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Thread: Indiana Capital Punishment News

  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    State lawmakers: Abolition of death penalty unlikely

    SOUTH BEND — Indiana state lawmakers say the General Assembly is more likely to try to find ways to help counties pay for death penalty cases than to abolish executions to save money.

    “There aren't a majority of votes in the Indiana legislature to impose either a moratorium or a revocation of the death penalty, so that's not going to happen,” state Sen. John Broden, D-South Bend, a Judiciary Committee member, said Wednesday.

    Broden said lawmakers need to look at how the state can help counties with the costs.

    “In an era of declining revenues, we either need to come up with a way to fund future death penalty cases or take a look at other options. I guess everything is on the table right now,” he said.

    The comments were in response to an assertion earlier in the week by Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller that lawmakers should look at whether the costs of death penalty cases are justifiable in tough economic times. A group that includes prosecutors and defense attorneys, professors, an Indiana Supreme Court justice and legislators discussed the issue Monday at the University of Notre Dame.

    An analysis conducted earlier this year by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency found the average cost for trial and direct appeal in six capital cases averaged $449,887, not including the costs incurred by prosecutors or sheriffs. That compares with an average cost of $42,658 for seven trials in cases involving sentences of life without parole.

    Indiana has executed 20 inmates since it reinstated the death penalty in 1977, and 11 more are awaiting execution.

    Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Stan Levco said at the summit Monday that he believes Indiana's death penalty system is “nearly broken” because it costs so much.

    “It's almost at the point where it's no longer viable. Unless we decrease the costs, it's not worth it,” he said.

    http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pb.../NEWS/11180330

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    Is Indiana due to carry any sentences out this year,after all it has been 3 years!

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    Judge asked to clarify state's definition of retardation

    SOUTH BEND — How Indiana determines if someone is mentally retarded was at the center of a debate today for a man sentenced to die for shooting a police officer in 2001.

    In 2009, the Indiana Supreme Court rejected an appeal that claimed Tom Pruitt — who mortally wounded Morgan County Deputy Dan Starnes during a shootout following a traffic stop — was mentally retarded and could not be executed.

    Pruitt, now age 50, was convicted in 2003 of murder and sentenced to death, even though his attorneys have long argued he was not eligible to receive the death penalty because of his diminished mental capacity.

    In 2001, in Atkins vs. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing criminals who are mentally retarded was a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s provision against cruel and unusual punishment. But the ruling left it up to each state to define what constitutes mental retardation.

    On Friday, attorneys representing Pruitt and the Indiana attorney general’s office appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Miller Jr., where they presented oral arguments in Pruitt’s appeal that still basically hinges on one question — is he mentally retarded?

    According to James Martin, an attorney for the attorney general’s office, that question has already been answered both by the district court and the state supreme court, which found there was sufficient evidence to find Pruitt mentally aware.

    During oral arguments, Martin pointed to an IQ test taken by Pruitt on which he scored a 76.

    Indiana law, Martin said, defines mental retardation as an IQ test score “two standard deviations below the mean,” meaning a score below 70.

    But Pruitt took at least four different IQ tests, argued his attorney, Marie Donnelly, and three clearly put his IQ in the range defined as mental retardation.

    “The experts overwhelming found substandard performance,” when evaluating Pruitt, Donnelly said.

    http://www.southbendtribune.com/news...,5030476.story

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    Indiana aids states with execution drug shortages

    A spokesman for Indiana's prison system says the state is helping other states dealing with shortages of drugs used to execute death row inmates.

    Department of Correction spokesman Doug Garrison tells WIBC-FM (http://bit.ly/1eVQcvQ) he can't go into the details, but confirms Indiana has assisted states facing shortages of the drugs.

    Many European drugmakers have stopped selling drugs used in lethal injections in the American prison system because they oppose the death penalty.

    Garrison says Indiana's isn't worried about running out of lethal injection drugs. He says the state has enough of those drugs on hand to carry out a death sentence if the Indiana Supreme Court sets an execution date.

    Thirteen convicted murderers are on Indiana's Death Row, but only one is near the point of exhausting his appeals.

    http://www.chron.com/news/crime/arti...es-5336917.php
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    Indiana has new lethal injection drug

    INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana will use a new drug as part of its lethal injection protocol whenever it carries out its next execution, a prison spokesman says.

