Colorado: New DA McCann says Denver is done with the death penalty

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM3J5JrAJ9GWwgcIwahIpZkQTjp5ewwVML2aqTJObNSvFbOeaVf96aICx_6uJqqVBdXCSsfG5_HPCechJ4NQHUAymu0FGMnbyBxEau1Y0wKT-BCB34vqO0TVnvCHXo2xcuwT2Lz1TBeJU/s1600/Beth+McCann+Denver+DA+Colorado.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="DA Beth McCann" border="0" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM3J5JrAJ9GWwgcIwahIpZkQTjp5ewwVML2aqTJObNSvFbOeaVf96aICx_6uJqqVBdXCSsfG5_HPCechJ4NQHUAymu0FGMnbyBxEau1Y0wKT-BCB34vqO0TVnvCHXo2xcuwT2Lz1TBeJU/s400/Beth+McCann+Denver+DA+Colorado.jpg" title="DA Beth McCann" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DA Beth McCann, Denver, Colorado</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">Denver is done with the death penalty. It dies as District Attorney Mitch Morrissey leaves office on Tuesday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">His successor, Democrat Beth McCann, sat down with Next, and said she'll make good on her campaign promise to remove Denver from the list of the few remaining judicial districts in the state to seek capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We are (done) under my administration," she said. "I don't think that the state should be in the business of killing people."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">McCann believes life in prison gets the point of a punishment across, and "the millions and millions of dollars" the state spends on capital punishment cases can be saved to prosecute others.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Morrisey sought the death penalty once. It was for Dexter Lewis, who was found guilty of stabbing five people to death in a Fero's Bar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Lee_Davis" target="_blank">Gary Davis</a> is the only person put to death in Colorado since the Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976. Davis was put to death in 1997.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">McCann is not looking to lead a statewide repeal of the death penalty, and she says she'd support a voter referendum on the issue, or repeal in the legislature.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tuesday, 9NEWS will talk to McCann about how she plans to handle prosecution of police officers accused of breaking the law, and how her work as a gun control advocate will impact how she prosecutes gun crimes in Denver. </div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.9news.com/news/local/next/new-da-mccann-says-denver-is-done-with-the-death-penalty/384633301" target="_blank">9NEWS</a>, Kyle Clark, Jan 9, 2017<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Colorado: New DA McCann says Denver is done with the death penalty

DA Beth McCann, Denver, Colorado Denver is done with the death penalty. It dies as District Attorney Mitch Morrissey leaves office on Tuesda...

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New Mexico: GOP to revive death penalty proposal during session

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM4VhB6bJnpsknngby5-KEVLHYw2smb0fqQjGNmEkcsS5uIeCmhxrpHGfvV43Uzi73qWukVm7VSf0VlQ-WCOWmwm6M6J1uMkIY1jhB53MMeQf4GbUR5rQso1ERGIv2VAv4vwLHOPPX7V0/s1600/New+Mexico.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM4VhB6bJnpsknngby5-KEVLHYw2smb0fqQjGNmEkcsS5uIeCmhxrpHGfvV43Uzi73qWukVm7VSf0VlQ-WCOWmwm6M6J1uMkIY1jhB53MMeQf4GbUR5rQso1ERGIv2VAv4vwLHOPPX7V0/s400/New+Mexico.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The death penalty will again be an issue in the state Legislature when it reconvenes next week.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A capital punishment bill, sponsored by Rep. Monica Youngblood, R-Albuquerque, is identical to what was perhaps the most divisive piece of legislation in last fall’s special session of the Legislature.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But unlike last year, Republicans — who lost control of the House in the November election — will have a much harder time getting a capital punishment bill to the House floor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“It’s my hope that people don’t see it as a full reinstatement of the death penalty,” Youngblood said Monday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state abolished the death penalty in 2009.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Youngblood said her bill, House Bill 72, targets “only the most heinous criminals, the ones that prey upon our children and our police officers.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Like last year’s bill, which she co-sponsored, Youngblood’s new bill would make murdering a law enforcement officer, corrections personnel or a child the only crimes that would be eligible for a death sentence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Youngblood said polls show most New Mexicans favor capital punishment for certain crimes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But Rep. Matthew McQueen, D-Galisteo, said Monday the death penalty is riddled with problems.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“There have been numerous examples around the country as well as in New Mexico of people who were sentenced to death later being exonerated,” McQueen said. “And it’s tremendously expensive. I believe it’s a waste of resources. I’m hopeful this year we’ll make short work of it.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bringing back capital punishment would bring additional costs to a judicial system already strapped by the state’s budget crunch.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sen. Pete Campos, D-Las Vegas, in an opinion piece submitted to various news organizations, wrote, “New Mexico’s courts face a funding crisis that threatens to undermine the judiciary’s ability to protect our rights by delivering timely justice. … The prosecution of criminal cases is being impaired. Some courts confront the possibility of dismissing cases because the state’s public defender office lacks the staff and budget it needs to handle more cases.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A fiscal analysis by the Legislative Finance Committee of last year’s death penalty bill said reinstating executions could cost the state up to $7.2 million a year over a three-year period.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The cost to the judicial system to process one individual through the death penalty process, which historically has taken an average of 11 years, is about $105,000 per year,” the report says. “The cost to incarcerate one individual on death row is $51,100 a year.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheS9oAXTjvL6YAs1IMaXgtDn35NxqQzNMN8nUuB2lhsOiL4rx5S8PiR8L9I9EsRuQvvvBWSjm2Vd8OnbKk2AJbJRhhk_nBTEdic_jQjh79oC5UhmFhPprOLnJMspAagZQYPAxIiJrK3Gk/s1600/dollars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheS9oAXTjvL6YAs1IMaXgtDn35NxqQzNMN8nUuB2lhsOiL4rx5S8PiR8L9I9EsRuQvvvBWSjm2Vd8OnbKk2AJbJRhhk_nBTEdic_jQjh79oC5UhmFhPprOLnJMspAagZQYPAxIiJrK3Gk/s400/dollars.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the analysis, the Administrative Office of the Courts estimated that a death penalty jury trial would cost $12,000 to $17,000 more than a nondeath penalty case. More jury costs would be incurred because after finding someone guilty in a death penalty case, a jury would have to determine whether to impose capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The report also said that in cases stemming from the 2007 Santa Rosa prison riot — in which prosecutors initially sought the death penalty for three inmates in the killing of a corrections officer — the state Public Defender’s Office spent $474,600 on contract defense attorneys, $1 million on expert witnesses and $76,800 on other costs before trial. The total expense to the department was $1.6 million.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In that case, the state Supreme Court ruled that unless the Legislature appropriated funds in addition to the $1.1 million previously allocated for the case, the death penalty could not be imposed. The Legislature didn’t approve those funds, so prosecutors dropped the death penalty from the case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">HB 72 includes a number of mitigating circumstances — such as the defendant’s age, mental capacity and prior criminal record — that could be weighed by a jury in considering imposing the death penalty. Executions would not be allowed if the defendant suffers “intellectual disabilities.” And if a condemned inmate is pregnant, the execution would be held until the baby is born.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the end of October’s special session, the House voted 36-30 along party lines to reinstate the death penalty, with Republicans in the majority. This followed a debate that started after midnight and ended just before 6 a.m. Many critics, including state religious leaders, blasted House leaders for holding the debate during the wee hours without any public notice. Hours later, the Senate voted to adjourn without considering the bill.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last year was the first time that capital-punishment supporters made a serious effort to bring back the death penalty. The push came following several cases of police killings and child murders, including the rape and dismemberment of 10-year-old Victoria Martens.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Democrats criticized the idea of considering the capital punishment bill during the special session, which originally was meant to deal with the state’s budget crisis. Some said it was nothing but a political ploy for Republicans to use during the general election.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If so, that plan backfired. Republicans lost control of the House after two years of being the majority. Though Republican Gov. Susana Martinez’s political team was successful in bringing down Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen — who opposed the death penalty bill — the GOP suffered a net loss in the Senate.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Between 1979 and 2007, when the death penalty was an option to prosecutors, there were more than 200 death penalty cases filed, but only 15 men sentenced to death and only one execution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Though the death penalty was repealed in 2009, two inmates who previously were convicted for murders remain on death row. They are Timothy Allen, convicted in 1995, and Robert Fry, convicted for a murder in 2000.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Source: <a href="http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/gop-to-revive-death-penalty-proposal-during-session/article_66a64a09-d3b9-5467-87c0-2f7d46f1682b.html" target="_blank">The New Mexican</a>, Steve Terrell, January 9-10, 2017<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JBVXEBZLP3WKW" target="_blank">DONATE!</a></b></div><form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_blank"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/fr_FR/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" /></div></form><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>

