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Thread: Mississippi Capital Punishment News

  1. #21
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Information about execution drugs argued in Mississippi

    By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
    The Associated Press

    JACKSON, Miss. — Pharmacists who sell execution drugs to the Mississippi prison system would face protests or other pressure if their names were released to the public, a state attorney told the state Supreme Court Tuesday.

    An attorney representing a group that opposes the death penalty said, though, that the information must be disclosed under the state Public Records Act, in part because taxpayer money is used to buy the drugs.

    Death penalty opponents in other states have made similar arguments about the secrecy of execution drugs, with mixed success. So far, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to weigh in. States are struggling to obtain execution drugs since European pharmaceutical companies began blocking the use of their products for lethal injections.

    Special assistant attorney general Paul Barnes told Mississippi justices that suppliers of execution drugs are unwilling to do business with the state Department of Corrections "unless we can protect their identities."

    Jim Craig, an attorney for the New Orleans-based Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, which opposes the death penalty, filed a public records request in November 2014 about Mississippi's execution drug supplier.

    "We're talking about taxpayer dollars being given to a public agency to buy goods and services," Craig said.

    A chancery court judge ruled for disclosure as a public record in March, but the information remained secret while the state appealed the decision.

    Barnes said executions are on hold in Mississippi because the state does not currently have the three drugs it uses for lethal injections: pentobarbital, which is a sedative; vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes muscles; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

    He said the state had a limited supply of the drugs when the litigation began last year, and they have all expired.

    In briefs filed before the oral arguments, Barnes wrote that Mississippi has been unable to obtain pentobarbital from any source since the MacArthur Justice Center "outed" the name of a previous supplier, a compounding pharmacy in Grenada, Mississippi.

    "The cause and effect relationship of these events cannot reasonably be questioned," Barnes wrote.

    Justices asked several questions about the MacArthur Justice Center's argument that the case is a public records fight.

    "Your argument today would be no different if you were a newspaper?" Justice Jess Dickinson asked.

    Craig responded: "That's absolutely correct, your honor."

    Justices gave no indication of when they will rule.

    In April, the MacArthur Justice Center and three death row inmates filed a federal lawsuit against the Mississippi Department of Corrections, challenging the drugs used in executions. Craig argues in the federal lawsuit, which is still pending, that inmates being executed could suffer "unnecessary and excruciating pain" from compounded pentobarbital.

    Robert Dunham, executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, said in a phone interview Tuesday that some states try to maintain secrecy about the supplier of drugs so the companies won't face public criticism. He said other states try to maintain secrecy because they don't want suppliers to know that certain drugs bought from them are being used in executions.

    "Virtually every time a court has enforced transparency by upholding a state's claim of entitlement to secrecy, something bad comes out," Dunham said.

    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/36703...ed-mississippi

  2. #22
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Hood wants prison re-entry, election law, death penalty reforms

    Attorney General Jim Hood is calling on lawmakers to pass prison re-entry and election law reforms, adopt alternative methods of executing death-row convicts and to grant him authority to wiretap phones, at least for human trafficking investigations.

    "Our 2016 legislative agenda puts citizen safety at the forefront of this session, right where it belongs," Hood said, releasing his 2016 legislative agenda in a press conference on Wednesday. He said it prioritizes "key issues such as better laws for child victims including child victims of human trafficking."

    Hood is calling for the Legislature to create a re-entry program to provide inmates a better transition back into society, noting that more are being released from prison after lawmakers passed criminal justice reforms in 2014. Hood said he has pushed for such re-entry improvements for more many years, starting when he was a district attorney.

    "I wrote a letter to (former House Speaker) Tim Ford 25 years ago on this," Hood said. "We're just turning them out, not giving them any job training or other help."

    Hood said that with legal attacks on states' methods of execution, including Mississippi's, he wants lawmakers to provide for alternatives to lethal injection, "should the lethan injection drugs be unavailable or lethal injection itself be declared unconstitutional." Hood said he's not trying to start political debate over the death penalty, but wants lawmakers to provide alternate ways to carry it out given the way litigation is going.

    "Alternative means includes nitrogen hypoxia, electrocution or firing squad," Hood said. "... The old gas chamber is still there right beside the lethal injection chamber."

