Arizona executes Richard Lynn Bible

Richard Lynn Bible

23 years after 9-year-old Jennifer Wilson was brutally raped and murdered and left on a hilltop in Flagstaff, the man convicted of killing her finally ran out of appeals.

Richard Lynn Bible died by lethal injection at 11:11 a.m. Thursday in Florence for the 1988 murder.

Bible did not look at any of the approximately 50 people witnessing the execution, who included about 20 of Jennifer's family members. He appeared to be scared, taking several swallows and fidgeting before the execution.

His last words were: "I'd like to thank my family, my lawyers — love 'em all, and everything's OK. That's it." He did not look once at the crowd through the window.

Bible began to breathe heavily, then lay peacefully on the table as the sedative and then the lethal drug were administered beginning at 11:02 a.m. He was declared dead at 11:11 a.m.

Jennifer's parents, her older sister, and her two younger brothers held each other as they watched the execution. Her father, Rich Wilson, stared at Bible intently, and after he was declared dead, nodded his head once as tears formed.

Bible, 49, has always maintained his innocence and in recent months has claimed that a DNA analysis of hairs found on Jennifer's body and clothing would exonerate him.

On Wednesday, his last-ditch appeals were denied by the U.S. Supreme Court and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ironically, Bible's trial in 1990 was the 1st Arizona case to use what was then brand-new DNA technology. A newspaper article at the time theorized that someday DNA evidence could become a regular part of courtroom arguments, although Bible's appellant lawyers tried to denounce it as junk science.

It was a case that played out dramatically in the press over 2 years: a convicted sex offender snatched a little girl from her bicycle, beat her to death, then hid her body.

In June 1988, Jennifer Wilson was on vacation from Yuma with her family. They had transported their horses up to Flagstaff to do some riding in the cool mountain air, and rather than ride in the family vehicle, Jennifer asked if she could ride her bike the last few miles to the ranch where they intended to saddle up. She never got there. When her mother drove back down the road looking for her, all she found was Jennifer's bicycle.

Bible, then 26 and a Flagstaff local, was arrested seven hours later, based partially on a description Jennifer's mother had given to police of a truck she had seen drive by about the time Jennifer disappeared. Jennifer's body was not found for 19 days, even though searchers had already combed the area with cadaver dogs, helicopters and legions of law-enforcement officers.

Circumstantial evidence linked Bible to the murder. And blood spatter on Bible's shirt proved to be Jennifer's after the DNA was typed. Bible was convicted in April 1990 of 1st-degree murder, kidnapping and child molestation. Two months later, he was sentenced to death.

Little is known about Bible's early life. At his sentencing, his family testified that he was a hyperactive child but otherwise acted appropriately around women and children. They said they had no concerns leaving him alone to watch kids.

But he had a long history of substance abuse, ranging from sniffing glue as a boy to overusing alcohol, cocaine and amphetamines as an adult. Mental-health professionals quoted in court documents said substance abuse brought out his antisocial tendencies.

In 1981, when he was 19, Bible was drinking on Sheep Hill in Flagstaff with his 17-year-old female cousin and they talked about a trip they planned to Sedona for the next day. All of a sudden, Bible tied her up, cut off her clothes with a knife and sexually assaulted her in the back of his pickup truck. He went to prison for 6 years, and while there, according to court testimony, he told a counselor that he would never again make the mistake of letting a victim testify against him. He may have kept his promise.

Bible was out of prison a year when Jennifer Wilson was murdered.

A day before, he had stolen a truck from a county impound lot near Sheep Hill.

He never confessed the details, but a jailhouse informant told authorities that Bible said that while he was high on methamphetamine, Bible used the truck to run Jennifer off the road and then told her he would take her to get medical help.

Nearly 3 weeks later, hikers found some of her clothing on Sheep Hill and called police. Searchers found her bound and naked body covered with branches and litter, within yards of where searchers had passed in the days when she first disappeared. She had died of blunt-force blows to her head.

Loose rubber bands, a cut cigar and a couple of airline-size vodka bottles matched items found in the truck Bible had stolen. Hairs found at the scene were deemed to be similar to Bible's. Evidence technicians matched fibers. And then there was Jennifer's blood on Bible's shirt.

The jury found Bible guilty.

Richard Lynn Bible becomes the 90th inmate executed by Arizona since 1910, and the 25th to die by injection since the state abandoned the gas chamber 19 years ago.

There are currently 5 executions scheduled in the USA in July, including that of fellow Arizona death row inmate Thomas West on July 19. An additional 6 executions are scheduled nationally in August and 7 more in September.

Source: Arizona Republic, June 30, 2011

Lethal-injection drug subbed at last minute

DEA says thiopental was obtained illegally

The day before killer Donald Beaty was put to death, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration informed Arizona officials that thiopental, a sedative used as part of the state's three-drug lethal injection procedure, had been obtained illegally from overseas and could not be used. So, at the last minute, prison officials substituted pentobarbital for the disputed drug, and the Beaty execution went forward.

Richard Lynn Bible [was] executed today using pentobarbital, which has come under scrutiny after a June 23 execution in Georgia in which the condemned man lurched, gasped and grimaced for 4 minutes after being injected with the drug. Authorities have not determined a reason for the reaction.

"Pentobarbital, administered by professionals and witnessed by the media in the Donald Beaty execution, worked as expected without incident," Arizona Director of Corrections Charles Ryan said. "The department will continue to use pentobarbital as part of its approved protocol."

Meanwhile on Wednesday, the Danish pharmaceutical firm that produces the drug condemned its use in executions and in a prepared statement said it had "carried out a thorough assessment of ways to prevent distribution for use in capital punishment."

