National Defacto Moratorium??

[carolinem]

Supreme Court Halts Va. Inmate's Execution
Ruling Could Lead To National Hiatus In Lethal Injections

By Robert Barnes and Jerry Markon; Washington Post Staff Writers October 18, 2007

The Supreme Court stopped the execution of Virginia death row inmate Christopher Scott Emmett yesterday, a move that legal experts said might signal a nationwide halt to lethal injections until the justices decide next year whether the procedure amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

The court granted the stay of execution just four hours before Emmett was to be put to death. It is the second time the justices have stopped an execution since agreeing to decide whether lethal injections carry the potential for pain that would violate constitutional standards.

"I think this is a de facto moratorium," said Douglas A. Berman, a sentencing expert at Ohio State University's law school. Since almost all executions are carried out by lethal injection, he said a halt "would mean the most profound hiatus in the operation of the death penalty in at least two decades."

The justices review applications for stays on a case-by-case basis and gave no indication what their decision means for other death row inmates. They gave no reason for halting Emmett's execution, saying only that the stay would last until a federal appeals court in Richmond rules on the case "or further order of this court."

Emmett's attorneys have brought numerous appeals, and the Supreme Court turned down his latest Oct. 1. Emmett, 36, beat a co-worker to death with a brass lamp in a Danville, Va., motel room in 2001 and then stole his money to buy crack.

"The Supreme Court has spoken, and we will follow their decision," said David Clementson, a spokesman for Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R), who had urged that the execution be carried out.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), who previously had delayed Emmett's execution so the justices could consider his latest appeal, said in a statement that he "had no reason to question the prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty or the jury's decision that death was an appropriate punishment."

The court's action spared Kaine, who personally opposes the death penalty but has overseen four executions in his time as governor, from having to make the decision to either halt the execution or allow it to go forward before the justices decide whether lethal injection is constitutional.

Other governors and courts are facing the same question. Executions by lethal injection have been delayed in at least six states, including Texas, which leads the nation in executions, since the court announced Sept. 25 that it was taking up the issue by accepting a Kentucky case. Other states had suspended the use of lethal injections because of questions about it.

"I think you'll see that very few states want to be the outliers when the court seems ready to step in and stop" the planned executions, Berman said.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, agreed. "I believe this stay in Virginia, combined with previous stays in a number of other states, confirms that a moratorium on all lethal injections is in place in this country until the Supreme Court rules on the issue," he said.

Lethal injection is the primary method of execution in 37 of the 38 states that have the death penalty. Nebraska uses electrocutions, but no executions are scheduled there.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director and general counsel for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which favors capital punishment and opposes expansion of criminal rights, said he had hoped the court would explain its reasoning in its case-by-case review of the stay requests. Another appeal, from Georgia, is likely to reach the court this week.

If the court's action amounts to a moratorium, Scheidegger said, it would dilute "the deterrence effect" of the death penalty and "cause more innocent people to die."

Even without a halt to the use of lethal injections, the pace of executions nationally is the slowest in a decade. A Texas execution carried out on the day the court announced it had accepted the Kentucky case was the last.

The case, Baze v. Rees, does not question the constitutionality of the death penalty but whether lethal injection violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Since accepting the case, the justices have issued stays in two executions that lower courts in Texas and Virginia had said could move forward. Tuesday night, they refused to vacate a stay that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit had issued for an Arkansas death row inmate.

Justice Antonin Scalia dissented from that decision, saying that the appeals court applied the "mistaken premise" that the court's decision to take Baze"calls for the stay of every execution in which an individual raises an Eighth Amendment challenge to the lethal injection protocol."

No other justice signaled agreement with Scalia, and he did not note a dissent in the stay of Emmett's execution.

States began using lethal injection in 1978 on the grounds that it was more humane than electrocution and the gas chamber. Almost all the states that employ lethal injection use the same combination of three chemicals: sodium thiopental, a barbiturate intended to render the inmate unconscious at the start of the procedure; pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles; and potassium chloride, to stop the heart.

