AFTER COURT RULING, STATES TO PROCEED WITH EXECUTIONS

April 23, 2008: States began moving forward with plans for executions this week after the US Supreme Court declined last Wednesday to review the appeals of death row inmates who had challenged lethal-injection methods in nearly a dozen states.

The court had issued orders staying several executions last year and earlier this year while it weighed whether Kentucky's lethal-injection procedure constituted cruel and unusual punishment. States had postponed at least 14 scheduled executions pending the high court's decision, creating a de facto moratorium on capital punishment, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.

In a 7 to 2 vote last week, the justices said the three-drug cocktail used by Kentucky, which is similar to the one employed by the federal government and 34 other states, does not carry so great a risk of pain that it violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

With three executions already scheduled for this summer, Virginia could be the first state to carry out the punishment after the resolution of the Kentucky case.

Texas will attempt to reschedule the execution of Carlton Turner Jr., who killed his parents and hid their decomposing bodies.

Mississippi will try to schedule the execution of Earl Wesley Berry, who kidnapped a woman and beat her to death after she left choir practice. And Alabama will seek to schedule the lethal injection of Thomas Arthur, who fatally shot a man through the eye as he slept.

Mississippi was awaiting the high court's decision to move forward with Berry's execution, said Jan Schaeffer, a spokeswoman for the state's attorney general. Texas, the state with the largest number of inmates on death row and stayed executions, said the discretion of rescheduling lethal injections is left to state district courts.

Tennessee corrections officials said stays on three executions set for December and January might soon be lifted by the state attorney general and the executions rescheduled. Oklahoma requested execution dates for Terry Lyn Short, who was convicted of killing a man in a fire, and Kevin Young, who was convicted of killing a man during a bungled robbery. Arkansas is reviewing the court's ruling before deciding how to proceed with three stayed executions.

In Florida, where the error-plagued execution of Angel Diaz took twice the normal time and led to a change in protocols, officials said no lethal injections have been scheduled. Diaz, the last man to be executed in the state, made facial expressions and gasped on his deathbed when he should have been unconscious, according to witnesses.

There were no scheduled executions in Ohio, officials said last week. The state changed its procedures after an execution in 2006, when Joseph Clark awoke in the middle of his lethal injection and said, "It don't work." As officials fumbled with attempts to deliver more anesthesia, he said, "Can you just give me something by mouth to end this?"

Source: Hands Off Cain