The Capital Punishment Thread

[Isgrimnur]

Maryland clears the bench:

Outgoing Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley said Wednesday that he will commute the capital sentences of the state's last four inmates on death row to life in prison, saying executing them "does not serve the public good of the people of Maryland."

Two years ago, the General Assembly abolished the death penalty in the state, making the ultimate sentence in new cases life in prison without the possibility of parole.

That left four previously sentenced inmates on death row.

The governor noted in a statement that outgoing Democratic Attorney General Doug Gansler recently asserted that carrying out prior sentences would be illegal in the absence of an existing statute.

[Isgrimnur]

Supreme Court stays Oklahoma cases:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked the next three executions scheduled in Oklahoma pending its review of the state's controversial three-drug cocktail for lethal injections.

The ruling was expected, since both lawyers for the convicted murderers and the state itself had urged the justices to block the executions. But Oklahoma also wanted the court to allow executions to resume if it could find a replacement drug, and the court left open that possibility.

"It is hereby ordered that petitioners' executions using midazolam are stayed pending final disposition of this case," the court said in an unsigned order.
...
On Tuesday, it allowed Georgia to execute double-murderer Warren Lee Hill with a different form of lethal injection, despite his lawyers' claims that he was intellectually disabled.

Earlier this month, the justices also refused to block the execution of Charles Warner in Oklahoma, despite the use of a three-drug protocol including midazolam, which has caused several botched executions in the past. But four liberal justices objected, and last Friday the court agreed to hear the broader case over the use of that drug cocktail.
...
The case will be heard on April 29, the last day of oral arguments in the court's 2014 term, and decided by late June. In the meantime, the executions of Richard Glossip, John Grant and Benjamin Cole will be put on hold.
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Their lawyers claim that midazolam, the first drug used in the three-drug protocol, is being used in state executions virtually on an experimental basis. They say Inmates may not be rendered unconscious, as they are with stronger barbiturates, and could suffer painfully as the other drugs in the protocol are administered.

That, they claim, was a factor in Oklahoma's botched execution last April of Clayton Lockett, who struggled, groaned and writhed in pain for 43 minutes before dying. A state investigation later blamed Lockett's ordeal on a failure by prison staff to realize that drugs had not been administered directly into his veins. The state has since changed its procedures and increased the dose of midazolam used.
...
Lawyers for Oklahoma responded that there was no real evidence midazolam would not work as a general anesthetic. They noted that it had been used successfully in at least 10 previous executions.

"It is undisputed that Oklahoma's protocol, which is identical to Florida's protocol, has been used 10 times in executions without serious incident," the state argued in its brief. "Petitioners can only cite to executions that took place using different drug combinations, or the Oklahoma execution of offender Lockett, in which IV access was subsequently found to be insufficient and flawed."

[LordMortis]

They could just go back to the Firing Squad.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/wyoming-con ... 1422230396

I can't believe Washington and New Hampshire have Hanging as an option. The non Death Penalty states are a surprise to me as well.

[Jeff V]

They could just go back to the Firing Squad.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/wyoming-con ... 1422230396

I can't believe Washington and New Hampshire have Hanging as an option. The non Death Penalty states are a surprise to me as well.

Our death row was shut down after a surprising number of residents had a slight complication...it seems they were actually innocent of the crimes that put them there. It was probably the one solidly good thing Ryan did before his ass got sent off to prison (which is where we like to keep our ex-governors).

[Isgrimnur]

Nebraska goes shopping:

Nebraska state lawmakers began debating a bipartisan bill to abolish the death penalty Friday, one day after Gov. Pete Ricketts announced he purchased two of three drugs the state needs to execute inmates on death row.

The legislature has already voted once on Legislative Bill 268, which would replace the death penalty with life without parole, last month in a 30 to 13 vote. Two more rounds of voting are required before the bill would move to Governor Rickett's desk. He has promised to veto the bill if it reaches him, but 30 'yes' votes would override his veto power.

