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Thread: Delaware Capital Punishment News

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    Delaware Capital Punishment News

    Court documents outline lethal injection changes

    Under Delaware's new execution procedure, officials will draw a curtain and ensure that a condemned inmate is unconscious before administering lethal drugs, according to court documents unsealed in a class-action lawsuit by death row inmates.

    Among other things, the new procedure is meant to make sure the inmate is fully sedated before two lethal chemicals are administered.

    Lawyers for the inmates contend among other things that murderer Brian Steckel was put to death in 2005 without the proper anesthesia.

    According to court documents unsealed this week, prison officials will now wait 2 minutes after the injection of the sedative sodium thiopental and a saline flush before proceeding with the execution.

    During the waiting period, a curtain between the execution chamber and the witness room will be drawn while officials determine whether the inmate is unconscious.

    The curtains will then be reopened. If the inmate is unconscious, the lethal chemicals, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, will be injected. If not, a backup intravenous line will be used to administer a new dose of anesthesia. The curtains would then be drawn again while officials assess the inmate before continuing with the execution.

    The efforts to ensure the inmate is unconscious are part of the Department of Correction's effort to win federal court approval of its execution procedures.

    After first asserting that Delaware's procedure was more detailed than a Kentucky protocol upheld in April by the U.S. Supreme Court, officials decided instead to embrace some of Kentucky's methods.

    A mediation hearing in the case is scheduled for Oct. 27. A Department of Correction spokesman declined to comment Tuesday, citing the pending litigation.

    According to a July court filing, state officials identified 11 differences between Delaware's protocol and Kentucky's. The planned changes include adopting the same sequence and quantities of drugs used in Kentucky, as well as the procedure to ensure that the inmate is fully sedated.

    Officials also plan to keep the lights on in the injection room instead of having it darkened, which can increase the risk of error, and to assign one person the sole task of ensuring compliance with the execution protocol and documenting any deviations.

    Attorneys for condemned inmates have argued that Delaware's lethal injection protocol is unconstitutional because it presents a substantial risk of unnecessary pain, amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. In previous filings, they have alleged that there have been dosage errors in more than a third of Delaware's lethal injection executions, including the most recent, that of Steckel.

    According to the plaintiffs, prison officials noticed that the anesthetic being administered to Steckel began leaking into tissue surrounding the needle in his arm. Although the execution team allegedly switched to a second intravenous line to give Steckel another dose of sodium thiopental, DOC records indicate that Steckel did not receive the second dose, according to the plaintiffs.

    The execution of Steckel for the 1994 murder of Sandra Lee Long, who was burned to death in a fire he set after strangling her into unconsciousness and raping and sodomizing her, was so drawn out that Steckel himself wondered aloud why it was taking so long.

    Nearly 3 dozen states use lethal injection. Despite the Supreme Court's April decision upholding the procedure, it remains under legal challenge in several states.

    (Source: Axis of Logic)

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    Appeals court approves Del. execution protocols, lifts stay

    WILMINGTON – Delaware's death penalty has been upheld as constitutional by the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, which also has lifted a stay on all executions in the state.

    This appears to mean that Delaware can almost immediately resume executions, which have been on hold since 2006 when the lawsuit alleging that the state's method of execution presented an unconstitutionally unnecessary risk of pain and suffering by the condemned.

    Attorney General Beau Biden issued a statement saying that executions in Delaware will move forward, and that Superior Court judges can begin to schedule executions as appropriate.

    There are 18 inmates on Delaware's death row.

    In a 47-page opinion handed down this morning, a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled that Delaware's newly adopted execution protocols – which have not yet been used – pass constitutional muster.

    At the same time, the appeals court warned Delaware about "the worrisome course it appears to have taken at times" under its old execution method.

    "The record before us reflects an occasionally blitheness on Delaware's part that, while perhaps not unconstitutional, gives us great pause. We remind Delaware not only of its constitutional obligation … but also of its moral obligation to carry out executions with the degree of seriousness and respect that the state-administered termination of human life demands," wrote Circuit Judge D. Michael Fisher on behalf of the panel.