    A nationwide shortage of thiopental sodium has forced states that conduct lethal injection executions to search for alternatives, and Indiana has settled on a barbiturate anesthetic in the same class called Brevital, Indiana Department of Correction spokesman Doug Garrison told the Post-Tribune (http://bit.ly/1gWAX7d).

    Oklahoma's botched execution of convicted murderer Clayton Lockett on April 29 touched off a national debate over the death penalty. Because of opposition to the death penalty by suppliers of thiopental sodium, Oklahoma experimented with a sedative called midazolam as part of its three-drug protocol when it executed Lockett. Lockett died of an apparent heart attack 43 minutes after the start of his execution.

    The three-drug protocol that Indiana uses starts with Brevital, followed by pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

    Indiana has a sufficient supply of drugs to carry out an execution, Garrison said. "It could be this year," he said.

    Thirteen inmates are on the state's death row at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, but none has an execution date.

    Garrison said the inmate closest to having an execution date set is Michael Overstreet. Overstreet was convicted in the 1997 slaying of 18-year-old Franklin College student Kelly Eckart.

    Overstreet's appeals are nearly exhausted, and a ruling is expected soon on his latest challenge claiming that he's mentally incompetent to be executed.

    Indiana is one of 32 states with the death penalty. Indiana has executed 20 men since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the ban on capital punishment. Indiana's last execution was Dec. 11, 2009, when Matthew Eric Wrinkles was put to death for the 1994 slayings of his wife, her brother, and a sister-in-law in Evansville.

    http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/art...ug-5487582.php
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Indiana’s use of new execution drug draws opposition

    SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — The maker of a drug Indiana wants to use for its first execution since 2009 says the anesthetic, which has never been used in lethal injections, isn't approved for that purpose and that it only recently learned of the state's intentions.

    Stephen Mock, spokesman for Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey-based Par Pharmaceutical, said Friday the company didn't know Indiana had purchased Brevital for use in an execution until seeing news reports about it. He said the company is amending its distribution agreements to state that the product should not be sold to departments of correction but won't try to stop Indiana from using the Brevital it already has.

    Indiana officials are standing by their decision to switch to Brevital because of a shortage of sodium thiopental. They say the drug, a powerful anesthetic used in hospitals for decades, is appropriate for an execution.

    "Brevital, the way we intend to use it, will do exactly what it's intended purpose is, which is to induce a deep, painless, unconsciousness," Department of Correction spokesman Doug Garrison said Friday.

    Indiana's switch to Brevital, also known as methohexital sodium, as part of its three-drug lethal injection series is its first change in execution protocol since it stopped using the electric chair in 1995.

    The move comes amid increased scrutiny of lethal injection drugs. Drug makers have begun refusing to sell their products for use in executions, and condemned men in Ohio and Oklahoma took an unusually long time to die after being injected with different drug combinations.

    "It sounds to me like Indiana intends to experiment with some new drug and see what happens, and that concerns me greatly," said Steve Schutte, an attorney representing Michael Dean Overstreet, who is expected to be the next inmate executed in Indiana.

    The use of Brevital was successfully challenged in Oklahoma in 2010 by a lawyer who contended it was experimental and might lead to a "torturous" death. Par Pharmaceutical issued a statement this week saying Brevital is "intended to be used as an anesthetic in life-sustaining procedures" and that Indiana's planned use of it in an execution "is inconsistent with its medical indications as outlined in its U.S. Food and Drug Administration reviewed and approved product labeling."

    Garrison said the state is confident that its drug protocol will work. He said Indiana State Prison Superintendent Bill Wilson selected Brevital as a replacement for sodium thiopental after consulting with "with pharmacists, other states and other experts."

    Garrison said the state has enough of the drug on hand to carry out an execution but declined to elaborate.

    Indiana has not executed an inmate since Dec. 11, 2009, the longest gap in death sentences in the state since 1994. State officials say the delay is the result of cases working their way through the courts.

    State law doesn't specify what drugs are to be used for executions, saying only that the drugs must be injected intravenously in a quantity and for an amount of time sufficient to kill the inmate.

    Garrison said sodium thiopental and Brevital have similar properties and both cause "deep unconsciousness."