There are 11 inmates on death row in Nebraska, which hasn't executed an inmate since 1997. Three of the inmates have exhausted their appeals, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.

[Isgrimnur]

I wonder what the return policy is? Nebraska is out.

In a 30-to-19 vote that cut across party lines, Nebraska lawmakers on Wednesday overrode Gov. Pete Ricketts’s veto of their bill to repeal capital punishment, making the state the first conservative one to do so since North Dakota in 1973.
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In Nebraska, part of the Republican support for repeal was fueled by the 14 new conservative senators in the state’s unicameral legislature – a group that has “shown a willingness to buck old ideas on issues including the death penalty,” LA Times reporter Michael Muskal wrote.
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Gov. Ricketts, a Republican who remains a staunch death penalty advocate, expressed his disappointment with what he said was the state legislature’s failure to connect with Nebraskans.

“My words cannot express how appalled I am that we have lost a critical tool to protect law enforcement and Nebraska families,” he said in a statement. “While the Legislature has lost touch with the citizens of Nebraska, I will continue to stand with Nebraskans and law enforcement on this important issue.”

So, governor, you're saying that your prisons aren't secure enough to protect your citizens?

[stessier]

So, governor, you're saying that your prisons aren't secure enough to protect your citizens?

Actually I think he's saying that the penalty has a deterrent role - something I think fails any to withstand any critical analysis, but still.

[Carpet_pissr]

I get that faulty reasoning argument about "protecting families" (but really, if you're going to sell it, sell it all the way and say "to protect our children, for they are the future"), but how does the death penalty in any way, shape or form protect LEO's? Weird.

I think there must be some internal politician "in" game where you get points based on how many times you reference law enforcement officers, "men and women in uniform" or firefighters in any of your speeches, whether relevant or not to the topic at hand.

[stessier]

I get that faulty reasoning argument about "protecting families" (but really, if you're going to sell it, sell it all the way and say "to protect our children, for they are the future"), but how does the death penalty in any way, shape or form protect LEO's? Weird.

I think one of the things that raises a crime to the death penalty level is attacking cops in some way. So if it were a deterrent, LEOs would be even safer from the critically thinking criminal.

[Jeff V]

I get that faulty reasoning argument about "protecting families" (but really, if you're going to sell it, sell it all the way and say "to protect our children, for they are the future"), but how does the death penalty in any way, shape or form protect LEO's? Weird.

I think one of the things that raises a crime to the death penalty level is attacking cops in some way. So if it were a deterrent, LEOs would be even safer from the critically thinking criminal.

But it is proven to not be a deterrent as neer-do-wells have been proven to not consider consequences of their actions. If shooting a cop is part of their pre-meditated scheme, they are pretty mentally defective in the first place and can hardly be considered a "critically thinking criminal."

It's funny how death-penalty proponents make up scenarios that just don't exist in the real world. Just because they can imagine such a thing doesn't make it so.

[Isgrimnur]

Texas is on track.

The U.S. Supreme Court will allow the scheduled execution of a 67-year-old Texas man to go ahead.

The high court Wednesday rejected last-ditch appeals from Lester Bower Jr. about 3 hours before he was scheduled to be taken to the Texas death chamber for lethal injection Wednesday evening.

He'd be the oldest Texas prisoner put to death since the nation's most active death penalty state resumed carrying out executions in 1982.

Bower was convicted of the October 1983 fatal shootings of four men at an airplane hangar on a ranch near Sherman, about 60 miles north of Dallas. Prosecutors say he killed the four after stealing an airplane that he'd been trying to buy from one of the victims.

[Jaymann]

Have they considered cliffs?

[Isgrimnur]

SCOTUS

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday against three death row inmates who had sought to bar the use of an execution drug they said risked causing excruciating pain.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the majority opinion in the 5-to-4 decision. He was joined by the court’s four more conservative justices.

