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Thread: Mississippi Capital Punishment News

  1. #41
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    No firing squad for Mississippi's death row inmates

    Mississippi lawmakers have shot down the firing squad as a means of execution for death row inmates.

    The change, by a state Senate committee, came after the lower chamber passed a proposal Feb. 8 that would have allowed death by nitrogen gas chamber, firing squad and electrocution as alternatives to the current method of lethal injection. The state legislature proposed the other options in case others are deemed unconstitutional or become unavailable.

    “States have been having difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs within the United States primarily because the American pharmaceutical manufacturers have uniformly said they don’t want their medicines used in killing prisoners,” said Robert Dunham, Director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

    The options do not permit condemned prisoners to choose their execution method. The alternative methods are available only if the lethal injection is not available with gas chamber being the second option and electrocution the last.

    According to Dunham, other states have also turned to alternative ways to carry out death sentences. He notes Utah and Oklahoma have added death by firing squad as an alternate to lethal injection and Tennessee has authorized the use of the electric chair. Death by firing squad in Utah is only available to those sentenced to death prior to 2004. In all 31 states that allow the death penalty, the primary method for executions is lethal injection.

    Dunham said he expects legal challenges to the most recent change in the proposed bill. The state currently faces legal challenges surrounding the drugs it uses for lethal injection executions. Opponents say the use of the drugs violate the U.S. Constitution.

    The Magnolia State previously used the electric chair and gas chamber to execute violent criminals. Lethal injection became the state’s sole means of execution in March of 1998, according to the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Mississippi’s most recent execution was carried out in 2012 and there are currently 47 people on death row in the state.

    The bill will now move to the full state senate for consideration and will have to be sent back the house for approval of the amended changes before being passed on to the governor.

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/02/24...w-inmates.html
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  2. #42
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Execution bill heads to governor

    By Jimmie E. Gates
    The Clarion-Ledger

    A bill is on the way to the governor to allow firing squads as an option to carry out executions.

    House Bill 638 still has lethal injection, which is now used, as the first option. But if the state's lethal injection protocol is ruled unconstitutional, then other options for execution would be successive if one is ruled unconstitutional.

    The final bill adopted Tuesday says the method of execution following lethal injection would be gas, electrocution and firing squad.

    The House adopted the House and Senate conference committee report on the bill Sunday, and the Senate adopted it Tuesday, meaning it has passed the Legislature and is now headed to the governor.

    When the bill was originally filed, it had firing squad and electrocution as the third and fourth options. A Senate committee had removed firing squad from the bill, but the House reinstated it.

    House Judiciary B Chairman Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, said the final bill has nitrogen gas, electrocution and firing squad as the last option.

    Gov. Phil Bryant and Attorney General Jim Hood have signaled their support for the bill.

    "I have a constituent whose daughter was raped and killed 25 years ago and the person is still awaiting execution," Gipson said of the bill earlier this year. "If we want to have the death penalty, this bill will give us options."

    Gipson said firing squads have been used in some states. He said electrocution and gas have been used previously in Mississippi.

    During an earlier debate on the bill, Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson, asked Gipson, who is a Baptist minister, what the Bible says about grace and mercy.

    "I'm a big believer in mercy and grace," Gipson said. "Unfortunately, the death penalty is necessary for those who commit atrocious crimes."

    Hood said his support for the bill is to remove the language that a certain protocol has to be used to carry out lethal injections.

    Since Mississippi joined the union in 1817, several forms of execution have been used. Hanging was the first, according to the Mississippi Department of Corrections. The state continued to execute prisoners by hanging until Oct. 11, 1940, when Hilton Fortenberry, convicted of capital murder in Jefferson Davis County, became the first prisoner to be executed in the electric chair. Between 1940 and Feb. 5, 1952, the old oak electric chair was moved from county to county to conduct executions. During the 12-year span, 75 prisoners were executed for offenses punishable by death.

    In 1954, the gas chamber was installed at the State Penitentiary at Parchman, according to MDOC. It replaced the electric chair, which is on display at the Mississippi Law Enforcement Training Academy. Gearald A. Gallego became the first prisoner to be executed by lethal gas on March 3, 1955. During the course of the next 34 years, 35 death row inmates were executed in the gas chamber. The 1983 execution of child-killer Jimmy Lee Gray led to protests about that method. Prison officials and witnesses watched as Gray’s head banged into a steel pole behind the chair. On June 21, 1989, Leo Edwards became the last person to be executed in the gas chamber at the penitentiary.