New Mexico: GOP to revive death penalty proposal during session

The death penalty will again be an issue in the state Legislature when it reconvenes next week. A capital punishment bill, sponsored by Rep....

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Nevada Lawmakers Want To End Death Penalty

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGBPajVJCcTSDayB5hfyxgi8Jd1A_Vp00lSyvQUVxRPT9I3go4DUDLZHBVkKD1qaxxwCpM6hvmr1a3eI5B4qiYLMRKQqu0wBrGLxns3DlW9lH-f3uZgd2RU9CPx5KQPwIUFS9cGhaJu9k/s1600/dollars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGBPajVJCcTSDayB5hfyxgi8Jd1A_Vp00lSyvQUVxRPT9I3go4DUDLZHBVkKD1qaxxwCpM6hvmr1a3eI5B4qiYLMRKQqu0wBrGLxns3DlW9lH-f3uZgd2RU9CPx5KQPwIUFS9cGhaJu9k/s400/dollars.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's a hot button issue and it's going to come up during the 2017 Legislature.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">81 men sit on death row in Nevada, and a new chamber was just built at Ely State Prison. But the last execution took place more than a decade ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">State Senator Tick Segerblom wants to end the practice all together. He, with Assemblyman James Ohrenschall, is proposing a bill that would make the state's maximum punishment life in prison without parole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I don't think a society has the right to decide who is going to live or die," Segerblom said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Besides the moral argument against the death penalty, Segerblom said money is also a factor. He said the state spends millions of dollars on death penalty cases, but no one is executed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It's really just a feel good issue for people to say 'We're going to kill someone because they did something bad,' but at the end of the day, we never do kill the person and we spend millions of dollars trying to get to the point where we could kill them but it never happens."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Besides the state and federal appeals that take up both time and money, the drugs to execute people are not available. Segerblom said the state spends millions of dollars to get prisons to the point where they can be executed but it is never going to happen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tod Story with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada agreed that the money spent on death penalty cases is far more than putting a prisoner away for life.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a state audit of the cost of death row versus life in prison showed it costs sometimes double for someone to be sentenced to death than to be sentenced to life in prison without parole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Story said the argument against the death penalty goes beyond just the cost. He believes it is fundamentally about the society we want to be.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I think the fundamental question comes down to whether we as a government, we as a people, we as a society, can take away someone's life," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Supporters of the death penalty have said that it is a deterrent, arguing that people won't do something if they know they could face the death penalty for it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For instance, Illinois is 1 of 18 states that has repealed its death penalty and the murder rate in Chicago has skyrocketed lately.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Both Story and Segerblom dismiss the argument that having a death penalty does anything to stop crime.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"There is no correlation between whether you have the death penalty, you don't have the death penalty as far as violent crime," Segerblom.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We still have the death penalty here in Nevada and we had if not the highest, but one of the highest, murder rates here in Las Vegas last year," Story said, "We know that it is not a deterrent."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Segerblom is purposing the legislation when the Legislature meets in February, but he is not entirely sure it will pass or that the governor will sign it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I had a bill a couple of sessions ago just to ask to study the death penalty and the governor vetoed it," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Story remains optimistic that Gov. Sandoval will sign it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I think anything is possible," he said, "I think the governor has indicated his willingness to entertain the idea."</div><br />Source: knpr.org, January 6, 2017<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Nevada Lawmakers Want To End Death Penalty

It's a hot button issue and it's going to come up during the 2017 Legislature. 81 men sit on death row in Nevada, and a new chamber ...

