LA Times: Heartening year for death penalty opponents

For opponents of the death penalty, this has been something of a heartening year, reported Scott Martelle of the Los Angeles Times. The country is on a pace for its fewest executions since 1994, and although public support for the death penalty remains at a stubborn majority, high-profile exonerations and botched executions have led to new calls for its abolition. And with states finding it increasingly difficult to procure the drugs needed for executions, states are carrying out fewer executions — with the exception of Missouri.

There also have been some notable legal opinions and public comments that emanated from various appeals and challenges to the system. Here are a few that were especially poignant in condemning the nation’s acceptance of vengeance for justice, and of embracing a legal process too easily gamed by prosecutors to be reliable. In fact, one notable study this year found that at least 4% of those on death rows around the country are likely innocent of the crimes for which they could die.

 

Some quotes and observations fromt he past year:

"For all practical purposes then, a sentence of death in California is a sentence of life imprisonment with the remote possibility of death — a sentence no rational legislature or jury could ever impose.
"Of course, for an arbitrarily selected few of the 748 inmates currently on Death Row, that remote possibility may well be realized. Yet their selection for execution will not depend on whether their crime was one of passion or of premeditation, on whether they killed one person or ten, or on any other proxy for the relative penological value that will be achieved by executing that inmate over any other. Nor will it even depend on the perhaps neutral criterion of executing inmates in the order in which they arrived on Death Row. Rather, it will depend upon a factor largely outside an inmate’s control, and wholly divorced from the penological purposes the State sought to achieve by sentencing him to death in the first instance: how quickly the inmate proceeds through the state’s dysfunctional post-conviction review process."

—U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney, in a July 16 ruling that found California’s death penalty system to be unconstitutional (the state is appealing)

 

"The overwhelming majority of those facing execution today have what the court termed in Hall to be diminished culpability. Severe functional deficits are the rule, not the exception, among the individuals who populate the nation’s death rows. A new study by Robert J. Smith, Sophie Cull and Zoë Robinson, published in Hastings Law Journal, of the social histories of 100 people executed during 2012 and 2013 showed that the vast majority of executed offenders suffered from one or more significant cognitive and behavioral deficits….
"As the execution of Elroy Chester, John Ferguson, Daniel Cook and many more like them illustrates, barring the death penalty for intellectually disabled and juvenile offenders did not solve the death penalty’s dignity problem. Rather, those cases gave us cause to look more closely at the people whom we execute. And when you look closely, what you find is that the practice of the death penalty and the commitment to human dignity are not compatible."
--Charles J. Ogletree Jr., Harvard Law School professor

"Then at 2:05, Wood's mouth opened. Three minutes later it opened again, and his chest moved as if he had burped. Then two minutes again, and again, the mouth open wider and wider. Then it didn't stop.
"He gulped like a fish on land. The movement was like a piston: The mouth opened, the chest rose, the stomach convulsed. And when the doctor came in to check on his consciousness and turned on the microphone to announce that Wood was still sedated, we could hear the sound he was making: a snoring, sucking, similar to when a swimming-pool filter starts taking in air, a louder noise than I can imitate, though I have tried.
"It was death by apnea. And it went on for an hour and a half. I made a pencil stroke on a pad of paper, each time his mouth opened, and ticked off more than 640, which was not all of them, because the doctor came in at least four times and blocked my view.
"I turned to my friend Troy Hayden, the anchor and reporter from Fox 10 News, who was sitting next to me. Troy and I witnessed another execution together in 2007, and he had seen one before that, so he also knows what it looks like.
"'I don't think he's going to die,' I said."
—Michael Kiefer, Arizona Republic reporter who witnessed the botched, nearly two-hour execution of Joseph Woods

 

"When you’re talking about the ultimate penalty, when you’re talking about the state taking someone’s life, there has to be a great deal of flexibility within the system to deal with things like deadlines. There is always a need for finality in the system, that is a good thing. But there has to be enough flexibility so that you can look at the substance of a claim, especially when the death penalty is at stake. If you rely on process to deny what could be a substantive claim, I worry about where that will lead us.
"I disagree very much with Justice Scalia’s certitude that we have never put to death an innocent person. It’s one of the reasons why I personally am opposed to the death penalty. We have the greatest judicial system in the world, but at the end of the day it’s made up of men and women making decisions, tough decisions. Men and women who are dedicated, but dedicated men and women can make mistakes. And I find it hard to believe that in our history that has not happened.”

