular pursuit of death sentencing in domestic cases in federal court by moving towards its first capital trials by military commissions held at the US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The imposition of the death penalty after such trials will violate international law as the military commissions do not meet international standards of fairness.

Connecticut was one of 15 US states, in addition to the federal government, which resumed judicial killing after 1976 with the execution of a prisoner who had waived his appeals, a so- called “volunteer”. This phenomenon – which accounts for more than 10 % of executions since 1976 – occurred again on 20 April 2012 with the lethal injection of a “volunteer” in Delaware.

In a new report, Amnesty International welcomes abolition in Connecticut (while noting that it is not retroactive and leaves 11 men on death row); looks back on the Delaware execution, setting it alongside the decision by the Oregon governor 5 months earlier to prevent the execution of a prisoner who had waived his appeals and to impose a moratorium in Oregon; reflects on the most recent execution in Ohio, the 1st there in 6 months after a federal judge overseeing litigation on the state’s lethal injection protocol refused to issue a stay despite his clear disquiet with the state’s past conduct during executions; examines the state court decision issued under the Racial Justice Act in North Carolina; and draws attention to the failure of the US federal authorities to work for abolition.

For further information, see USA: Another brick from the wall, 27 April 2012, available at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/028/2012/en

Source: Amnesty International, April 27, 2012

First Racial Justice Act result: Death row inmate is resentenced to life without possibility of parole

This statement below from Gerda Stein at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham summarizes what happened this morning in a Cumberland County courtroom. The Racial Justice Act appeal on behalf of Marcus Robinson, convicted of murder in 1994 and sentenced to death, resulted in a finding of racial bias in his case, and Robinson was resentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. This was the first RJA appeal and as such is certain to be precedent-setting.

[Update: People of Faith Against the Death Penalty called the outcome a huge victory for justice. I've added their statement below.]

Judge Gregory Weeks ruled that prosecutors in North Carolina capital murder cases intentionally discriminated against eligible black jurors in the period 1990-2010, producing racial bias in cases where black defendants were convicted and sentenced to death — rather than receiving a life sentence. The statistical evidence of bias was valid and inexplicable except as the intentional result of prosecutors not wanting black jurors, the judge said. Further, the explanations of prosecutors in rebuttal not only didn't rebut the statistical evidence; some of what they said was so unbelievable that it tended to reinforce, for him, the fact that bias was present.

Click here to read the full article

Source: indyweek.com, April 20, 2012

Dr. King's Stance Against the Death Penalty

As the U.S. observes the 83rd birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this is a perfect time to reflect on the slain civil rights leader, Nobel laureate and death penalty opponent.

Much is known of the Montgomery bus boycott that he led in the 1950s. He fought for economic justice and the plight of the poor, and supported Memphis sanitation workers before he was assassinated. And he opposed the war in Vietnam. But rarely do we hear about his position against capital punishment.

"I do not think that God approves the death penalty for any crime, rape and murder included," King said. "Capital punishment is against the better judgment of modern criminology, and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God."

King's words are just as relevant now in the twenty-first century, over four decades after his death.

America has reached a turning point in its application of capital punishment. Last year, Illinois abolished the death penalty over concerns of wrongful convictions and executing the innocent. This came following historic decisions to end the practice in New Mexico and New Jersey. Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber recently placed a moratorium on all executions, stating that the death penalty fails "basic standards of justice."

In addition, the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate voted to review the death penalty, in light of questions of racial, ethnic and gender bias, high costs, and a lack of a deterrent effect. And a ballot initiative in California this year will allow voters to give an up or down vote to state-sponsored killing.

Across the nation, the death penalty is an emerging civil rights issue. The execution of Troy Davis last September--an African-American man who was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of a white police officer in Savannah, Georgia-- has awoken many to the inherent injustices of capital punishment. That the state could execute a man despite strong evidence of his innocence, including seven of the nine trial witnesses recanting or changing their testimony, was an indication that the death penalty has little to do with guilt or innocence.

Rather, executions in the U.S. are part of a racially-coded system of retribution. Poor people and members of racial minorities are more likely to receive a death sentence, as are those who are charged with murdering a white victim.

In North Carolina, where defendants in cases with white victims are 3.5 times more likely to receive a death sentence, the state legislature voted to repeal the state's Racial Justice Act, which Gov. Bev Perdue signed into law in 2009. The Act allows people facing a death sentence to present statistics and other evidence of racial bias in court. Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed the repeal legislation supported by prosecutors and Republican lawmakers. Civil rights groups such as the NAACP and People of Faith Against the Death Penalty fought the repeal.

