Archive | lethal injection

07 December 2012 ~ Comments Off

Thirty Years Ago Today…

capital punishment Carlos Deluna Charles Brooks death penalty death sentences execution lethal injection Rev. Carroll Pickett Texas

Thirty years ago today, December 7, 1982, the State of Texas officially resumed executions, putting Charlie Brooks to death for the 1976 murder of David Gregory.  That was also the nation’s first execution by lethal injection, a new method concocted by a legislator and former chief medical examiner in Oklahoma.

Reverend Carroll Pickett, who served as the chaplain at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, spent all day with Charlie Brooks and stood at the foot of the gurney as he was executed.  In his memoir, Within These Walls: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain, he writes about the immediate aftermath of the execution:  “All that remained was an air of stunned silence – testimony to the fact that none of those who had witnessed penal history being made had really been prepared for what they had seen.”

Since 1982, the State of Texas has executed 492 people; 253 of these executions have occurred during the administration of Governor Rick Perry, more than any other governor in U.S. history.  This year, the State of Texas carried out 15 executions, a slight increase over last year and nearly three times as many as any other state in the country.

Yet Texas – along with the rest of the nation – is moving away from the death penalty.  New death sentences remain near record-low levels, and death-qualified juries have rejected this punishment in at least 18 trials in the past five years.

Use of the death penalty has been relegated to just a few jurisdictions statewide; in fact, only 11 counties in the entire state of Texas imposed new death sentences in the last two years.  These trends and other developments in 2012 appear in TCADP’s year-end report, scheduled to be released next week.

With your support, TCADP is educating Texans about the fatal flaws of our state’s death penalty system and equipping our members to serve as powerful citizen advocates for abolition.  Together, we are hastening the day that we mark the anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty in Texas.

Thank you for your support and steadfast commitment to this issue.

p.s. We had the pleasure of meeting Charlie’s son Keith in Dallas on Tuesday. Keith’s family is holding a memorial service today in Fort Worth for Charlie Brooks. The memorial will be held from 12 to 3:00 p.m. at the Riverside Community Center, 3700 Belknap Street, Fort Worth. The program will include lunch and reflections. Everyone is welcome.

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15 December 2011 ~ 1 Comment

TCADP 2011 Annual Report: Texas Carries Out Fewest Executions Since 1996

Bexar County Cameron Todd Willingham capital punishment Dallas death penalty death sentences DNA testing Duane Buck executions Governor Rick Perry Hank Skinner Harris County Houston Humberto Leal jury rejection Larry Swearingen lethal injection Mexican National Stay of execution TCADP Annual Report Texas Department of Criminal Justice Texas. Court of Criminal Appeals Travis County U.S. Supreme Court

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, December 15, 2011

CONTACT: Kristin Houlé, Executive Director
512-441-1808 (office); 512-552-5948 (cell)
khoule@tcadp.org

Spanish Translation

State of Texas Carries Out Fewest Executions Since 1996,
According to New Report from TCADP
New Death Sentences Remain at Record-Low Level, Imposed by Just Six Counties in the State

(Austin, Texas) — Executions dropped to the lowest number since 1996 and death sentences in Texas remained at a historic low level in 2011, according to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s (TCADP) new report, Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2011: The Year in Review. TCADP is an Austin-based statewide, grassroots advocacy organization.

In 2011, the State of Texas carried out 13 executions, which is 50% less than in 2007.  It accounted for 30% of the national total, once again a smaller percentage than years past but still twice as many as any other state.  Texas has executed a total of 477 people since 1982; 238 executions have occurred during the administration of Texas Governor Rick Perry, more than any other governor in U.S. history.

For the second year in a row, juries condemned eight new individuals to death in Texas. This remains the lowest number of new death sentences since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’ revised death penalty statute in 1976.  Once again, just six counties in the state of Texas accounted for the new death row inmates: Fort Bend (1); Galveston (1); Harris (3); Harrison (1); Tarrant (1); and Travis (1).  This represents 2% of all Texas counties.

“Texas – along with the rest of the nation – is steadily moving away from the death penalty,” said Kristin Houlé, Executive Director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.  “Use of the death penalty has been relegated to just a few jurisdictions in the state as prosecutors and jurors accept alternatives that protect society and punish those who are truly guilty.  Still, longstanding concerns about the arbitrary and biased administration of the death penalty remain.”

