Tag Archives: Ohio

Three Supreme Court Justices Later Regretted Supporting the Death Penalty

October 8, 2010 at 11:11 AM

Three out of the seven Supreme Court justices who voted to reinstate the death penalty in 1976 have since said they regretted those votes and, if given a do over, would have supported abolition of the death penalty.

That means there would have been 5 votes to retain the 1970s era ban on capital punishment, and the USA could have become one of the world leaders in the global movement towards abolition, rather than one of its primary obstacles.  And 1,229 men and women would not have been killed by US states.

“I would vote the other way in any capital case. … I have come to think that capital punishment should be abolished.” –Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, to his biographer in 1991.

“From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death … the basic question – does the system accurately and consistently determine which defendants ‘deserve’ to die? – cannot be answered in the affirmative.” – Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, in a dissent in Callins v. Collins (1994)

“I have relied on my own experience in reaching the conclusion that the imposition of the death penalty represents the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes … such negligible returns to the State is patently excessive and cruel” – Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in a concurrence in Baze v. Rees (2008)

“I think there is one vote that I would change and that’s one – was upholding the capital punishment statute.  I think that we did not foresee how it would be interpreted. I think that was an incorrect decision.” – Justice Stevens to NPR this Monday

Sunday, October 10, is World Day Against the Death Penalty.  This year, the focus is on the USA, and Amnesty International has just released a short document surveying where the USA is on this issue, and what these Supreme Court Justices and the rest of us have learned.

SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Drug Company: Stop Using Our Product For Executions

September 24, 2010 at 10:32 AM

Hospira, is the lone US company that manufactures sodium thiopental, the anesthetic used in all lethal injections (both the three drug and the new one drug methods).  Today, the company sent a letter to all states urging them to stop using the drug for executions.

According to Ohio’s The Dispatch,  which obtained a copy of the letter, Hospira vice president Dr. Kees Groenhout wrote:

Hospira provides these products because they improve or save lives and markets them solely for use as indicated on the product labeling. As such, we do not support the use of any of our products in capital-punishment procedures.

There is a worldwide shortage of the drug, which is due, according to Hospira, to “manufacturing issues,” so its continued use for killing, rather than for its intended medical use, is especially abhorrent.  With an execution scheduled in Georgia tonight, and many more scheduled through the end of the year, it remains to be seen how the states, including Ohio, will respond, or, if there is no response, what legal action Hospira could take.

Thank you Gov. Strickland for not executing Kevin Keith!

September 3, 2010 at 2:24 PM

Bucking the opinion of his parole board and conventional political wisdom, Ohio’s governor did something very amazing on Thursday, September 2.

Gov. Ted Strickland intervened to prevent the execution of a man convicted of murdering three people, including a child. This was no small act in a very political season. But Strickland did his job. He carefully reviewed the evidence in a terrible murder case. He recognized that the case is plagued by very serious errors in its investigation and that doubts persist about whether Keith even committed the crime at hand.

Join us in thanking Ohio’s governor for commuting Kevin Keith’s death sentence.

It is the function of executive clemency power to be a check on the judicial process because cases can slip through the cracks. And Kevin Keith’s case, not to mention his life, almost slipped right through the cracks of human error and injustice. Case after case, we see that the U.S. justice system is far too comfortable with doubt, bias and error. How could 138 people wait on death row to be executed only for it to be discovered in time that they were wrongfully convicted? What kind of system allows for such a high error rate when human life is on the line?

Gov. Strickland’s act is a bright spot amidst a continuous and macabre calendar of scheduled state killings. Perhaps authorities in all U.S. states will take notice that our death penalty system is so riddled with problems that abolition is the only true failsafe against wrongful executions.

In the meantime, we urge authorities examining cases where doubts persist and have not been fully resolved to halt executions lest they be complicit in a grave and irreversible tragedy. Certainly the leadership of Gov. Strickland could be very instructional for Georgia authorities in looking at the Troy Davis case, where courts have reviewed his case, yet serious doubts about guilt still persist.

Kevin Keith and the Witness Who Wasn't There

July 6, 2010 at 2:57 PM

A man faces execution despite a strong claim of innocence.  With a conviction based on deeply flawed witness testimony, and emerging evidence pointing to an alternative suspect, doubts about his guilt continue to grow.   Yet Kevin Keith is scheduled to be put to death by the state of Ohio on September 15.  He has a clemency hearing on August 11, and he is still hoping for a court to grant him a new trial, but time is slipping away.   It is important to ACT NOW! 

Amnesty International opposes all executions, but even death penalty supporters should be concerned when serious claims of innocence have not been heard, and serious doubts about guilt have not been resolved.

Kevin Keith has been on death row since 1994, when he was convicted of the murders of Marichell Chatman, Marchae Chatman, and Linda Chatman. The night of the shooting, Marichell’s two young cousins, who were also shot, survived. One of them, Quanita Reeves, told the police that the gunman was one of her father’s friends and not Kevin Keith.

