Alabama Death Penalty Electric Chair
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LAWSUIT FILED on 14 June, the Board of Pardons and Parole in Utah, USA, Denied Clemency to Ronnie Lee Gardner
Further information on UA: 113/10 Index: AMR 51/051/2010 USA Date: 16 June 2010 URGENT ACTION UTAH BOARD DENIES CLEMENCY; LAWSUIT FILED On 14 June, the Board of Pardons and Parole in Utah, USA, denied clemency to Ronnie Lee Gardner. His lawyers have filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court challenging the fairness of the clemency process. Ronnie Gardner is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on 18 June. The Board of Pardons and Parole held a clemency hearing on 10 and 11 June. In a unanimous decision issued on 14 June, the Board wrote that “no sufficient reason exists to grant clemency or to commute Gardner’s death sentence”. Later on 14 June, Ronnie Gardner’s lawyers filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Utah calling into question “the fairness and impartiality of the Board’s deliberative process” and requesting a stay of execution. According to his lawyers, Ronnie Gardner’s right to a clemency process before a neutral decision-maker was denied because the state Attorney General’s Office was simultaneously pursuing Ronnie Gardner’s execution while serving as legal advisor to the Board of Pardons and Parole. In support of their claim, Ronnie Gardner’s lawyers have presented to the District Court a statement by an expert in legal ethics, who concludes that “the simultaneous representations raise an impossible conflict of interest that renders the proceeding before the Board of Pardons and Parole hopelessly in violation of any standard of neutrality, objectivity, independence or propriety”. The Utah Attorney General's Office subsequently revealed that it had issued an internal memorandum on 11 May 2010 to establish a “conflict screen” between the agency’s lawyers advising the Board and its lawyers representing the state in opposing clemency. -
Prisoner Testimonies of Torture in United States Prisons and Jails
Survivors Speak Prisoner Testimonies of Torture in United States Prisons and Jails A Shadow Report Submitted for the November 2014 Review of the United States by the Committee Against Torture I. Reporting organization The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker faith based organization that promotes lasting peace with justice, as a practical expression of faith in action. AFSC’s interest in prison reform is strongly influenced by Quaker (Religious Society of Friends) activism addressing prison conditions as informed by the imprisonment of Friends for their beliefs and actions in the 17th and 18th centuries. For over three decades AFSC has spoken out on behalf of prisoners, whose voices are all too frequently silenced. We have received thousands of calls and letters of testimony of an increasingly disturbing nature from prisoners and their families about conditions in prison that fail to honor the Light in each of us. Drawing on continuing spiritual insights and working with people of many backgrounds, we nurture the seeds of change and respect for human life that transform social relations and systems. AFSC works to end mass incarceration, improve conditions for people who are in prison, stop prison privatization, and promote a reconciliation and healing approach to criminal justice issues. Contact Person: Lia Lindsey, Esq. 1822 R St NW; Washington, DC 20009; USA Email: [email protected] +1-202-483-3341 x108 Website: www.afsc.org Acknowledgements This report would not have been possible but for the courageous individuals held in U.S. prisons and jails who rise above the specter of reprisal for sharing testimonies of the abuses they endure. -
Read Our Full Report, Death in Florida, Now
USA DEATH IN FLORIDA GOVERNOR REMOVES PROSECUTOR FOR NOT SEEKING DEATH SENTENCES; FIRST EXECUTION IN 18 MONTHS LOOMS Amnesty International Publications First published on 21 August 2017 by Amnesty International Publications International Secretariat Peter Benenson House 1 Easton Street London WC1X 0DW United Kingdom www.amnesty.org Copyright Amnesty International Publications 2017 Index: AMR 51/6736/2017 Original Language: English Printed by Amnesty International, International Secretariat, United Kingdom All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publishers. Amnesty International is a global movement of 3 million people in more than 150 countries and territories, who campaign on human rights. Our vision is for every person to enjoy all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments. We research, campaign, advocate and mobilize to end abuses of human rights. Amnesty International is independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion. Our work is largely financed by contributions from our membership and donations Table of Contents Summary ..................................................................................................................... 1 ‘Bold, positive change’ not allowed ................................................................................ -
Evolving Standards, Botched Executions and Utah's Controversial Use of the Firing Squad Christopher Q