Source: The Arizona Republic, June 30, 2011

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Death Penalty: Older but Not Wiser

New report looks back at 35 years of the death penalty

35 years after the death penalty was reinstated by the nation's highest court, it remains a punishment inflicted as arbitrarily as a lightning strike, according to a new report commemorating the infamous anniversary from the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty on July 2, 1976; it had previously ruled the ultimate punishment unconstitutional because of its arbitrary and unpredictable application, writes Rich­ard Dieter, the DPIC's executive director. Unfortunately, all these years later, he argues, that is still true. In sum, he writes, the "experiment" of capital punishment has failed. Indeed, the report notes, the system discerning who receives the death penalty and who doesn't – and for what crimes – appears worse than random. For example, Texas – still by far the national leader in executions, with 470 under its belt since reinstatement – executed Michael Richard in 2007 despite evidence of his mental impairment; meanwhile, in Washington, the so-called "Green River Killer," Gary Ridg­way, was spared death after confessing to murdering 48 people. Most notorious in Texas, perhaps, is the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, executed for an arson murder that many experts now say was likely a tragic accident; on the other hand, Ernest Willis – also convicted and sentenced to death for an arson murder that the state later decided was likely an accident – was spared death and ultimately exonerated.

"A review of state death penalty practices exposes a system in which an unpredictable few cases result in executions from among thousands of eligible cases. Race, geography and the size of a county's budget play a major role in who receives the ultimate punishment," reads the report. "In such a haphazard process, the rationales of deterrence and retribution make little sense." The entire report is available at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.

Source: Austin Chronicle, June 30, 2011

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Court delays Egypt brutality case verdict

Court postpones verdict on policemen charged over death of Khaled Said, whose case helped spark Egypt's revolution.

Khaled Said's death caused public outrage that paved the way for the January 2011 uprising.

The trial of 2 Egyptian policemen charged over the death of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old man allegedly fatally beaten in Alexandria a year ago, has been postponed until September 24, a judge told the court on Thursday.

Said died in June 2010, allegedly after being dragged out of an internet cafe by plain-clothes police and assaulted in the street, according to witnesses.

Pictures of his body, taken by his family in a morgue, caused public outrage that paved the way for Egypt's January 2011 uprising.

Young Egyptians used social media such as Facebook and Twitter to spread the message, and to coordinate protests in Cairo and Alexandria calling for an end to torture and impunity.

Facebook pages set up to express anger at Khaled Said's death would later be used to coordinate 'Day of Rage' protests on the streets of Cairo.

Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin speaking from Alexandria outside the courthouse, said that lawyers for Khalid's family submitted a new independent autopsy that could change the charges from manslaughter to torture and murder.

"If new charges are filed against the two police officers they could include torture and murder. which carries the death penalty. Under the current charges they would have been sentenced to seven to 15 years.

"But with the new charges they could face either life in prison or the death sentence."

Mohyeldin emphasised the presence of many protesters gathered in expectation of hearing a verdict because the trial had become an iconic symbol of the struggle of many young Egyptians.

"A year after his death, Khaled Said’s family still wait for justice. His case highlights the widely shared belief that the Egyptian authorities are still not doing enough to deliver justice - not only for Khaled Said but for all those unlawfully killed and injured by the security forces during mass protests earlier this year," said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

"This belief is exacerbated by the slowness with which the authorities are handling trials of police officers accused of killing protesters during the uprising, when more than 800 died, and the fact that many of those facing trial have not been suspended from active duty and remain in positions where they can intimidate witnesses and subvert justice," he said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera before the trial's postponement, Said’s uncle, Ali El-Qassam, said: "We are anxious, but hopeful about the verdict.

"I know that everyone in the world will be following the outcome. I know the Egyptian youth will react to whatever outcome the verdict will be in a peaceful and civil manner that represents Egypt."

Source: Al Jazeera, June 30, 2011

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Lundbeck Won't Pull Controversial Drug

Danish drug maker H. Lundbeck A/S said Wednesday it will keep selling its Nembutal anesthetic in the U.S even though it opposes the drug's use there in lethal-injection executions.

Designed to treat epileptic seizures but also sometimes used to euthanize animals, Nembutal is being increasingly used in U.S. prison executions even though it wasn't meant for that purpose.

"We're doing everything we can to make sure the drug is used for the patients in the right way and trying to prevent misuse of the drug," Lundbeck's Chief Executive Ulf Wiinberg said. "The problem is that in the U.S., no one controls the end use of any medicine. Lundbeck's role is to be there for patients, and that's why it's still on the market."

He said Lundbeck is urgently looking into actively managing the drug's distribution there to ensure that patients have access to the drug, while also preventing its misuse. Asked if those steps will include "end-user clauses" and other restrictive measures, Mr. Wiinberg replied: "There are several options that we are exploring and once we've cleared our check list, then we'll make a decision on what to do."

The drug, acquired when the Danish company bought U.S.-based firm Ovation in 2009, has no strategic importance to Lundbeck and represents less than 1% of its overall sales.

"We acquired Ovation for use as a platform to launch ourselves into the U.S. market. Ovation had a strong CNS [central nervous system] and orphan drug orientation. But with that acquisition we also got a number of unimportant drugs which were going to go generic, and anesthetic Nembutal was one of them," Mr. Wiinberg said.

Prisons in the U.S. where capital punishment is conducted switched to Nembutal after U.S.-based Hospira Inc. decided earlier this year to stop making thiopental sodium, an anesthetic typically used to render a condemned inmate unconscious before other lethal drugs, including a paralytic agent, are administered.

Mr. Wiinberg said his initial reaction to news of Nembutal's use in executions was to pull it off the market. "But we were then told by the medical community that it would compromise treatment if we did that, because there's no comparable alternative on the market," he said.

The Danish government is also trying to help Lundbeck find a solution. Like most European countries, Denmark opposes capital punishment.