The drug, the sedative midazolam, played a part in three long and apparently painful executions last year. It was used in an effort to render inmates unconscious before they were injected with other, severely painful drugs.
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They are Richard E. Glossip, who was convicted of arranging the beating death of his employer; John M. Grant, who was convicted of stabbing a prison cafeteria worker to death; and Benjamin R. Cole Sr., who was convicted of breaking his 9-month-old daughter’s spine, killing her.

In a dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said it was time to consider a larger issue.

“Rather than try to patch up the death penalty’s legal wounds one at a time,” Justice Breyer wrote, “I would ask for full briefing on a more basic question: whether the death penalty violates the Constitution.”

[cheeba]

#LoveWins

[GreenGoo]

Another split decision. My god, the USofA is crumbling as I watch on in horror.

My apologies to a certain unnamed forum member, I meant it in good fun, not harsh criticism.

[Isgrimnur]

Glossip is up next

Oklahoma plans to execute on Wednesday a convicted murderer who tried unsuccessfully to have the U.S. Supreme Court rule that one of the drugs used in the state's lethal injection mix can cause undue harm and suffering.

Richard Glossip is set to be put to death at 3 p.m. at the state's death chamber in McAlester. His lawyers have launched a last-minute campaign to halt the execution, saying they have new evidence that points to his innocence.

Glossip, 52, was found guilty of arranging the 1997 murder of the owner of an Oklahoma City motel he was managing.

Governor Mary Fallin, a Republican, said on Tuesday her legal team examined the evidence and determined it was neither new nor substantial enough to warrant a stay of execution.

His lawyers said no physical evidence tied Glossip to the crime and he was convicted largely on the testimony of Justin Sneed, then 19, who confessed to carrying out the killing and said Glossip hired him to do it. Sneed is serving a life sentence and avoided the death penalty by testifying against Glossip.
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Glossip's execution would be the first in Oklahoma since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the use of midazolam, a sedative used in the lethal injection procedure, did not violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

[Isgrimnur]

Temporary stay

Oklahoma’s highest criminal-appeals court granted Richard Glossip an eleventh-hour stay of execution Wednesday to hear new evidence he may have been framed.

The Oklahoma Criminal Court of Appeals stayed Glossip’s execution until September 30 so it could consider his petition. Glossip had been scheduled for lethal injection at 5 p.m. local time.
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All sides agree that Justin Sneed fatally bludgeoned motel owner Barry Van Treese to death in January of 1998. But the stories diverge on whether Glossip commissioned Sneed to commit their boss’s murder. Murder-for-hire can make the conspirator eligible for the death penalty in many states, even if he or she was not present at the murder. But Segura and Smith reported that Sneed’s daughter tried to alert Oklahoma officials last October that her father’s testimony about Glossip’s role in the murder could be inaccurate:

In a letter to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, she wrote that, based on her many communications with her dad, she “strongly believe” that Richard Glossip is an innocent man. “For a couple of years now, my father has been talking to me about recanting his original testimony,” she wrote. “I feel his conscious [sic] is getting to him.”

The case for Glossip’s innocence hinges solely on whether or not Sneed lied. His motive would be obvious: Prosecutors spared Sneed the death penalty in exchange for his testimony against Glossip. In a recent interview with Cary Aspinwall at The Frontier, Sneed refused to recant his earlier testimony that Glossip paid him to commit murder. According to Aspinwall, Sneed’s family members suggest his daughter was manipulated into sending the letter, which didn’t reach the parole board in time to be considered.

[Isgrimnur]

ABC

Attorneys for the state of Oklahoma say recently emerged witnesses who claim a death row inmate was framed are "inherently suspect," and that their claims don't merit a new hearing ahead of the inmate's execution next week.

In a court filing Thursday, Attorney General Scott Pruitt's office argued that former inmates who have come forward to support Richard Glossip's claim of innocence have a checkered past and could only offer questionable testimony.
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Among the newly submitted evidence is a signed affidavit from Joseph Tapley, who said he shared a cell with Sneed in 1997 at the Oklahoma County Jail.