Cleveland State University EngagedScholarship@CSU Cleveland State Law Review Law Journals 2003 Nothing Less than the Dignity of Man: Evolving Standards, Botched Executions and Utah's Controversial Use of the Firing Squad Christopher Q. Cutler Follow this and additional works at: https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clevstlrev Part of the Criminal Law Commons, and the Criminal Procedure Commons How does access to this work benefit oy u? Let us know! Recommended Citation Christopher Q. Culter, Nothing Less than the Dignity of Man: Evolving Standards, Botched Executions and Utah's Controversial Use of the Firing Squad, 50 Clev. St. L. Rev. 335 (2002-2003) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at EngagedScholarship@CSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cleveland State Law Review by an authorized editor of EngagedScholarship@CSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NOTHING LESS THAN THE DIGNITY OF MAN: EVOLVING STANDARDS, BOTCHED EXECUTIONS AND UTAH’S CONTROVERSIAL USE OF THE FIRING SQUAD CHRISTOPHER Q. CUTLER1 Human justice is sadly lacking in consolation; it can only shed blood for blood. But we mustn’t ask that it do more than it can.2 I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................... 336 II. HISTORICAL USE OF UTAH’S FIRING SQUAD........................ 338 A. The Firing Squad from Wilderness to Statehood ................................................................. 339 B. From Statehood to Furman ......................................... 347 1. Gary Gilmore to the Present Death Row Crowd ................................................ 357 2. Modern Firing Squad Procedure .......................... 363 III. EIGHTH AMENDMENT JURISPRUDENCE ................................ 365 A. A History of Pain ......................................................... 366 B. Early Supreme Court Cases......................................... 368 C. Evolving Standards of Decency and the Dignity of Man............................................... -
Death by Electrocution Or Lethal Injection
DATA & INFORMATION RELEVANT TO S 200 – DEATH BY ELECTROCUTION OR LETHAL INJECTION S 200 proposes to make electrocution the only method for carrying out an execution in South Carolina if the director of the Department of Corrections (SCDC) certifies lethal injection is not “available” at the time a condemned inmate must select an execution method. Under current law, when an execution date is set for a condemned inmate, the inmate has a statutory right to elect between lethal injection and electrocution as the method of execution. If he waives his right to make an election (and was sentenced after the introduction of lethal injection), the default method of execution is lethal injection. S 200 would remove the inmates’ right of election if the director of SCDC certifies lethal injection is not available. See S.C. Code § 24-3-530. CONCERNS ABOUT S 200 LANGUAGE The bill does not define the term “available,” leaving it unclear what, if any, efforts SCDC must undertake to attempt to make lethal injection available as an execution method. SOUTH CAROLINA DEATH PENALTY INFORMATION 1 • Death Row: 39 men currently on death row • Executions: • 43 executions carried out since the death penalty’s reinstatement in 1977 (36 by lethal injection; 7 by electrocution). • Historically, from 1865–1972, South Carolina carried out 859 executions. • Last lethal injection execution carried out 5/6/2011 (Jeffrey Motts) • Last electrocution execution carried out 6/20/2008 (James Earl Reed, elected electrocution) • All executions are now carried out at the Capital Punishment Facility located at Broad River Correctional Institution. 1 Justice 360 death penalty tracking data. -
The Truth About Physician Participation in Lethal Injection Executions*
THE TRUTH ABOUT PHYSICIAN PARTICIPATION IN LETHAL INJECTION EXECUTIONS* TY ALPER** Recent court rulings addressing the constitutionality of states' lethal injection procedures have taken as a given the faulty notion that doctors cannot and will not participate in executions. As a result, courts have dismissed the feasibility of a remedy requiring physician participation, and openly expressed suspicion of the motives of lawyers who would propose such a remedy. This Article exposes two myths that have come to dominate the capital punishment discourse: first, that requiring physician participationwould grind the administrationof the death penalty to a halt because doctors cannot participate; and second, that advocating for such a requirement is a disingenuous abolitionist strategy as opposed to a principled remedial argument. As this Article demonstrates through a review of available research and recent litigation, doctors can, are willing to, and in fact do regularly participatein executions, though often not in the manner necessary to ensure humane executions. Lawyers for death row inmates have argued that skilled anesthetic monitoring by trained medical professionals is a necessary component of a constitutional three-drug lethal injection protocol. In response, state officials have strategically emphasized the positions of national medical associations (the ethical guidelines of which are not binding on doctors) and exaggerated their inability to * © 2009 Ty Alper. ** Associate Director, Death Penalty Clinic, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Thanks for their criticism and advice to Ginger Anders, Eric Berger, Tess Bolder, Jeff Brand, Laura Burstein, Deborah Denno, Richard Dieter, Laurel Fletcher, Christopher Lasch, Megan McCracken, Alice Miller, Jennifer Moreno, Erin Murphy, Charlie Press, Elisabeth Semel, Steve Shatz, Giovanna Shay, Tamar Todd, Kate Weisburd, Dr. -
