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Justices
Open Door to Lethal Injection Challenges
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS; June 12, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court opened the door
Monday to constitutional challenges to lethal injection, the method used by
most states and the federal government to execute death row inmates.
In an unanimous decision, the court allowed those
condemned to die to make last-minute claims that the chemicals used are too
painful -- and therefore amount to cruel and unusual punishment in violation
of the Constitution's Eighth Amendment.
The court's ruling leaves unanswered broader questions
about the chemicals used in lethal injections around the country and whether
they cause excruciating pain.
In a second death penalty case, the court ruled 5-3 that
a Tennessee death-row inmate can use DNA evidence to attempt to show his
innocence 20 years after he was convicted of murdering a neighbor.
The lethal injection ruling sets the stage for a
nationwide legal battle over that subject, with the country's 3,300 death row
inmates armed with a new tool to contest how they are put to death.
Justices have never ruled on the constitutionality of a
specific type of execution. A constitutional showdown over lethal injection
might be the next big death penalty case.
The winner in Monday's decision was Florida death row
inmate Clarence Hill, who was strapped to a gurney with lines running into his
arms to deliver the drugs when the Supreme Court in January intervened and
blocked the execution.
Justice Anthony
M. Kennedy, writing for the court, said that
while Hill and other inmates can file special appeals, they will not be always
entitled to delays in their executions.
''Both the state and the victims of crime have an
important interest in the timely enforcement of a sentence,'' he wrote.
Hill, convicted of killing a police officer, had run out
of regular appeals so he went to court using a civil rights law claiming that
his constitutional rights would be violated by Florida's lethal injection drug
protocol. The court's decision renews his bid to have Florida change its
chemical combination.
The decision is setback for Florida and other states
that will have to defend more last-minute filings from inmates. More than two
dozen states had filed arguments at the court seeking the opposite outcome.
They said dragged-out appeals jeopardize justice for victims' families.
Lethal injection is the main method used by every state
that has capital punishment except Nebraska. Nebraska still has the electric
chair, although that, too, is being contested.
Kennedy said that Hill is not claiming that he cannot be
executed, only that he should not be forced into a painful execution.
''Hill's challenge appears to leave the state free to
use an alternative lethal injection procedure,'' Kennedy wrote.
Justices seemed worried about the possibility of pain
when they took up Hill's case in April. Justice John
Paul Stevens told Florida's lawyer that their
procedure would be banned for use to euthanize cats and dogs.
Following the Supreme Court's intervention in the Hill
case, executions were stopped in California, Maryland and Missouri.
The case was one of several major death penalty appeals
to come before a court that has two new members.
Retired Justice Sandra
Day O'Connor wrote the court's 2004 ruling in
its last lethal injection case. Justices said then that an Alabama death row
inmate could pursue a last-ditch claim that his death by lethal injection
would be unconstitutionally cruel because of his damaged veins.
In Monday's ruling, Kennedy wrote that
the court was only following precedent set in that case.
The case is Hill v. McDonough, 05-8794.
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Supreme Court Says
Death-Row Inmate May Use DNA Evidence
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: June
12, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Tennessee death-row inmate can
use DNA evidence to attempt to show his innocence 20 years after he was
convicted of murdering a neighbor, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The high court's decision is significant because
numerous exonerations in recent years of death-row and other criminal
defendants through DNA testing have raised concerns among civil
libertarians, prosecutors and Supreme Court Justice John
Paul Stevens that an innocent person may be
executed, or already has been.
Justice Anthony
M. Kennedy, writing for the court, said the
evidence in the case was a ''close'' call for a jury. But he said that
inmate Paul Gregory House could proceed with a lawsuit in federal court
claiming innocence for the murder of Carolyn Muncey, a young mother of two,
in Union County, Tenn., in July 1985.
Twenty years after his conviction, DNA testing
revealed that semen found on the murder victim's nightgown and underwear
belonged to her husband, not House.
''This is not a case of conclusive exoneration,''
Kennedy wrote on behalf of himself and four other justices.
Chief
Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin
Scalia and Clarence
Thomas dissented. Justice Samuel
Alito did not participate in the case because
it was argued before he joined the high court.