Mr. Wiinberg said Lundbeck gets many appeals from civil-rights groups as well as friends and family members of convicts on death row, urging the company to pull the drug. "We get appeals from all kinds of people who are engaged in this, directly or indirectly," he said.

"The Nembutal issue for us is one where it's financially irrelevant but where it's very important that we do the right thing and that we communicate the fact that we're doing the right thing in a transparent way. We're doing a lot of things. Some may work, and some may not work."

Source: Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2011

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Egyptian policeman sentenced to death for killing protesters

The 1st Egyptian police officer sentenced to death for killing protesters during the January revolution remained at large Monday as the country braced for a summer of trials on the police brutality that defined President Hosni Mubarak's regime.

Mohamed Ibrahim Abdul Monem was sentenced in absentia late Sunday for the Jan. 28 shooting deaths of 23 protesters rioting outside a Cairo police station. The court's ruling was quickly affirmed by the nation's top Islamic cleric, Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, who reviews all death-penalty cases.

Abdul Monem told Egyptian TV over the weekend that he had killed no one while following orders to protect the police station. He said he would seek a new trial and accused the Interior Ministry of not standing by him. He has yet to explain why he hadn't appeared in court or why authorities hadn't apprehended him.

"The Interior Ministry abandoned my case," said Abdul Monem, who contended that he only fired into the ground in an attempt to disperse an angry mob at the police station. "The ministry didn't even assign lawyers to defend me."

The verdict against Abdul Monem came as families of protesters killed during the 18-day revolt hurled rocks at police and military vehicles after the trial against former Interior Minister Habib Adli was adjourned Sunday for a 2nd time. Adli faces capital punishment on charges he ordered state security forces to violently crush an uprising, which led to the deaths of more than 800 protesters.

But the most anticipated case is the trial of Mubarak, set for August. The ousted Egyptian president is accused of financial crimes and of having a hand in the deaths of protesters. He could face the death sentence, and his fate is a crucial test of the ruling military council's ability to balance justice and the demands for blood from many Egyptians who suffered under Mubarak's government.

Though the country's economy is ailing, and confusion and worry linger over upcoming parliamentary elections and the writing of a new constitution, many Egyptians believe the country cannot move forward until the sins of the past are punished. They fear that Mubarak, who has been in a hospital since April with apparent heart problems, will maneuver to escape his day in court.

"Abdul Monem is just a street cop. Where are the superiors and the higher-ranked police officers?" said Mohamed Sayed, whose brother was killed in the protests. "Why aren't any of them convicted yet despite the fact that many of them have been on trial for months now? People like Habib Adli and others get their trials continuously adjourned."

Former top officials, including Trade Minister Rashid Mohamed Rashid, Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali and Adli, have been found guilty of corruption and abuse of power and sentenced to prison. Their trials offered a glimpse into the entrenched world of businesspeople and government officials who ran the country for personal benefit, even as more than 40% of the population lived on $2 or less a day.

But the death sentence against Abdul Monem is dramatic for an Egypt attempting to reconcile its past as it struggles toward a democratic future. Cases of police brutality seldom reached the courtrooms in Mubarak's repressive state; security forces brazenly roamed the country, torturing and demanding bribes. That an officer has been sentenced to death further breaks down the psychological barrier that had helped keep the former president in power.

Abdul Monem was assigned to Cairo's Zawiya Hamra police station, notorious for corruption and abuse. On Jan. 28, three days after the revolt began, protesters, some of them armed, descended on the building as they vented years of rage. In his TV interview, Abdul Monem said that he was inside when a commander told officers and police officers to fire their weapons to protect the building.

The attackers "set fire to all our vehicles and a street cop was shot and died on the spot, and three other street cops, including myself, were injured," he said. "I did not see one protester fall as I fired shots into the ground."

But prosecutors said Abdul Monem fired indiscriminately, killing 23 and wounding 16 others.

Source: Los Angeles Times, June 28, 2011

Cleric approves cop's death sentence

An Islamic cleric affirmed the death sentence meted out to an Egyptian police officer for killing protesters during a January protest.

Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa sanctioned the execution of Mohamed Abdel Moneim, who remains at large, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

Abdel Moneim was sentenced May 22 for shooting to death 23 protesters rioting near a Cairo police station Jan. 28, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Abdel Moneim told Egyptian television during the weekend he was just following orders to protect the police station and had killed no one, firing only into the ground to try to scatter an angry mob at the station.

He said the mob "set fire to all our vehicles and a street cop was shot and died on the spot, and three other street cops, including myself, were injured. I did not see one protester fall as I fired shots into the ground."

Prosecutors said Abdel Moneim fired randomly, killing 23 and injuring 16 others.

Abdel Moneim said he would seek a new trial.

"Abdel Moneim is just a street cop. Where are the superiors and the higher-ranked police officers? Why aren't any of them convicted yet despite the fact that many of them have been on trial for months now? People like (Interior Minister) Habib Adli and others get their trials continuously adjourned," said Mohamed Sayed, whose brother was killed in the revolution.

Adli's trial was adjourned for a second time Sunday. He faces the death penalty on charges he ordered state security forces to fire on an uprising, leading to the deaths of more than 800 protesters, the newspaper said.

Source: United Press International, June 28, 2011

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Iran: Concurrent With Admission of Group Executions, 26 More Hanged Secretly in Mashad

Local sources in Mashad told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that 26 more inmates were hanged at Vakilabad Prison on 15 June 2011. At the same time, the Prosecutor of Mashad Mahmoud Zoghi admitted to secret group executions and without mentioning the number of executions over the past 2 1/2 years, referred to “the high number of executions."

Zoghi acknowledged group executions while reporting the large number of drug trafficking cases in Vakilabad prison.

“With such a high volume of drug trafficking cases, the execution statistics are proportionate and foreign media unjustifiably exaggerate in this subject,” Zoghisaid.