An analysis of data from 2007 to 2011 reveals that only 23 Texas counties have imposed death sentences over the last 5 years; of these, only 10 counties have done so in the last 2 years.  Out of a total 51 death sentences imposed in this time period, Harris County leads with 9; it is followed by Dallas County, with 7 new sentences since 2007, and Tarrant and Travis Counties, with 4 new sentences each.  The other 19 counties imposed 1-3 sentences each.  Together, these 23 counties represent just 9% of the 254 counties in Texas.

Significantly, no new death sentences were imposed in Dallas County for the first time in five years.  Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Charles Payne, but the jury rejected the charge of capital murder and instead found him guilty of murder in the shooting of police officer Senior Cpl. Norm Smith.  This represented the first time since 1996 that prosecutors in Dallas County did not secure a capital murder conviction in a case in which they sought the death penalty. In another Dallas case, prosecutors dropped their pursuit of the death penalty and agreed to a life sentence for Johnathan Bruce Reed after he was found guilty for a third time in the 1978 murder of Wanda Jean Wadle. Overall, Dallas County accounts for 102 death sentences since 1976.

Bexar County, which has sentenced the third highest number of people to death in Texas, has not imposed any new death sentences since 2009.

Notably, six out of the eight new death sentences were imposed on people of color, including four African Americans and two Hispanics/Latinos.  Over the last five years, nearly three-fourths of all death sentences in Texas have been imposed on people of color – 41% African American, 29% Hispanic/Latino, and 2% other.  In Harris County, where these patterns are even more pronounced, 12 of the last 13 defendants sentenced to death are African American and the 13th is Hispanic/Latino.

Five inmates scheduled for execution in 2011 received stays, while the execution date for another inmate was withdrawn.

  • On September 15, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily stayed the execution of Duane Buck, pending a conference on his cert petition. During his trial, psychologist Walter Quijano, a witness for the defense, testified on cross-examination that the fact that Buck is African American increased the likelihood of his being dangerous in the future.  Such improperly elicited, racially-based testimony by Dr. Quijano led to new sentencing hearings in six other cases where the State of Texas conceded error – but not for Duane Buck.  On November 7, 2011, the Court declined to review Buck’s case.
  • On November 7, 2011, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay to Henry “Hank” Skinner, who was scheduled for execution on November 9.  Key pieces of evidence collected at the crime scene have never been subjected to DNA testing, and for the last 10 years officials have refused to release it for analysis.  The court stayed the execution to consider Skinner’s case in light of recent legislative changes to the statute related to post-conviction DNA testing. This was the second stay of execution for Skinner in two years.

Other highlights of Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2011: The Year in Review include the following:

  • In one capital murder trial, the jury rejected the death penalty and opted for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.  In two other cases, death-qualified jurors convicted the defendant on a charge less than capital murder, which took the death penalty off the table.  In the last four years, death-qualified juries have rejected the death penalty in at least 14 cases.
  • Six inmates received reduced sentences in 2011 and were removed from the death row population, including Chelsea Richardson, one of ten women on death row.
  • The State of Texas executed Humberto Leal on July 7, 2011 for the 1994 rape and murder of Adria Sauceda in San Antonio.  As a Mexican national, Leal was legally entitled to seek assistance from the Mexican consulate, which could have provided him with competent legal counsel.  Texas authorities failed to inform him of this right, which is afforded to Americans and foreigners who travel abroad by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
  • In July, the capital murder trial of John Edward Green, which was in its sixth week of jury selection, ended abruptly when Harris County prosecutors accepted an offer from the defense.  In the deal, Green pled guilty to a lesser murder charge in exchange for a 40-year prison term; he had faced a possible death sentence if convicted.  A pre-trial motion in his case prompted two days of unprecedented testimony on the risk of wrongful conviction last December.

“Recent developments have infused the public conversation about the death penalty with new energy and new urgency,” said Houlé.  “Now, more than ever, we urge concerned citizens and elected officials to engage in dialogue about the realities of the death penalty system and reconsider this irreversible punishment by focusing on its local impact as an expensive, arbitrary, and error-prone public policy.”

Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2011: The Year in Review is available online at www.tcadp.org/TexasDeathPenaltyDevelopments2011.pdf.  Contact Kristin Houlé at khoule@tcadp.org to receive a copy directly via email.