    Hood is also calling for the identities of the state execution team and lethal injection drug or other vendors to be exempt from public records law, because anti-death penalty advocates have targeted them with social media and other outing.

    Hood is pushing several election-law reforms, including measures to prohibit the personal use of campaign-finance funds by politicians and clarify that candidates must detail credit card purchases on their campaign finance reports.

    He also wants to strengthen requirements for disclaimers on political advertising -- making sure those behind the ads or mail-outs take credit for it -- after recent cases of anonymous attack-ad mailers against politicians.

    Hood also said the Legislature should clarify that "homestead exemption establishes a strong but rebuttable presumption of residency" for voters.

    Hood's legislative agenda also includes:

    •Amending the definition of an abused child in the Youth Court Act to include one who has been victim of human trafficking.

    •Creating a law that mandates what a law enforcement agency has to do when they receive a report of a missing child. Hood said laws are not clear on what and when agencies do, and in some cases delays in investigating can endanger children.

    •Granting wiretap authority to the attorney general for some crimes, including violations of the Human Trafficking Act. Hood said he's received criticism for passing off some white collar and other cases to federal authorities, but that his agency is hamstrung by not being able to tap telephones.

    •Codifying the appeals process for domestic violence protection orders.

    •Creating the crime of indecent assault of a competent adult to mirror crime of indecent assault of a vulnerable person.

    •Prohibiting data mining by state contractors to protect citizens' personal info. Hood said agencies that handle various state licenses and other data should not be able to use it for commercial gain or release it to others.

    http://www.clarionledger.com/story/n...enda/79407740/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  3. #23
    Senior Member CnCP Addict TrudieG's Avatar
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    If I lived in Mississippi I could get behind this guy

  4. #24
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    Appeals court throws out order blocking Mississippi executions

    JACKSON, Miss. -- A federal appeals court has reversed a stay that had blocked the state of Mississippi from carrying out executions.

    The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that a lower court judge ruled incorrectly in August when he blocked the state from executing prisoners.

    The opinion by Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod rejects arguments by death row prisoners that Mississippi's failure to use a particular kind of drug specified by state law violates their rights. Mississippi and other states can't easily buy such drugs anymore because manufacturers won't sell them for executions.

    Elrod notes the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld as constitutional Oklahoma's plan to use the drugs that Mississippi now plans to use.

    She also rejected arguments that Mississippi's execution protocols are so egregious as to "shock the conscience."

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/appeals-...pi-executions/
    "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

  5. #25
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    So will Mississippi will start executing people again?
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  6. #26
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Would MS use Midazolam and Hydromorphone as 2 (Arizona and Ohio) or Midazolam and Hydrochloride as a 3 drug combination (Florida and Alabama)?

  7. #27
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    US Court of Appeals denied death row inmates request to stop execution in Mississippi; Use of new drug constitutional

    By Lawyer Herald

    The US Court of Appeals has strengthened Mississippi's method of executing inmates. This ruling was upheld despite protest from death row personnel regarding drugs that were used and were not approved by the state law.

    Last August, a ruling was made by US District Judge Henry T. Wingate issuing a temporary halt and stop the state from undertaking executions. But just recently, 5TH Circuit US Court of Appeals Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod dismissed this order and said that if the inmates want to continue their fight against this issue then they should be doing in at the state court. She added that the states way of execution is not out of the ordinary.

    In Mississippi, the law requires the state prisons to use three drugs during execution. The first drug will be a short-acting barbiturate followed by a paralyzing agent, and the last would be a drug that would stop the inmate's hearts beat. But after the year 2010, the state has had difficulty in obtaining these drugs as the manufacturers decline to sell it for the purpose of executions.

    Because of this issue, the state is now proposing on using midazolam as an alternative. This drug doesn't make the person unconscious as quick as the previous drug. This is why prisoners claim that midazolam doesn't act as potent and might give them excruciating pain as the process of execution goes on. This pain violates the US constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. But a Supreme Court ruling in Oklahoma rendered the use of the drug constitutional.