State-sponsored executions are part of an American culture of violence. Perhaps it is no accident that the former Confederate states, with their history of dehumanization through slavery and segregation, and the meting out of mob justice through lynching, are among the more enthusiastic practitioners of death.

And the late Coretta Scott King--whose husband and mother-in-law both were assassinated--spoke out against the practice. "An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation," Dr. King's widow proclaimed. "Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder".

Further, the death penalty is an international human rights issue as well. The European Union, which forbids the practice among its member nations, has imposed new restrictions on the importation of anesthetics used to execute people in the U.S.

Sadly, some would dilute Dr. King's human rights message, including his "radical revolution of values," in which he urged America to begin the necessary shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. Meanwhile, the "drum major for justice, peace and righteousness" as the inscription reads on his memorial--stands on the National Mall as a reminder of his dedication to human rights, including opposition to the death penalty.

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy," King said. "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

If America truly wants to follow the teachings of Martin Luther King, we should end all executions now.

Source: David A. Love is the Executive Director of Witness to Innocence, a national nonprofit organization that empowers exonerated death row prisoners and their family members to become effective leaders in the movement to abolish the death penalty, Huffington Post, Black Voices, January 16, 2012

N.C. governor vetoes death-row racial bias bill

North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue vetoed a bill on Wednesday that would have essentially repealed a 2009 law designed to address alleged racial bias in death penalty cases, saying it is essential the legal process isn't tarnished by prejudice.

Perdue, forced to wade into a controversial topic two weeks ago when the Republican-led Legislature approved the repeal bill, signed the Racial Justice Act into law shortly after taking office in 2009.

The Democratic governor said she's vetoing the bill "for the same reason that I signed the Racial Justice Act two years ago: it is simply unacceptable for racial prejudice to play a role in the imposition of the death penalty in North Carolina."

Perdue said in a prepared statement she supports capital punishment and is committed to keeping it "a viable punishment option in North Carolina in appropriate cases." But she also said it's essential that the death penalty be carried out fairly because it's the ultimate punishment and she feels the 2009 law did that.

Prosecutors who pushed the repeal said the act would clog up the court system with new appeals, creating a permanent moratorium on capital punishment. Nearly all of the 158 prisoners currently on death row have filed papers under the Racial Justice Act.

Click here to read the full article

Source: HamptonRoads, December 14, 2011

North Carolina Senate derails Racial Justice Act

The state Senate on Monday rewrote the Racial Justice Act, a two-year-old law that allowed death-row inmates to use statistical evidence of racial bias to challenge their sentences.

On a 27-17 vote, senators approved Senate Bill 9, titled No Discriminatory Purpose in the Death Penalty. It now goes to Gov. Bev Perdue. There was no immediate word on whether the governor would sign the bill.

Perdue did sign the Racial Justice Act into law in 2009, saying it would ensure death sentences were imposed "based on the facts and the law, not racial prejudice."

Republican lawmakers and the state's prosecutors tried to minimize the impact of the new law, insisting it was only a fix. "This is not a repeal of the Racial Justice Act," Sen. Thom Goolsby, a Republican from Wilmington, said on the Senate floor. "It's a reform, a modification."

But earlier in the day, in response to a question from Sen. Josh Stein, a Raleigh Democrat, the Senate staff acknowledged that passing the bill, SB9, returned the law to what it was before the Racial Justice Act went into effect.

"This is an utter and total repeal," Stein said.

The vote followed a public hearing before a Senate judiciary committee in which impassioned pleas were made on both sides of the issue from the families of murder victims and from death-penalty opponents.

The state's district attorneys in recent weeks stepped up a campaign that they have been waging against the two-year-old law. The campaign took on a new urgency because the first case is scheduled to be heard in January in Cumberland County. Prosecutors unsuccessfully tried to have the judge hearing the case removed. Failing that, they submitted to legislators a resolution signed by all but one of the district attorneys in the state calling for immediate changes to the act.

All but three of the 157 people currently on death row have sought hearings under the new law, including cases that seemed to have nothing to do with race. But a study found murder defendants were 2 1/2 times more likely to be sentenced to death if at least one of the victims was white, and raised questions about how frequently blacks are excluded from serving on juries.

The prosecutors have insisted that anywhere from two dozen to nearly 120 inmates now on death row could be eligible for parole under the law, even though the Racial Justice Act specifies that the only option available for an inmate who has had a death sentence commuted is life in prison without parole. Both sides cite different court cases to prove their point.