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Florida changes lethal injection drugs

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdqWramXsOQ3sGhuXO2KPBzbbct9GtHpLNsqgCSs0xh7eQbDTeymcTaZeIf4Q931FS4W5TDCmfhUMLXJj6I8XKB4SLL-ZLltJ7t3kcxULPERdaXjQjejf5VSTwp9IMo7CekO2KzsTdYcQ/s1600/lethal+injection+lab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdqWramXsOQ3sGhuXO2KPBzbbct9GtHpLNsqgCSs0xh7eQbDTeymcTaZeIf4Q931FS4W5TDCmfhUMLXJj6I8XKB4SLL-ZLltJ7t3kcxULPERdaXjQjejf5VSTwp9IMo7CekO2KzsTdYcQ/s400/lethal+injection+lab.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'The new triple-drug cocktail is the only one of its kind.'</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - In the midst of a major upheaval involving Florida's death-penalty laws, state corrections officials have adopted a new lethal-injection procedure that includes a drug never before used for executions and another used only by accident.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The move is almost certain to spur more litigation over the state's already-embattled death penalty, in limbo for nearly a year in the aftermath of a U.S. Supreme Court decision last January that struck down as unconstitutional Florida's capital sentencing system because it gave too much power to judges, instead of juries.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Department of Corrections posted the revised three-drug lethal injection protocol on its website Thursday, a day after Secretary Julie Jones signed the new procedure.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The new triple-drug cocktail is the only one of its kind among the states that rely on similar procedures and incorporates a sedative never before used in executions, along with a killing agent used only once --- when Oklahoma executioners used it by accident.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It's certainly troubling that the state of Florida is continuing to use experimental protocols in lethal injection," said Maria DeLiberato, a lawyer who represents Death Row prisoners, including inmate Dane Abdool.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Abdool is one of five Death Row inmates who are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging Florida's lethal-injection protocol.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We'll have to review the protocol, discuss with appropriate experts and make a determination regarding any litigation," DeLiberato said in a telephone interview Thursday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The News Service of Florida first reported in December that the corrections agency may be considering a new drug protocol, based on records related to a lawsuit filed by Arizona Death Row inmates. The records revealed that Florida has run out of the sedative midazolam hydrochloride, will soon run out of potassium chloride --- the final drug in the triple-drug lethal injection cocktail --- and spent $12,000 last year stockpiling three new drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Department of Corrections spokeswoman Michelle Glady said in an interview Thursday the agency did not know whether the protocol has ever been used elsewhere.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">States have been scrambling to obtain lethal injection drugs after manufacturers have refused to sell the substances to corrections agencies for execution purposes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In its new protocol, Florida is substituting etomidate for midazolam as the critical first drug, used to sedate prisoners before injecting them with a paralytic and then a drug used to stop prisoners' hearts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Midazolam, still in use by some states, is the focus of the Arizona lawsuit, filed after convicted killer Joseph Wood took two hours to die in 2014. Arizona corrections officials have tried to get the lawsuit dismissed as moot because they contend they have run out of the drug and it is no longer available. At least four other states claim they have supplies of midazolam.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Concerns about midazolam also prompted the Florida Supreme Court last year to halt the execution of Jerry William Correll, pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by Oklahoma prisoners over the drug's use. In June 2015, a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court rejected the challenge in the landmark case, known as Glossip v. Gross.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Etomidate, also known by its brand name "Amidate," has never been used before as part of the three-drug execution procedure in the U.S., according to Megan McCracken, a lawyer with the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley Law School.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The constitutionality of any state's three-drug execution procedure hinges on the first of the drugs used in the process, McCracken said in a telephone interview. Ensuring that prisoners are properly sedated is critical to guaranteeing that the lethal-injection procedure does not violate Eighth Amendment prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishments, she said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The new protocol also replaces potassium chloride, the drug used to make prisoners' hearts stop beating, with potassium acetate. According to records obtained by the News Service, the state has a small supply of potassium chloride that will expire next month and began purchasing potassium acetate in March.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtqp4wmluH0IvF8sYN-ll0zl2yrwEo-z3uNQvBXr0cUr4aa6-09LXuG7h1QzRalYtLF3G9fJT9Qzm5FakgjCe8XOp4J6m6heq-OH310RKQ5gYJC-iLKqOl4AG64NkM7B5Lez6sP9Lszcw/s1600/Potassium+Chloride+Potassium+Acetate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Potassium acetate" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtqp4wmluH0IvF8sYN-ll0zl2yrwEo-z3uNQvBXr0cUr4aa6-09LXuG7h1QzRalYtLF3G9fJT9Qzm5FakgjCe8XOp4J6m6heq-OH310RKQ5gYJC-iLKqOl4AG64NkM7B5Lez6sP9Lszcw/s400/Potassium+Chloride+Potassium+Acetate.jpg" title="Potassium acetate" width="400" /></a>Potassium acetate has only been used once before, according to death penalty experts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last year, Oklahoma corrections officials admitted they mistakenly used potassium acetate in the execution of Charles Warner, although the state's protocol requires the use of potassium chloride.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In her letter to Gov. Rick Scott in which she certifies the new protocol, Jones wrote that the new procedure "will not involve unnecessary lingering or wanton infliction of pain and suffering."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But McCracken said it is unknown what studies or data --- if any --- the state is relying on to support its new protocol.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"What we see now is a mistake and an accident from an execution in Oklahoma codified as the new execution procedure in Florida," McCracken said. "The novel aspect of the drug formula and the experimental nature of the protocol is extraordinarily concerning."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state's death penalty has been in flux since the January 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision, in a case known as Hurst v. Florida, and a series of subsequent court rulings on the issue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shortly after the January ruling, the Florida Supreme Court put on hold two executions ordered by Gov. Rick Scott.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The court late last month, however, lifted a stay of execution in the case of Mark James Asay.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the court's ruling in Asay's case may not mean that lethal injections will again be underway anytime soon, especially given the new protocol.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Corrections officials expect litigation in response to the new drugs, Glady said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"That's very typical," she said.</div><br />Source: News Service of Florida, Dara Kam, January 5, 2017<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Florida changes lethal injection drugs

'The new triple-drug cocktail is the only one of its kind.' TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - In the midst of a major upheaval involving Florida...

