SALEM, Ore. - The first inmate to be executed in Oregon since 1997 will have his hands wrapped in gauze to prevent any final obscene gestures*. That's one detail that emerged Friday during a media tour of the state's execution chamber.
Oregon State Penitentiary Superintendent Jeff Premo says he has no reason to expect that two-time convicted killer Gary Haugen will try to flip the bird to witnesses. But it's happened elsewhere and Premo says he's taking every precaution to protect the family members of murder victim David Polin.
Haugen has dropped his appeals and is tentatively set to receive a lethal injection on December 6th.
The seldom-used execution chamber is small — just large enough for a gurney with wings extending from the sides for Haugen's arms. The executioner administers the lethal drugs from the other side of a wall.
Superintendent Premo says the prison has spent more than a year preparing. In fact, he went to Texas last year to witness an execution there. Prison officials have conducted two full-scale mock executions to prepare, complete with simulated protesters outside the prison.
The execution of Haugen is one step closer Friday. Judge Joseph Guimond formally signed off on the death warrant. The procedural step had been expected, and Haugen can change his mind right up until the actual execution.
Source:
Northwest News Network, November 18, 2011
Prison superintendent outlines plans for death row inmate Gary Haugen's final hours
If all goes as planned on Dec. 6, Oregon State Penitentiary Superintendent Jeff Premo will place his hand on the shoulder of death row inmate Gary Haugen and say his name three times after an executioner injects the twice-convicted killer with an anesthetic.
If Haugen does not respond, Premo will then brush his finger across the prisoner's eyelashes, looking for any reflexive flicker.
And if Haugen still does not respond, only then will Premo give the go-ahead for the executioner to administer 2 more drugs that will paralyze the 49-year-old inmate and stop his heart. Haugen, who has waived legal challenges to his conviction and death sentence, would become the 1st person executed by the state in 14 years.
Preparing for the execution has been "the most challenging thing I've done in my life," Premo said Friday.
He declined to share his personal feelings about the death penalty or about Haugen, but noted that he started working at the prison in March 1981 -- just 8 months before Haugen was admitted -- and said the 2 have developed "a very good rapport" in the 30 years they have known each other.
In a briefing with reporters and photographers, Premo outlined in detail how the penitentiary will carry out the lethal injection so it is "professional" and "humane." Media members also toured the execution room and the cell where Haugen will spend his last 48 hours.
Premo and his staff have spent more than a year researching what other states do, consulting with lawyers and talking with medical professionals about how to update the state's procedures, he said. Premo himself traveled to Texas to witness an execution.
The results have ushered in some changes, such as the plan for Premo to personally verify that Haugen lapses into unconsciousness from the 1st drug -- pentobarbital -- before he allows the executioner to administer the next 2 drugs.
It is one step in a highly scripted series of events that will mark Haugen's final days and hours.
2 days before the execution, Haugen will move from his room to a death watch cell, just a few feet from the execution room. The cell, about 6-by-8 feet, has a bed, TV and toilet. Two staff members will keep watch around the clock, recording Haugen's actions in a log.
On the day of the execution, around 2 p.m., Haugen will receive his last meal. He can choose foods that can be made from the provisions at the prison kitchen, although Premo said he will accommodate "reasonable requests."
About 5:45 p.m., Premo will visit Haugen and ask, as he does each time he visits the inmate, if he is sure he wants to go through with the execution. Premo will confirm with Haugen again just before the inmate is brought into the execution room.
Once witnesses are in the viewing area, a team of six "special security team" members will take Haugen to the execution room and place him on a gurney. They will strap his arms and body to the gurney and place his legs in cuffs.
2 "medically trained professionals" will then insert catheters, one in each arm, set up the intravenous lines and affix a heart rate monitor. A 3rd will supervise. The medical team, chosen by the superintendent, all must be licensed. Premo would not say what type of license they must have, though he said those selected handle IV insertion as part of their regular jobs.
As a precaution, the IV team will also wrap Haugen's hands in gauze to ensure he does not make any profane hand gestures to the witnesses, though Premo stressed that he is confident Haugen will not.
Once the IV team finishes and leaves the room, the assistant superintendent will check the restraints, the lines and the heart rate monitor.
The corrections director will then call both the governor and the attorney general to ask if they are ready to proceed. If they approve, Haugen will be permitted a few minutes for a final statement. Even at this point, Haugen could call off the execution and the staff would stand down, Premo said.
