DEATH ROW--death penalty in America

[HairOfTheDog]

Stay of execution til Thursday for Warren Hill

Hill, 52, has been granted a slim window in which to argue that his rights have been violated by a recent state law that imposes secrecy on the drugs that would be used to kill him. Under the new Lethal Injection Secrecy Law, the identity of the suppliers of the sedative pentobarbital that would be given to him in a lethal dose has been deemed a "state secret" in an effort to bypass a growing international boycott of the use of pharmaceuticals in death sentences.

The Georgia state courts will now reconsider his case on Thursday. Should the judges decide that the execution can be put back on schedule, it is possible that by the end of this week Hill will be faced with his fourth brush with the death chamber in the space of a year.

[Cynical Ninja]

They say it can take up to half an hour to die from a lethal injection.

Wouldn't that be classed as cruel and unusual punishment?

They say when Timothy McVeigh was executed by injection he went through a series of violent physical spasms and half an hour after being injected the curtain was closed on the witnesses when he was still clearly breathing.

[HairOfTheDog]

Texas doesn't screw around...



HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Last night, John Manuel Quintanilla received lethal injection for gunning down 60-year-old Victor Billings at a game room in Victoria, about 125 miles southwest of Houston. The 2002 slaying came just a few months after Quintanilla had been released from prison after serving a sentence for several burglary convictions.

He never acknowledged his victim's friends or relatives, including two daughters, who watched through a window.

As the lethal drug began taking effect, he snored about a half dozen times, then stopped breathing. He was pronounced dead 15 minutes after being given the drug.

Quintanilla's wife, a German national who married him by proxy while he was in prison, watched through an adjacent window and sobbed.

Quintanilla, 36, became the ninth Texas inmate to receive lethal injection this year and the 501^st since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982. His was the first of two executions set for this week; the other is planned for Thursday.

Quintanilla's punishment was carried out after the U.S. Supreme Court refused two last-day appeals whereby Quintanilla's attorneys contended that his confession had been coerced (challenging witness IDs - he was wearing a mask at the time of the killing).

On Thursday, another Texas inmate is set for lethal injection. Vaughn Ross, 41, is to be executed for a double slaying in Lubbock in 2001.

[HairOfTheDog]

They say it can take up to half an hour to die from a lethal injection.

Wouldn't that be classed as cruel and unusual punishment?

No, lethal injection isn't legally considered cruel and unusual punishment.

But, Warren Hill just had his execution stayed again because a Fulton court judge ruled that the secrecy surrounding the drugs that would be used to kill him was unconstitutional.

Snip
The judge ruled that by withholding from Warren Hill crucial details about the source and nature of the drugs that were to be used to execute him, the state was causing him "irreparable harm". According to an Atlanta-based reporter Max Blau who tweeted from court, the judge added that the new law "unconstitutionally limits" the condemned man's access to legal redress as it prevented him from acquiring the information needed to mount an appeal under the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Though the ruling from a George state court will not create a federal precedent, the legal challenge to the new law will be closely watched by other states that have gone down a similar secrecy path in an effort to circumvent the drugs boycott. Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee have all adopted secrecy provisions that keep the identity of compounding pharmacies hidden.

If the state appeals the decision and wins, Hill could be executed on Friday.


Meanwhile, Texas apparently has a sufficient stock pile of approved drugs to keep on rolling with its scheduled executions...

[HairOfTheDog]

Vaughn Ross was executed as scheduled in Texas tonight. He killed two people.

His attorneys tried to appeal on grounds of incompetent counsel during his trial; denied.

This was the state's second lethal injection this week.

Here's his story:
http://lubbockonline.com/local-news/2013...eiLG212nLl

[Duchess]

Go Texas!

[HairOfTheDog]

His lawyer contends that he is Schizophrenic, and he was indeed hospitalized at one point for mental illness.

Sick or not, the world is better off without this POS, imo.



STARKE, Fla. - John Errol Ferguson, a mass murderer from Miami-Dade County, was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison 6 p.m. ET Monday.

The 65-year-old was convicted of killing eight people in South Florida in two separate incidents in the 1970s..

Ferguson made a brief final statement before 25 witnesses before his execution.

"I just want everyone to know that I am the prince of God and will rise again," he said calmly, according to The Associated Press.