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Abolition of the death penalty in Montana

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFBx83ETv0V3LBOmIuz86823h6AX-xLxwjtAFjjh8wV-Vf_CReuBIIhYjZec76YGNm7i1IWxd52gyFtKCYmbfiRlB6rwMOOxsFFohr4_1QJ6CM-tCgB-hOaArEi1HU9WUwDYXFnh0hsEY/s1600/welcome+to+Montana.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Welcome to Montana" border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFBx83ETv0V3LBOmIuz86823h6AX-xLxwjtAFjjh8wV-Vf_CReuBIIhYjZec76YGNm7i1IWxd52gyFtKCYmbfiRlB6rwMOOxsFFohr4_1QJ6CM-tCgB-hOaArEi1HU9WUwDYXFnh0hsEY/s400/welcome+to+Montana.jpg" title="Welcome to Montana" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now is the time for a significant act of righteousness – the time to put the admonition “thou shalt not kill” into action.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We must act soon to permanently abolish the death penalty in Montana.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Relevant bills to do so will be introduced when the Montana Legislature convenes in January 2017. Our great state would be further distinguished by abolition of this archaic practice. The death penalty is not a large numerical issue in Montana, since, thank God, we have few on “death row.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is, however, big to the few and to our moral/ethical conscience. The death penalty is on legal “hold” in Montana, as uncertainty about drugs for lethal injection has become and continues to be an issue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The moral/ethical position against capital punishment: Abolish the death penalty because it is the right thing to do.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">• “Thou shalt not kill.” We need to put this into action related to violence worldwide. In few instances do we have the power to control killing, but abolition of capital punishment is one such instance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">• Mistakes are made in some cases. Infrequently, persons, who are later shown to be innocent, have been on death row awaiting execution. Some have, no doubt, been executed and later been proven innocent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">• Family and loved ones of victims often favor life imprisonment over death and find solace in mercy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">• The death penalty has not been a deterrent to crime, nor is there evidence that its abolition promotes or facilitates crime.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">• Is the person convicted and sentenced the same person who awaits execution, often many years after sentencing? Or has that person changed? It’s a privilege given humankind to be able to change.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">• Spare the executioner the experience of executing. Imagine such a job.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another position: Abolish the death penalty because it’s the responsible thing to do.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It costs society more to carry out a death penalty sentence than to maintain a life sentence, in terms of monetary costs of appeals, etc. Anti-death penalty legislation proposes life in prison without possibility of parole. It would cost less.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lethal injection is not the merciful means of killing envisioned. About 7 percent of such executions are “botched.” The availability of drugs used to kill has been an issue for some time, and recently the pharmaceutical company Pfizer refused to provide its drugs for lethal injection. This makes a statement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not unexpectedly, there are pros and cons about these points, but we have chosen the position that suits our individual moral consciences. See <a href="http://deathpenalty.procon.org/" target="_blank">deathpenalty.procon.org</a> for a ten-point argument.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Whatever your personal reasons, please support efforts to abolish capital punishment in Montana by writing to representatives of your district, simply stating your support for bills abolishing capital punishment.</div><br />Source: <a href="http://ravallirepublic.com/news/opinion/viewpoint/article_224d054c-d3c4-11e6-9670-3704ae1d69bd.html" target="_blank">Ravalli Republic</a>, Guest Column, Mary Darby and Blaise Favara, January 6, 2017<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Abolition of the death penalty in Montana

Now is the time for a significant act of righteousness – the time to put the admonition “thou shalt not kill” into action. We must act soon ...

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Death penalty: Soon to be a relic

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihgXfUKHkvxWVxqVvd4sx5Jtyl5R13XcCiu697fSOWTzPAXobPBZNiSDykpyOUCBChh-MYKAEZElNsWJxOGDlrXMHPcV9mq8-Q9t3-c3rDW-gTCWS2FH9ZRB7KsE6UwQNdOYqplyHjC4U/s1600/Texas+Prison+Museum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihgXfUKHkvxWVxqVvd4sx5Jtyl5R13XcCiu697fSOWTzPAXobPBZNiSDykpyOUCBChh-MYKAEZElNsWJxOGDlrXMHPcV9mq8-Q9t3-c3rDW-gTCWS2FH9ZRB7KsE6UwQNdOYqplyHjC4U/s400/Texas+Prison+Museum.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Ol' Sparky, the Lone Star State's official instrument of death for 40 years,<br />resides these days in the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville."</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Capital punishment is a morally and fiscally unsupportable program.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ol' Sparky, the Lone Star State's official instrument of death for 40 years, resides these days in the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville. It's the museum's most popular exhibit, although the time is coming, we predict, when it will have competition. In the not-too-distant future, the needles, the drugs and the officious execution protocol that comprise the capital-punishment regimen in Texas also will be quaint relics on display. Museum visitors will marvel that a civilized society sustained such barbarism long after most Western democracies abjured the practice. The killing tools already are relics in most states, even where capital punishment remains on the books.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What's surprising is that the death penalty's demise is coming sooner than most Americans expected, even in Texas, the nation's most enthusiastic practitioner of state-sponsored killing. The U.S. Supreme Court may never get around to ruling that capital punishment is "cruel and unusual," but the practice will wither away, nevertheless. In fact, the process already has begun, even in the county that leads the nation in executions, Harris County. The recent election of Kim Ogg as Harris County district attorney means that voters have chosen a prosecutor more open to reform and reductions in capital prosecutions than her predecessor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to a year-end report from the Death Penalty Information Center, death sentences, executions and public support for the death penalty continued their precipitous decline nationwide. Juries around the country imposed 30 death sentences this year, compared to 315 in 1996. This year's number represents the fewest in the modern era of capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Twenty people were executed in 2016, the lowest number since 1991, and those executions were geographically isolated. Two states, Georgia and Texas, accounted for 80 percent of all executions. Thirty-two states still allow capital punishment for the most heinous crimes, but most rarely, if ever, use it. Since the start of 2014, five states - Texas, Georgia, Missouri, Florida and Oklahoma - have carried out all but two of the nation's executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Public support for the death penalty also continues to decline. According to a Pew Research Survey, support fell below 50 percent for the first time in more than four decades. Support falls even further when respondents are given alternatives, including life without parole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Capital punishment is unlikely to be abolished permanently anytime soon. For now, only one member of the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen Breyer, questions whether it violates the Eighth Amendment. That number is unlikely to change when President-elect Donald Trump, a death-penalty supporter, gets to make his appointments to the court. His attorney-general nominee, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, also is an ardent death-penalty supporter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What will happen, though, is that practicality will trump principle. Racism, randomness, decades-long delays and sheer expense will end capital punishment in this country - without officially ending capital punishment. Pragmatism prevails even in Texas. Time magazine a couple of years ago quoted Liberty County prosecutor Stephen Taylor, who acknowledged that cost is a factor in deciding on death. "You have to be very responsible in selecting where you want to spend your money," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Time also quoted Atlanta attorney David J. Burge, a leader of the Georgia Republican Party. "Capital punishment runs counter to core conservative principles of life, fiscal responsibility and limited government," he said. "The reality is that capital punishment is nothing more than an expensive, wasteful and risky government program."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We agree. Whether it's principle or pragmatism that kills capital punishment, the end can't come too soon.</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Death-penalty-Soon-to-be-a-relic-10827636.php?t=d015728e5b438d9cbb&cmpid=email-premium" target="_blank">Houston Chronicle</a>, December 30, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Death penalty: Soon to be a relic