    On July 1, 1984, the Mississippi Legislature partially amended lethal gas as the state's form of execution. The amendment provided that individuals who committed capital punishment crimes after the effective date of the new law and who were subsequently sentenced to death would be executed by lethal injection. On March 18, 1998, the Legislature amended the manner of execution by removing the lethal gas provision as the alternate form of execution. Since 2002, 17 death row inmates have died by lethal injection.

    The last time Mississippi executed a death row inmate was 2012. Since then, a federal lawsuit over the drug protocol used in executions, combined with motions before the state Supreme Court, have left a question mark as to when the next execution might occur. Forty-seven inmates remain on death row.

    http://www.clarionledger.com/story/n...rnor/99732410/

  3. #43
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    Mississippi high court: Execution plans can be kept secret

    JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi does not have to publicly disclose details of how it carries out executions, the state's highest court ruled Thursday.

    In a 7-2 decision, the Mississippi Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit by the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center that argued the state's corrections department hadn't disclosed enough information in response to a 2014 public records request.

    A chancery judge had ordered more information disclosed, but the state appealed. Last year, while the appeal was still pending, legislators changed the law, joining states nationwide in shielding drug purchases and other execution methods from public disclosure.

    The state argues that releasing names of drug suppliers could allow death penalty opponents to terminate the supply using public pressure. States have had increasing trouble obtaining execution drugs because some pharmaceutical makers don't want their medicines used for that purpose.

    MacArthur Center lawyer Jim Craig disputes that disclosure is a threat, saying it's important to have a full accounting of where Mississippi is getting its death penalty drugs and how it plans to use them.

    "There's no threat against any of these pharmacies," Craig said Thursday. "There's no economic threat; there's no physical threat. And across the country this is just being used as a dodge to prevent people from knowing where these dollars are going."

    Presiding Supreme Court Justice Michael Randolph wrote in Thursday's decision that the judges must apply the new law to the pre-existing dispute, because lawmakers didn't carve out an exception for ongoing requests and lawsuits.

    "This court chooses to follow the law as set forth by the Legislature," Randolph wrote.

    Craig said the decision could encourage agencies to run out the clock on public record requests.

    "It's disturbing that a state agency can delay responding to a records request for public records for a period of years, while they seek to change the statute to block production of the records requested," he said.

    Associated Justice Leslie King, in his dissent, said the court's delay in deciding the case undermined Craig.

    "This court, by the dilatory manner in which it has disposed of this case, has either wittingly or unwittingly allowed its actions to be impacted by legislative actions," King wrote.

    He said the court should have allowed Craig's case to proceed as if the law hadn't changed.

    Lethal injection was previously the sole method of execution in Mississippi, but the legislature changed the law this year to include poison gas, electrocution and firing squad as backup methods if a court outlaws lethal injection. The revised law also gives the state more latitude to choose drugs for executions. Craig is pursuing other lawsuits that claim the state can't execute his clients because it no longer has access to pentobarbital, a fast-acting barbiturate. State law previously specified that a fast-acting barbiturate such as pentobarbital, meant to quickly make a prisoner unconscious, must be used in executions.

    Mississippi hasn't executed anyone since 2012, in part because of the legal challenges and the drug shortages. Although no judge has specifically barred executions, Attorney General Jim hood has not petitioned the state Supreme Court to set any execution dates.

    http://m.startribune.com/mississippi...ret/419427284/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  4. #44
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    Mississippi Justices Reject 1 Challenge to Execution Drug

    JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Supreme Court is dismissing one of the challenges pending to the state's plans for lethal injections.

    In a 6-3 decision Thursday, justices rejected a challenge by death row inmate Richard Jordan to use of a particular injection drug because lawmakers changed state law. Justices also rejected Jordan's claim that his 40 years death row make his execution cruel and unusual.

    But it's unlikely that Attorney General Jim Hood will ask justices to set an execution date for Jordan, because Jordan still has a federal lawsuit pending. It claims that the sedative midazolam won't render people unconscious, meaning prisoners could feel pain as executioners administer a second and third drug to kill them.

    Another condemned inmate, Charles Ray Crawford, is pursuing a similar challenge to midazolam in state court.

    https://www.usnews.com/news/best-sta...execution-drug
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  5. #45
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    Mississippi says it has execution drugs amid secrecy fight

    Mississippi prison officials have obtained new supplies of execution drugs, which could allow the state to carry out lethal injections after some other drugs expired, they said in court papers.

    The state provided that information Monday in an ongoing lawsuit over its execution methods. Mississippi's new execution secrecy law should block lawyers for death row inmates from finding out too much about the state's plans to administer the death penalty, the state said. Among the things the state wants is a federal judge to protect the identity of the drug supplier, as well as any clues in other documents about who that supplier might be.