But once the 1st drug is administered to induce unconsciousness, the execution would be underway. As Haugen lies on the gurney, he will be able to see any friends he has asked to witness the execution through a window, while other witnesses will be hidden behind 2-way glass.
A few minutes after the drug has been delivered, Premo will test Haugen's responsiveness. If Haugen is unconscious, Premo will signal the executioner to continue.
The medical team will monitor his heart activity on an electrocardiogram and will tell Premo the time of death. The corrections director will relay the information to the governor and attorney general. A medical examiner will be on hand and Haugen's body will be sent to a mortuary and funeral home.
Source: The Oregonian, November 19, 2011
Oregon executed 60 men since 1903
Once public, hangings became private to avoid crowded spectacle
60 convicted killers, all men, have been put to death since Oregon legislators abolished public hangings in 1903.
Behind walls at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, state-sanctioned killings have been carried out in three ways: on the gallows, in the gas chamber and in the lethal-injection room.
A look at the changing ways of execution in this state:
On the gallows
Acting to curtail public hangings that drew large crowds to county courthouses, state lawmakers moved the gallows inside the state penitentiary in 1903.
On June 29, 1904, Harry Egbert was the 1st condemned killer to hang at the penitentiary. He was put to death for killing 2 Harney County sheriff's deputies.
Before a noose was slipped over his head and the trap door was sprung, Egbert summed up his fate this way: "Bad raising and bad company were the cause of my downfall."
In 1912, 4 men died on the gallows — the most killed at one time.
In all, 40 men died on the gallows between 1904 and 1931.
In the gas chamber
Executions by lethal gas began in this state in 1939, about 3 years before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor triggered America's entry into World War II.
The life of LeRoy Hershel McCarthy, 27, ended in the gas chamber on Jan. 20, 1939. He was sentenced to death for killing a Portland resident during a $26 robbery.
17 more gas-chamber executions ensued between 1940 and 1962.
The youngest person executed in Oregon, John Anthony Soto, 17, died in the gas chamber on March 20, 1942. He was convicted of killing 2 men and 1 woman in Umatilla County.
Leeroy McGahuey was the last person put to death in Oregon's gas chamber. The logger was convicted of killing a Central Point woman and her 2-year-old son with a claw hammer. He was executed on Aug. 20, 1962.
2 years after McGahuey's execution, Oregon voters repealed the death penalty by 60 % of the vote in November 1964.
2 days later, then-Gov. Mark Hatfield commuted the death sentences of 3 people, including the 1st woman to be sentenced to death in this state. Jeannace Freeman, 20, was convicted of murdering her female lover's young son by throwing him off a bridge in Jefferson County in Eastern Oregon. She was later freed from prison.
Voters reinstituted capital punishment by lethal gas in 1978, but it was struck down by the Oregon Supreme Court in 1981.
When voters overwhelmingly reinstated the death penalty in 1984, they opted to execute with a sterile needle.
Lethal injections
2 men have been executed by lethal injection, one in 1996, another in 1997.
Both dropped their appeals, essentially volunteering to be put to death.
After a 34-year hiatus, capital punishment resumed in Oregon when Douglas Wright was executed shortly after midnight on Sept. 6, 1996.
Wright was sentenced to die for killing 4 homeless men he had lured from Portland to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in 1991. He also was charged in federal court with the killing of a 4th homeless man, an American Indian who also was killed in Central Oregon.
Before the killing spree, Wright murdered a Portland woman and her daughter in 1969. He served a fraction of his 35-year sentence before he was paroled in 1982.
Facing execution, Wright revealed from death row that he had also kidnapped, molested and killed a 10-year-old Portland boy, Luke Tredway, in 1984.
In his final statement, Wright apologized to the victim's family and said he "can no longer live with my guilt, my personal shame, nor my unbearable grief for the death of Luke Tredway."
Salem double killer Harry Moore was executed on May 16, 1997.
The crimes that brought Moore to the lethal-injection room were committed on June 5, 1992. He shot his former father-in-law, Thomas Lauri, in the head as the victim sat in his pickup outside a Salem post office, just a few blocks from the penitentiary. Moore then went to the home of Lauri's ex-wife, Moore's half-sister Barbara Cunningham, and shot her to death.
In waiving his legal appeals, Moore described life on death row as unbearable.
His execution was delayed about 16 minutes while prison staff struggled to find a suitable vein in his left arm for the lethal injection. They eventually had to use his left hand.
Source: Statesman-Journal,November 19, 2011
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