In the first incident, Ferguson gained entry into a Carol City home on July 27, 1977, by posing as a utility employee. He then bound and blindfolded Margaret Wooden, the woman who let him in, and also let two accomplices into the home. In time, seven more people - Henry Clayton, Johnnie Hall, Randolph Holmes, Michael Miller, Charles Stinson, Livingston Stocker and Gilbert Williams - came to the house and were bound and blindfolded.

Ferguson placed a pillow over Wooden's head and shot her, but she survived. The other seven men were shot execution-style in the back of the head. Hall survived a shotgun blast to the head, but the rest of the men died. Both of Ferguson's accomplices were executed in the 1980s.

While under indictment for the Carol City murders, Ferguson murdered two Hialeah teenagers who were on their way to a church meeting in 1978. Posing as a police officer, Ferguson confronted Brian Glenfeldt and Belinda Worley, both 17 years old. Ferguson shot Glenfeldt in the back of the head, the chest and the arm. Ferguson then took Worley into the woods, raped her and shot her in the back of the head. Ferguson also took the teenagers' money and jewelry.

[HairOfTheDog]

Arizona Conviction Overturned on Appeal; Death Row Inmate Released


Christopher Milke (murder victim). Debra Milke, Christopher's mother, back in 1989 and today.

If Debra Milke is guilty of arranging the execution of her son, sure hope she is retried and ends up back on death row. Her ex, the father of her murdered child, is adamant that she was behind their 4 year old son's death (for the insurance money).

But, I do believe the judge was right in overturning her conviction.

During her prosecution, police detective Armando Saldate Jr. testified that she confessed to him in a closed interrogation room. That was a major piece of the state's case against her.

But Saldate's honesty was called into question during Milke's appeals. The 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded in March that prosecutors' failure to turn over evidence related to Saldate's credibility deprived Milke's attorneys of the chance to question his truthfulness before jurors.

The court noted four cases in which judges threw out confessions or indictments because Saldate lied under oath and four instances in which cases were tossed out or confessions excluded because Saldate violated the suspect's constitutional rights.

Debra Milke's ex-roommate and his friend are on death row for taking the boy to the desert and shooting him to death back in 1989. Milke has always contended that she let the roommate take Christopher because she believed the roommate when he told her that he was taking the boy to the mall to visit Santa Claus.

Milke has a lot of supporters; they put up her 250k bond and bought her a house to live in.

Here's the sad story of Christopher's last day and the murder case against his mother:
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/blog/...index.html

[Duchess]

Crazy how she went from brown eyed brunette to blue eyed blonde.

Detective Saldate is a POS. Now I'm wondering what has become of him.

[HairOfTheDog]

Death Drugs open doors for Death Penalty Delays

Supplies of the standard and preferred death drug, pentobarbital, are very low around the country. Its European manufacturer said the drug is not intended for executions and blocked sales to the US. The move forced states to consider alternatives in execution methods of death penalty inmates.

No state has put a prisoner to death using the combination of midazolam and hydromorphone, but Ohio is set to do so on Nov. 14^th with the execution of Ronald Phillips.


Murderer Ronald Phillips and his three year-old victim, Sheila Marie Evans

Phillips raped and killed the 3 year-old daughter of his girlfriend in 1993 in Akron, Ohio. The baby's mother knew about the repeated rapes and beatings and did nothing to stop Phillips; she was convicted too. Phillips is set to be executed on Nov. 14^th.

Now, his lawyers are using the pentobarbital shortage as an opportunity to try to delay his execution by challenging the change in Ohio execution protocols in federal court. Phillips will be testifying in federal court via live video next week.

This is bullshit legal wrangling and death penalty protesting , IMO. The two drugs that Ohio plans to use will cause inmates to stop breathing quickly. Irreversible brain and heart damage will follow and the inmate will die a few minutes later. Over, done, move along...

But, hey, if those set to be executed for raping and killing children prefer tried and trusted methods of execution, no objection here to the electric chair, guillotine, hanging or public stoning.

HOTD edit, 13 Nov 2013 p.m.: execution delayed til July 2^nd so authorities can try to accommodate Phillips' request to donate his organs, per governor's orders. Link to dedicated Mock thread:
http://mockforums.net/thread-10648-post-...#pid343806

[Spomd]

Put him and the mom in the square...let the people do what they see fit....

[ramseycat]

Sometimes I think I would want to witness someone like this be executed. Other times I'm not sure I could handle it.

[Spomd]

In the back of my head I always have that thought, "This is somebody's baby..." and the family suffers more. SO, if we put them in the square and they really suffer, it solves it. The family suffers less (unless they are dumb enough to hang around the square -- though sometimes family wants in on it)..accused suffers more.