The campaign continued earlier Monday when 16 prosecutors and several families of murder victims held a news conference in the statehouse to emphasize the emotion behind the debate. Relatives recounted the crimes in raw, gut-wrenching details:

A father told of his 11-year-old daughter who had been raped, chased across a field and her throat slashed. A sister recounted the execution of her brother, a Johnston County sheriff's deputy whose last words to the gunman were, "Please don't."

Many of those same people also spoke at the Senate committee hearing in the afternoon. To make their case, both sides used African-Americans, as crime victims, as prosecutors, as the wrongly accused.

Darryl Hunt reminded the committee that he was 1 of the 7 death-row inmates who have been exonerated; five of them, like him, were African-American. He spent 19 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit.

"I was one vote away from the death penalty," Hunt said. "I had 11 whites and one black on my jury. If you think that race did not play a factor in my case, then you're not living here in North Carolina."

Goolsby referred on the Senate floor to the remarks by victims' families.

"We have a moral obligation to make sure justice is served in these cases," he said. "The Racial Justice Act has very little to do with race or justice. Instead, it's turned out to be a Trojan horse, a back-door attempt to end the death penalty in North Carolina."

Sen. Floyd McKissick, a Durham Democrat who was the primary author of the Racial Justice Act, made his own impassioned speech to defeat the new bill. He asked fellow senators what they would do if they were accused of a crime and each time a prospective juror who was the same race was stricken from the jury. "We've come a very long way over the last 50 years," McKissick said. "We've made a lot of progress as a society and as a country. We can all share in that pride. But there's still remnants that exist, remnants of institutional racism, remnants of hatred in the hearts and minds of people."

Source: News & Observer, November 29, 2011

NC Senate Votes to Repeal Death Row Law

The North Carolina Senate has voted to repeal a landmark state law allowing death row inmates to appeal their sentences by using statistical evidence to show the influence of racial bias.

The Monday night vote means the repeal measure now heads to the desk of Gov. Beverly Perdue, who signed the 2009 Racial Justice Act into law.

A Perdue spokesman said the governor will review the bill before making a decision.

The largely Republican supporters of the measure said the Racial Justice Act, in its current form, will clog up the courts with appeals from scores of death row inmates. They say the law amounts to an unofficial death penalty moratorium.

But supporters say the law helps ensure fairness in how capital punishment is administered.

Source: Associated Press, November 29, 2011

North Carolina Supreme Court Lets State Council Set Execution Standards

The wrangling over the death penalty in North Carolina has had its share of twists and turns over the last few years, but it’s so complicated that even when the state’s supreme court rules on the matter, it remains unresolved.

The North Carolina Supreme Court has cleared the way for 10 elected officials to continue setting execution protocol for death row inmates, affirming the state’s lethal injection procedures, the Raleigh News & Observer reports.

In a decision Friday, the court said the Council of State has the authority to set execution standards, ruling against death row inmates who argued the Council didn’t follow state statutes when they established new procedures in 2007. The Council of State consists of elected officials, ranging from the lieutenant governor to the attorney general to the commissioners of agriculture, insurance and labor.

The ruling isn’t likely to change the de facto moratorium on capital punishment in the state, since other legal challenges to the death penalty still exist on the state and federal level, as a spokeswoman for the North Carolina Attorney General’s office told the AP.

The last time an execution was carried out in North Carolina was 2006. The following year, a group of inmates challenged the execution methods as cruel and unusual, which brought about the de facto moratorium. Anti-death penalty critics point out that state statistics show a per capita decrease of 25% in the murder rate from 2005 to 2010.

Many death row inmates in North Carolina have also taken advantage of a state law that lets them use statistical evidence to show racial bias played a role in their case, as the ABA Journal noted earlier this year. A divided state House voted in June to nullify that law, but the state Senate pushed consideration of the matter to 2012, Greenboro’s News & Record reported.

Source: Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2011

Nevada: Governor blocks needed discussion on death penalty

The Las Vegas Sun’s reports of our “fiscally conservative” governor’s veto of a bill to study the costs of the death penalty in Nevada left me astounded.

Our legislators inquire how much a policy costs, and the governor’s response is that the state’s auditor cannot be trusted. These are audit professionals trained to objectively define a legitimate methodology. We are left to conclude that the governor believes the cost of this barbaric approach to justice does not matter.

North Carolina found it could save $11 million a year by substituting life in prison for the death penalty. Florida found it could save $51 million by eliminating the death penalty. Is Nevada different?