The secret group executions were carried out against Iran’s laws, without the knowledge or presence of lawyers and family members of the prisoners. Neither the prisoners or their lawyers were served requisite papers from the Supreme Court upholding their death sentences. The prisoners were not informed in advance about the final confirmation or date of their executions and were only informed hours before they were executed.

According to information obtained by the Campaign, in these cases, the “execution sentence confirmation notices” from the Supreme Court, and the “sentence implementation orders” from the Prosecutor General’s Office, are only served to the Prosecutor of Mashad. Mohseni Ejehi, Iran’s Prosecutor General has repeatedly given orders to prosecutors nationwide to implement the execution sentences of drug traffickers in a swift manner.

Zoghi characterized execution statistics in Khorasan as “natural.” “According to anti-drugs laws, transportation, possession, and trade of more than 30 grams of heroin carries the death penalty. As the narcotics enter the Khorasan Razavi Province in high volume, naturally the rate of executions will be high, too,” he said.

Refraining from mentioning the exact number of executions carried out at Vakilabad in 2009 and 2010, Zoghi only addressed executions carried out since the beginning of the Persian new year, between 21 March and 21 June 2011 in general terms. “During the current [Iranian] year, we carried out execution sentences in 5 phases,” he said. Recently, the Campaign reported of 5 days where group executions were carried out between 21 March and 21 June 2011: 10 executions on 6 April; 12 executions on 13 April; 10 executions on 16 May; and 16 executions total on 23 and 24 May.

In numerous reports last year, the Campaign reported of the secret executions of hundreds of prisoners at Vakilabad Prison in 2009 and 2010. The Campaign has also been informed of secret executions at Birjand, Taibad, Ghezel Hessar (Karaj), Karoon (Ahvaz), and Orumiyeh Prisons. In many cases, local and judicial authorities have only implicitly admitted the existence of these executions. The Campaign has gathered information that indicates most of the unannounced secret group executions have been carried out inside Vakilabad Prison and Ghezel Hessar Prison. In the past 2 years, hundreds of prisoners have been hanged inside these 2 prisons. According to information received from local sources, several thousand prisoners are currently on death row on drug trafficking charges in Vakilabad and Ghezel Hessar Prisons.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran regards the recent remarks by the Prosecutor of Tehran as more evidence of widespread and secret group executions at Vakilabad Prison, and urges Iranian judicial authorities to end the horrific trend of secret executions in Iranian prisons. Iranian judicial authorities use violent and lethal policies in confronting drugs. In recent years, such policies have show no indication of being effective in managing Iran’s drug problems. Additionally, the Campaign joins many other human rights organizations to ask the Iranian Judiciary to abolish the death penalty, due to its cruel, inhumane, and irreversible nature.

Source: Iran Human Rights, June 28, 2011

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Saudi Arabia: death row Filipino may be saved by blood money

The Saudi Reconciliation Committee (SRC) has announced that 37-year-old Rodelio “Don Don” Lanuza who is on death row and currently detained at the Dammam Central Jail could be saved from execution if blood money is paid to the family of his victim in two months' time.

“A member of the SRC told me on Monday that it took them six years to convince the aggrieved family to forgive Lanuza in exchange for blood money,” John Leonard Monterona, Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator, told Arab News on Tuesday.

Lanuza was convicted of and detained in November 2000 for killing a Saudi national in what he claimed was self-defense.

Monterona added, however, that Lanuza is worried that the aggrieved family may change their mind unless the money is paid.

“On behalf of Lanuza and his wife and 2 kids, Migrante-Middle East is calling on President Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino lll to raise the needed money,” he said.

He added that this is a good opportunity for him to prove his critics wrong in saying that he's not giving enough attention to the concerns of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).

On Sunday, Migrante-Middle East gave a “failing grade to President Aquino for unsatisfactory rating in his first year in office."

Monterona said that on Monday, he received a text message from Lanuza saying that the “embassy seemed to be sleeping on his case.” Arab News called Ambassador-designate Ezzedin H. Tago to get the embassy’s side but he was out of the Kingdom.

Monterona also said the SRC told him that no embassy representative attended the meeting on Monday night, during which an update on the blood money would have been discussed.

Other OFWs on death row and whose cases being monitored by Migrante-Middle East include brothers Rolando and Edison Gonzales, Eduardo Arcilla, Joselito Zapanta, Carlito Rana.

Source: Arab News, June 29, 2011

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Most Czechs support euthanasia, death penalty - poll

About 2/3 of Czechs support the possibility of euthanasia and the introduction of capital punishment, according to a CVVM institute's poll released today.

The poll showed that church-goers are often against euthanasia and the death penalty.

While also people aged over 60 tend to be more opposed to euthanasia, capital punishment has lower support among university graduates.

64 % believe that Czech legislation should make euthanasia possible, 27 % are against it.

Nearly 2/3 of the respondents would like to have capital punishment reintroduced and 1/3 is against the idea.

However, in the early 1990s, support for the death penalty was higher, being around 3/4 of the population.

The poll was conducted among 1115 persons over 15 in early May.

Source: Czech Happenings, June 29, 2011

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Nebraska: Feds say no to execution drug

State officials said Wednesday they are seeking a new supply of a controversial lethal-injection drug after determining that they probably can't use drugs obtained from an Indian pharmaceutical company.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration informed state corrections officials in early April that Nebraska lacked authority to import controlled substances such as sodium thiopental, a powerful sedative used in lethal-injection executions.

That led corrections officials and the Nebraska Attorney General's Office to decide that the state should obtain the proper import permits and seek a new source of the drug to carry out the death penalty.

The problem with the Indian drug purchase raises the prospect of further delays in the execution of double-murderer Carey Dean Moore.