    Schutte said Garrison is downplaying the significance of the change.

    "If it was as simple as exchanging one drug for another, that's what every other state would have been doing instead of scrambling around trying to decide how to salvage their lethal injection schemes," he said.

    The National Institutes of Health website describes Brevital as a rapid, ultrashort-acting barbiturate anesthetic that is at least twice as potent on a weight basis as thiopental and lasts only about half as long. Its warning label says it should be used only in hospital or ambulatory care settings that provide for continuous monitoring of respiratory and cardiac function.

    Oklahoma announced in 2010 it would use Brevital to execute Jeffrey David Matthews on the day before his scheduled execution. A federal public defender forced a delay by arguing Brevital had never been used in an execution and the state's new procedure was "untested, potentially dangerous and could very well result in a torturous execution."

    No ruling on the drug was ever made, however, because the state obtained pentobarbital and used it in Matthews' Jan. 11, 2011, execution.

    Though 18 states have changed their execution protocols in the past four years because of shortages in traditional lethal injection drugs, no state has yet used Brevital, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

    Joseph Hoffmann, an Indiana University law professor, doesn't think that fact would affect Overstreet's case, though he said the issues in Ohio and Oklahoma could make courts "a little more focused" on lethal injection protocols than they would have been previously.

    "I still think, at the end of the day, the odds are very much in the states' favor that their methods are going to be upheld," he said.

    Schutte, Overstreet's attorney, is focused for now on arguing that Overstreet is a paranoid schizophrenic and isn't mentally competent to be executed for the 1997 rape and murder of Franklin College freshman Kelly Eckart. A ruling is expected by the end of the year.

    http://www.heraldbulletin.com/breaki...aws-opposition

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    Indiana officials say death penalty protocol is sound

    With the possibility of an execution occurring yet this year, Indiana officials are standing by their death penalty process, despite controversies over prolonged lethal injections in other states.

    Doug Garrison, chief communications officer for the Indiana Department of Corrections, said officials are confident they have the right death penalty protocols in place to prevent the types of problems that recently marred executions in Arizona, Oklahoma and Ohio.

    Michael Overstreet – who was sentenced to death in July 2000 for the 1997 murder, rape, and confinement of Kelly Eckart, an 18-year-old freshman at Franklin College – is likely to be the next inmate to face lethal injection.

    “He is the closest to reaching the end of the appeals process,” Garrison said. No execution date is set but Garrison said it could be later this year.

    The last Indiana execution was that of Matthew “Eric” Wrinkles in 2009.

    Overstreet’s execution comes as states across the nation are struggling to deal with criticisms over the punishment and problems securing the drugs necessary to do lethal injections.

    Indiana and many states use a three-drug protocol to perform an execution, while others use two drugs and some just one.

    The first drug in a two- or three-drug method has often been sodium thiopental, a sedative used to make inmates unconscious before other drugs are administered.

    But the drug’s American manufacturer has stopped making it and its European counterpart has banned its export to the United States for executions.

    Three states – Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona – used the sedative midazolam in recent executions – and all took longer than expected, raising questions about whether the punishments crossed a constitutional line to become cruel and unusual.

    In early May, Indiana officials announced they would switch to Brevital – an alternative sedative.

    Now, officials say they have enough Brevital on hand for the next execution, even though executives from its maker – Par Pharmaceutical – say they don’t want it used in that way. “The state of Indiana’s proposed use is contrary to our mission,” the company said in a statement.

    Par Pharmaceutical went on to say the company is working with its partners to establish distribution controls on Brevital to “preclude wholesalers from accepting orders from departments of corrections.”

    Similar problems have led officials in many states to remain mum about names of the drugs they use, an attempt to protect the companies that supply them.

    “The difficulties that many states have had in finding the drugs necessary for lethal injections is a warning to states not currently carrying out executions that problems in this area are likely to arise,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “Each state carries out its own decision-making on issues such as the death penalty.”

    And those decisions have become more complicated. The Pew Research Center has found that a majority of Americans still favor the death penalty but the margin has been shrinking. A 2013 Pew survey found 55 percent of Americans said they favor the death penalty for convicted murders, the lowest level of support in the past two decades. Twenty-five years ago, that number was 78 percent.