See http://tcadp.org/2007-2011-new-death-sentences/ for a map of new death sentences by county from 2007 to 2011.

See http://tcadp.org/1976-2011-county-map/ for a map of death sentences by county from 1976 to 2011.

Download this press release:  www.tcadp.org/2011TCADPannualreportpressrelease.pdf.

In Spanish.

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21 July 2011 ~ 1 Comment

State of Texas Executes Mark Stroman

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The State of Texas executed Mark Stroman last night, July 20, 2011, after a three-hour delay while courts considered a final appeal from his surviving shooting victim, Rais Bhuiyan.  Stroman was pronounced dead at 8:53 p.m.  He was sentenced to death for the racially-motivated killing of Vasudev Patel, an Indian of the Hindu faith who owned a gas station and convenience store in Mesquite.  The murder occurred during a crime rampage by Stroman that he claims was fueled by the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City – a rampage that left two people dead and Bhuiyan severely wounded.

As reported by the Associated Press, “The execution’s brief delay was caused by appeals from Rais Bhuiyan, a Bangladesh native who said his Muslim religion allowed him to forgive Stroman. Bhuiyan, who was blinded in one eye in the shooting, insisted that state officials had prevented him from meeting with Stroman and engaging in a remediation program to learn more about his shooting spree, which also killed another man.”

Read the AP story as it appears in the Houston Chronicle.

This was the 8th execution carried out by the State of Texas this year, out of 28 nationwide.

In the state of Georgia, Wednesday’s execution of Andrew DeYoung was postponed as corrections officials sought to determine how to comply with a ruling from the Georgia Supreme Court to allow executions to be filmed. According to the Associated Press, “The video recording was requested by attorneys for another Georgia death row inmate who wanted evidence to show that Georgia’s reconfigured three-drug lethal injection procedure does not adequately sedate the inmate. … Experts say it would have been the first recording of an execution since 1992.”

Read more.

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04 May 2011 ~ 2 Comments

Texas Executes Cary Kerr Using New Protocol

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Last night, May 3, 2011, the State of Texas carried out the execution of Cary Kerr under a new lethal injection protocol that uses  pentobarbital rather than sodium thiopental as the first drug in the process.  This was the third execution in Texas this year (out of 13 nationwide) but the the first using a different cocktail of drugs.   Ohio and Oklahoma have carried out executions using pentobarbital, as well.

Kerr was sentenced to death in 2003 for the rape and murder of Pamela Horton in a Fort Worth suburb.  He proclaimed his innocence in his last words.

Read more from the Austin American-Statesman, the Texas Tribune, and the Huntsville Item.

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04 April 2011 ~ 2 Comments

Texas Judge Denies Efforts to Block New Lethal Injection Protocol

execution lethal injection Texas Department of Criminal Justice

On Friday, April 1, 2011 Travis County District Court Judge Stephen Yelenosky denied efforts by Texas death row inmate Cleve Foster to invalidate a new protocol for carrying out executions.   Earlier in March, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) announced that it planned to replace sodium thiopental, the first drug used in the lethal injection process, with pentobarbital.  TDCJ’s supply of sodium thiopental expired last month; the sole U.S.-based manufacturer of that drug, Hospira, announced earlier this year that it would no longer produce it.

According to the Associated Press, Foster’s attorneys contended that the change in protocol violated the Texas Administrative Procedures Act, which requires notice and an opportunity for public comment.  They sought to block the new procedure and require executions to be carried out under the previous protocol.  In a news release, Maurie Levin, counsel for Mr. Foster, asserted that “executions, and the manner in which we carry them out, are of unique public interest and importance, and precisely the sort of decisions and procedures that should be aired in the light of day.”

Judge Yelenosky ruled, however, that state law allows prison officials to make certain decisions – including those related to the execution process – without public scrutiny or input.

The State of Texas is scheduled to execute Cleve Foster on Tuesday, April 5 at 6:00 PM.  His attorneys plan to appeal to the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin.

Read more from the Austin American-Statesman and the Texas Tribune.

Read a previous post on this topic.

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16 March 2011 ~ 1 Comment

Texas Changes Lethal Injection Protocol

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Today the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) announced that it is changing the way executions are carried out in this state.  According to the Associated Press (and reported by NPR):

Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials said they plan to substitute pentobarbital for sodium thiopental in the three-drug cocktail used for lethal injections. Pentobarbital also is commonly used to euthanize animals and recently has been used for executions in Oklahoma.

