DEATH ROW--death penalty in America

[Duchess]

When people are in my house they must play by my rules or leave. Thats it.

...and that's precisely as it should be. I don't know why so many find that to be such a difficult concept to grasp.

[HairOfTheDog]

I don't disagree with "my house, my rules".

Also don't expect the views and laws of other countries to conform to me, as an American, when I travel there. Presumptuous and naive.

But, keeping one's word is important and significant, to me - whether on a micro level in ones own home, or on a macro level as a member of the global community. Either don't sign the agreement in the first place if you don't intend/can't keep it, push to amend it if some of the terms no longer apply or no longer carry merit, or bow out of the agreement. To simply ignore a commitment while expecting others to respect their side of it is something that I can understand generating legitimate objections.

In this case, I'm glad Tamayo is dead; he deserved it. I do wish his case would have been handled in a manner that didn't fuel such media attention and add costs to the already cumbersome death penalty process. Advise these foreign citizens charged of capital crimes of their rights to consular counsel right away, as agreed. It might add some cost/delay on the front end, but that's better than the back end, IMO.

P.s. I think it might make sense to amend the treaty/agreement (which I generally support) to separate illegal immigrants from foreign travelers/diplomats/residents. To me, there's a difference between sneaking into a country to live and then breaking its laws when positioning oneself as an unofficial citizen, vs. legally traveling or residing in a country temporarily. I don't think the treaty will be reviewed or amended any time soon (if ever), but such a distinction makes sense in my mind.

[HairOfTheDog]

Drugs kill...or not.

An appeal to stay an execution in Missouri was granted.

But, it wasn't because of uncertainties over the effects of new drug combos being used in lethal injections, rather because the state of Missouri refused to disclose the maker of the pentobarbital (one of the standard DP drugs) that was to be injected.

I can hear opponents of the death penalty here, and the anti-death penalty European pharmaceutical companies (who banned the export of pentobarbital to the US) cheering...



Smulls killed a jeweler and brutally injured his wife during a robbery back in 1991.

In their appeals for his execution to be stayed, his attorneys focused on the state's refusal to disclose from which compounding pharmacy they received the lethal-injection drug pentobarbital that was to be used on Smulls.

The State of Missouri argued that since the compounding pharmacy is part of the execution team, they could not release the compounding pharmacy's name to the public.

Smulls was scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. today. He received word that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had signed the order granting his stay late last night.

[Duchess]

Jesus Christ.

[Duchess]

They executed him after all & I'm a barbarian because I wanted to fist pump the air when I read that.

Missouri late on Wednesday executed a man convicted of killing a jewelry store owner during a robbery after the U.S. Supreme Court denied last-minute appeals that in part challenged the drug used in the execution.

Story

[SIXFOOTERsez]

Fuck Him, glad he is dead finally, asshole got a free ride for 22 years on the tax payers.

[HairOfTheDog]

Thanks for the update, Duchess. Short stay. So long, Smulls.

The high court lifted the stay without explanation around 5 p.m., and did the same with the appeals court stay about 4 hours later.

"It was a horrific crime," St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch McCulloch said on Tuesday. "With all the other arguments that the opponents of the death penalty are making, it's simply to try to divert the attention from what this guy did, and why he deserves to be executed."


http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/crime/201...e/5046369/

[HairOfTheDog]

She was a cold, calculating, cruel bitch who targeted the most vulnerable out of greed.



Suzanne Basso ^ was executed by lethal injection last night in Texas.

Basso tried to manipulate psychiatrists, malingered, feigned paralysis and blindness...every trick in the book trying to avoid execution.

She is only the 14^th woman to be executed since the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment could be resumed in 1976.

Basso was a piece of work. In 1998, she and her son and a couple of friends tortured and killed mentally ill 59-year-old Louis "Buddy" Musso.

Basso had lured Musso to Texas with a promise to marry him and then made herself the beneficiary of Musso's insurance policies and took over his Social Security benefits.

Shortly thereafter, Musso's battered and cigarette-burned body, washed with bleach and scoured with a wire brush, was found in a ditch outside Houston. The others in her ring were also convicted, but she was the leader and the only one sentenced to death.

Good riddance.

[Duchess]

She was snoring as she died. Ta Ta, worthless person.

[Maggot]

An interesting link to Texas excecutions the stories pictures and statistics of the state that does not fool around and prisoners fear going there.

Texas justice

[ramseycat]

Interesting site.

[HairOfTheDog]

WASHINGTON STATE GOVERNOR ISSUES MORATORIUM ON DEATH PENALTY EXECUTIONS



Gov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday he was suspending the use of the death penalty in Washington state, announcing a move that he hopes will enable officials to "join a growing national conversation about capital punishment."

The Democrat said he came to the decision after months of review, meetings with family members of victims, prosecutors and law enforcement.

"There have been too many doubts raised about capital punishment, there are too many flaws in this system today," Inslee said at a news conference. "There is too much at stake to accept an imperfect system."

Inslee said that the use of the death penalty is inconsistent and unequal (HOTD: on this point, I fully agree).

Inslee's moratorium, which will be in place for as long as he is governor, means that if a death penalty case comes to his desk, he will issue a reprieve, which isn't a pardon and doesn't commute the sentences of those condemned to death.

"During my term, we will not be executing people," said Inslee, who was elected in 2012. "Nobody is getting out of prison, period."

Last year, Maryland abolished the death penalty, the 18^th state to do so and the sixth in the last six years.