    The reasons for shifting opinions are varied, but they include publicity about cases in which inmates have been found innocent.

    “The number of exonerations from death row has had a profound effect on states considering whether to abolish the death penalty,” Dieter said. “Even if a state has not had a serious miscarriage of justice in this area, they can see that such mistakes can happen based on evidence from other states.”

    The death penalty is also expensive. According to the Legislative Services Agency, simply trying a death penalty case in Indiana costs an average of $449,887. Meanwhile, the average cost for a case resulting in life without parole is $42,658.

    Thirty-two states still have the death penalty on their books. Of the 18 without it, three have abolished executions since 2000.

    Indiana currently has 13 inmates waiting on death row, with many having been there for more than a decade. All still have appeals left.

    All were convicted of murder. But to receive the death penalty, a prosecutor must also prove one of 16 aggravating circumstances. The most common is the commission of another serious felony, such as rape or attempted murder, at the time of the original offense.

    Other aggravating circumstances include a defendant’s lack of remorse and his or her criminal record.

    Once convicted, an inmate has a number of appeals available and can be represented by the Indiana Public Defenders Council. Once those appeals are exhausted, an execution date is set and the inmate will be escorted to a separate holding cell where he or she can have more visits.

    The inmate also has the option of having a final meal prepared for them. “Some ask for it, some don’t,” Garrison said.

    While being transported to the execution chamber, the inmate will be put on a gurney with lines placed in his or her veins.

    Witnesses may be allowed, depending on whether the inmate wants them. Witnesses are limited to the warden and assistants, prison chaplain, two physicians, five guests, and a spiritual advisor, along with eight adult family members.

    The Department of Corrections – which perform the execution and practices the lethal injection process once every quarter – will establish a support room for the victim’s family, upon request.

    The procedure for administering the state’s three-drug protocol will then begin, just after midnight.

    The first drug – Brevital, sodium thiopental or another sedative – will then be administered, which is meant to force deep and painless unconsciousness. The second one stops the respiratory system and the third stops the heart.

    But the process doesn’t always go so smoothly.

    Joseph Wood – executed earlier this year in Arizona – took almost two hours to die by lethal injection. He was injected with an “experimental” cocktail. His lawyers said the execution was illegal due to its cruel and unusual punishment.

    Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said the execution was legal.

    Dennis McGuire – an inmate on Ohio’s death row – was given the same cocktail of drugs and took 30 minutes to die, an execution that defense attorney Allen Bohnert deemed as a “failed, agonizing experiment.”

    In April, Clayton Lockett – a death row inmate in Oklahoma – reportedly appeared to regain consciousness after the drugs had been administered. He later died of a heart attack.

    http://thestatehousefile.com/indiana...l-sound/17284/
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    What do recent botched executions mean for death penalty?

    Will recent prolonged executions result in the end of the death penalty?

    By Bob Blake
    The South Bend Tribune

    Is the death penalty on its last leg?

    The question is being discussed this summer after three high-profile, prolonged executions in Ohio, Oklahoma and most recently Arizona. It’s also a timely question as Indiana inches closer to its first execution in five years.

    The problematic executions highlight a number of questions concerning the nation’s ultimate punishment — the willingness of trained medical professionals to participate in executions and the availability of proven execution drugs, among others.

    The executions of Dennis McGuire, Clayton Lockett and Joseph Wood have brought a difficult subject into the limelight.

    “As a result of this focus, some minds may change,” said Richard Garnett, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame and an expert on capital punishment. “I think it’s still too soon to say if this will be the catalyst for a new abolition movement.”

    Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, there have been 1,386 executions in the United States, according to information from the Death Penalty Information Center.

    There have been 27 executions so far in 2014, most recently Aug. 6 in Missouri. There were 39 last year. The average over the last 38 years is more than 36 a year. Three years — 1976, 1978 and 1980 — there were no executions. The highest mark was 1999 with 98.

    In Indiana, there are currently 13 inmates — all men — on death row at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, according to Doug Garrison, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Correction. One woman also faces a death sentence in Indiana, however, she is currently serving a life sentence in Ohio, Garrison said.