The prosecution’s case relied on the nurse of a third survivor, Richard Warren.  Police testified that the nurse, Amy Gimmets, said that Warren had given her the name ‘Kevin’. Slight problem:  in 2007, through a comprehensive search of hospital and Ohio records, it was discovered that Amy Gimmets never existed. Amy Whisman, Warren’s actual nurse, was not told who the gunman was, and Richard Warren initially told four people he did not know who the killer was.  Kevin Keith’s attorneys have looked into Warren’s identification of Kevin Keith, and concluded that it was tainted by many factors, including a highly suggestive photo line-up where Mr. Keith’s face appeared larger than the others.

No court has ever had the entirety of new evidence before it. Some of the new evidence has been time-barred and therefore has never, and may never, be heard on its merits by any court. If Kevin Keith does not get the new trial he deserves, it is imperative that he be granted executive clemency.  No one should ever be executed, but, surely no one should be executed under these circumstances.

Republican Judge: Few Proud that Ohio is Like Texas

May 18, 2010 at 3:36 PM

JusticeScalesIn the rankings for the most executions per state, Ohio is starting to give Texas a run for its money.  But it appears there may be a whiff of change in the air. This weekend, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, the “father of Ohio’s death penalty,” told the Columbus Dispatch that all current death row cases should be reviewed to see who truly deserves an execution.  He would like the less severe cases commuted to sentences of life without parole.

“There are probably few people in Ohio that are proud of the fact we are executing people at the same pace as Texas,” said the judge, a Republican who has been elected to his current post three times.  Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1981, Ohio has executed 38 prisoners, while five death row inmates have been exonerated.  Currently, there are 161 inmates on Ohio’s death row, and executions have been taking place at the rate of about one per month.  8 are currently scheduled through March 2011.

Judge Pfeifer, though instrumental in reviving Ohio’s death penalty as a State Senator in 1981, has reiterated to the press that capital punishment does not serve as a deterrent, and the only reason it is still in place is that “society demands retribution.” Now, Judge Pfeifer suggests that the next Governor appoint a blue ribbon commission to re-examine which inmates should be executed and which should have their sentences commuted to life. 

Certainly, there would need to be a moratorium on executions while a commission examines all the cases.  So why wait?  The current Governor, Democrat Ted Strickland, working with this Republican Supreme Court Justice, could and should appoint such a commission and declare a moratorium on executions in Ohio right now.

Get Well Soon … So We Can Kill You

March 11, 2010 at 1:23 PM

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, a former prison psychologist, admits that he recognizes the irony.  His state is keeping Lawrence Reynolds alive, on suicide watch, so they can execute him Tuesday morning.  Reynolds attempted suicide by overdosing on pills on Sunday and was rushed to the hospital where his life was saved.  The Governor postponed his execution, original scheduled for March 9, to give him sufficient time to recover so that the Buckeye state can kill him properly.

“It is ironic, obviously, that you would work to keep someone alive when they are scheduled to be executed,” the Governor said.  “Ironic” may be putting it mildly.  When you adopt a policy (state killing) that directly contradicts basic values (life is precious), absurd and morally dubious practices like this are inevitable.

What is ironic is that, back in May 2007, the state of Ohio executed Christopher Newton, who “volunteered” to be put to death by giving up his appeals.  He even refused to cooperate with those investigating the crime he committed unless they promised to seek the death penalty.  The state of Ohio was surely assisting Newton in committing suicide on that day, though they nearly botched it by taking 90 minutes to find a vein to administer his lethal injection.

(Nationally, there have been 135 of these “voluntary” executions, representing over 10 percent of all executions since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.)

The Governor’s lame excuse for this current predicament is that his government is required to “observe the law as we understand it.”  Of course, the law also allows the Governor to commute death sentences, or even impose a moratorium on all executions in his state, as many, including Amnesty International, are urging him to do.

Intractable Obstacles

January 5, 2010 at 1:34 PM

Last year ended with the news of a record low number of death sentences, and with the decision by the American Law Institute, described today in the New York Times, to give up trying to fix our broken capital punishment system.  The Institute, a collection of thousands of judges, lawyers and law professors, is very influential, in that it creates model penal codes which often serve as the basis for the real-life laws under which we live.  

The Institute created the “modern” death penalty system that the US Supreme Court endorsed in 1976.  But a report detailing factors we are already all too familiar with – persistent racial bias, inadequate defense, wrongful convictions, and a politicized judiciary – caused the Institute to vote to abandon capital punishment, citing “… intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment.”  

This doesn’t mean that the death penalty in the US will suddenly cease to exist; the deliberate and thoughtful analysis of the American Law Institute will not have an immediate impact in states where killing prisoners is routine and done without much thought at all.