Tapley says in the affidavit that Sneed gave "very detailed accounts" of how he killed Van Treese with a baseball bat, and that Sneed never mentioned Glossip or "gave me any indication that someone else was involved."

"Justin Sneed was very concerned about getting the death penalty. He was very scared of it," Tapley states in the affidavit. "The only thing that mattered to him was signing for a life sentence."

Pruitt's office argues that even if Tapley is telling the truth, Sneed never told Tapley that he acted alone.
...
The attorney general's office also argues that an alleged conversation that happened 20 years ago "does not even come close to being clear and convincing evidence of petitioner's actual innocence."

Glossip's lawyers also are fighting in federal court to stop Glossip's execution by challenging the state's planned use midazolam. They argue that state law calls for another, less controversial drug to be used that the state could try to get.

[Isgrimnur]

Virginia

Virginia is poised to execute a convicted serial killer who claims he's intellectually disabled using lethal injection drugs from Texas because the state's supply of another controversial drug will expire the day before the execution is supposed to take place.

Unless Gov. Terry McAuliffe or the U.S. Supreme Court steps in this week, Alfredo Prieto will be the first Virginia inmate to be executed in nearly three years Thursday.

The El Salvador native was already facing execution in California for raping and murdering a 15-year-old girl when a Virginia jury sentenced him to death in 2010 for the 1988 killings Rachael Raver and her boyfriend, Warren Fulton III. California officials agreed to send him to Virginia on the rationale that it was more likely to carry out the execution.

Authorities have said DNA and ballistics evidence has linked Prieto to several other killings in California and Virginia but he was never prosecuted because he had already been sentenced to death.
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Prieto's exposure to violence in warn-torn El Salvador and a lack of proper nutrition because his family was poor contributed to "significant brain dysfunction" that affected his ability to think abstractly and control his impulses, Ricardo Weinstein, a psychologist who evaluated Prieto at the defense's request, said during his trial in 2007.

As a child, Prieto struggled with learning and was quiet and withdrawn, often sitting alone and "staring blankly at nothing," Prieto's attorneys said last week in their request to McAuliffe to delay the execution. They want Prieto to return to California, where they believe he can receive a "full and fair" assessment of his intellectual disability. McAuliffe has not yet made a decision on Prieto's request.

Prieto's lawyers appealed his death sentence after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that rigid cutoffs on IQ test scores used in Florida to determine whether someone is intellectually disabled were unconstitutional. Virginia had a virtually identical law.

But a federal appeals court ruled in June that Prieto failed to prove that no reasonable juror would find him eligible for execution, saying that Prieto's ability to handle everyday tasks was "at best inconclusive."

Psychologists testifying for the prosecution noted that Prieto was well-spoken, bilingual and analytical. But Prieto's attorneys and advocates for people with intellectual disabilities say his cognitive strengths are irrelevant.
...
But the state hasn't executed an inmate since January 2013, when Robert Gleason Jr. was put to death in the state's electric chair, which inmates can choose over lethal injection. Gleason had been serving a life in prison for a 2007 murder when he killed his cellmate in 2009.

Since Prieto didn't make a choice, the state will use a lethal three-drug cocktail.

The first drug will be pentobarbital that Virginia obtained from Texas because its supply of midazolam will expire on Wednesday, said Lisa Kinney, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Corrections. Virginia recently approved the use of midazolam — a controversial drug used in a botched execution in Oklahoma last year — but has never used it.

[Isgrimnur]

Glossip's appeals rejected:

Two weeks ago, Oklahoma was hours away from executing Richard Glossip when a state court stepped in and delayed his execution so it could consider his appeals. On Monday, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals said it was rejecting these appeals and Glossip’s request for a stay of execution. As a result, Glossip’s lethal injection remains scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
...
The appeals court decided 3-2 to reject Glossip’s claims and arguments, finding that his conviction was “not based solely on the testimony of a codefendant” and adding that the same court believed Sneed’s testimony “was sufficiently corroborated for a conviction,” according to an opinion from Judge David Lewis.