TDCJ’s supply of sodium thiopental expired this month; the sole U.S.-based manufacturer of that drug, Hospira, announced earlier this year that it would no longer produce it.

Below is a statement from the attorney for Cleve Foster, who is scheduled to be executed by the State of Texas on April 5, 2011.

Statement from Attorney for Cleve Foster in Response to

Change in Texas Execution Protocol
“The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has known since at least early January that its supply of sodium thiopental was set to expire on March 1, 2011,  and that the company from which they had always obtained the drug had stopped production. Yet it is only today, less than three weeks shy of Mr. Foster’s scheduled execution, that TDCJ has announced a decision to change the protocol by which they will execute Mr. Foster.  The timing of the decision and disclosure raises serious concerns about the haste with which they are seeking to implement this new process, and a lack of transparency by state officials. To permit less than three weeks for these matters to be vetted undermines any faith we can have in TDCJ’s concern for deliberate process, accountability, or the constitutionality of the new procedures.

“Moreover, Texas is rushing to carry out an execution using an entirely new protocol, but they refuse to fully disclose basic information, such as whether  any medical authorities were consulted regarding the incorporation of a new drug; the source of the pentobarbitol; and the training of personnel who will implement the new procedure for the first time.

“Prison officials are not medical professionals. They cannot be trusted to change a medical procedure in the dark of night without public scrutiny, especially when there is such a minimal  track record on the use of pentobarbital in lethal injections. To ensure that the new protocol comports with Texas’ constitution, we need — and Texas law requires — a deliberative process with appropriate authoritative input and public comment.  We expect our state officials to not conduct its business in secret – particularly when it concerns the ultimate act that Texas can take against one of its citizens.  The rush to execute should not trump the need to ensure that appropriate safeguards have been taken, or the far reaching implications of circumventing a deliberate process, especially when it is TDCJ that has waited until the last minute to decide on or announce the change in how it plans to carry out executions.”

###

Maurie Levin, Adjunct Professor, U.T. Capital Punishment Center

Contact:  512-232-7795 (o); 512-294-1540 (c)

Date:  March 16, 2011

Brief background on Cleve Foster case:

Cleve Foster was convicted and sentenced to death under Texas’ law of parties for the 2003 murder of Nyanuer “Mary” Pal.  His codefendant, Sheldon Ward, was convicted and sentenced to death as the triggerman.  Mr. Ward, who died on death row of natural causes, gave four statements asserting that Mr. Foster was not involved in Ms. Pal’s murder.   Mr. Foster was scheduled to be executed on January 11, 2011, but received a stay from the United States Supreme Court as the result of litigation raising questions about his innocence, and the ineffectiveness of appointed counsel in failing to adequately raise that issue.  The Supreme Court subsequently lifted that stay without comment on the merits and Mr. Foster is now scheduled for execution on April 5, 2011.

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01 October 2010 ~ Comments Off

Nationwide Drug Shortage Doesn’t Impact Texas Executions… Yet

executions lethal injection Texas

There’s been a great deal of news lately regarding a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental, the anesthetic used in lethal injections. Hospira Inc. is the only U.S. company that manufacturers this drug, and it has blamed the shortage on unspecified problems with its raw-material suppliers.  According to a company spokesman, new supplies of the drug will not be available until early next year (if then).

The shortage has led some states to postpone executions as their supplies of sodium thiopental dwindle or expire.  In Texas, however, it’s business as usual.  Officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice have stated that they have plenty of sodium thiopental on hand to proceed with the three currently scheduled executions, though they have refused to disclose exactly how much they have stockpiled.

In an interesting twist to this story, the company that manufacturers sodium thiopental has expressed reservations about its use in the lethal injection protocol.  Here’s more from the Associated Press:

Last spring, Hospira, a publicly traded company, sent a letter to all states outlining its discomfort with the use of its drugs for executions, as it has done periodically.

‘Hospira provides these products because they improve or save lives and markets them solely for use as indicated on the product labeling,’ Kees Groenhout, clinical research and development vice president, said in a March 31 letter to Ohio, obtained by the AP. ‘As such, we do not support the use of any of our products in capital punishment procedures.’

Read more in the Austin American-Statesman and the Houston Chronicle.

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