    Since 1977, 97 people have been sentenced to death in Indiana with 20 executions, according to information from the Indiana Public Defender Council. Matthew Eric Wrinkles, 49, was the last Hoosier to face execution. He was executed in December 2009 for a 1994 triple murder near Evansville.

    The next inmate likely to face execution in the state is Michael Dean Overstreet, according to Garrison. Overstreet was convicted of the September 1997 rape and murder of a college student in Johnson County. An attorney for Overstreet is challenging his competency to face execution, arguing he doesn’t understand what the state intends to do to him. The argument is set to be heard beginning Tuesday in South Bend.

    Indiana’s protocol

    Indiana’s current execution protocol calls for a three-drug lethal injection, Garrison said.

    The first drug, Brevital, is adminstered to cause a “deep, painless unconsciousness,” according to Garrison. The second drug, pancurionium bromide, is then injected to paralyze the condemned inmate. The third drug, potassium chloride, is then administered to stop the inmate’s heart, he said.

    “It is a very serious and solemn process. This is not easy on staff,” Garrison said. “They practice this frequently, at least quarterly, and more frequently as an execution date approaches.”

    Execution team members are trained to interact with the condemned inmate in a compassionate manner, Garrison said.

    “It’s a very solemn thing,” he said. “Support is provided to the offender, talking to them, telling them what’s going to happen.”

    Contrary to what some people believe, the Department of Correction does not advocate or oppose capital punishment.

    “We are an instrument of the state,” Garrison said. “It’s our obligation under state law to uphold the will of the people. Our personal opinion is not relevant.”

    Bryan Corbin, a spokesman for Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, said the same applies for the attorney general’s office.

    “When convicted offenders appeal their convictions or sentences in appellate court, the attorney general’s office, as the state’s lawyer, represents the prosecution in the appeal,” Corbin said. “Regardless of personal views on the death penalty, the attorney general has an obligation to uphold the current laws of the State of Indiana that the legislature passed; and it is the attorney general’s legal duty to urge the appellate courts to leave intact the convictions or sentences previously determined by the lower courts and not overturn them.”

    Despite numerous requests seeking comment, Governor Mike Pence’s office refused to issue a statement regarding his position on the issue.

    Though Indiana is relatively inactive on the capital punishment front, it hasn’t deterred some opponents from working to shut it down permanently.

    “While the Indiana death penalty is falling into disuse — only one new case was filed statewide in 2013, and only seven in the last five years — 2013 saw three new death sentences,” said Doris Parlette, a Bloomington resident and president of the Indiana Abolition Coalition. “As long as it’s on the books, Indiana’s death penalty stands to drain away taxpayer dollars, clog up courts, traumatize jurors, begin a seemingly endless ordeal for survivors, and create a serious risk of executing someone who is innocent. All without any real public safety benefit.”

    A troublesome year

    By all accounts, 2014 has been a troublesome year when it comes to the administration of capital punishment.

    In January, it took Dennis McGuire more than 26 minutes of snorting and gasping to die in Ohio.

    In April, Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack 43 minutes after Oklahoma officials began his execution. They unsuccessfully tried to stop the procedure after it was evident the drugs were not working.

    Then came the July 23 execution of Joseph Wood in Arizona.

    For nearly two hours, Wood lay gasping for air on a gurney in the Arizona death chamber.

    “I was there with the thought if something happens I want to be there,” Michael Kiefer, a courts and legal writer for the Arizona Republic, said. “Sure enough, it did.”

    Kiefer made a hash mark on a piece of paper each time he witnessed Wood’s chest heave. By the time it was done there were more than 640 marks. There were more heaves, Kiefer said, but his view was obstructed periodically by state officials tending to the condemned inmate.

    “I was thinking maybe he’ll wake up, maybe they’ll stop the execution, maybe they’ll push in more drugs, which eventually they did,” Kiefer said. “It went on like this for almost two hours. That’s a long time to watch something like this, especially when it usually takes 10 or 11 minutes.”

    Kiefer said that whenever a state official went to check on Wood and report that he was “sedated” the microphone picked up Wood’s struggles to breathe.

    “You would hear this very loud gasping, snoring sound,” he said. “It was extremely loud. After an hour and a half he finally stopped breathing.”