Presiding Judge Clancy Smith dissented, though, arguing that “the tenuous evidence in this case is questionable at best” if Sneed had disavowed his earlier remarks, and writing that she would allow a 60-day stay to allow for an penitentiary hearing.

[Isgrimnur]

Georgia

The Georgia parole board has agreed to let death-row inmate Kelly Gissendaner make a new bid for clemency, just hours before her scheduled execution.

The state Board of Pardons and Paroles, which rejected a clemency bid from Gissendaner in February, will meet at 11 a.m. Tuesday "in order to receive and consider supplemental information" from her defense team.

After the meeting, the board has three options: let the earlier denial stand, issue a stay so it can consider the new information, or commute her sentence to life.

Gissendaner was sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of her husband at the hands of her lover, who is serving a life sentence.

In their request for reconsideration to the board, Gissendaner's lawyers said it was unfair that the person who actually carried out the crime got a less severe punishment than she did.

They also argued that Gissendaner would have pleaded guilty for a life sentence but was talked out of it by her trial attorney.
...
The mother of three was waiting to be executed in March when prison officials suddenly halted the process, saying they had detected cloudiness in the drugs being used for the lethal injection.

They later said the chemical had been kept at too low a temperature and that precautions would be taken to avoid a repeat.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has made criminal justice reform a centerpiece of his administration, but he has no power to grant clemency. However, he did appoint three of the five members of the parole board.

[Isgrimnur]

Denied

Despite an 11th-hour appeal from Pope Francis, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has rejected a clemency bid by Kelly Gissendaner, the mother of three scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening for her role in her husband's 1997 murder.

"In reaching its decision, the Board thoroughly reviewed all information and documents pertaining to the case, including the latest information presented by Gissendaner's representatives," a release sent from board chairman Terry Barnard said. No other explanation of the decision was given.
...
On Monday, a federal judge denied a request to stay Gissandaner's execution. Gissendaner's attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash to reconsider an earlier lawsuit declaring lethal injection as a form of cruel and unusual punishment. They argued in part that there's a substantial risk of serious harm if the execution proceeds as planned because officials still can't explain what went wrong with the execution drug in March.

[Isgrimnur]

Virginia

Attorneys for a convicted serial killer are appealing to the state of Virginia to spare his life, which is slated to end at 9 p.m. on Thursday at the Greensville Correctional Center. Alfredo Prieto's attorneys have raised concerns about one of the lethal injection drugs that the state intends to use. A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., approved an order Wednesday temporarily blocking Mr. Prieto's execution, and called for a hearing.
...
Prieto's attorneys have expressed concern over the quality of the drugs, saying the drugs may bring Prieto "gratuitous and unnecessary pain."

Prieto's lawyers have requested the name of the drug supplier, test results showing sterility and potency, and evidence that the drugs were handled properly.
...
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring's office has encouraged the judge to dismiss Prieto's case, pointing out that Texas has administered 24 executions over the past two years without issue, adding that delaying Prieto's execution may "fully indulge his speculations" and could push the case past the drug's expiration date.

[Isgrimnur]

Oklahoma

Death row inmate Richard Glossip was minutes from execution, stripped and mere feet from the death chamber in a holding cell, when he learned he had been granted a stay by the governor of Oklahoma.
...
Twice in two weeks Glossip has received a last-minute stay of execution. The latest reprieve came from Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, who ordered a 37-day delay after prison officials discovered they had received the wrong drug for use during the execution.

Oklahoma uses a cocktail of three drugs for lethal injections. One, potassium chloride, had been ordered but officials say the state received potassium acetate instead. State law prohibits prison officials from revealing the drugs' supplier. Oklahoma officials were unsure if the potassium acetate was an appropriate substitute in an execution, though the drugs treat similar medical conditions.

Governor Fallin's spokesman Alex Weintz said Wednesday that the Department of Corrections doesn't receive its lethal injection drugs until the day of an execution, however state officials had written to the local federal public defender's office in August to say prison officials had found the needed drugs.