Studies have shown that if the barbiturate is not administered properly, some inmates might be fully aware as the paralyzing agent cuts off their ability to breathe. Moreover, pancuronium is known to cause severe pain, but the inmate would be unable to express that.

Maryland's method of lethal injection is being challenged in federal court, and the state's highest court ruled in December that state officials had not properly adopted the regulations for carrying it out. Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), an opponent of capital punishment, has delayed issuing those regulations.

Virginia's Clementson said the commonwealth' s procedures have been reviewed by the courts "and always found to be humane and constitutional. " The state has no more executions scheduled this year.

[carolinem]

I don´t particularly want to rain on anyone´s parade, but there´s a major caveat that needs to be put on talk regarding a full moratorium.

While it seems that some states are imposing their own moratoria, either by executive fiat or judicial determination, others
(Texas, for instance) clearly are not. And the Supreme Court has
shown no interest in reaching out to the condemned.

In states which themselves are not imposing moratoria, then,volunteers would seem likely to be killed - and as we all know, there are a number of volunteers out there.

In Ohio, it should be noted, nobody knows just what will happen.
Judge Frost has granted stays based on the Cooey lethal injection case, and until the Supreme Court rules on whether to hear that case, they remain in effect. But prisoners have to ask to join that case, and have to ask sometime in advance of execution. At the moment that´s not an issue since there is nobody with a meaningful execution date, but that could change at any time.

Regardless, volunteers don´t join the case. And Strickland´s comments about what will happen in this state have been a welter of obfuscations and evasions. Essentially, he has said that we seem to have a moratorium in place, though he won´t say that we do or that he will ensure that it lasts until the Court decides Baze.

So, and while there are no guarantees about any of this, I offer
this as my best speculation based on events of the last couple of
weeks: Volunteers will be killed. Those who want to fight will
get stays that will last at least until June or so when the
Supreme Court decides Baze.

Jeffrey M. Gamso
Legal Director ACLU of Ohio Max Wohl Civil
Liberties Center
Cleveland, Ohio 44103-3621

jmgamso@buckeye- express.com

[carolinem]

Ga. Supreme Court stays Alderman execution

Atlanta Journal Constitution By RHONDA COOK
10/18/07

The Georgia Supreme Court has stayed the scheduled execution for condemned wife killer Jack Alderman because the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decided the constitutionality of lethal injection, the method used in Georgia and 37 other states.

Alderman was scheduled to be executed Friday evening for his wife's 1974 murder. His attorneys argued his death should be delayed at least until the justices in Washington decide on a Kentucky case that raised concerns that inmates could suffer excruciating pain under lethal injection, violating their Eighth Amendment protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

Georgia's justices decided Thursday that Alderman's execution should be put on hold at least until the U.S. Supreme Court rules, which is expected to be some time next year.

Georgia is the second state is two days to have an execution stopped because of the fight over lethal injection.

Alderman was convicted of killing his 20-year-old wife, Barbara Jean, because he wanted a divorce but feared it would ruin him financially, and because he hoped to collect on a life insurance policy that would pay $20,000 if her death was determined accidental.

[carolinem]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Virginia death row inmate received a stay of execution on Wednesday, the latest in a series of reprieves since the U.S. Supreme Court last month agreed to decide a challenge to the lethal injection method.

The Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for Christopher Scott Emmett, 36, who had been scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at 9 p.m. at the Greensville Correctional Facility in Jarratt, Virginia.

Emmett was sentenced to die for beating a co-worker at a roofing company to death with a brass lamp in 2001 to get cash to buy crack cocaine.

Emmett's lawyers had asked the Supreme Court and Gov. Timothy Kaine to stop the execution until the high court rules on whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

On September 25, the high court agreed to decide a challenge to the three-chemical cocktail used under the lethal injection procedures in Kentucky, procedures similar to those used in Virginia and other states.