Kennedy said jurors could find reasonable doubt
because DNA evidence points to Muncey's husband as a suspect and because
small blood stains found on House's jeans may have spilled on the pants from
vials of blood taken from Muncey during an autopsy.
House, who was on parole for a sex offense in Utah,
was convicted of luring Muncey from her home by telling her that her
husband, Hubert, had been hurt in a car accident. Her body was found the
next afternoon in an area where witnesses had seen House.
His original lawyer failed to locate several witnesses
who said years later that Hubert Muncey had abused his wife, had fought with
her the night of her murder and had confessed later to killing her.
House's case had generated excitement in legal circles
because it gave the high court a chance to jump into the national debate
over DNA testing and how courts should deal with advances in evaluations of
biological evidence left at crimes scenes long ago.
''Although the issue is close, we conclude that this
is the rare case where -- had the jury heard all the conflicting testimony
-- it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror viewing the record as
a whole would lack reasonable doubt,'' Kennedy wrote.
Kennedy said that House's revelations about DNA and
the blood stains are enough to overcome strict standards that must be met
before prisoners are allowed to re-argue issues of innocence long after
their convictions.
But Roberts, in the dissent, disagreed. He said the
majority had ignored a trial judge's determination that House and several of
his witnesses were unreliable. Roberts also noted that the trial judge had
found that Muncey's autopsy blood was spilled on House's jeans after the FBI
already had determined that the blood on his pants belonged to the victim.
''Witnesses do not testify in our courtroom, and it is
not our role to make credibility findings and construct theories of the
possible ways in which Mrs. Muncey's blood could have been spattered and
wiped on House's jeans,'' Roberts wrote.
The chief justice took a different approach than the
majority, which based its decision on its belief that at least one juror
would have reasonable doubt about the evidence. Roberts said he believed
that at least one juror would have voted to convict House.
The case is House v. Bell, 04-8990.
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AMA to
Doctors: Thou shall not help the state to kill
AMA President William G.
Plested Monday released a statement, following last week's statement by the head
of the Am. Soc. of Anesthesiologists, entitled "AMA: Physician
Participation in Lethal Injection Violates Medical Ethics."
The American Medical
Association is troubled by continuous refusal of many state courts and
legislatures to acknowledge the ethical obligations of physicians, which
strictly prohibit physician involvement in a legally authorized execution. The
AMA's policy is clear and unambiguous - requiring physicians to participate in
executions violates their oath to protect lives and erodes public confidence in
the medical profession.
A physician is a member of a
profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so. The use
of a physician's clinical skill and judgment for purposes other than promoting
an individual's health and welfare undermines a basic ethical foundation of
medicine - first, do no harm.
The
guidelines in the AMA Code of Medical Ethics address physician participation in
executions involving lethal injection. The ethical opinion explicitly prohibits
selecting injection sites for executions by lethal injection, starting
intravenous lines, prescribing, administering, or supervising the use of lethal
drugs, monitoring vital signs, on site or remotely, and declaring death.
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American Bar
Association Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project releases its Arizona
Death Penalty Assessment Report
From Capital Defense Weekly:
Monday, July 17, 2006
The ABA Death Penalty
Moratorium Implementation Project on Monday released its Arizona Death Penalty
Assessment Report as part of its two-year grant to examine the extent to which
U.S.
capital jurisdictions' death penalty systems comport with minimum standards of
fairness and due process. Key among the findings:
-
Decentralized
Defense Services – Although the State of Arizona provides indigent
defendants with counsel at trial, on direct appeal, and in state
post-conviction proceedings, Arizona’s indigent defense services is a
mixed and uneven system that lacks level oversight and standards and does
not provide uniform, quality representation to indigent defendants in all
capital proceedings. With the exception of the newly-established state
capital post-conviction public defender office, the State has failed to
adopt a statewide public defender office, mandate the establishment of
public defender offices providing coverage within each county, adequately
fund indigent defense services in each county, or implement close oversight
of indigent legal services at the county level.