    Both federal public defenders who represented Delaware's death row inmates in the class-action lawsuit and officials with the Delaware Attorney General's office were still reviewing the decision this morning and did not have an immediate comment.

    http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100201/NEWS/100201020/Appeals+court+lifts+stay+on+Del.+executions


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    Death row inmates seek review

    Attorneys hope U.S. Supreme Court will hear lawsuit

    The federal lawsuit that delayed all Delaware executions for almost four years could be going to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Attorneys representing Delaware's death-row inmates said Thursday they will be seeking a review from the nation's highest court in the coming weeks.

    The announcement comes after the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals this week denied a request to review and revisit its Feb. 1 ruling, which allowed executions in Delaware to resume, effectively ending the case at the appeals court level.

    With that ruling, the death-row plaintiffs now have 90 days to file a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Attorney General Beau Biden said Thursday that this latest appeal effort is not expected to stop any executions in the state from going forward.

    The only reason no executions have been scheduled since the Feb. 1 ruling is because no death-row inmate has completely exhausted his legal options, according to state officials.

    Should any capital cases reach the end of their appeals in the next 90 days, "We expect that no state court will be prohibited from setting a date [for execution]," Biden said.

    Attorneys for Delaware's 18 death-row inmates, however, have asked the appeals court to delay issuing its "mandate" to Delaware, a move that, if approved by the court, could once again put executions on hold.

    The case, which was later turned into a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all Delaware's death-row inmates, was originally filed in May 2006, alleging that the way Delaware carried out lethal injections amounted to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

    While the case was pending, U.S. District Judge Sue L. Robinson ordered a hold on all state executions.

    The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently ruled, in April 2008, that the lethal-injection method used by many states, including Delaware, was not unconstitutionally cruel.

    A year later, in March 2009, after hearing additional arguments about how Delaware made mistakes during past executions, Robinson tossed out the lawsuit and ruled that Delaware's execution procedures passed constitutional muster. But Robinson kept the hold on executions in place until the appeals court reviewed the matter.

    When the appeals court upheld Robinson's ruling in February, the three-judge panel made clear it was immediately lifting the stay on executions.

    http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20103260328

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    Delaware jury's votes in capital cases don't always sway judges

    While at least two times in the past 20 years Delaware judges have imposed a death penalty when a jury has voted 7-5 in favor of putting a convicted killer to death, a review of recent death-penalty cases with close votes shows that Superior Court judges are far more likely to impose a sentence of life in prison without chance of parole.

    On Wednesday, a Sussex County jury voted 7-5 in favor of putting Derrick Powell to death for the slaying of Georgetown Patrolman Chad Spicer in September 2009 following a police chase. Superior Court Judge T. Henley Graves is required to give that recommendation "appropriate weight," but is not bound by it, and many of his fellow judges have decided that such a vote is not a mandate to impose capital punishment.

    As recently as last year, a New Castle County Superior Court judge imposed a life sentence on a man convicted in a double homicide although a jury voted 7-5 for his death.

    And back in 1992, a Superior Court judge ignored a 10-2 ruling in favor of the death penalty to give a defendant life in prison after he was convicted of the robbery and murder of a 44-year-old woman on her way home from a store.

    The variation in rulings by Delaware judges in death-penalty cases can perhaps best be explained by the fact that the rules governing how a judge is supposed to evaluate whether to impose a death sentence are vague, which legal experts said is by design. The law allows the judge to consider each case -- and each defendant -- on his or her own merits.

    "There can be no exact formula for whether to impose life or death," said retired Superior Court Judge Bill Lee, adding it has to be left up to the judge.

    Like a jury, a judge is supposed to consider the aggravating circumstances -- which in Powell's case include that a police officer was killed in the line of duty -- versus the mitigating circumstances -- which in Powell's case include the defendant's history of mental illness and difficult childhood, said retired Widener University law professor Thomas Reed.

    http://www.delawareonline.com/articl...yssey=nav|head

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    Appeals court rejects challenge to Del. executions

    A federal appeals court has denied a challenge to Delaware's use of lethal injection filed by an ax murderer shortly before he was executed in July.