    The prisoner's representative, Attorney Jim Craig said that he was disappointed with the ruling but somehow expects to ask Wingate for another preliminary injunction. This time, he is more confident that they will get the approval of the Court of Appeals as they are getting more evidence regarding the problems of using midazolam as a substitute.

    Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood appreciated the ruling of the judge. He said that for years, these anti-death penalty groups are making a dubious claims regarding the process of execution just to temporarily stop the procedure. He added that if they really want to change the constitution, they will have to ask the legislative body to do it and not the judges who handle this cases.

    http://www.lawyerherald.com/articles...n-new-drug.htm

  8. #28
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    Appeals Court Lifts Ban On Executions in Mississippi

    By Evelina Burnett

    The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has lifted an injunction that had blocked executions in Mississippi, but as MPB’s Evelina Burnet reports, the fight over the drugs used in lethal injections is likely to continue.

    Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood says he was not surprised by the Fifth Circuit’s ruling. That because the state changed its proposed method of execution last year, just before the district court hearing. They changed it to a three-drug cocktail with a drug called midazolam in place of other drugs that have been increasingly hard to get.

    "The reason we weren’t surprised is because the United States Supreme Court in June - just June of 2015 - ruled that this protocol and this drug were constitutionally sound," Hood said. "The state of Mississippi adopted this same protocol and drug, and then in August a federal district judge here stayed us from following that same procedure that the United States Supreme Court had said only two months before was good as gold.”

    Attorney Jim Craig, with the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center in New Orleans, is representing two of the three Mississippi death row inmates who are challenging the state's method of lethal injection. Craig says he plans to ask the district judge for another temporary injunction based on new evidence, including from an expert on midazolam.

    "He has done a very detailed assessment of the problems with midazolam, and another expert has looked at what Oklahoma does with midazolam and compared it with Mississippi, and talked about how Mississippi falls far short of the safeguards that you need if you’re going to use midazolam," Craig says.

    Attorney General Hood says he expects the challenges to these drugs to continue and that’s why he’s asked the state legislature to provide for alternate methods of execution, such as the gas chamber, the electric chair or firing squad.

    http://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/...n-mississippi/

  9. #29
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Senate passes Execution Secrecy Bill

    JACKSON, MS (Mississippi News Now) - In the future a Mississippi death row inmate's execution and all those involved in the process could be kept from the public.

    Senate Bill 2237, introduced by Republican Senator Joey Fillingane, passed Tuesday.

    Entitled the "Execution Secrecy Bill", the measure would protect the identities of the execution team, suppliers of the lethal injection drugs and others involved in the execution process.

    State Attorney General Jim Hood helped draft the legislation.

    He said in reaction to anti-death penalty advocates who have threatened and harassed the companies providing the lethal injections and even the executioner.

    "As long as it's the law in Mississippi I've got a duty to carry it out and if there's a method by which I can carry it out without people getting abused; the executioner, the pharmacy that provides the drugs, I think we owe them that protection. It's a state law," said Hood.

    Opponents of the Execution Secrecy legislation say the public would not be made aware of the execution process which could possibly be inhumane and not divulge where the drugs were from, how they are administered or their reactions.

    We were unable to reach Senator Fillingane and Prisoner Rights Advocates for comment on the execution secrecy bill.

    Similar bills have been passed in recent years in Arkansas and Georgia.

    http://www.fox10tv.com/story/3124984...n-secrecy-bill
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  10. #30
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    The names of employees and family members at an execution, as well as the pharmacy providing lethal drugs, would be kept secret under a bill Mississippi lawmakers are considering

    JACKSON, Mississippi — The names of employees and family members at an execution, as well as the pharmacy providing lethal drugs, would be kept secret under a bill Mississippi lawmakers are considering.

    Senators passed Senate Bill 2237 32-18 Tuesday. It was held for the possibility of more debate before moving to the House.

    The measure says anyone disclosing a secret name could be sued for money in civil court. Shielded are current or former members of the state execution team, current or former suppliers of the drugs, or witnesses who want to remain confidential.

    Senate Judiciary A Committee Chairman Sean Tindell, a Gulfport Republican, says secrecy is needed to prevent threats against execution team members or drug suppliers.

    Opponents say executions should be open and the bill illegally restrains First Amendment rights.

    http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/vi...cution-Secrecy
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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