    For death penalty opponents like Kelsey Kauffman, a retired teacher from Greencastle, Ind., executions like Wood’s demonstrate why the practice needs to be stopped for good.

    “Everything now is an experiment. Nobody knows ahead of time if it’s going to work,” Kauffman said. “Departments of Correction have all this bravado but no one really knows. They’re not going to come up with a good solution.

    “What’s been going on this year is clearly cruel and unusual. To have someone gasping for breath for two hours like a fish out of water clearly violates the cruel and unusual provision of the Eighth Amendment.”

    Kauffman said it’s a combination of factors that has led to the current predicament — the lack of medically trained professionals administering the procedures, along with the pharmaceutical companies forbidding their products to be used.

    “It’s clear states are experimenting out of necessity,” she said. “It’s not working. It’s not going to work.”

    Will the courts intervene?

    Waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the subject? Don’t hold your breath, some death penalty experts say.

    Experts like Garnett at Notre Dame said, from a legal perspective, the Constitution permits capital punishment.

    “Americans sometimes have this habit of thinking these questions will be settled by the Supreme Court. It’s pretty clear the Constitution allows it,” Garnett said. “If the death penalty is going to go away, it’s not going to be because of a court but because we the people want it to go away.”

    Joseph Hoffmann, a professor of law at Indiana University in Bloomington and a death penalty expert, agreed.

    “I don’t see changes leading to a dramatic end-game for the death penalty,” Hoffmann said. “I think we’re going to see a gradual whittling away in that there will be additional states that stop using the death penalty.”

    Hoffmann said he also doesn’t think the Supreme Court is likely to wade into the dialogue on methods of execution.

    “As a strictly legal matter, my best guess is this controversy is not going to lead to a judicial decision from the Supreme Court,” Hoffmann said. “The court has not been particularly concerned or anxious to be involved in methods of execution. What I think will happen is states will look for other methods.”

    Hoffmann said he thinks more states will return to methods like the firing squad.

    It’s an approach that has already drawn some support in the judicial ranks. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, issued a dissenting opinion as part of the legal wrangling leading up to Wood’s execution in Arizona essentially saying the nation should be willing to accept the brutality of a firing squad or stop executions altogether.

    “Using drugs meant for individuals with medical needs to carry out executions is a misguided effort to mask the brutality of executions by making them look serene and peaceful — like something anyone of us might experience in our final moments,” Kozinski wrote. “But executions are, in fact, nothing like that. They are brutal, savage events, and nothing the state tries to do can mask that reality. Nor should it. If we as a society want to carry out executions, we should be willing to face the fact the state is committing a horrendous brutality on our behalf.”

    Indiana’s death penalty future

    Any movement on abolishing Indiana’s death penalty will have to come through the Indiana General Assembly, experts said.

    While this year’s high-profile cases are likely to jump-start conversations on the topic, action remains unlikely.

    Even after the Oklahoma execution, a national poll released in May by Gallup showed 61 percent of Americans view the death penalty as morally acceptable.

    It’s a view held by both Democrats and Republicans in the Indiana General Assembly.

    “Capital punishment is a penalty that should be available for heinous crimes as an expression of society’s right to self defense. It is used pretty rarely,” state Sen. Joe Zakas, R-Granger, said. “The method used should not be intended to cause suffering. Those cases should be reviewed as to effectiveness.

    “Capital punishment can be a costly process, but that reflects the serious nature of the crime and what it takes for society to defend itself.”

    It’s a reality acknowledged by House Democratic Leader Scott Pelath, D- Michigan City.

    “When you have people commit terrible crimes against humanity is capital punishment worse than life without the possibility of parole?” Pelath said. “I think those are the types of questions not only lawmakers but citizens at large are increasingly contemplating.”

    Rep. David Niezgodski, D- South Bend, said life and death situations should never be dealt with lightly.

    “There needs to be some deterrent that shows that kind of strength behind it,” Niezgodski said. “There are just some things in this world that are just so horrible that warrant such a response.”

    Rep. Timothy Wesco, R-Osceola, agreed.

    “I support Indiana’s current law, which allows for the death penalty,” Wesco said in a written statement. “I believe that, when carried out, capital punishment should be swift and effective. I support the Indiana Department of Correction in their dutiful performance of administering justice.”

    http://www.southbendtribune.com/news...13418270d.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Indiana lawmaker wants tougher penalties for beheadings

    After a horrific beheading last month in Oklahoma, an Indiana lawmaker is proposing legislation that would increase the penalty for decapitation.