Seriously, when I think hard about being the person walking towards the last room in his/her life it makes me nauseous. Of course, I'd never come close to being that person, but still. I think it just means I'm human.

[HairOfTheDog]

Florida rapist/murderer to be executed on 11/12/13


Darius Kimbrough

When Kimbrough was 18, he broke in to the home of 28-year-old Denise Collins, raped her, beat her and bludgeoned her about the face. She died the next day at the hospital.

Eye witnesses and DNA/blood evidence led to Kimbrough as the rapist/killer. He's been in prison for 22 years now; his lawyers are trying to appeal his execution on grounds of restricted defense evidence, incompetent counsel, juror misconduct...whatever they can toss out there.

Denise Collins was a recent college grad, Kinko's employee, and talented artist. Her mother (Diane Stewart) will be attending the execution tomorrow, as will Denise's sister and Denise's then-boyfriend (whom POS Darius and his defense team have always tried to cast suspicion upon).

"He lived 22 years too long and too well and he's going to go out clean and easy, and he doesn't deserve it. She didn't go out that way, and he doesn't deserve what he's getting. He should go out the way she did. That's how we feel." - Victim's mother, Diane Stewart.

[HairOfTheDog]

Execution Stayed - Death Drug Appeal Succeeds in Missouri


Joseph Paul Franklin

This is the lovely white supremacist who killed a Jewish man in front of his family, two black boys and an interracial couple back in the late 70s and early 80s. The same gentleman who is thought to have killed up to 20 Jews and blacks and who attempted to kill Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt for publishing pics of a black man getting down with white women. Franklin failed to kill Flynt, but did succeed in paralyzing him for life.

Well, Franklin was scheduled to be executed this morning. But, his attorneys managed to stay his execution based on the controversy over the death drugs to be used.

The judge's ruling criticizes the timing of the state's changes to how it administers capital punishment, specifically its plan to use for the first time ever a single drug, pentobarbital, made for the first time in Missouri by a compounding pharmacy.

Judge Laughrey wrote that the Missouri Department of Corrections "has not provided any information about the certification, inspection history, infraction history, or other aspects of the compounding pharmacy or of the person compounding the drug." She noted that the execution protocol, which has changed repeatedly, "has been a frustratingly moving target."

One of those who petitioned against Franklin's execution was none other than Larry Flynt. Flynt said he doesn't care or think about Franklin at all, but he is staunchly against the government killing its own people. Franklin did an interview last week; he really wants to live. Franklin's response to Flynt's efforts to prevent his execution, when asked by a reporter, "haha, thank you, my brother!".

[HairOfTheDog]

^ Hold the presses...change of plan. Joseph Paul Franklin was executed this morning, after all.

Quietly and without comment, The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal appeals court ruling that overturned two stays granted Tuesday evening by district court judges in Missouri.

This US Supreme Court ruling is important, as many states struggle to find acceptable methods to carry out scheduled executions since Europe cut off supplies of the traditional and preferred death drug.

With the overturning of the district court's stay in Franklin's case, no defendant has yet succeeded in delaying execution by appealing the new methods/drugs of execution, AFAIK, though a few have now tried.

[Maggot]

Executions should be televised. How can it be a deterent if nobody sees the result of societies verdict for unacceptable behavior in the murder of a fellow human?

[SIXFOOTERsez]

Good deal

[HairOfTheDog]

Executions should be televised. How can it be a deterent if nobody sees the result of societies verdict for unacceptable behavior in the murder of a fellow human?

I don't think public television would make the death penalty any more (or less) of a deterrent. IMO, the death penalty will never be much of a deterrent - just the ultimate punishment for those who have already chosen to commit the worst crimes against a fellow human.

Those violent/murdering criminals with functional intelligence (who aren't untreated schizophrenics) don't give enough of a shit about the public, the impacts of their crimes on their own families, or the death penalty to be deterred from killing others in the first place. Doubt they'd have any foresight or concern about the possibility of a bunch of strangers watching them be injected and peacefully passing away years and years after the crime; though some might be enticed by the increased notoriety/attention.

Members of society with a vested interest in the case can watch live from the prison anyway, if they want.

[Maggot]

IDK it seems to make a big difference to them the closer they get to the noose. Maybe a show on the days leading up to it, something that sticks in the brain, discussed on social media and the daily media vitriol.