"Ol' Sparky, the Lone Star State's official instrument of death for 40 years, resides these days in the Texas Prison Museum in ...

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Nebraska's new lethal injection protocol comes under fire at hearing

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhboAh7AyYtbRPVvbXaDmc-WnCwX_uJuo18WaTN95Hc7fwK9LMLJ5yUHZrwBc2JsQumh9lutWD3cQpSL9KecMq5O3s8nOscIJcd9-u51aRZwKR9br9A5FPYJ2YIvHGPfXwJ-hDv0_uaX38/s1600/Nebraska+the+good+life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Nebraska, the good life" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhboAh7AyYtbRPVvbXaDmc-WnCwX_uJuo18WaTN95Hc7fwK9LMLJ5yUHZrwBc2JsQumh9lutWD3cQpSL9KecMq5O3s8nOscIJcd9-u51aRZwKR9br9A5FPYJ2YIvHGPfXwJ-hDv0_uaX38/s400/Nebraska+the+good+life.jpg" title="Nebraska, the good life" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Opponents of the death penalty predicted Friday that a new lethal injection protocol being sought by Gov. Pete Ricketts will mire the state in more lawsuits rather than revive capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"This is only going to trigger more litigation that the state will not win," said Spike Eickholt of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska. Eickholt was among 20 people who testified during a public hearing Friday concerning a new execution protocol drawn up by the Ricketts administration to make it easier to obtain the necessary drugs for an execution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All but 2 of those testifying criticized the proposal. It was lambasted as violating Nebraska's public meeting laws, allowing unlicensed "pharmaceutical chemists" to participate and permitting the purchase of drugs from secret and shady sources.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It looks to me that a (Corrections Department) director could buy drugs in a back alley," said Dr. Gregg Wright of Lincoln, a former state health director.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Friday's hearing was the 1st step in reviving Nebraska's stalled death penalty. The state hasn't carried out an execution in 19 years, and it has not been able to obtain the necessary drugs to carry out a lethal injection execution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">2 people testified in support of the new lethal injection protocol, and both were leaders in the campaign that overturned at the ballot box in November the 2015 repeal of capital punishment by the Nebraska Legislature.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">1 supporter, Pierce County Sheriff Rick Eberhardt, who gathered hundreds of signatures for the successful referendum drive, said that voters last month delivered a "work order" to state leaders.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"They are instructing our leaders to find a workable way to carry out a death sentence," Eberhardt said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ricketts, in a statement after the hearing, called Friday's session "1 step toward enacting the will of the people of Nebraska on the death penalty."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He added that his administration would review comments from the hearing before finalizing the proposed regulation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The new protocol would give the state corrections director wide latitude to choose the type and source of drugs being used, and to keep that information confidential.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The secrecy provisions brought objections from a variety of groups and individuals, including Media of Nebraska, the ACLU, the state's Tea Party and Nebraska's most ardent opponent of the death penalty, State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Anything that the government does on behalf of the people should be done in plain sight," Chambers said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He vowed to introduce another bill to repeal the death penalty when the State Legislature begins its 2017 session next week, and promised it would be better drafted than the "slapdash, loosey-goosey" proposal for the new lethal injection protocol.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nebraska's current protocol was adopted in 2009 after the state switched from the electric chair to lethal injection. It calls for the use of 3 drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the state has been thwarted in its attempt to obtain them, contributing to the Legislature's vote in 2015 to repeal the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shawn Renner of Media of Nebraska, which represents the state's major newspapers and broadcasters, said the new protocol was directly contrary to the state's public records laws by allowing the state corrections director to pick and choose what records will be released and which ones will be withheld.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Renner called the proposal "illegal" and predicted it would be overturned in court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Others said that the lack of transparency could lead to the use of impure and suspect drugs, which could result in botched executions or courts tossing out lethal injection as unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There have been 47 botched executions since 1982, according to a study by University of Colorado professor Michael Radelet, and 35 of those involved lethal injection.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">More than one testifier pointed out that an open process was needed, given Nebraska's track record in obtaining lethal injection drugs. In 2015 the state lost $54,000 when it purchased 2 lethal injection drugs from a broker in India, then was blocked from importing the drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Joni Cover of the Nebraska Pharmacists Association said that while the association was not taking a position supporting or opposing capital punishment, it was opposing the new protocol as having multiple flaws.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">She asked that a requirement to have a "pharmaceutical chemist' as part of the execution team be stricken. Such chemists are unlicensed and lack the education or legal authority to prepare, compound or administer drugs, Cover said. In addition, the state corrections director lacks the authority to write a medical order for lethal injection drugs, she said, and the secrecy surrounding the drugs could put Nebraska in violation of state and federal laws about how such drugs should be handled.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">10 inmates sit on Nebraska's death row.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It may take several weeks before state corrections officials decide if the proposed protocol should be approved or revised.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The attorney general must also review and OK the rules, and the governor must sign them, before they take effect.</div><br />Source: The Smithville Herald, December 31, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Nebraska's new lethal injection protocol comes under fire at hearing

Opponents of the death penalty predicted Friday that a new lethal injection protocol being sought by Gov. Pete Ricketts will mire the state ...