Moore, 53, was sentenced to die for the execution-style murders of two Omaha cab drivers in 1979, but he has won several stays of that sentence over the years.

Attorney General Jon Bruning asked the Nebraska Supreme Court in January to set a new execution date. On April 21 [--] 10 days after the state learned of DEA's problem with the sodium thiopental the high court set a June 14 execution date for Moore.

But the execution was stayed May 25 after Moore's attorneys raised questions about the quality of the drug Nebraska obtained from Kayem Pharmaceuticals of Mumbai, India.

Moore's attorney, Jerry Soucie, said he was very concerned that the Attorney General's Office did not disclose the drug problem earlier as it was seeking to execute his client.

“I find that to be the most troubling aspect of this case,” Soucie said.

David Cookson, chief deputy attorney general, said his office didn't believe such disclosure was necessary.

Cookson said the office was confident the state would either obtain a new supply of sodium thiopental or be able to rectify the problem with the drugs it bought from India in January.

“As a result, we had nothing to inform the court,” he said. “We felt we were in a position to have the drugs."

Moore would be the first in Nebraska to die by lethal injection, the method adopted by the Legislature in 2009. That followed a Nebraska Supreme Court ruling that declared the electric chair unconstitutional.

When the high court stayed Moore's execution in May, Cookson said the state had abandoned efforts to make its current supply of sodium thiopental legally usable.

Instead, the focus was to have the Department of Corrections obtain federal authority to import such controlled substances.

Cookson said there are several overseas sources for the drug, which is no longer manufactured in the United States.

A spokeswoman for the Corrections Department said the agency now possesses a federal drug import permit and is seeking a new source of the drugs.

Dawn Renee Smith, the spokeswoman, said no decision has been made about what to do with the drugs purchased from India in January. Smith said the DEA has said they could be destroyed by the state crime lab if necessary.

Nebraska becomes the latest state to relinquish its supply of sodium thiopental obtained overseas.

In March, DEA officials seized Georgia's supply of the drug due to questions about how it had been imported. Georgia's supply came from Britain.

Tennessee and Kentucky also have turned over their supplies to federal officials.

Sodium thiopental is a fast-acting sedative that is the first of three drugs administered in an execution. Its use is controversial.

The last U.S. manufacturer quit making it earlier this year, setting off a scramble among states that utilize lethal injection.

Nebraska and at least 6 other states went overseas to obtain the drug. Other states switched to a different sedative [--] phenobarbital, a drug commonly used by veterinarians to euthanize animals to carry out executions.

Soucie has questioned whether the India company was properly registered to export drugs and whether Nebraska violated federal laws on importing controlled substances.

He and other death-penalty opponents also question whether the Indian drugs were a generic version that does not meet U.S. pharmaceutical standards, thus risking unnecessary pain in an execution.

In a June 9 court filing, Soucie included the contents of an email from the Kansas City, Mo., office of the DEA indicating that Nebraska officials were told on April 11 [--] 3 months after obtaining the drugs from India that the Department of Corrections “was not accepted” for the importation of such controlled substances.

The email indicated that George Green, an attorney for the state agency, was told how to apply for valid “importer registration."

Cookson said that once his office learned of DEA's concerns, it reached out to federal officials to determine if the Indian drugs could somehow be used, or if the state needed to obtain permits to obtain a new supply.

Eventually, the decision was made to seek a new supply, he said.

Source: Omaha World-Herald, June 19, 2011

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Mexico appeals to Supreme Court to spare citizen from death penalty

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to respond soon to an appeal this week by the Mexican government to spare the life of one of its citizens.

The Mexican government filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court Tuesday that demands Humberto Leal Garcia be given a reprieve from the death penalty.

He has been sentenced to die July 7 by a Texas judge after he was convicted in 1995 of raping and murdering a 16-year-old girl in San Antonio.

The Mexican government’s brief says the execution of Leal would violate the Vienna Convention of Consular Rights because he was not allowed to seek legal advice from his embassy before he was convicted.

The United States signed the treaty in 1969. Article 36 requires each participating country to promptly notify foreign embassies when their citizens are arrested abroad.

“The United States’ word should not be so carelessly broken, nor its standing in the international community so needlessly compromised,” the Mexican government’s brief says.

The brief was filed to support a petition by Leal’s attorneys to the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari and a stay of execution.

More than 40 other Mexicans are on death row in the United States. All of them should have been given an opportunity for legal assistance from their government, U.S. attorneys for Mexico say.

A spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that because Leal committed the ultimate crime with the rape and murder of Adria Sauceda, there is no injustice in making him pay the ultimate penalty.

Civil rights groups have pleaded for months that Leal be given a reprieve, but their pleas took on greater urgency this week with the intervention of the Mexican government.

Because an international treaty comes into play in executing a foreign citizen, “that judgment should be made by the U.S. Congress, not Texas,” the Mexican government’s brief says.

Civil rights advocates have contributed to efforts to save Leal by organizing a Web site for him at www.humbertoleal.org.

"Mr. Leal's case is receiving particular attention right now because of the pending execution date, but Mexico is committed to ensuring the rights of all Mexican nationals facing capital charges or death sentences," Katharine Huffman, principal in the Raben Group public policy foundation, told All Headline News.

Civil rights advocates are drawing hope for their efforts from a bill introduced in the Senate two weeks ago by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Huffman said.

The bill would require that federal courts review all death sentences against foreign citizens to determine whether they were denied access to legal advice from their embassies. If they were not given “consular access,” the death penalties could be commuted.

“Each year, thousands of Americans are detained abroad while they study, travel, work, and serve in the military,” Leahy said in a statement. “From the moment they are detained, their safety and well-being depends on the ability of United States consular officials to meet with them, monitor their treatment, help them obtain legal assistance, and connect them to family back home."

Leahy said his proposed Consular Notification Compliance Act “will bring the United States one step closer to compliance with the convention."