    Lawyers for Robert Jackson III filed the appeal after a federal judge in Wilmington ruled that the state could use pentobarbital in executions and refused to let Jackson re-open a 2006 lawsuit challenging Delaware's execution procedures.

    The appeals court ruled Wednesday that the Delaware judge did not abuse her discretion in ruling against Jackson. The court said it was issuing it opinion despite Jackson's death because the appeal affected other Delaware death row inmates as well.

    State officials switched to pentobarbital earlier this year because of a shortage of sodium thiopental, which had been used in previous executions.

    Jackson was executed on July 29.

    http://www.chron.com/news/article/Ap...ns-2161203.php

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    Use of death penalty spikes

    Criticized study also alleges racial disparity

    By SEAN O’SULLIVAN
    The News Journal

    A 1991 change that shifted final responsibility for imposing a death sentence from the jury to a judge resulted in a dramatic spike in the number of death sentences in Delaware and put the state far above the national average for imposing capital punishment.

    Delaware has the third highest death-sentencing rate in the United States.

    In their study, five Cornell University law professors also allege that when the convicted killer is black and the victim is white, the rate at which Delaware imposes the death penalty is far higher than in eight other states they examined.

    The Delaware Attorney General’s Office strongly disputes the study’s conclusions – particularly the ones regarding race – saying the authors used flawed methodologies to reach questionable and inflammatory conclusions.

    And the fact that the number of death sentences handed down since 1991 has increased doesn’t necessarily indicate a problem, said Deputy Attorney General Paul R. Wallace. As the study authors note, that appeared to be the goal of the 1991 change.

    A third finding that the study’s authors noted – but were at a loss to explain – is that homicide defendants in Kent County receive death sentences at a higher rate than defendants in New Castle or Sussex counties.

    Prosecutors said that the problem with such analysis of Delaware trends is that the numbers are often too small to produce statistically significant and reliable results. One case can completely change the conclusions, said state prosecutor Kathleen Jennings.

    But Richard Dieter, of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that the results should be taken seriously.

    “These things are a warning sign,” he said, noting that other states, such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, have undertaken reviews of how they carry out the death penalty. Delaware, he said, should do the same.
    They found that, generally, between 1 percent and 3 percent of all murders end with a death sentence in other states. But in Delaware, the rate exceeded 20 percent of all homicides in some years.

    Before 1991, Delaware’s rate of imposing death was high but it “did not materially differ from other states,” the authors state.

    It was only after the 1991 change, which made the jury’s decision a nonbinding recommendation and gave the final say on death to judges, that the state’s rate soared above the national average, they said.

    Delaware’s rate of imposing death sentences did decline following a 2002 change in the law mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court requiring juries to unanimously find the existence of an aggravating circumstance before the death penalty can be imposed. But even then, the state’s rate has remained above the national average by a significant margin and above pre-1991 levels, according to the study.

    The authors also conclude that race appears to play a significant role in the imposition of the death penalty when a black defendant is convicted of killing a white person.

    “Black defendants who kill white victims are seven times more likely to receive the death penalty as are black defendants who kill black victims. Moreover, black defendants who kill white victims are more than three times as likely to be sentenced to death (186.7 per thousand homicides) as are white defendants who kill white victims (26.1 per thousand homicides),” wrote the authors.

    White defendants and black defendants who kill black victims, meanwhile, receive the death sentence at almost exactly the same rate, according to the study.

    “The comparisons taken together suggest that black lives – those of black victims and those of black murderers – are less valued in Delaware,” the study authors wrote.
    'Dishonesty' claims

    Kent Scheidegger, of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, charged that the Cornell study is “dishonest” because it appears to ignore all other possible explanations for why a death sentence was imposed. “That is deliberately crafting a study to reach a particular result,” he said.