Might Nevada provide enhanced law enforcement or victim services with that money? With the governor’s veto, Nevadans are denied the opportunity to have that policy discussion.

Further, Gov. Brian Sandoval also said the audit doesn’t reflect the choices by individuals on death row in pursuing appeals. Is he implying that the costs of the system won’t be fairly represented so long as inmates insist on availing themselves of their constitutional rights?

As an American, I believe that government must protect individuals’ rights, especially when an execution is being contemplated. As a taxpayer, I believe government is obligated to know and disclose the cost of its programs when establishing public policy.

If we cannot afford a constitutional system, perhaps we need to explore alternatives? Again, this governor doesn’t trust Nevadans with that kind of information or discussion.

Source: Mark Nichols, June 16, 2011. The writer is president of the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

_________________________

Use the tags below or the search engine at the top of this page to find updates, older or related articles on this Website.

Repeal Capital Punishment in North Carolina, Says Study

BOONE, N.C. - "End the death penalty in North Carolina," suggests a recent study, which asserts that capital punishment is not a deterrent to criminals and costs the public more does than a sentence of life in prison. Another factor is the recent revelation that evidence has been mishandled by the state crime lab, possibly sending innocent people to death row, as study author Dr. Matthew Robinson, professor of government and justice studies at Appalachian State University, explains.

"It's not fixable. It's not something that we can make effective. It's not something that we can bring about justice with. It's not something we can guarantee won't be used against the innocent."

Executions in North Carolina haven't taken place since 2006, in part because of a dispute over the constitutionality of the lethal-injection process. Meanwhile, the murder rate declined by 19 percent from 2008 to 2009.

In March, Illinois became the fourth state in the last two years to repeal the death penalty. That state had halted executions in 2000 because of revelations of false convictions and evidence mishandling.

Robinson says changing the law will give the state more resources for victim services and law enforcement.

"The savings that they're going to retain in money from not having the death penalty, they're going to actually use to solve crimes and pursue violent crime."

Supporters of the death penalty say the punishment should still be available for the most violent crimes. Capital punishment is used in 34 states and in certain federal cases, but most western democracies no longer carry out executions.

The study is available at www.pscj.appstate.edu

Source: Public News Service, April 18, 2011

_________________________

Use the tags below or the search engine at the top of this page to find updates, older or related articles on this Website.

'The state of Alabama may be short of the resources it needs to educate children, but it somehow has a scarce chemical on hand to carry out an execution on Thursday'

Alabama is a notoriously cheap state, as governments go. We skimp on everything from state troopers to schools, denying them the resources to deliver much beyond the basics and sometimes not even getting that far. But when it comes to capital punishment, Alabama is the land of the plenty.

Just this week, as the state prepared to put Phillip Hallford to death today, prison officials announced they had enough sodium thiopental to proceed with the execution even though a shortage of the anesthetic has snagged lethal injections across the country. In some states, executions have been delayed; last week, Arizona had to go overseas to find the drug so it could carry out a death sentence.

And the supply of sodium thiopental is but one example of Alabama's abounding investment in this form of punishment.

Alabama has consistently been one of the nation's leaders in issuing death sentences and carrying them out, and that is no cheap enterprise. While it may seem counterintuitive, studies across the country have shown that putting killers to death is a far more expensive proposition than locking them up for life.

A Duke University economist estimated that North Carolina would save $11 million a year by dropping the death penalty. A Florida newspaper found the Sunshine State could save $51 million a year by sentencing killers to life without parole rather than death. Ultimately, New Jersey scrapped its death penalty after a report found that capital cases over the course of two decades had cost taxpayers $253 million above and beyond what the state would have paid to send the killers to prison for the rest of their lives.

Much of the extra cost stems from the extra legal attention required before the government can take a life as punishment for a crime. A review in Kansas -- which found median costs for capital cases to be $1.26 million compared to $740,000 for comparable nondeath cases -- concluded almost half the extra costs came from the original trial while appeals accounted for close to 30 percent of the added expense.

It's hard to know exactly how Alabama's costs stack up against these other states, because we skimp on prisons and indigent defense, too. But judging by the findings elsewhere, there is hardly any question capital cases are costing the state money it otherwise would not have to spend.

That's not why The News opposes the death penalty. We believe it is carried out in a way that is far too unfair and careless, and we believe that can't be tolerated if you subscribe to the notion (as we do) that life has value. And because life without parole is the legal alternative, we don't believe killing the killer is necessary to protect society.