-
Insufficiently
Compensated Appointed Counsel – The compensation paid to appointed
attorneys who represent capital defendants is insufficient for counsel to
meet their obligations under the ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and
Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases (Guidelines), despite
the fact that the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure require defense
counsel to be familiar with the Guidelines and that the Arizona Supreme
Court may mandate compliance with portions of the Guidelines.
-
Lack
of a Mechanism to Ensure Proportionality – While proportionality review is
the single best method of protecting against arbitrariness in capital
sentencing, the Arizona Supreme Court is not required to undertake a
proportionality review in capital cases. Since 1992, the Arizona Supreme
Court has rejected any arguments that the absence of proportionality review
denies capital defendants equal protection and due process of law, or that
it is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment.
-
Lack
of Effective Limitations on the “Especially Cruel, Heinous, or Depraved”
Aggravating Circumstance – In 2002, the Arizona Capital Case Commission
expressed concerns regarding the ambiguity of the (F)(6) statutory
aggravating circumstance (a murder committed in an “especially cruel,
heinous or depraved manner”), but no changes have yet been made.
Currently, the courts, in determining the constitutionality of jury
instructions used to explain this aggravating circumstance, require the
instructions to contain “essential narrowing factors” and provide
“specificity and direction” to the jury, but do not mandate that a
uniform and specific definition be used. Given the inherent vagueness of
this aggravating circumstance, it is of utmost importance that the State of
Arizona
adopt a uniform and specific definition of this aggravating circumstance
when instructing jurors during the aggravation phase of a capital trial. We
note that while the State Bar of Arizona Criminal Jury Instruction Committee
has discussed a proposed jury instruction defining this factor, it has not
yet been submitted to the State Bar Board of Governors for approval.
Arizona
Death Penalty Assessment Report
Executive
Summary of the Arizona Death Penalty Report
Full
Arizona Death Penalty Assessment Report
(1.8 MB)
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ABA Passes Resolution Condemning the Execution of the Mentally Ill
The
Resolution
RESOLVED, That
the American Bar Association, without taking a position supporting or opposing
the death penalty, urges each jurisdiction that imposes capital punishment to
implement the following policies and procedures:
1. Defendants should not be executed or sentenced to death if, at the time of
the offense, they had significant limitations in both their intellectual
functioning and adaptive behavior, as expressed in conceptual, social, and
practical adaptive skills, resulting from mental retardation, dementia, or a
traumatic brain injury.
2. Defendants should not be executed or sentenced to death if, at the time of
the offense, they had a severe mental disorder or disability that significantly
impaired their capacity (a) to appreciate the nature, consequences or
wrongfulness of their conduct, (b) to exercise rational judgment in relation to
conduct, or (c) to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law. A
disorder manifested primarily by repeated criminal conduct or attributable
solely to the acute effects of voluntary use of alcohol or other drugs does not,
standing alone, constitute a mental disorder or disability for purposes of this
provision.
3. Mental Disorder or Disability after Sentencing
(a) Grounds for Precluding Execution. A sentence of death should not be carried
out if the prisoner has a mental disorder or disability that significantly
impairs his or her capacity (i) to make a rational decision to forgo or
terminate post-conviction proceedings available to challenge the validity of the
conviction or sentence; (ii) to understand or communicate pertinent information,
or otherwise assist counsel, in relation to specific claims bearing on the
validity of the conviction or sentence that cannot be fairly resolved without
the prisoner's participation; or (iii) to understand the nature and purpose of
the punishment, or to appreciate the reason for its imposition in the prisoner's
own case. Procedures to be followed in each of these categories of cases are
specified in (b) through (d) below.
(b) Procedure in Cases Involving Prisoners Seeking to Forgo or Terminate
Post-Conviction Proceedings. If a court finds that a prisoner under sentence of
death who wishes to forgo or terminate post-conviction proceedings has a mental
disorder or disability that significantly impairs his or her capacity to make a
rational decision, the court should permit a next friend acting on the
prisoner's behalf to initiate or pursue available remedies to set aside the
conviction or death sentence.