    Attorney Joseph Gabay agreed that the 1991 change should be examined but called the study’s conclusions regarding race “a very flexible use of statistics.”

    He questioned how Delaware’s system could be so flawed when Thomas Capano – a rich white man convicted of killing Anne Marie Fahey, a white woman – received a sentence of death, while Donald Flagg – a black man convicted of killing Anthony Puglisi, a white man, and kidnapping and raping Puglisi’s wife, Debra – was sentenced to life in prison.

    “I can’t figure out how they got to some statistics, quite frankly,” he said, adding the study also does not appear to take into account things like when cases are pleaded down from first-degree murder or a defendant turns down a plea deal.

    Delaware prosecutors strongly objected to the conclusions about race and called the authors “reckless” for suggesting that black lives mean less in Delaware, particularly when the authors themselves acknowledge that other factors could be in play, such as the characteristics of defendants and the heinous nature of the crimes.

    “That is a really damning thing to say about the people of Delaware,” said Wallace, the deputy attorney general.

    He added that a simple, race-neutral explanation for the rate could be the fact that the murders where death was imposed were committed by a stranger – a person who did not previously know the victim. “That is a huge factor in jury rulings,” Wallace said.

    The nature of the crime is the bottom line, Wallace said, and the study authors “want to strip away everything but the crime.”

    The Rev. Christopher Bullock, pastor of Canaan Baptist Church near New Castle, had not seen the study but said the criminal justice system at large has a problem when it comes to race. Bullock often visits prisoners and pushes for better health care as well as a system to rehabilitate inmates rather than just warehouse them.

    “The truth of the matter is there is an embedded and ingrained racist culture in the criminal justice system at large,” Bullock said. “And I think it has played out transparently as it relates to African-Americans who perpetrate a crime on whites. If you look at a robbery or homicide or whatever it is, you see the black-white thing played out more in terms of convictions.”

    He said these practices and culture have become so acceptable that they’ve led to more death sentences for African-Americans than whites. It’s a situation that deserves examination, he said.

    “The first step to dealing with a problem is to admit we have a problem,” he said. “Then we can look at some progressive solutions.”

    One of the study’s authors, Hans, said she considers the study as “step one” and said they plan follow-up studies to investigate the cause of the patterns for which they have documented.

    “We don’t know yet why that pattern has occurred,” Hans said. She added that the authors may consider revisiting the language of the paragraph about race before the study is published.

    She added that a higher-than-average rate of death sentences for black defendants when the victim is white is common nationwide, “so I guess it is not a surprise to see it in Delaware.”

    Prosecutor Jennings said statistics can be made to say what an author wants to say. She noted that if you just look at race, Delaware has executed more white men than black men. Of the 16 convicts who have been put to death since 1977, eight were white, seven were black and one was American Indian.

    Wallace and Jennings also said in a small state like Delaware, with a relatively small sample sizes, statistics can’t be trusted.

    Since 1977, while Delaware has executed 16, Georgia by contrast has executed 48 and Texas has executed 482, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

    Hans acknowledged that the small numbers involved was a problem but she said they attempted to compensate and correct for that with the aid of a statistician. “It is a limitation we tried to deal with by studying the entire universe of Delaware crimes,” she said.

    Jennings pointed out that there is a lengthy process for death penalty cases in Delaware, including a detailed review by state prosecutors where defense attorneys are invited in to make a presentation before the state makes a decision on seeking the death penalty.

    Then there is the trial, during which a panel of 12 must be unanimous in ruling on the evidence along with the existence of aggravating circumstances, followed by the independent ruling by a Superior Court judge that death is the appropriate punishment.

    And after the death sentence is ordered, the Delaware Supreme Court reviews each case not only to check the sufficiency of the evidence, trial and the verdict but to check cases for the proportionality of the punishment, to ensure that it is not being applied arbitrarily or unfairly.