[Isgrimnur]

OK: Full stop

Oklahoma's highest criminal court unanimously agreed Friday to halt all of the state's scheduled executions after the state's prison system received the wrong drug for a lethal injection this week.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals granted the state's request and issued indefinite stays of execution for Richard Glossip, Benjamin Cole and John Grant. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt requested the stays to give his office time to investigate why the Oklahoma Department of Corrections received the wrong drug just hours before Glossip was scheduled to be executed Wednesday.
...
The court ordered the state for status reports every 30 days, "including any proposed adjustments to the execution protocol."

[Isgrimnur]

Oklahoma

Corrections officials in Oklahoma used the wrong drug to execute Charles Warner back in January.

The revelation was included in Warner's autopsy report, which was just made public by the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. According to the report, officials used potassium acetate — not potassium chloride, as state protocol calls for — to stop Warner's heart.
...
According to the AP, Oklahoma's execution protocol does allow for some wiggle room in the kind of drugs used in executions.

"The protocols include dosage guidelines for single-drug lethal injections of pentobarbital or sodium pentothal, along with dosages for a three-drug protocol of midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride," the AP reported. "The protocols also allow for rocuronium or pancuronium bromide to be substituted for the second drug. The protocols do not list an alternate for potassium chloride, which is the third drug used."

Back in September, Gov. Mary Fallin stopped the execution of Richard Glossip, saying that the state had received potassium acetate rather than potassium chloride.

Following that stay, Robert Patton, Oklahoma's prisons director, told reporters that the state's drug provider told them that the two drugs were interchangeable. Medical professionals say they are two different drugs.

[Isgrimnur]

Arizona

The Arizona Department of Corrections paid more than $27,000 to import from overseas an illegal drug for executions by lethal injection, but federal officials stopped the shipment at the airport.

According to heavily redacted documents obtained by The Arizona Republic, the Corrections Department contracted to purchase 1,000 vials of the anesthetic sodium thiopental. And although the seller's name and information are blacked out on the documents, an offer to sell the drug to Arizona is virtually identical to an unredacted offer sent to corrections officials in Nebraska from a pharmaceutical supplier in India.
...
According to the paperwork obtained through legal discovery, Arizona on March 9, 2015, ordered 1,000 vials of the drug at $25 per vial. That amounted to $25,000, and a freight charge of $1,700 was attached. Among the documents obtained is a receipt showing that $27,500 was wired from a State of Arizona Bank of America account.
...
The state Department of Corrections filled out the appropriate DEA forms anticipating the shipment. But the DEA notified Customs and the FDA of the request.

When the shipment arrived at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport via British Airways on July 25, 2015, it was flagged by the FDA and held by Customs.

Arizona Corrections Director Charles Ryan sent letters to FDA officials in Maryland and DEA officials in Virginia, asking that the shipment be released, but on Aug. 24, FDA officials responded with a letter saying "FDA has determined that this shipment should not be allowed to move to destination at this time and thus will not be requesting that CBP lift its detention."

DEA also refused to yield to Arizona corrections in a letter dated July 13 saying, "According to the FDA, there is no approved application for sodium thiopental, and it is illegal to import an unapproved new drug into the United States."

[Isgrimnur]

Missouri

The execution of a Missouri man was in limbo Wednesday following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to halt the lethal injection shortly before it was set to take place.

Ernest Lee Johnson, convicted of beating three people to death with a claw hammer, was scheduled to die at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Missouri state prison in Bonne Terre.

But in a last-minute decision, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to consider whether it properly dismissed a complaint from Johnson that alleged execution drugs could trigger painful seizures because of his brain tumor.
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A second appeal also is pending, to the Missouri Supreme Court, claims Johnson’s life should be spared because of the mental disability. The Missouri Attorney General’s Office has said both appeals are without merit.

[Isgrimnur]

California

California proposed Friday to allow corrections officials to choose one of four types of barbiturates to execute prisoners on death row depending on what's available, as states deal with a nationwide shortage of execution drugs.

