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As clock ticks toward another Trump presidency, federal death row prisoners appeal for clemency

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President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office is putting a spotlight on the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, which houses federal death row. In Bloomington, a small community of death row spiritual advisors is struggling to support the prisoners to whom they minister.  Ross Martinie Eiler is a Mennonite, Episcopal lay minister and member of the Catholic Worker movement, which assists the homeless. And for the past three years, he’s served as a spiritual advisor for a man on federal death row.
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California DR Inmate Albert Brown Asks Court to Halt His Execution

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A death row inmate asked a federal appeals court on Sunday to halt his execution as he declined to choose a method for the lethal injection.

Lawyers for the inmate, Albert G. Brown, filed court papers to appeal a federal judge’s refusal to block the execution, which is set for Wednesday. Mr. Brown also let pass a noon deadline set by the judge to choose between a one-drug lethal injection or execution by a three-drug cocktail.

Mr. Brown’s refusal to choose means a three-drug cocktail will be used if the appeals court does not block his execution, which would be California’s first in nearly five years. He was sentenced to die for abducting, raping and killing a 15-year-old, Susan Jordan of Riverside County, in 1980.

Judge Jeremy Fogel of United States District Court in San Jose denied Mr. Brown’s two requests on Saturday to change his mind about going forward with the execution.

The judge initially delayed the execution in 2006 after finding that poorly trained officials carried out executions in a death chamber too cramped and dingy to protect the inmate from suffering “cruel and unusual” punishment while receiving a lethal injection. The state has since constructed a new death chamber and overhauled the selection and training of its execution team.

Mr. Brown’s latest appeal will be heard by a panel of three judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Source: The New York Times, September 27, 2010
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