There was an execution in Texas on September 25. But there have been none in the United States since as courts and state officials have put them on hold in at least six states, including in Texas, which performs the most by far.

Nevada's high court this week granted a reprieve to a death row inmate until the Supreme Court rules in the Kentucky case. A decision is expected by the middle of next year.

The Virginia attorney general's office had urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Emmett's request for a stay. A U.S. appeals court based in Richmond, Virginia, refused to delay the execution.

The Supreme Court in its brief order said, "The execution of sentence of death is stayed pending final disposition of the appeal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit or further order of this court." It gave no further explanation.

So far this year, 42 people have been executed in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Last year, there were 53 executions.

All but one of the 38 U.S. states with the death penalty and the federal government use lethal injection for executions. The only exception is Nebraska, which requires electrocution.

[carolinem]

US executions on hold awaiting Supreme Court ruling


WASHINGTON (AFP) — A month after the US Supreme Court agreed to wade into the lethal injection debate, executions are effectively on hold across the nation as courts and politicians sit tight amid a legal limbo.

On September 25, the country's highest court agreed to examine whether lethal injections -- used in virtually all US executions -- are "cruel and unusual" punishment, as banned under the US constitution.

Since it accepted to take up the case, all but one of the executions scheduled in the past four weeks around the country have been postponed, and only a handful are still due to take place before the end of the year.

"In effect we do have a moratorium. There is no determination by the US Supreme Court that no execution can happen. It's more of a wait-and-see," said Richard Dieter from the Death Penalty Information Center.

"This may not remove anybody from death row, it might just require some changes in lethal injection procedures and then executions might increase next year or so."

Rights activists argue that lethal injections can be painful. During an execution, three drugs are administered to the condemned person: one to sedate him, one to paralyze him, and one to stop the heart.

However, this is not always done by a medical professional. While the prisoner may appear calm, several studies and botched executions have shown that death may in fact be prolonged and quite painful.

In Florida in December, Angel Nieves Diaz grimaced and shook for more than 30 minutes before finally suffering convulsions and dying.

Authorities later found that the needles were inserted too far and the lethal cocktail had been injected outside his veins.

In 2006, there were 53 executions in the United States, all but one through lethal injection.

Now though, executions appear to have been put on hold almost by default, apart from the controversial execution of Michael Richard in Texas, just hours after the Supreme Court's decision.

This week the execution of a convicted murderer in Nevada was stayed at the 11th hour after an appeal by rights groups over the method of lethal injection to be used.

William Castillo had been due to be executed at 8:30 pm on Monday October 15 but was spared following a last-ditch legal bid by the American Civil Liberties Union to the Nevada Supreme Court.

In Virginia, Christopher Emmett won a reprieve late Wednesday just four hours before he was due to die for murdering a colleague.

The US Supreme Court ruled he could not be executed before his appeal had been considered by the federal Appeals Court. In fact, the federal court is unlikely to rule before the Supreme Court has delivered its own verdict on the constitutionality of lethal injections.

Amid such murky legal waters, the Supreme Court in Georgia on Thursday also postponed the scheduled execution of Jack Alderman, sentenced to death for murdering his wife in 1974.

And in other states the legal uncertainty has prompted governors and judges to stay all executions until the Supreme Court's ruling.

But supporters of the death penalty say that this temporary suspension of the death penalty is likely to be shortlived, since the Supreme Court decision could lead to a resumption or even an acceleration of executions.

"The Supreme Court has never said that any form of execution was unconstitutional, and that includes firing squads and the electric chair," said Michael Rushford, president of a victims' defense group called the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

"This is a side-show, it has created delays in executions. The court will uphold, maybe they'll make some suggestions in the decision about trained personnel doing the lethal injections.

"And the result will be that this tactic which has been used on and off for about at least 5 years to hold up executions will be gone, so in the future, once this method of execution is verified as not unconstitutional, there will be little to stop the states from going ahead and executing their worst murderers."