The single drug would replace the series of three drugs that were last used when Clarence Ray Allen was executed in 2006, strapped to a gurney in what once was the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison.

Eight states already have used a single anesthetic drug for executions, and five others have announced plans to switch to the method, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
...
Executions in California stalled in 2006 when a federal judge ordered an overhaul of the state's lethal injection procedures and said California could resume executions if it began using a single drug.
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The process was jump-started this year after a judge sided with the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which sued on behalf of relatives of murder victims who said they are affected by the long delay in executions. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation agreed to propose the new regulations to settle the lawsuit.
...
The regulations would allow San Quentin's warden to choose amobarbital, pentobarbital, secobarbital or thiopental, taking into account which drug is available.

Scheidegger praised the state for allowing options but said at least two of the drugs bring practical difficulties.

Thiopental is not made in the U.S. and never went through the federal regulatory process. Pentobarbital's manufacturer bans its use for lethal injections. However, Texas has been using pentobarbital acquired from compounding pharmacies.

Using a single lethal dose of barbiturates appears to sidestep legal problems that followed botched executions in other states that used multi-drug methods including the alternative sedative midazolam. The U.S. Supreme Court narrowly upheld the use of midazolam in a June ruling.

[Isgrimnur]

Ohio

Ohio plans to resume executions in January with a new three-drug combination after an unofficial three-year moratorium blamed on shortages of lethal drugs, an attorney representing the state told a federal judge Monday.

The state outlined its plan to Columbus federal Judge Edmund Sargus in a hearing where The Associated Press was the only media outlet present. Thomas Madden with the Ohio attorney general’s office said the state will use the drugs midazolam, which puts the inmate to sleep; rocuronium bromide, which paralyzes the inmate; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart. He said the drugs are not compounded and are FDA approved.

Madden said a new execution policy will be announced at the end of the week.

Attorneys representing death row inmates say they’ll file a new challenge almost immediately.
...
Ohio hasn’t put anyone to death since January 2014, when Dennis McGuire repeatedly gasped and snorted during a 26-minute procedure using a never-before-tried two-drug combo.
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The state has more than two dozen inmates with firm execution dates sitting on death row, with executions scheduled out as far as October 2019.

[Montag]

They should just change it to asphyxiation with nitrogen. Some may even experience euphoria before death. No way you can block the sale of nitrogen bottles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation

[Isgrimnur]

Florida

In the latest of a string of rulings on Florida's death penalty law, the state's Supreme Court says juries should be unanimous in imposing a death sentence — something the recently revamped law does not require.

In Florida and most other state courts, a jury is required to reach a unanimous verdict — but perhaps because the size of the jury expands to 12 members in capital criminal cases, legislators opted to require only that 10 out of 12 jurors agree to impose a death sentence when it changed the law earlier this year. The state's high court rejected that arrangement Friday.

Florida changed its sentencing guidelines after the "U.S. Supreme Court ruled in January that judges in the state had too much input in sentencing someone to death, when the jury alone has that constitutional responsibility," as member station WLRN reports.

The problem the U.S. justices had with the earlier law was that it required juries only to make an advisory recommendation for the death penalty — and that by leaving the imposition of the sentence to the judge, the law improperly disconnected the jury's finding of facts and aggravating factors from the burden of weighing the death penalty.
...
Noting that the court also issued a separate ruling that grants a new sentencing to death row inmate Timothy Hurst — whose case prompted the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of Florida's law in January — WLRN adds, "What happens to the other almost 390 people on death row remains unclear."
...
In rejecting Florida's system, the high court broke with its own past. As Nina reported, the Supreme Court said "it was explicitly reversing those earlier decisions because, it said, 'the underpinnings' of those rulings have been 'eroded by time and subsequent developments in constitutional law.' "

[Isgrimnur]

Alabama

An Alabama inmate coughed repeatedly and his upper body heaved for at least 13 minutes during an execution using a drug that has previously been used in problematic lethal injections in at least three other states.