—Eric H. Holder Jr., U.S. attorney general

"It’s terrifying that our justice system allowed two intellectually disabled children to go to prison for a crime they had nothing to do with, and then to suffer there for 30 years. Henry watched dozens of people be hauled away for execution. It’s impossible to put into words what these men have been through and how much they have lost.”
—Ken Rose, lawyer for half-brothers Henry McCollum and Leon Brown of North Carolina, who were released after more than 30 years in prison for a murder they did not commit.

"I just thank God that I’m out of this place. I knew one day that I was going to be blessed to get out of prison, I just didn’t know when that time was going to be….They took 30 years away from me for no reason, but I don’t hate them. I don’t hate them one bit.”
—Henry McCollum upon leaving prison

"Florida seeks to execute a man because he scored a 71 instead of 70 on an IQ test. Florida is one of just a few States to have this rigid rule. Florida’s rule misconstrues the Court’s in Atkins that intellectually disability is characterized by an IQ of 'approximately 70.' Florida’s rule is in direct opposition to the views of those who design, administer, and interpret the IQ test. By failing to take into account the standard error of measurement, Florida’s law not only contradicts the test’s own design but also bars an essential part of a sentencing court’s inquiry into adaptive functioning. Freddie Lee Hall may or may not be intellectually disabled, but the law requires that he have the opportunity to present evidence of his intellectual disability, including deficits in adaptive functioning over his lifetime.
"The death penalty is the gravest sentence our society may impose. Persons facing that most severe sanction must have a fair opportunity to show that the Constitution prohibits their execution. Florida’s law contravenes our Nation’s commitment to dignity and its duty to teach human decency as the mark of a civilized world. The States are laboratories for experimentation, but those experiments may not deny the basic dignity the Constitution protects."
—Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in Hall vs. Florida 

"To this day, Mr. Panetti hears voices and experiences delusions. Chief among his delusions is the belief that the State of Texas seeks to kill him to prevent him from preaching the Gospel to his fellow inmates on Texas death row and from exposing rampant corruption at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He cannot rationally understand that he is being executed for the murder of his wife’s parents. …
"Seven years have now elapsed since mental health experts last evaluated Mr. Panetti. During that time, no cure has been discovered for schizophrenia, and Mr. Panetti’s mental condition continues to decline. Texas’ rush to execute Mr. Panetti is unseemly. Undersigned counsel, who have represented Mr. Panetti for nearly a decade, became aware of Mr. Panetti’s current execution date only after a newspaper article appeared in the Houston Chronicle on October 30, 2014. Only then did counsel discover that the State had issued the Execution Warrant two weeks earlier, on October 16, 2014. The State’s failure to provide counsel with any notice in a case of this magnitude, where compelling questions of sanity and competency remain at issue, is unconscionable.”—Kathryn M. Kade and Gregory W. Wiercioch, Scott Panetti’s attorneys, in a filing seeking clemency before his scheduled Dec. 3 execution in Texas. A federal appeals court has stayed the execution.

To read more CLICK HERE

 

NYC: Crime down without 'stop-and-frisk'

Last year, when New York City's controversial stop-and-frisk program was stymied after a federal court ruling found it unconstitutional, and the election of Mayor Bill de Blasio, observers predicted crime in the city would skyrocket, says the Christian Science Monitor.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said, "no question about it, violent crime will go up." But the number of reported stop and frisks is down 79 percent this year, and crime has gone way down.
The 'stop and frisk' program enables a police officer to stop, question, and if needed, frisk a person for weapons if the officer reasonably suspects he or she is about to commit, or has committed a crime. The tactic is controversial and critics say it promotes racial profiling. Last year, a federal court found the policy unconstitutional because the tactics illegally targeted minorities, who consistently made up about 85 percent of all stops.
A closer look at the number underscores the dramatic drop in its usage. In 2011, police performed nearly 700,000 stops, the highest total on record. In 2013, it was down to 179,065, through Sept. 30. This year police performed 38,456 stops through the same period – far fewer than previous years.
And yet, serious crime in the city is down 4.4 percent, a 20-year-low.
To read more CLICK HERE