    On the positive side, the study’s authors noted that Delaware’s error rate – as determined by reversals of a death sentence on appeal – is about 44 percent, which is “substantially less than other jurisdictions.” Delaware is also unique among the three states that give final say on the death penalty to judges or juries – the other two being Florida and Alabama – in that only once has a judge imposed death when a jury’s majority voted for life in prison, and in that case the sentence was overturned by a higher court.

    The 41-page study, titled “The Delaware Death Penalty: An Empirical Study,” is scheduled to be published by the Iowa Law Review in the fall. The authors include Sheri Lynn Johnson, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells and Valerie P. Hans, a professor emeritus at the University of Delaware.

    http://www.delawareonline.com/articl...nclick_check=1

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    Killer whose case reinstated Del. death penalty dies in prison at 75

    A convicted killer serving life in prison for an infamous double murder in Sussex County has died.

    State prison officials said Monday that 75-year-old Kermit R. West of Laurel died Thursday night at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del.

    West, then 23, killed farmer Lorenzo Whaley, 72, and his wife, Mamie, 66, in 1961.

    The Whaleys were killed a few months after West had been released from prison after serving time for burglarizing their home, where he often helped with farm chores. Authorities said West was apparently seeking revenge for having been sent to prison when he went to the Whaley’s home on Oct. 31, 1961. West raped and murdered Mamie Whaley, then waited for her husband to return, killing him with a shotgun blast to the face as he entered his home.

    Joan Whaley, the widow of Lorenzo Whaley Jr., said officials notified the family on Saturday that West had died.

    “As far as I’m concerned, he was right where he should have been,” said Joan Whaley, whose husband died in 2011. “He did a horrendous thing.”

    The Whaleys’ slaying prompted a public outcry for the return of Delaware’s death penalty, which had been abolished in 1958. Delaware lawmakers subsequently overrode a veto by Gov. Elbert Carvel and reinstated the death penalty.

    West was denied parole several times throughout the years, but a 2004 ruling by the state Supreme Court raised fears that he and other rapists and murderers serving life sentences might be released. The court touched off a legal and political firestorm when it ruled that life sentences were considered to be 45-year terms for purposes of the state’s conditional release law, which required a reduction in sentence for earning merit and good behavior credits.

    The ruling raised fears that violent criminals convicted before Delaware’s Truth in Sentencing Act took effect in 1990 could be turned loose.

    In response, state lawmakers passed a bill declaring the Supreme Court’s ruling “null and void.”

    That bill was declared unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court reversed itself and withdrew its previous ruling, which could have set scores of criminals free from prison.

    http://www.delawareonline.com/viewar...dies-prison-75
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    Delaware lawmakers want to end death penalty

    Opponents of capital punishment are calling for an end to Delaware's death penalty.

    More than 100 people gathered Tuesday in the state Senate chambers as lawmakers announced the pending introduction of a bill that would do away with the death penalty and prevent the 17 inmates already on death row from being executed.

    Opponents of the death penalty say it's morally wrong, ineffective as a deterrent to violent crime and far more costly than putting killers in prison for life.

    Groups supporting the effort to repeal the death penalty in Delaware include American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the League of Women Voters and the Delaware Center for Justice.

    http://www.necn.com/03/12/13/Delawar...70478429610269
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    Repeal of Del. death penalty clears Senate panel

    A bill that would repeal Delaware's death penalty and spare the lives of 17 killers already on death row has cleared a Senate committee and is heading to the full Senate for a vote.

    Members of the Senate Executive Committee voted 4-2 Wednesday to release the bill after hearing from supporters and opponents.

    Supporters argue the death penalty is morally wrong, ineffective as a deterrent to violent crime and far more costly than putting killers in prison for life. They also point to cases in other states where condemned killers have later been exonerated.

    Leaders of the Delaware Police Chiefs' Council spoke against the bill Wednesday, saying no death row inmate in Delaware has ever been found innocent after being convicted.

    http://www.seattlepi.com/news/articl...#ixzz2O80En5F4
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    I Hope & Pray that the Bill comes to a Vote soon and that Delaware will become another State to #AbolishTheDeathPenalty !

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