Ronald Bert Smith Jr., 45, also appeared to move slightly during two tests mean to determine consciousness before he was finally pronounced dead at 11:05 p.m. Thursday -- about 30 minutes after the procedure began at the state prison in southwest Alabama.

Alabama uses the sedative midazolam as the first drug in a three-drug lethal injection combination.

Oklahoma's use of midazolam as the first in a three-drug protocol was challenged after the April 2014 execution of Clayton Lockett
...
Ohio and Arizona have used midazolam as the first in a two-drug protocol. ... [Ohio] abandoned that method afterward and has yet to resume executions. Arizona halted executions after the July 2014 lethal injection of convicted killer Joseph Rudolph Wood, who took nearly two hours to die.
...
Smith was convicted of capital murder in the Nov. 8, 1994, fatal shooting of Huntsville store clerk Casey Wilson. A jury voted 7-5 to recommend a sentence of life imprisonment, but a judge overrode that recommendation and sentenced Smith to death.
...
Wilson was pistol-whipped and then shot in the head during the robbery, court documents show. Surveillance video showed Smith entering the store and recovering spent shell casings from the bathroom where Wilson was shot, according to the record.

In overriding the jury's recommendation at the 1995 trial, a judge likened the slaying to an execution, saying Wilson had already been pistol-whipped into submission and Smith ignored his pleas for mercy. Wilson had a newborn infant at the time of his death.
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U.S. Supreme Court justices twice paused the execution as Smith's attorneys argued for a delay, saying a judge shouldn't have been able to impose the death penalty when a jury recommended he receive life imprisonment.

Four liberal justices said they would have halted the execution, but five were needed to do so.
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Smith's lawyers argued a January decision that struck down Florida's death penalty structure because it gave too much power to judges raises legal questions about Alabama's process. In Alabama, a jury can recommend a sentence of life without parole, but a judge can override that recommendation to impose a death sentence. Alabama is the only state that allows judicial override, they argued.
...
It was the state's first execution since 2013. Judges stayed two other executions that had been scheduled this year.

[Isgrimnur]

Texas

For nearly a year and a half, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has detained a shipment of about 1,000 vials of execution drugs headed for Texas' death chamber. On Tuesday, Texas officials demanded an end to the delays, filing a lawsuit that seeks to force the feds to turn over the drugs.

"My office will not allow the FDA to sit on its hands and thereby impair Texas' responsibility to carry out its law enforcement duties," Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.
...
In July 2015, the FDA intercepted about 1,000 vials of sodium thiopental, also a barbiturate, that Texas was attempting to import from a foreign seller at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.

FDA officials said that the drugs lacked the required warnings and directions for use and that they needed federal approval. The state responded to the FDA, explaining that the drugs were legal for importation for law enforcement use. In April 2016, the FDA issued a tentative decision denying admission of the drugs.

But since then, the agency hasn't issued a final decision and has kept the drugs.

In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, Paxton argued the delays are unwarranted and should come to an end.
...
[Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason] Clark said the TDCJ has enough drugs on hand to complete the nine executions scheduled for the first six months of this year.

[Jeff V]

By now it's expired and has to be thrown away.

[Max Peck]

Filing a lawsuit is all well and good, but wouldn't it be more efficacious just to wait a couple more weeks and then send a tweet to Trump?

[Jeff V]

Filing a lawsuit is all well and good, but wouldn't it be more efficacious just to wait a couple more weeks and then send a tweet to Trump?

DT, need more kill juice for the HC voters. Please send ASAP.

[Blackhawk]

I still can't make any sense of it. We have so, so many ways to bring about painless, near-instant death on the cheap, yet we insist on using ones that don't work, but look pretty.

[Jeff V]

I still can't make any sense of it. We have so, so many ways to bring about painless, near-instant death on the cheap, yet we insist on using ones that don't work, but look pretty.

Been like that ever since Murat asked not to be shot in his pretty face.

[Rip]