Man with drunk attorney faces execution in Georgia

Robert Wayne Holsey is scheduled to be executed in Georgia on December 9, 2014 for killing a deputy sheriff in 1995. Holsey has a clemency hearing on December 8, according to WABE-FM in Atlanta.
According to Holsey’s current attorney, Brian Kammer, Holsey's trial attorney, Andy Prince was an alcoholic. Prince's alcoholism made presenting any reasonable evidence to the jury impossible, especially during the sentencing phase.
“Since [Holsey] was a child, he tested of an IQ about 70. That puts [him] in the mild range of intellectual disability. You know, his teachers were available to testify he had incredible difficulty in school.”
Aside from that, Kammer says evidence would have shown what he calls “the horrific conditions” of Holsey’s childhood.
“The home where he lived in Milledgeville was known to the neighbors as the torture chamber because of the way they observed his mother to treat him, which was to beat him merciless.”
None of this evidence was presented during Holsey's original trial.
Andy Prince ultimately was disbarred for embezzling clients’ money and later would be indicted.
The night before Holsey's death penalty phase, Prince turned the case over to another lawyer who had no experience in capital punishment cases.
To read more CLICK HERE

Federal Appeals Court stops execution of mentally ill Texas inmate

A federal appeals court in New Orleans halted the execution of Texas killer Scott Panetti, whose case has sparked a global debate over whether people with severe mental illnesses should be put to death for their crimes, reported the USA Today.
Panetti's lawyers say he is too delusional to be executed. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a reprieve less than eight hours before Panetti was scheduled to receive a lethal injection. The court said it needed more time to "allow us to fully consider the late-arriving and complex legal questions at issue in this matter."
The court said oral arguments would be scheduled in the case. The Texas Attorney General's Office said it won't fight the ruling and that the execution would not happen Wednesday. Panetti's legal team issued a statement expressing gratitude for the court's decision.
To read more CLICK HERE

Texas set to execute mentally ill inmate

Scott Panetti is scheduled for execution in Texas on December 3, 2014.
In 1992, Panetti went off his medication, shaved his head, and dressed in camouflage fatigues. He went to his in-laws house and murdered his mother and father-in-law in front of his wife and daughter, according to The Atlantic.

At his trial, Panetti wore a cowboy costume and subpoenaed John F. Kennedy and the Pope.

The subsequent trial and sentencing bordered on the unbelievable. Panetti was allowed to represent himself during both the guilt and penalty phases of the proceedings. He wore a cowboy costume and a purple bandana to court. He attempted to subpoena John F. Kennedy, the Pope, and Jesus Christ, among 200 others. His statements were rambling and incoherent. He fell asleep during trial. While describing the shooting, he assumed the personality of a character he called “Sarge” and narrated the events in the third person. He pointed an imaginary rifle at jurors, visibly frightening them. His stand-by attorney called the trial a “judicial farce.”
Panetti has suffered from schizophrenia and other mental illness for over thirty years. He first exhibited signs of a psychotic disorder as a teenager. Beginning in 1978, he was hospitalized for mental illness on fifteen separate occasions. He developed a delusion that he was engaged in spiritual warfare with Satan. He tried to exorcize his home by burying furniture in the backyard because, he claimed, the devil was in it. He was involuntarily committed after swinging a sword at his wife and daughter and threatening to kill them.
Unsurprisingly, a jury convicted Panetti of murder. After calling only one witness—his stand-by counsel—at the penalty phase of his trial, the jury sentenced Panetti to death after only one day of deliberation.
To read more CLICK HERE

Overdose deaths more than doubled in U.S.

Drug overdose deaths more than doubled from 1999 to 2012, according to a new CDC National Center for Health Statistics's report, reported Time.

The new data shows drug overdose deaths from drugs like painkillers and heroin have risen from 6.1 per 100,000 population in 1999 to 13.1 in 2012. Drug overdose deaths involving heroin in particular have nearly tripled over the time period.
According to the report, in 2012 alone, there were 41,502 drug overdose deaths, of which 16,007 involved opioid analgesics and 5,925 involved heroin.   
It's no question America has a painkiller problem. An earlier CDC report from July revealed that 46 people die from an overdose of prescription painkillers every day. The data also showed that doctors in the U.S. wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers in 2012, which comes out to enough for every American adult to have a bottle of pills. States with overall higher rates were primarily in the south.
To read more CLICK HERE

Mangino talks with WFMJ-TV

Watch my interview on WFMJ-TV in Youngstown, Ohio with regard to the grand jury proceeding in Ferguson, Missouri.

To watch the interview CLICK HERE