    "I have ordered a bill to be drafted to add decapitation or an attempted decapitation to the list of crimes punishable by life without parole or the death penalty," Sen. Brent Steele said Monday in an electronic newsletter.

    The Republican from Bedford said he was motivated in part by a murder last month in suburban Oklahoma, where police say Alton Nolen, 30, attacked a co-worker at a food processing plant with a large knife and severed her head.

    Police asked the FBI to assist in the investigation after learning of Nolen's recent conversion to Islam and because of the nature of the attack, which followed a series of high-profile videotaped beheadings by Islamic State militants in the Middle East.

    Indiana law already provides for life in prison without parole or the death penalty for those who burn, torture or mutilate their victim before killing them, Steele said. Dismemberment after killing can also trigger the death penalty.

    But Steele, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the Legislative Services Agency told him that decapitation isn't considered mutilation or dismemberment after death.

    "As a society, we cannot prevent a person from being mean to the core or committing atrocities in the name of religion, but we can up the cost for unspeakable behavior such as beheading," Steele said.

    http://www.indystar.com/story/news/p...ings/18045837/

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    Bill would abolish death penalty in Indiana

    An Indiana state senator hopes to end the death penalty in Indiana.

    Senate Bill 136, authored by Sen. Lonnie Randolph, would repeal the state's death penalty statute and reduce the punishments of those awaiting execution to life imprisonment without parole.

    The death penalty in Indiana is allowed only in murder cases. The bill also would prohibit the court from sentencing a convicted murderer to life imprisonment without parole if that person is deemed mentally ill. Randolph was not immediately available for comment.

    The Legislative Services Agency estimates that the bill, if it becomes law, would cost the state about $1 million to keep the current death row population imprisoned for life.

    About a dozen inmates are awaiting execution in Indiana. In November, a judge spared a man from a death sentence in the 1997 murder and rape of a Franklin College student. St. Joseph Superior Court Judge Jane Woodward Miller ruled that Michael Dean Overstreet was not mentally competent to be executed.

    Six people are awaiting death penalty trials in Indiana, including Major Davis Jr., the man charged with murder in the July killing of Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer Perry Renn, and Kenneth "Cody" Rackemann, one of four suspects in the February quadruple homicide on the Southeastside. More recently, the Clark County prosecutor's office filed its intent to seek the death penalty against Joseph Oberhansley, who is accused of killing his girlfriend and eating her organs.

    According to the Legislative Services Agency, the average cost of representing a defendant facing a death penalty is significantly more expensive than that of someone facing life imprisonment without parole. The agency estimates that the state would save about $166,400 per murder case if life imprisonment without parole becomes the most serious sentence a defendant could face.

    Death penalty cases are more expensive than other murder cases because, for one thing, the trials have two phases. The first phase is to decide whether a defendant is guilty or innocent. If the defendant is found guilty, a second phase determines whether he or she should be executed. Prosecutors must show that at least one of 16 aggravating circumstances outlined in the statute applies. These include rape, death of an on-duty police officer, mutilation or torture, and whether the defendant was in custody, on probation or on parole at the time of the murder.

    Randolph, a Democrat from East Chicago, introduced similar legislation in 2011 and 2013. Both bills died. The chance of SB 136 passing this legislative session, which convenes Tuesday, is just as slim.

    Sen. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, chairman of the Senate Corrections and Criminal Law Committee, where the bill is assigned, has said he would not give SB 136 a hearing. He did not comment further.

    Indiana has not had an execution since 2009. The last person to be executed was Matthew Wrinkles, who was convicted of killing his estranged wife, her brother and her brother's wife in 1994.

    The state has executed about 150 prisoners, 20 of them in the past four decades.

    Indiana is one of 32 states that have a death penalty statute. In recent years, New Mexico, Illinois, Connecticut and Maryland abolished theirs.

    Capital punishment became law in Indiana in 1897. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned state death penalty laws in 1972. The statute was reinstated in Indiana five years later.

    http://www.indystar.com/story/news/c...iana/21311915/
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