(c) Procedure in Cases Involving Prisoners Unable to Assist Counsel in
Post-Conviction Proceedings. If a court finds at any time that a prisoner under
sentence of death has a mental disorder or disability that significantly impairs
his or her capacity to understand or communicate pertinent information, or
otherwise to assist counsel, in connection with post-conviction proceedings, and
that the prisoner's participation is necessary for a fair resolution of specific
claims bearing on the validity of the conviction or death sentence, the court
should suspend the proceedings. If the court finds that there is no significant
likelihood of restoring the prisoner's capacity to participate in
post-conviction proceedings in the foreseeable future, it should reduce the
prisoner's sentence to the sentence imposed in capital cases when execution is
not an option.
(d) Procedure in Cases Involving Prisoners Unable to Understand the Punishment
or its Purpose. If, after challenges to the validity of the conviction and death
sentence have been exhausted and execution has been scheduled, a court finds
that a prisoner has a mental disorder or disability that significantly impairs
his or her capacity to understand the nature and purpose of the punishment, or
to appreciate the reason for its imposition in the prisoner's own case, the
sentence of death should be reduced to the sentence imposed in capital cases
when execution is not an option.
A
copy of the resolution may be downloaded from the ABA at:
http://www.abanet.org/leadership/2006/annual/onehundredtwentytwoa.doc
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Spare
accused killer's life, shooting victims say
By JOHN IWASAKI, Wednesday,
September 13, 2006
The man who fired bullets into six
women during the fatal shooting at Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle offices
should not receive the death penalty, two of his recovering victims said
Tuesday.
"Killing him is not really an appropriate
punishment," said Layla Bush, who favors life imprisonment for the man who
shot her in the abdomen and shoulder July 28.
Her colleague, Pamela Waechter, was slain in the
rampage, which also wounded four other women.
"Killing him would be a shame," Bush
said. "I think it would be too easy for him."
Carol Goldman, another victim who spoke during a
news conference Tuesday at Harborview Medical Center, echoed Bush's sentiments
about Naveed Haq, the accused shooter.
"I keep thinking, death would be too easy
for him," said Goldman, who was shot in the left knee. She said she prefers
that he "sit and focus on what he's done in his life. ... I'll be fine with
what the prosecutors decide."
King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng is expected to
decide in the coming months whether to seek the death penalty for Haq.
Bush, 23, who will be discharged today, nearly
died when a bullet penetrated within a half-inch of her heart. Bullets damaged
her liver, stomach, pancreas and left kidney.
One bullet remains lodged in Bush's lower back,
where it probably will remain forever because removing it would cause more
damage, said Dr. Valerie Bodeau, her physician in rehabilitation medicine at
Harborview.
Goldman, 35, who was discharged Aug. 4, and Bush
are good friends. Both have made significant progress in recovery, though they
face extensive rehabilitation and can't yet walk without a walker.
Goldman said that when the shooting began and she
was hit, she held on to her phone, ducked under her desk, called 911 and hoped
the gunman would forget about her.
"I felt, 'Oh, God. Poor Layla. Poor
Cheryl," she recalled, referring to Cheryl Stumbo, another victim.
The bullet tore Goldman's quadriceps muscle in
her left leg. An inch or two lower, she said, and it would have shattered her
kneecap.
She still hasn't fully come to terms with the
death of Waechter, who was the Jewish Federation's director of annual giving.
"Pam was my boss," Goldman said.
"I really loved working for her. I know intellectually she's gone, but I
don't know emotionally yet."
Goldman and Bush say they feed off each other's
progress in rehabilitation and marvel at how far they've come. Goldman has about
50 percent mobility in her injured leg.
Bush initially could not even turn herself over
in bed. Three weeks ago, she could stand up. Now she can walk 400 feet at one
time by herself with a walker, albeit in small, measured steps, and wears leg
and back braces.
Her physician, Bodeau, called her a "model
patient" who will need outpatient rehabilitation two or three times a week.
Goldman, who like Bush is not Jewish, said the
Jewish community has showered her with visits, gifts and other expressions of
love.
"It makes me feel good about the human
spirit," Bush said. "When everyone is doing something to help me, I
have to remain positive."
The unacceptable alternative, she added, is
"being miserable."
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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/284888_victims13.html
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