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Florida's death penalty system will face renewed stress in 2017

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfa-zDWS01p-6_-EybgwT-GrmbtB6wUP4WFrHxNZ5fEOW8GqQXFmcj2YEWRwrNBxONmBko_Xr5xdqE0F72ZtR5pjUDfPRRUp0_qNw2rJo6jo3K6ucnDepGtsHd8bFTioV1ntXtJiTKzQM/s1600/Florida+death+chamber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Florida's death chamber" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfa-zDWS01p-6_-EybgwT-GrmbtB6wUP4WFrHxNZ5fEOW8GqQXFmcj2YEWRwrNBxONmBko_Xr5xdqE0F72ZtR5pjUDfPRRUp0_qNw2rJo6jo3K6ucnDepGtsHd8bFTioV1ntXtJiTKzQM/s400/Florida+death+chamber.jpg" title="Florida's death chamber" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Florida's death chamber</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">TALLAHASSEE — Florida's death penalty system, under sustained legal assault for the past year, faces renewed pressure in 2017 that will strain courts, victims and taxpayers in ways sure to rekindle a debate over capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A series of federal and state court rulings will bring upheaval to a system long criticized for racial disparities and for seemingly endless and unjust delays. Now the state must confront the enormous impact of a case known as Hurst vs. Florida, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that constitutional rights of defendants were violated because their juries had too little say in recommending sentences of death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Applying the Hurst case to Florida — the state with the second most death row inmates at 384 — the state Supreme Court decided that about half of those inmates should still face execution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Those inmates were sentenced before 2002, when another case, Ring vs. Arizona, found that it was unconstitutional for a judge instead of a jury to find the facts necessary to impose the death penalty. At the time, the Florida Supreme Court decided the Ring decision did not apply because Florida had a different sentencing scheme and that in another case, the nation's highest court upheld the constitutionality of Florida's system.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the other half of the death row population — most inmates sentenced after Ring in 2002 — could be resentenced to life without parole, depending on the facts in each case, because they were condemned to die under a law ruled unconstitutional by the Hurst case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Attorney General Pam Bondi will continue to seek to carry out as many death sentences as possible, arguing that any previous sentencing errors were legally harmless. But as a flurry of post-Hurst appeals clogs the courts, legal experts foresee an expensive and, for the families of victims, agonizingly painful review of as many as 200 cases in which defendants seek sentences of life without parole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Two hundred do-overs," said Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center, a national group critical of how states, especially Florida, carry out the death penalty. "There are not enough judges, court personnel, prosecutors or defense lawyers to timely move these cases forward."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That's not all. A pro-death penalty Legislature must fix the law a second time after the Florida Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a provision that does not require all 12 jurors to agree on a death sentence when they recommend punishment to a judge who issues the final life-or-death verdict.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Because jury recommendations of death in Florida are usually not unanimous, the practical effect will be more do-overs, with new sentencing hearings in dozens of cases.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Prosecutors will have to track down old trial transcripts and witnesses, and families of victims will have to endure a public spectacle of some of the state's most horrific crimes a second time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It's an absolute nightmare for these families," said Bruce Bartlett, the chief assistant state attorney in Pinellas County. "And it's a logistical nightmare for us as you've got to reconstruct all these cases."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bartlett identified nine cases in his Pinellas-Pasco circuit alone in which death row inmates could be resentenced to life because of split decisions by juries that recommended death.</div><b><a href="http://web.tampabay.com/news/politics/legislature/floridas-death-penalty-system-will-face-renewed-stress-in-2017/2307829" target="_blank"><br /></a></b><b><a href="http://web.tampabay.com/news/politics/legislature/floridas-death-penalty-system-will-face-renewed-stress-in-2017/2307829" target="_blank">Click here to read the full article</a></b><br /><br />Source: Tampa Bay Times, Steve Bousquet, December 30, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Florida's death penalty system will face renewed stress in 2017

Florida's death chamber TALLAHASSEE — Florida's death penalty system, under sustained legal assault for the past year, faces renewed...

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As use of death penalty declines, the case for its repeal grows stronger

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh84h15LtrghbRdHvF0Y1mpxUBQzkT__lpIR2crQ4KLTpf4ls030C79qejzPyFm654y7ea0Tw_KcDHAIFbUQvQc8hbAtrYL4sK02nRchVmUwu-GfrqqNGF1GK5E3jeC9AV77Gp-R-yZEdM/s1600/Huntsville+Unit+Texas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The Walls Unit, Huntsville, Texas" border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh84h15LtrghbRdHvF0Y1mpxUBQzkT__lpIR2crQ4KLTpf4ls030C79qejzPyFm654y7ea0Tw_KcDHAIFbUQvQc8hbAtrYL4sK02nRchVmUwu-GfrqqNGF1GK5E3jeC9AV77Gp-R-yZEdM/s400/Huntsville+Unit+Texas.jpg" title="The Walls Unit, Huntsville, Texas" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Walls Unit, Huntsville, Texas</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The death penalty is rare, even in Texas, where just seven executions were carried out this year. In some places, it's almost nonexistent. In Dallas and Harris counties, not a single death sentence was handed down this year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is good news.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Executions are costly. Their value in deterring would-be murderers and others from committing their crimes is small. And they are disproportionately carried out against persons of color. Of the nine men sentenced to death in Dallas or Tarrant counties since 2012, all are African-American. In Harris County, 15 of the 18 more recent death sentences have been handed down against black defendants, the other three against Latinos.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Worst of all, an execution is the outcome of an error-prone system, and one that simply can't be undone once carried out.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That insight was at the heart of the ruling 45 years ago next year in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the death penalty violated the Constitution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The penalty of death differs from all other forms of criminal punishment, not in degree but in kind," Justice Potter Stewart wrote in one of five concurring opinions in Furman vs. Georgia. "It is unique in its total irrevocability. It is unique in its rejection of rehabilitation of the convict as a basic purpose of criminal justice."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Four years later, the court ruled that with proper attention to racial fairness and other factors, the executions could resume. But ever since, Texas has had a starring role in demonstrating just how naive that second decision was.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's distressing to note that support for the death penalty remains strong in many states, including Texas (<a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/29/support-for-death-penalty-lowest-in-more-than-four-decades/" target="_blank">though that support is at its lowest level in decades</a>). There is hope in the<a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2015/12/30/editorial-could-texas-be-losing-its-appetite-for-the-death-penalty" target="_blank"> fact that actual use of the death penalty is fading fast. </a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the past five years, 26 inmates on Texas' death row have been removed. Eighteen saw their sentences reduced. Seven died in custody. One was exonerated and released.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even Texas' famously tough-on-crime Court of Criminal Appeals has grown far more careful when it comes to executions. In the past two years, the court has issued a total of 15 stays of execution. In the three years before that, it averaged just one per year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nationwide, the use of the death penalty is also at a low.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's encouraging, too, to see <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2016/09/02/can-argue-whether-death-penalty-cruel-legal-certainly-unusual-fair" target="_blank">Justice Stephen Breyer continue his sometimes-lonely crusade </a>to convince the rest of the court to take up again, as they did in 1972 and 1976, the overall question of whether the Bill of Rights prohibits executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The penalty is so rare and so random in its application, it should no longer be tolerated: "Individuals who are executed are not the 'worst of the worst,'" Breyer wrote Dec. 12, "but, rather, are individuals chosen at random, on the basis, perhaps of geography, perhaps of the views of individual prosecutors, or still worse on the basis of race."</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2016/12/27/use-death-penalty-declines-case-repeal-grows-stronger" target="_blank">Dallas News</a>, Editorial, December 27, 2016<br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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As use of death penalty declines, the case for its repeal grows stronger