UNWILLING EXECUTIONERS? Where and Why Do Some Doctors Still Help Carry out the Death Penalty? Sophie Arie Reports
DEATH PENALTY UNWILLING EXECUTIONERS? Where and why do some doctors still help carry out the death penalty? Sophie Arie reports ethal injection is now the main method of In 2009, death penalty opponent Sister Helen nection to their local prisons. In a rare report, in execution in China and the United States, Prejean, known for her book Dead Man W alking, 2006, Dr Atul Gawande, American surgeon and the two countries that execute the highest began campaigning for medical boards to dis- writer, gathered testimonies from some partici- numbers of people. But the widespread cipline doctors who participate in executions, pating doctors. Dr Carlo Musso, an emergency use of lethal injection—seen as a medical believing this could ultimately make lethal injec- doctor, confirmed that his practice had taken up L and therefore more humane method of execution tion no longer a feasible option for states. But an $18 000 contract (£11 000, €13 000) to pro- than hanging, shooting, or electro cution—has when medical bodies have attempted to strike off vide a medical presence at executions in Georgia. meant that doctors have become more actively or discipline physicians who have participated in He provided cardiac monitoring and determina- involved in carrying out the death penalty than executions, they have been over-ruled by courts tion of death. Other colleagues helped with intra- they were in the past. in the states concerned. venous access. “As I see it this is an end of life The medicalisation of executions has put Some states, such as Georgia and North issue, just as with any other terminal disease. -
Execution Ritual : Media Representations of Execution and the Social Construction of Public Opinion Regarding the Death Penalty
University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 5-2011 Execution ritual : media representations of execution and the social construction of public opinion regarding the death penalty. Emilie Dyer 1987- University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Recommended Citation Dyer, Emilie 1987-, "Execution ritual : media representations of execution and the social construction of public opinion regarding the death penalty." (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 388. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/388 This Master's Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. EXECUTION RITUAL: MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF EXECUTION AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC OPINION REGARDING THE DEATH PENALTY By Emilie Dyer B.A., University of Louisville, 2009 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Louisville in Partial Fullfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Department of Sociology University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky May, 2011 -------------------------------------------------------------- EXECUTION RITUAL : MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF EXECUTION AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC OPINION REGARDING THE DEATH PENALTY By Emilie Brook Dyer B.A., University of Louisville, 2009 A Thesis Approved on April 11, 2011 by the following Thesis Committee: Thesis Director (Dr. -
PHYSICIAN, DO YOUR DUTY: the OBLIGATIONS of PHYSICIANS in STATE EXECUTIONS by Tricia Griffin, MFA
PHYSICIAN, DO YOUR DUTY: THE OBLIGATIONS OF PHYSICIANS IN STATE EXECUTIONS by Tricia Griffin, MFA Michael Morales was sentenced to death in 1983 for the premeditated rape, torture, and murder of 17-year old Terri Winchell (People v. Morales, 1989). Twenty-five years passed before Morales was finally scheduled for Abstract execution, which would have taken place on February 21, 2006, save for a successful appeal. A week before Morales was scheduled to die, his legal The most common arguments for team convinced a judge that the State of California’s lethal injection and against physician participation protocols could subject Morales to cruel and unusual punishment (Morales v. in state executions focus on the Hickman, 2006a). duty of the physician. This article evaluates these arguments using At the time, the standard protocol for lethal injections in California was a Kant’s duty-based approach to three-tiered process that began with the anesthetic sodium thiopental to ethical decision-making. It will render the inmate unconscious, followed by pancuronium bromide to show that all of the prevailing paralyze the inmate and halt breathing, and finally a lethal dose of potassium arguments end in a philosophical chloride to induce cardiac arrest (Schwarzenegger and Tilton, 2007, p. 1)1. stalemate. I will further argue that Morales’ legal team argued that if the initial dose of anesthetic did not it is past time for physicians to turn sufficiently induce unconsciousness, Morales could be awake during the two the question around and demand a final phases of the procedure. This would mean he could experience more substantive discussion about suffocation from the paralytic agent and extreme pain from the potassium the duty-based roles of every chloride. -