More than 100 foreign citizens from 30 countries have been sentenced to death by American courts.

A recent petition from former U.S. diplomats, Army generals and others to the Texas governor says the execution of Leal creates the risk of a tit-for-tat for Americans arrested abroad. In other words, other countries might refuse to grant consular access to the Americans.

More than 6,600 Americans were arrested in foreign countries last year, according to the U.S. State Department. Of those, about 3,000 were incarcerated.

The dispute prompted journalist Euna Lee to write a column in The Washington Post last week that invoked her 2009 arrest by North Korean soldiers while on assignment for a news story.

“It is difficult to describe the fear that comes with being arrested and detained in a foreign country,” Lee wrote.

In much the way she was denied consular access before spending 4-1/2 months in a North Korean jail, Leal also is being denied his rights under the Vienna Convention of Consular Rights, Lee said.

“While I am not questioning the verdict of the jury that convicted him of murder, our obligations under the Vienna Convention are clear in all cases, including Leal’s,” she said.

Source: All Headline News, June 29, 2011

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U.S.: Executed prisoner ‘suffered greatly’, testifies medical expert

A leading US anaesthesiologist has testified that a prisoner recently executed in Georgia, USA using a new lethal injection drug ‘suffered greatly’ during the process.

In a sworn affidavit, Dr David Waisel, an Associate Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School, stated: “…I can say with certainty that Mr. [Roy] Blankenship was inadequately anesthetized and was conscious for approximately the first three minutes of the execution and that he suffered greatly.”

“Critically”, he added, eyewitness accounts stated that Mr Blankenship’s eyes “were open throughout”. According to Dr Waisel, his eyes should not have remained open after the injection of the anaesthetic pentobarbital, which Georgia was using in an execution for the first time. In response to opinions reported in the media that Mr Blankenship could have been ‘faking it’, Dr Waisel points out that “one cannot fake eyes-wide-open at death.”

Roy Willard Blankenship was executed on 23 June using the new execution drug pentobarbital (also known as Nembutal), which has largely replaced the previously-used anaesthetic sodium thiopental in most executing states. Sodium thiopental has become scarce in the US in the last few months, following the halting of domestic production.

Concerns have been raised over the safety of the new execution protocols involving pentobarbital, and accounts are starting to emerge of apparently botched executions resulting from the use of a new and untested drug. Reports of the execution in Alabama of Eddie Duval Powell on 16 June – the second in that state using pentobarbital – show that his behaviour during the process was similar to that of Mr Blankenship, including the jerking of the head and expressions of apparent surprise and discomfort.

1. For further information please contact Donald Campbell in Reprieve’s press office on +44 (0) 20 7427 1082 / (0) 7791 755 415

2. The full text of Dr Waisel’s affidavit is available on Reprieve’s website – key extracts are below:

“…I can say with certainty that Mr. Blankenship was inadequately anesthetized and was conscious for approximately the first three minutes of the execution and that he suffered greatly. Mr. Blankenship should not have been conscious or exhibiting these movements, nor should his eyes have been open, after the injection of pentobarbital.

[…]

“Only when a drug has been tested systematically on thousands of subjects, with their consent, can one begin to reliably assess how an untested use of a drug will affect human subjects. We do not have relevant data in similar populations for pentobarbital. Because we do not have sufficient data, there is no way to know, in any given case, how an overdose of pentobarbital will affect basically healthy inmates. Mr. Blankenship’s reaction to the pentobarbital injection may be indicative of other inmates’ reactions.”

3. Further information on the executions of Mr Blankenship and Mr Powell, including links to eyewitness media accounts, can be found here: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/2011_06_28_botched_pentobarbital_executions

Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person’s right to a fair trial and saving lives.

Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 27 years working on behalf of people facing the death penalty in the USA.

Reprieve logoReprieve

PO Box 52742

London EC4P 4WS

Tel: 020 7353 4640

Fax: 020 7353 4641

Website: www.reprieve.org.uk

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Yong Vui Kong: The Tenth Letter - Drugs and the Death Penalty

Yong Vui Kong

Yetian,

You once asked me to write about drugs and the death penalty, but I said that I did not have the right to discuss such an issue because I myself have been sentenced to death because of a drug offence. Also, I had not really thought too deeply about this question.

You asked me again about this issue.

Everyone here has been sentenced to death. Most of them are sentenced to death for drug offences. There are some who are older, but most of us are young. They have all been through their trials and lost their appeals. Some are waiting for responses from the President, others are just waiting for their “time” to come. They all have their own stories.

My brother mentioned another inmate; his name is Chun Yin. I believe the newspapers have reported his case before. Every Monday Yun Leong will see Chun Yin’s father. Once, outside the prison, Chun Yin’s father even asked Yun Leong to sign his petition.

My lawyer Mr Ravi also mentioned him before. His story is like this: after Chun Ying’s parents divorced, Chun Yin stayed with his father, helping his father run stalls selling clothes and VCDs in morning and night markets. He got to know a regular customer. This regular customer convinced him to go overseas and bring gold bars into Singapore. All the arrangements were made by this customer. But it turned out that hidden in the bag were not gold bars, but drugs. Chun Yin did not know that it was drugs hidden in the bag until the police ripped open the lining. He told the court all the details of the matter, and also revealed the identity of the customer and his phone numbers. But the judge did not believe him. My lawyer told me that the police had not done their best to trace this customer, and the judge did not think that it was important.

I am not a lawyer, but I cannot understand, why didn’t they trace this man? Often it is because of people like him that we are in such a situation. If this man was found, wouldn’t we be able to find out if Chun Yin was telling the truth or not? Chun Yin is currently locked inside here, how can he find the truth himself?

I am beginning to wonder, are there really people who have been wronged? Are all the sentences really fair? If a person has been wronged and hanged, isn’t it very tragic?