The decision by the governor comes following a recent decision by the state Department of Corrections, which is in the process of changing its execution protocol to allow witnesses to executions to see the entire process, including the insertion of intravenous catheters during a lethal injection.

The change is in response to a 2012 federal appeals court ruling that said all parts of an execution must be fully open to public witnesses. That ruling was sparked by a case brought by The AP and other news organizations who challenged Idaho's policy to shield the insertion of IV catheters from public view, in spite of a 2002 ruling from the same court that said every aspect of an execution should be open to witnesses.

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/washington-s...h-penalty/

[HairOfTheDog]

Michael Taylor ^, who has spent 23 years on Missouri’s death row, makes no claim of innocence. He long ago admitted guilt in the 1989 rape and stabbing of a 15 year-old girl who he and a friend had abducted from a Kansas City-area school bus stop.

But his attorneys argue his execution now will be unduly painful due to the state’s use of unregulated drugs.

His attorney also says it's needless to execute Taylor. “He poses no threat to society,” said John Simon, one of Taylor’s attorneys. “His death would come far too late to have any deterrent effect.”

Today, U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips on refused to halt the execution based on separate claims that Missouri’s one-drug execution method could cause a painful death.

This comes one week after The Apothecary Shop, an Oklahoma pharmacy, decided not to provide the state of Missouri with the drug pentobarbital, which was going to be used in Taylor's execution.

Judge Phillips is still considering another request to delay Taylor's execution again (it was delayed in 2006 over the execution method); Taylor's current attorney filed a claim that his client had an ineffective attorney at his original trial.

If the last appeal is denied, Taylor faces execution at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

Refs:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/24/lo...ion-drugs/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-denies...ow-inmate/

[HairOfTheDog]

Michael Taylor Executed

Michael Taylor, 47, was pronounced dead shortly after 12:10 a.m. at the state prison in Bonne Terre. Federal courts and the governor had refused last-minute appeals from his attorneys, who argued that the execution drug purchased from a compounding pharmacy could have caused Taylor inhumane pain and suffering.

Taylor offered no final statement. He mouthed silent words to his parents, two clergymen and two other relatives who witnessed his death. As the process began, he took two deep breaths before closing his eyes for the last time. There were no obvious signs of distress.


His victim, 15-year-old Ann Harrison ^, was in her driveway - carrying her school books, flute and purse - when she was abducted by Taylor and Roderick Nunley (in their early 20s and on a crack binge at the time). The men pulled her into their car, took her to Nunley's mom's basement, then raped and fatally stabbed the teenager as she pleaded for her life. DNA tied Taylor to the crime; the men each pointed the finger at the other.

Nunley also was sentenced to death and is awaiting execution.

Ann's father and two of her uncles witnessed Taylor's execution and offered no public statements.

Ann Harrison, RIP. Michael Taylor - rot, POS.

[HairOfTheDog]

WRONGFULLY CONVICTED DEATH ROW INMATE RELEASED AFTER 30 YEARS


Glenn Ford, then and now

ANGOLA, La. - After 30 years behind bars -- most of them on death row -- a Louisiana man, Glenn Ford, walked free Tuesday night from the maximum security prison.

Ford, 64, had been on death row for the 1983 murder of Isadore Rozeman, a Shreveport jeweler and watchmaker for whom he did occasional yard work. He always maintained his innocence.

The state's motion to vacate Ford's conviction was based on new information that corroborated his claim that he was not present or involved in the crime. Prosecutors would not detail the new evidence, saying it could jeopardize their future case against the actual killer. (HOTD: He was fingered by the girlfriend of a man that he'd identified as a suspect in the case -- wondering if that's the dude who actually did it.)

When his conviction was finally vacated after 30 years, the news was welcomed by the family of the murder victim. Ford is one of the longest-serving death row inmates in modern American history to be exonerated and released, the Atlantic reports.

Under Louisiana law, those who have served time but are later exonerated are entitled to receive compensation. The law calls for payments of $25,000 per year of wrongful incarceration up to a maximum of $250,000, plus another $80,000 for loss of "life opportunities." (HOTD: that sounds fair, to me -- not excessive but enough to try to start over, though I won't blame Ford if he sues for more.)

Interesting full story:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/louisiana-de...-30-years/

[SIXFOOTERsez]

Seems like as good a deal as is reasonable, he will probably be dead in 6 months

[Duchess]

It's horrible that this kind of thing happens. I'm glad he's being compensated financially but really, there is nothing that can make this kind of thing right.

[FAHQTOO]

Everytime I see this kind of story, I think of Shawshank Redemption. He won't be able to survive on the outside after being locked up that long.

I predict he will either kill himself, or do something to get sent back. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

[crash]

(HOTD: that sounds fair, to me -- not excessive but enough to try to start over, though I won't blame Ford if he sues for more.)

I don't agree. Thirty years of someone's life is horrendous. Not to mention the abuse and humiliation he more than likely suffered within the system.

When the Cleveland girls were held against their innocence, society called for death for their captors. A stretch you might say? They were raped, bore children, and were held in terrible conditions. Yes, it is a reasonably long bow to draw, but this mans life has been similarly affected; I'm sure that he has been exposed to his share of horrendous treatment, kept in less than pleasant conditions and experienced things in his incarceration that he may well never recover from.

I think that's worth a hell of a lot more than the salary of a mid tier executive for a year.

[HairOfTheDog]

Yeah, I think it's probably more than he would have been making in his handyman job per year had he not been incarcerated. But, it's impossible to know what he could have done, and that compensation doesn't include any punitive damages for pain and suffering.

So, I won't blame him if he tries to sue for more (he'd probably win).