Institutionalizing the Pennsylvania System: Organizational Exceptionalism, Administrative Support, and Eastern State Penitentiary, 1829–1875
Institutionalizing the Pennsylvania System: Organizational Exceptionalism, Administrative Support, and Eastern State Penitentiary, 1829–1875 By Ashley Theresa Rubin A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Jurisprudence and Social Policy in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Malcolm Feeley, Chair Professor Cybelle Fox Professor Calvin Morrill Professor Jonathan Simon Spring 2013 Copyright c 2013 Ashley Theresa Rubin All rights reserved Abstract Institutionalizing the Pennsylvania System: Organizational Exceptionalism, Administrative Support, and Eastern State Penitentiary, 1829–1875 by Ashley Theresa Rubin Doctor of Philosophy in Jurisprudence and Social Policy University of California, Berkeley Professor Malcolm Feeley, Chair I examine the puzzling case of Eastern State Penitentiary and its long-term retention of a unique mode of confinement between 1829 and 1875. Most prisons built in the nineteenth cen- tury followed the “Auburn System” of congregate confinement in which inmates worked daily in factory-like settings and retreated at night to solitary confinement. By contrast, Eastern State Penitentiary (f. 1829, Philadelphia) followed the “Pennsylvania System” of separate confinement in which each inmate was confined to his own cell for the duration of his sentence, engaging in workshop-style labor and receiving religious ministries, education, and visits from selected person- nel. Between 1829 and the 1860s, Eastern faced strong pressures to conform to field-wide norms and adopt the Auburn System. As the progenitor of the Pennsylvania System, Eastern became the target of a debate raging over the appropriate model of “prison discipline.” Supporters of the Auburn System (penal reformers and other prisons’ administrators) propagated calumnious myths, arguing that the Pennsylvania System was cruel and inhumane, dangerous to inmates’ physical and mental health, too expensive, and simply impractical and ineffective. -
The New Jersey Death Penalty Commission's Exercise in Abolitionism: a Reply
digitalcommons.nyls.edu Faculty Scholarship Articles & Chapters 2007 But Did They Listen? The ewN Jersey Death Penalty Commission's Exercise in Abolitionism: A Detailed Reply Robert Blecker New York Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/fac_articles_chapters Part of the Criminal Law Commons Recommended Citation 5 Rutgers J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 9 (2007-2008) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at DigitalCommons@NYLS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles & Chapters by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@NYLS. Fall2007 Rutgers Journal ofLaw & Public Policy Vol 5:1 BUT DID THEY LISTEN? THE NEW JERSEY DEATH PENALTY COMMISSION'S EXERCISE IN ABOLITIONISM: A REPLY Robert Blecker TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 10 THE COMMISSION'S FINDINGS .................................................................. 12 (1) LEGITIMATE PENOLOGICAL INTENT ................................................... 13 Rehabilitation ............................................................................................ 13 Incapacitation ............................................................................................ 13 Deterrence ................................................................................................. 14 Retribution ............................................................................................... -
The Chair, the Needle, and the Damage Done: What the Electric Chair and the Rebirth of the Method-Of-Execution Challenge Could M
Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy Volume 15 Article 5 Issue 1 Fall 2005 The hC air, the Needle, and the Damage Done: What the Electric Chair and the Rebirth of the Method-of-Execution Challenge Could Mean for the Future of the Eighth Amendment Timothy S. Kearns Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cjlpp Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Kearns, Timothy S. (2005) "The hC air, the Needle, and the Damage Done: What the Electric Chair and the Rebirth of the Method-of- Execution Challenge Could Mean for the Future of the Eighth Amendment," Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy: Vol. 15: Iss. 1, Article 5. Available at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cjlpp/vol15/iss1/5 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CHAIR, THE NEEDLE, AND THE DAMAGE DONE: WHAT THE ELECTRIC CHAIR AND THE REBIRTH OF THE METHOD-OF-EXECUTION CHALLENGE COULD MEAN FOR THE FUTURE OF THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT Timothy S. Kearnst INTRODUCTION ............................................. 197 I. THE ELECTROCUTION CASES ....................... 201 A. THE KEMMLER DECISION ............................ 201 B. THE KEMMLER EXECUTION ........................... 202 C. FROM IN RE KMMLER to "Evolving Standards" ..... 204 II. THE LOWER COURTS ................................ 206 A. THE CIRCUIT COURTS ................................. 206 B. THE STATE COURTS .................................. 211 C. NEBRASKA - THE LAST HOLDOUT ..................