I have mentioned my next-door inmate before. He was very young, and he has already died. We talked about a lot of things. He never mentioned his case, but I feel that he was a very naïve, very ignorant kid. He could not face death. That morning at 3am, he was dragged out. His crying really made my heart ache. I kept chanting, hoping that his suffering would be decreased. I wonder, how could a person like him be a drug trafficker out to harm society?

After that time, I told the warden that even though I am at fault, so is the person who was behind the scenes making all the arrangements for me. I wanted to stop him from harming more people, so I told the police who this person was. I don’t know what happened next. I heard from the lawyer that he has been detained, but there is no evidence, so he has not been charged.

There is still one more thing that I must talk about. About 2 months ago, there was another inmate. He was older. His appeal was successful and he has been released. I asked my lawyer why; isn’t it very difficult to appeal? Isn’t it true that only a few people win their appeals? The lawyer told me that the Court of Appeal’s decision is like this: this person brought in many different types of drugs, and one of these was heroin. He told the court that he did not know that one of these drugs was heroin. The court believed him and said that he really didn’t know he was carrying heroin, and so he was released. The lawyer even jokingly told me, if only Chun Yin had said that he knew he was carrying drugs, just not that the drug was heroin, he might have had a chance.

My lawyer also takes the opportunity to explain to me the law regarding drug offences, saying that as long as drugs are found on you guilt is presumed, and if you are carrying more than a certain amount you will be presumed to be trafficking, etc. I don’t fully understand, but I think that this is very important. Many people don’t know about this, and because they fall on the wrong side of this law, they are sentenced to death.

Learning about these cases, I find it very strange. How is it that the court can believe this person but not that person; what is the standard and attitude adopted towards drug cases and the death penalty? My lawyer has tried to explain it to me, but it is too complicated and I don’t quite understand, so I don’t dare to talk about it here.

I suppose what I can say here is to encourage all the readers to go and understand this law!

Vui Kong

21/6/2011

**Note: The man Vui Kong mentioned to have won his appeal did not get acquitted. He only had his death sentence overturned, and received a different sentence.

Source: Save Yong Vui Kong (Facebook page), June 28, 2011

Click here to sign an online petition urging Singapore's President to commute Yong's death sentence to a prison sentence and thus grant him a second chance.

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Anthony Graves continues campaign for justice

A Texas man exonerated from death row last year shared a message of hope and advocacy with the Third Ward community Sunday.

"The very system that almost took my life for something I did not do still exists. Yet I am still hopeful," Anthony Graves, 45, told a crowd at the S.H.A.P.E. Community Center.

Graves spread the same message during a recent speaking tour in Germany, France, Sweden and Switzerland.

"I went to educate people about the death penalty and the flaws of our system," said Graves, who spent 18 years behind bars, 12 of them on death row, for the murders of a grandmother and five children in Somerville.

Click here to read the full article

Source: Houston Chronicle, June 27, 2011

Anthony Graves Wants His Name Cleared

Anthony Graves

It was a day of celebration for Anthony Graves. After 18 years of wrongful imprisonment and two execution dates, he will finally be compensated for the Texas injustice.

Govenor Rick Perry signed legislation in early June that will allow Anthony Graves to receive $1.4 million in state compensation for a wrongful capital murder conviction that left him behind bars for 18 years.

Graves says it has been a tortuous journey home from the hell that is Texas death row and in order for his fight to be over, he needs one more thing from the State of Texas.

Houston abolitionists, local activists, and members of the peace and justice movement welcomed Graves to the Shape Community Center on Sunday afternoon.

While Graves says the $1.4 million will help him build a new life, it can't replace his loss of freedom.

"I'm happy about the money, but let's not forget, it's not the lottery that I won; I lost 18 years of my life and if I had a choice between the money and the 18 years, I would take the 18 years," said Graves.

After 18 years of fighting, Graves says there is one more thing he wants -- his name cleared.

"What I wish now is for the State of Texas to give me some type of decree that says I'm actually innocent, then that's when the fight is over for me, this particular fight," said Graves. "I filed a lawsuit against the Attorney General's office asking them to do just that and it seems like it's going to be a fight just to get that done."

Since Graves walked free from prison in October 2010, he has been a busy man. He works as an investigator for the Texas Defender service in Austin and he recently traveled to Europe for a speaking tour. But he says it has been hard fitting into today's society.

"Everything, your sense of direction, you've been gone for 18 years and then it's like, they take you and just throw you on a new planet and say, 'Survive the best way you can,' so you come out of there you see technologies has changed, everything around you has changed, what you may have taken advantage of every day, is still kind of scary to me," said Graves.

As for his future, he is doing what he wants to be doing, fighting against the very institution that almost took his life away, the death penalty.

"Everybody's focused on the money, but what about the fact that I almost lost my life, what about the 18 years that was stolen from me, what are we going to do about that? How are we going to make sure that if doesn't happen to your neighbor, friend or dad, this is not a feel-good moment, it's bittersweet for me, because I gave up so much, just to get a little," said Graves. "I almost lost my life. Where's the outrage?"

"This chose me, I didn’t choose it. It chose me, and now it's given me some sense of purpose and direction in how I want to live my life and where I want to take it," said Graves. He will not receive the $1.4 million dollars all at once.

Graves will get $80,000 every year for the next 18 years. He said he will spend some money on his mother, but he's going to be very frugal and wise with the rest.

Source: myfoxhouston, June 27, 2011
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Clemency board to consider death-row inmate's case

Arizona's clemency board is set to decide Monday whether to stop or delay this week's scheduled execution of a death-row inmate convicted in the 1988 molestation and murder of a 9-year-old Yuma girl.

Inmate Richard Lynn Bible's attorney is expected to raise doubts about his client's guilt and the evidence that helped convict him.