The Walls Unit, Huntsville, Texas The death penalty is rare, even in Texas, where just seven executions were carried out this year. In some ...

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As death penalty fades in North Carolina, it’s time to end it

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsSoUadKurrfTqvNfANeh1tYx5VJ9NSSA-KYFMcw8IE7I-v5a-NFqQy9aI-j3iwvHjViSd3Wgh3tGhlWNVJPnAoRKX3gcSgvxFDDHa1tqVwxjxgENDW1EU9djEABDhU0uxFzYBdOELtUs/s1600/North+Carolina+Death+Chamber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="North Carolina's death chamber" border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsSoUadKurrfTqvNfANeh1tYx5VJ9NSSA-KYFMcw8IE7I-v5a-NFqQy9aI-j3iwvHjViSd3Wgh3tGhlWNVJPnAoRKX3gcSgvxFDDHa1tqVwxjxgENDW1EU9djEABDhU0uxFzYBdOELtUs/s400/North+Carolina+Death+Chamber.jpg" title="North Carolina's death chamber" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">North Carolina's death chamber</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The Center for Death Penalty Litigation is staffed and supported by righteous people but in an end-of-year piece this week it needed no emotion to make the case against the death penalty in North Carolina. And, though it would be quite enough to end the penalty based on wrongful convictions that might have turned into death sentences, there are other, sensible reasons that ought to appeal to people across party lines and philosophical lines as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The center notes that the death penalty is fading from favor both across the nation and in North Carolina, which used to issue a lot of death sentences. In this year, North Carolina marked 10 years without an execution, and only five people had been tried for capital crimes statewide. Nationally, death sentences were “at their lowest point in the modern era of the death penalty,” the center wrote, with just 20 executions in the United States. The respected Pew Research Center put out a poll this fall showing that a majority of Americans are opposed to the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gretchen Engel, executive director of the center, brought the issue close to home: “Look at Wake County, which used to send people to death row almost every year, but hasn’t had a new death sentence in almost a decade. This year, in the sixth case in a row, a Wake County jury chose a sentence of life without parole over the death penalty. Society’s beliefs have shifted, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, people no longer think it’s appropriate.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Just 20 years ago, 20 to 30 people a year were sent to death row across North Carolina, but in the past five years, the average is fewer than two people a year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even so, the state has the sixth largest death row in the country with 150 inmates awaiting execution, but the vast majority of those — 75 percent — were given the penalty at least 15 years ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The expense of maintaining death row is in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and the expense to the public of pursuing the death penalty has of course been in the millions over decades. And the inmates on death row grow older, creating what Engel calls “a costly warehouse for the elderly.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is simply not worth the risk — of executing the wrong person — and certainly not the expense to maintain the death penalty in this state. This drains the taxpayers’ purse and patience and emotions. Certainly all can feel sympathy for the families of murder victims, who understandably want revenge for often-horrendous crimes against their loved ones. But the state has to understand it is in the business of justice, not revenge. And taking away a murderer’s life for all time by incarcerating him or her is justice.</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article122844834.html" target="_blank">newsobserver.com</a>, Opinion, Editorials, December 26, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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As death penalty fades in North Carolina, it’s time to end it

North Carolina's death chamber The Center for Death Penalty Litigation is staffed and supported by righteous people but in an end-of-yea...

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Arizona Agrees to Settle Part of Death Penalty Lawsuit

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSkkpFCGqjmIPN4lj4W02kAS1qMbe05Z8CooL7Z1mVBrEpBR78cXBUsHkXQ7aDpHQPvJ893H4uep8vgv3XP_9lIs6Z8pIRiEm0B33Io2r8Nq4PE6f0SEIh_k_HGt0HT6LxcUYVL4M2Yi0/s1600/Midazolam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSkkpFCGqjmIPN4lj4W02kAS1qMbe05Z8CooL7Z1mVBrEpBR78cXBUsHkXQ7aDpHQPvJ893H4uep8vgv3XP_9lIs6Z8pIRiEm0B33Io2r8Nq4PE6f0SEIh_k_HGt0HT6LxcUYVL4M2Yi0/s400/Midazolam.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Arizona has agreed to settle part of a lawsuit by promising it won't again use the sedative midazolam as part of a three-drug combination while carrying out the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state didn't acknowledge any liability in settling the claim that the use of midazolam doesn't ensure that inmates won't feel the pain caused by another drug in the combination.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A remaining claim in the lawsuit alleges the state has abused its discretion in the methods and amounts of drugs used in past executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Executions were put on hold in the state after the 2014 death of convicted killer Joseph Rudolph Wood, who was given 15 doses of midazolam and a painkiller and who took nearly two hours to die. His attorney said the execution was botched.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Executions in Arizona will remain on hold until the entire lawsuit is resolved.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Similar challenges to the death penalty are playing out in other parts of the country that seek more transparency about where states get their execution drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">States are struggling to obtain execution drugs because European pharmaceutical companies began blocking the use of their products for lethal injections.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The agreement filed in court Monday in Arizona came six months after the state said it had eliminated its use of midazolam because its supply had expired and another supplier couldn't be found amid pressure from death penalty opponents.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The judge who has the final say on whether the settlement takes effect has expressed concerns in the past over whether the state's promise not to use midazolam could be reversed by a future state prisons director.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The settlement deal specifies that the promise applies to future prison directors and imposes consequences for breaching the agreement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Under the agreement, if the state intends on using the drug again, inmates could resurrect the midazolam claim and a permanent prohibition on using the drug would take effect.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Private lawyers who have racked up legal fees in representing inmates in the lawsuit say they won't seek reimbursement from the state on the midazolam claim if Arizona keeps its promise.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"There is a financial incentive for the state never to use midazolam," said Dale Baich, an assistant federal public defender who also represents the inmates in the lawsuit.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Arizona Department of Corrections and attorney general's office, which is representing the state, didn't immediately return requests Tuesday for comment on the agreement.</div><br />Source: Associated Press, Jacques Billeaud, December 20, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Arizona Agrees to Settle Part of Death Penalty Lawsuit