[carolinem]

Ga. high court grants another stay of execution

Curtis Osborne had been set to die Tuesday

By BILL RANKIN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitutio n
Published on: 10/22/07

The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday temporarily blocked the pending execution of a man convicted for a double murder in Spalding County in 2001.

For the second time in less than a week, the state high court issued a stay of an execution, this time for Curtis Osborne who was scheduled to be put to death Tuesday by lethal injection.

In its order, the state Supreme Court noted that the U.S. Supreme Court is now considering appeals by two condemned inmates in Kentucky on the issue of lethal injection.

The order also cited the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last week to stay an execution in Virginia in which lethal injection was also challenged.

Last Thursday, the state Supreme Court issued a stay of the scheduled execution of Jack Alderman, who killed his wife in Chatham County 33 years ago. Alderman had also challenged the constitutionality of lethal injection

[carolinem]

October 30, 2007


Supreme Court Stays Execution in a Sign of a Broader Halt

By LINDA GREENHOUSE


WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — Moments before a Mississippi prisoner was scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution and thus gave a nearly indisputable indication that a majority intends to block all executions until the court decides a lethal injection case from Kentucky next spring.

The vote was not immediately announced but there were two dissenters, Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr.. Neither the majority nor the dissenters gave reasons for their positions. The stay will remain in effect until the full court reviews an appeal filed on Monday by lawyers for the inmate, Earl W. Berry, who is on death row for having killed a woman 20 years ago.

While there is no schedule for that review, it almost surely will not take place until the court decides the Kentucky case, Baze v. Rees, which will be argued in January.

The issue in that case is not the constitutionality of lethal injection as such, but rather a more procedural question: how judges should evaluate claims that the particular combination of drugs used to bring about death causes suffering that amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Even without a written opinion, the Supreme Court’s action Tuesday night clarified a situation that had become increasingly confusing as state courts and the lower federal courts, without further guidance from the justices, wrestled with claims from a growing number of death-row inmates that their imminent executions should be put on hold.

Of these inmates, Mr. Berry had perhaps the weakest case. He had run through many appeals in the 19 years since he was sentenced to death, but had not challenged the method of execution until recent days. His federal court lawsuit on which the justices acted was not filed until Oct. 18. The Federal District Court in Jackson, Miss., dismissed it as untimely on Oct. 24 in a ruling that the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed last Friday.

The appeals court said that, under its own precedent, a late-filed challenge to a method of execution warranted automatic dismissal. The pending Supreme Court case was irrelevant to its determination, the appeals court said, adding that if the justices had a different view of the matter, they should say so.

David P. Voisin, one of Mr. Berry’s lawyers, said he had not yet read the order but felt that the court’s decision to issue a stay made would “put everyone on the same page” on the issue of lethal injections.

“I think it’s a positive sign that as long as this issue is under consideration the court is going to hold executions,” Mr. Voisin said.

Mr. Berry was condemned for abducting and killing Mary Bounds, 56, as she was leaving her church in Houston, Miss., on Nov. 29, 1987. Mr. Berry, who had been drinking heavily, drove the victim to the edge of a remote field intending to rape her, prosecutors said.

Then he decided not to rape he, but beat her with his fists. Afterward, Mr. Berry, who is 6 feet 1 inch tall and weighs more than 250 pounds, carried his victim into a patch of woods, where she was found dead of head injuries a few days later. The trail soon led to Mr. Berry, who was convicted in Chickasaw County Circuit Court in March 1988.

Mr. Berry was a troubled young man who twice tried to kill himself by swallowing razor blades, according to evidence introduced in his case over the years. He has been treated for mental illness, and doctors have rated his intelligence as well below average.

He spent time in prison for assault, larceny, burglary and other relatively minor crimes before the murder. Since then, he has had a good record in prison, state authorities say.