The Arizona Supreme Court already has turned down a request from Bible to delay his execution over arguments about the drugs being used in the execution, set for Thursday at the state prison in Florence.

Bible still has a request to delay his execution in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals so he can have more time to get DNA testing on hairs that were used as evidence in his trial.

Source: Associated Press, June 27, 2011

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Iran: Judicial chief insists on use of public hangings

"Expediting the files"

The head of Iran’s judiciary announced today that “hoodlums and rapists” will be harshly dealt with by the legal system, the daily newspaper Ebtekar reports.

In its Monday issue, Ebtekar writes that Ayatollah Larijani told a meeting of justice department administrators: “Armed robbers and rapists have been hanged in public, and in the coming year our efforts will become even more serious.” He added that there will be no mercy in carrying out such sentences.

In recent weeks, several reports of gang rapes have made headlines in the Iranian media.

The head of the Supreme Court, Ayatollah Ahmad Mohseni Gorgani, previously had said that the head of the judiciary has charged the Supreme Court with expediting the files of “hoodlums and convicts who disturb the security and peace of the public."

Ayatollah Larijani

Ayatollah Larijani had calculated that processing these files as swiftly as possible would help society.

“Certain delays in confronting hoodlums, rapists and disturbers of people’s peace and security would no longer provide a safe corner for these criminals, and the judiciary must act quickly and carefully to process these cases,” the head of the judiciary had said.

He had stressed that the judiciary would take less than a month to attend to these files, which are certain to attract the death penalty.

There has been a sharp rise in executions in Iran since the beginning of the year, prompting concern from human rights groups both within Iran and abroad.

Source: radiozamaneh.com, June 27, 2011

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U.S. Supreme Court reverses itself on death penalty

Is the death penalty unconstitutional because it violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment?" According to the U.S. Supreme Court the answer is "yes" -- and "no." In other words, "It depends."

In Furman v. Georgia, which was decided this week (June 29) in 1972, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional and did violate the Eighth Amendment because it was applied in "arbitrary and capricious ways."

African-Americans and other minorities, the court noted, were much more likely to get the death penalty than whites, not only because of the color of their skin but also because (often a result of the color of their skin) of the quality of their legal representation.

William Furman, the defendant in the case, was a case in point. While Furman was burglarizing a home, he tripped while trying to flee and his gun accidentally went off, killing a resident. He was tried for murder, found guilty, and the jury gave him the death sentence. But as the Supreme Court noted, accidental shootings would not normally merit a death sentence, especially if the defendant was white. Thus was Furman's sentence "arbitrary and capricious."

What the court found legally objectionable was when those states with the death penalty did not give sentencing guidelines to juries in murder trials, meaning that juries had unlimited discretion to decide between a prison sentence and the death penalty.

This led to disparities when sentencing different groups of citizens, which was unconstitutional because it violated both the Eighth Amendment's "cruel and unusual punishment" clause and the 14th Amendment's requirement that "due process of law" be applied equally in all cases.

Furman v. Georgia was a victory for anti-death penalty advocates, but only a temporary one because the ruling also suggested that if states subsequently adopted standardized sentencing guidelines for juries, the court would be amenable to reconsidering the constitutionality of the death penalty.

Sure enough, many of the states that had allowed the death penalty prior to Furman quickly passed legislation with such sentencing guidelines. Those guidelines included restrictions on the types of murder for which the death penalty could be imposed, and instructions on what factors judges and juries must consider (factors such as accidental shootings) when deciding between incarceration and death.

The Supreme Court was then as good as its word, taking up the case Gregg v. Georgia four years later. In Gregg the court ruled that with proper sentencing guidelines in place, the death penalty passed constitutional muster, and as it happened, the first person receiving the death penalty under the new guidelines was a white man, Gary Gilmore, who was executed in Utah for murdering a motel clerk.

Source: Appeal-Democrat, June 26, 2011

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Governor Perry approaching dubious mark for executions in Texas

Rick Perry (left) became Governor of Texas in 2001, and to date has presided over 231 executions, more than any other governor in American history.

After the death penalty was re-legalized in the USA on July 2, 1976, Texas resumed executions on December 7, 1982, and to date, has put to death 470 condemned inmates, including 6 (of the nation's 24) executions this year.

Below is a list of impending Texas executions in the weeks and months ahead; please note that likely before the end of this year, Rick Perry will have presided over (more than) half of all people executed in Texas.

date/name of impending execution---------# executed under Gov Perry------# executed in Texas since 1982


July 7--Humberto Leal---------------------------------232----------------------------------------471

July 20---Mark Stroman-------------------------------233----------------------------------------472

Aug. 10--Martin Robles-------------------------------234-----------------------------------------473

Aug. 18--Larry Swearingen----------------------------235----------------------------------------474

Aug. 23--Randall Mays--------------------------------236----------------------------------------475

Aug. 30--Ivan Cantu-----------------------------------237----------------------------------------476

Sept. 13--Steven Woods------------------------------238----------------------------------------477

Sept. 15--Duane Buck--------------------------------239----------------------------------------478-----50%

Sept. 20--Cleve Foster-------------------------------240----------------------------------------479

Sept. 21--Lawrence Brewer--------------------------241----------------------------------------480 under Gov. Perry

NOTE: A Texas governor can only commute a death sentence if the 7-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles makes a favorable recommendation of clemency. Otherwise, a governor could issue a 1-time 30-day stay of execution for a condemned inmate. In the 230 executions carried out thus far under Rick Perry, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has recommended clemency for a condemned inmate only 1 time, by a 6-1 vote for Kelsey Patterson; Gov. Perry, who is not bound to follow a clemency recommendation, rejected it and Patterson was put to death.

Source: Rick Halperin, June 26, 2011
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