Executions will continue.  Three in fact, will occur on Thursday.  While the usual suspects, Texas and Ohio, plan to execute Kenneth Mosley and Vernon Smith (aka Abdullah Sharif Kaazim Mahdi), Louisiana also has an execution scheduled on that day – its first in almost 8 years.  Gerald Bordelon has “volunteered” to be executed.  The next day, January 8, South Carolina will execute Quincy Allen.  He, too, is “volunteering,” and has asked to be put to death by electrocution.  The state will oblige him.

UPDATE: The state of South Carolina will NOT oblige Quincy Allen’s volunteering to be electrocuted.  The South Carolina Supreme Court has stayed his execution.

Ohio’s Rush to Resume Killing

December 7, 2009 at 11:04 AM

UPDATE:  Kenneth Biros was executed by Ohio’s new, untested, one-drug method.  It took the execution team about 30 minutes to find a vein; once the drug was administered, death occurred in about 10 minutes.

December 7, in addition to being Pearl Harbor Day, is the day when, 27 years ago, Texas became the first state to kill a prisoner with lethal injection. Since then there have been over one thousand lethal injections in the US, all using the same basic three-drug protocol.  Tomorrow morning, barring intervention from a court, Ohio will change that.

Kenneth Biros is scheduled to be the first inmate put to death by a one-drug lethal injection protocol.  The drug is sodium thiopental, aka Sodium Pentothal (its Abbot Laboratories name), an anesthetic which, if taken in a massive dose, will cause death (though it will take longer than the three-drug method).  In smaller doses it’s also famous, or infamous, as a dubious “truth serum.”

Lawyers for Biros argue that this one drug approach, which was developed on the fly in the aftermath of the botched Romell Broom execution on September 30, has not been adequately examined or tested and that using it now amounts to human experimentation.

Amnesty International views all executions, but whatever method, as inherently cruel, but it is worth pointing out that Ohio’s problems with lethal injection – struggling or being unable to find usable veins – have not been addressed by this new protocol, which still calls for the drug to be injected intravenously.  There is a backup, Ohio has assured everyone, involving the injection of two different chemicals directly into a muscle:  who is going to do that, and what sort of training they have been given in the last month or two, is unclear.  Doctors in Ohio have consistently refused to participate in executions.

There is no need for Ohio to rush into this – indeed there is no need for Ohio to kill prisoners at all.  But at the very least, Governor Strickland should declare a moratorium on executions to allow time for a thorough review of these new methods of state killing.

It's Still About Killing People

November 18, 2009 at 12:39 PM

lineedleCaught between a legal requirement to avoid cruelty, and its desire to kill prisoners, the state of Ohio is struggling to find an acceptable method of execution following the botched, and failed, attempt to put Romell Broom to death on September 15.  As reported in today’s New York Times, the method the state has chosen is injection into the vein of a single, lethal dose of anesthetic.  This seems peculiar, since it was failure to find a suitable vein that led to the botched executions of Joseph Clark and Christopher Newton, as well as the recent Broom fiasco.

In the new Ohio protocol, another alternative, intramuscular injection, is available as a backup.  This method has not been used before, but was given the thumbs up by Massachusetts anesthesiologist Dr. Mark Dershwitz, the one doctor in America who seems willing to help states kill prisoners.  A local Ohio doctor, Jonathan Groner, seems to disagree, suggesting that legal challenges are far from over.  “In the end this is still about killing people.”

It is indeed, and if this protocol proves acceptable to Ohio and federal courts, the lethal injection of Kenneth Biros and others could be back on schedule (the stay of Biros’ December 8 date is only temporary), and Ohio’s one-a-month assembly line of executions could be back in business.

Docs Won’t Help Ohio Kill

October 26, 2009 at 10:37 AM
Health professionals confirm death in 1998 Guatemala execution. (c) Jorge Uzon

Health professionals confirm death in 1998 Guatemala execution. (c) Jorge Uzon

Ohio’s botched and failed execution of Romell Broom, which has led to the postponement of all the Buckeye State’s execution plans – at least for this year – has created another problem for the state.  It seems that when you are doing something morally repugnant, like putting a human being to death with lethal chemicals, those with ethics don’t want to help you.  So, as Ohio looks for ways to improve its ability to kill prisoners without embarrassing mishaps, it is not surprising that they are having a hard time finding a respectable member of the medical profession who is willing to help them.  Killing someone, it seems, is somewhat of a violation of the whole “do no harm” code of ethics to which health professionals are bound.

According to an AP report, on Friday, Ohio’s Attorney General Richard Cordray filed a brief with a federal District Court explaining that “ethical and professional considerations are deterring doctors and others from offering advice about lethal injection.”

Apparently, due to this difficulty, Ohio now has judges, police and lawmakers helping to find some medical professionals who are willing to take their ethical obligations less seriously and give the state the help it needs to resume killing.

Meanwhile, there is nothing to prevent us from continuing to offer our own – albeit unsolicited – advice, that the best way for Ohio to avoid these moral quandaries it to simply stop executions.