We understand victims' loved ones may reach different conclusions. The family of Eddie Shannon, for instance, may understandably see today's scheduled execution of Hallford as a just and necessary punishment. Shannon was the boyfriend of Hallford's pregnant daughter. Hallford shot him to death in 1987. Shannon was just 16.

That's a senseless crime. We certainly are in no position to try to tell Shannon's family what it should feel about Hallford or his execution. But from the perspective of larger society, and as public policy, the punishment doesn't make sense -- not really from the standpoint of justice nor from the perspective of dollars and cents.

Alabama may perennially cut corners on vital services such as educating our children. But there always seems to be enough room in the budget to keep the state's death chamber stocked and ready for use. What a sad commentary on our priorities.

Source: Birmingham News editorial board, al.com, November 4, 2010

Lawyers: Race sent inmate to death row

There are 159 inmates on North Carolina's death row.

The only one from Durham is Isaac Jackson Stroud.

The only reason he's there is because he's black, Chapel Hill lawyers William Massengale and Marilyn Ozer contend. But the power of the state's Racial Justice Act is strong enough to overturn Stroud's death sentence and make it a term of life in prison without the possibility for parole, the lawyers said in a motion filed last month in Durham County Superior Court.

Stroud in 1995 was convicted for killing his girlfriend in a jealous rage. Her name was Jocelyn Mitchell, a teacher at the old Durham High School. Stroud in 1993 beat her all night, eventually killing her, according to evidence.

Massengale and Ozer cite two high-profile Durham murder cases involving white men as illustrative of the racial inequity.

Lawyers for Stroud contrast his sentence with a jury in 2003 convicting Michael Peterson for the 2001 murder of his wife. It was believed Peterson -- who'd been a columnist for The Herald-Sun and a Durham mayoral candidate -- killed to collect money from a life insurance policy.

A jury in 2005 convicted Robert Petrick for killing his wife, a cellist with the Durham Symphony Orchestra. In 2003, he reported her missing, claiming she hadn't returned from a downtown orchestra rehearsal. Fishermen found her remains in Falls Lake, and jurors heard about a computer belonging to Petrick being used to research the depth, currents and underwater topography of the lake. Jurors also learned Petrick's computer was used to visit a Web site containing instructions titled "22 Ways To Kill A Man With Your Bare Hands by Big Bad Barbarian."

"If you're white in Durham, it just appears to be a totally different ball game," Ozer said Tuesday.

Peterson and Petrick killed their wives to get money, so the murders were premeditated and calculated, Ozer said. Stroud's was a crime of passion, not as cold, she suggested.

Yet Peterson and Petrick didn't get sent to death row. Stroud did.

Durham County Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson at some point will make the call on whether Stroud gets taken off death row in favor of life in prison without parole.

The Racial Justice Act -- Gov. Beverly Perdue signed it into law in August 2009 -- allows defendants facing the death penalty to challenge their convictions on the basis of race.

The lawyers who filed the motion on Stroud's behalf said jury selection during his trial was tainted by racial bias. Four potential black jurors, one after another, were excused from consideration during Stroud's trial despite their fitness to serve, according to the motion. Of the 12 jurors selected, only four were black, Ozer said.

Hudson earlier this year said the death penalty is rare in Durham because murder cases here get thorough looks before they're deemed capital cases. That said, the Racial Justice Act is a good law, the judge said.

Durham County District Attorney Tracey Cline previously said over the past 20 years there have been 8 capital murder cases in Durham: 6 of those cases involved a black person killing another black person; one case involved a white person killing a black person; and another case involved a white person killing a white person -- examples that go against the notion that black people are more likely to get the death penalty for killing white people, she said.

A study examining death sentences in North Carolina over a 28-year period ending in 2007 showed, among similar homicides, the odds of a death sentence for those suspected of killing white people are about three times higher than the odds of a death sentence for those suspected of killing black people.

The study was conducted by a sociology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a research scientist in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University in Boston.

Source: The Herald-Sun, September 13, 2010

Death penalty opponents cite North Carolina forensic lab concerns

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Supporters of a man on North Carolina's death row want a new look at the case after revelations that the state's top crime lab was plagued by overstated or falsely reported evidence.

On Monday, attorneys and four men freed from prison because of faulty evidence presented at their trials will urge a review of Melvin White's death sentence. Two of the released inmates also were on death row.

White was sentenced to death in 1996 for the slayings of an elderly Craven County woman and her boyfriend. He's always proclaimed his innocence.

The only forensic evidence linking him to the murders is the bullet-tracing work of a State Bureau of Investigation analyst who didn't describe why he concluded the casings all came from the same gun.

Source: The Associated Press, August 30, 2010