Arizona has agreed to settle part of a lawsuit by promising it won't again use the sedative midazolam as part of a three-drug combinatio...

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Legislative leaders co-sponsor bill to abolish capital punishment in Nevada

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheS9oAXTjvL6YAs1IMaXgtDn35NxqQzNMN8nUuB2lhsOiL4rx5S8PiR8L9I9EsRuQvvvBWSjm2Vd8OnbKk2AJbJRhhk_nBTEdic_jQjh79oC5UhmFhPprOLnJMspAagZQYPAxIiJrK3Gk/s1600/dollars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt=""The economic factors are more likely to lead to an end to capital punishment in Nevada than moral or religious grounds."" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheS9oAXTjvL6YAs1IMaXgtDn35NxqQzNMN8nUuB2lhsOiL4rx5S8PiR8L9I9EsRuQvvvBWSjm2Vd8OnbKk2AJbJRhhk_nBTEdic_jQjh79oC5UhmFhPprOLnJMspAagZQYPAxIiJrK3Gk/s400/dollars.jpg" title=""The economic factors are more likely to lead to an end to capital punishment in Nevada than moral or religious grounds."" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The economic factors are more likely to lead to an end to capital<br />punishment in Nevada than moral or religious grounds."</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Two state legislative leaders have requested a bill be drafted to abolish the death penalty in Nevada.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bill draft request No. 544 from Assemblyman James Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas, would make life without the possibility of parole the maximum criminal penalty in Nevada. Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, signed on as a joint requester of the measure.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ohrenschall had previously indicated he would propose an amendment to the state Constitution to abolish capital punishment, a process that would take five years and a favorable vote of the people to become law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But Ohrenschall said Tuesday he opted instead for a bill to try to expeditiously accomplish the same goal in the 2017 legislative session, as a change to the existing law could take effect next year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If approved by the Legislature, the measure would go to Gov. Brian Sandoval, who would have to sign it for a ban to become law. Sandoval, who does not comment on proposed legislation, is a supporter of capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">DEATH PENALTY IMPASSE</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is currently no capital punishment in Nevada, however, because pharmaceutical companies are declining to provide the drugs needed to perform an execution to the state Department of Corrections. Nevada law mandates lethal injection as the only form of capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ohrenschall, vice chairman of the Assembly Judiciary, Corrections, Probation and Parole Committee, said he opted for a legislative change after talking with Nevada death penalty opponents, including the ACLU of Nevada and the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If the bill is not successful then a constitutional change could be a future option, he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A constitutional amendment would have to be passed by the Legislature twice, in 2017 and 2019 and then go to voters in 2020 before it could take effect.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some opponents of capital punishment cite a legislative audit issued in 2014 that showed the cost of litigating death penalty cases is higher than if a convicted murderer was sentenced to life without parole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Newly elected Assemblyman Ozzie Fumo, a Democrat and longtime Las Vegas defense attorney, said the economic reasons alone make abolition the right course of action, although he is morally opposed to capital punishment as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Legislature can pass a bill to put it on Sandoval's desk and then see what he will do, Fumo said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">AN EXPENSIVE EXAMPLE</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fumo's legal partner, Tom Pitaro, said the economic factors are more likely to lead to an end to capital punishment in Nevada than moral or religious grounds.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pitaro said he is preparing for a new death penalty hearing next year for John Valerio, who has been on death row for decades. The case is an example of how costly and time-consuming death-penalty litigation can be, he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Valerio was first sentenced to death for the fatal stabbing of a Las Vegas prostitute in 1986. The 9th Circuit upheld his conviction but overturned his sentence and prosecutors are again seeking the death penalty decades later, he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The de facto moratorium on the death penalty comes just as the state finished work on a new execution chamber at Ely State Prison, where the 81 men on death row are housed. The project was approved by lawmakers in 2015 and cost nearly $860,000.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nevada prison officials said earlier this year that the state will have to explore its options to carry out executions after it received no bids from pharmaceutical companies to supply drugs required for lethal injections. The state issued 247 requests for proposals on Sept. 2 after its stockpile of at least 1 drug used in executions expired. Not one response was received.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">INMATE VOLUNTEERS FOR EXECUTION</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While there was no urgency because no executions were expected to be scheduled anytime soon, that may have changed recently with death row inmate Scott Dozier telling a Clark County District judge that he wants to abandon his appeals and be executed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After sitting on death row for more than 9 years, Dozier sent a handwritten, 2-page letter to his attorneys and Judge Jeniffer Togliatti on Oct. 31 requesting that his appeal process cease and he "be put to death."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dozier has the right to end his appeals process but his attorney has asked for a competency hearing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nevada's last execution, by lethal injection, occurred at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City in April 2006.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state has executed 12 inmates since capital punishment was reinstated by the Nevada Legislature in 1977. All but 1 were inmates who, like Dozier, voluntarily gave up their appeals.</div><br />Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal, December 14, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Legislative leaders co-sponsor bill to abolish capital punishment in Nevada

"The economic factors are more likely to lead to an end to capital punishment in Nevada than moral or religious grounds." Two stat...

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