    Lawyers for death row inmates, though, are asking U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate to force the state to provide more information about Department of Corrections' drug-buying effort, saying it's necessary to pursue their lawsuit challenging Mississippi's current execution method. The court showdown will determine whether the state law can trump a federal lawsuit on the subject.

    Attorney General Jim Hood told The Associated Press in June that he hopes to ask the Mississippi Supreme Court to set execution dates for Richard Jordan and Thomas Loden Jr. this year. Mississippi hasn't executed anyone since 2012, in part because of the legal challenges and the drug shortages. Both Loden and Jordan have filed fresh appeals since they lost state appeals over the use of midazolam and Jordan is also still seeking a rehearing, so it's unclear when executions can move forward.

    Plaintiffs say they need the information about drugs because under federal law, if they're going to challenge Mississippi's method of execution, they have to propose a "known, available alternative." Lawyer Jim Craig would prefer that the state use only pentobarbital, the drug Mississippi formerly used as the first drug in a three-drug sequence. Craig notes Texas, Georgia and Missouri are all still using pentobarbital in executions.

    Mississippi now plans to use the sedative midazolam, followed by a paralyzing agent and a drug that stops an inmate's heart. The use of midazolam has been repeatedly challenged nationwide because prisoners have coughed, gasped and moved for extended periods during executions. Lawyers for Jordan and others argue prisoners feel pain as drugs are administered after midazolam, violating the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

    In court papers, Mississippi officials said they stopped being able to buy pentobarbital in 2015, and couldn't find a pharmacy to make some using raw ingredients.

    So, after a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling approved Oklahoma's use of midazolam, Mississippi officials rewrote their execution procedure to use that drug. The state acquired some midazolam that year, but court papers state that it expired at the end of May. Employees of Attorney General Jim Hood and the Corrections Department then found a Mississippi pharmacy identified only as "Supplier 1" in court papers to sell new drugs to the state.

    An unnamed person testifying on behalf of the pharmacy said the business agreed to supply drugs only under conditions of secrecy, citing fears that death penalty opponents would harass the pharmacy "resulting in physical and/or financial harm" and that drugmakers whose products the pharmacy is selling to Mississippi might cut off business because they don't want their drugs used in executions.

    Craig wrote that the state has dragged its feet over 22 emails that the state is still refusing to give to the plaintiffs, said the state lied in responses to public records requests and said lawyers lied to Wingate when they said on May 31 that didn't know whether the state had obtained new supplies of execution drugs. The drugs had arrived in early May. Craig wants all the people involved in obtaining drugs identified by name.

    "Defendants have stonewalled Plaintiffs' attempts to determine exactly who, what, when, and how MDOC has attempted to secure lethal injection drugs," Craig wrote.

    http://www.clarionledger.com/story/n...ugs/573766001/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  6. #46
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Missouri appeal could delay Mississippi death penalty case

    Associated Press

    A Missouri appeal over whether lethal injection would violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment could delay a Mississippi case over similar issues.

    Lawyers for some death row inmates in Mississippi are asking a federal judge to postpone an August trial on Mississippi's death penalty procedures. They say state Attorney General Jim Hood doesn't oppose the delay.

    The U.S. Supreme Court in April agreed to review the Missouri case.

    Both it and the Mississippi case hinge on what an inmate must do to show an alternate execution method is available that would reduce the risk of needless suffering.

    If a judge agrees, no executions in Mississippi are likely until after the Missouri case is decided. Arguments are set for this fall, and a ruling might not come until 2019.

    https://www.clarionledger.com/story/...ase/793038002/

  7. #47
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    More info

    Missouri Appeal Could Delay Mississippi Death Penalty Case

    A Missouri appeal over whether lethal injection would violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment could delay a Mississippi case over similar issues.

    #
    Lawyers for some death row inmates in Mississippi are asking a federal judge to postpone an August trial on Mississippi's death penalty procedures. They say state Attorney General Jim Hood doesn't oppose the delay.

    #
    If U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate agrees, no executions in Mississippi are likely until after the Missouri case is decided. Arguments in the Missouri case are set for this fall, and a ruling might not come until 2019. Mississippi hasn't executed anyone since 2012, in part because of legal challenges to the state's lethal injection methods, as well as the state's difficulty in obtaining drugs.

    #
    The U.S. Supreme Court in April agreed to review the Missouri case, brought by an inmate named Russell Bucklew. The inmate says his rare medical condition could cause him to choke on his own blood during an execution. The court blocked Bucklew's execution in March after he argued that a tumor in his throat is likely to rupture and bleed during the administration of the drugs that would be used to kill him.

    #
    Both the Missouri and the Mississippi cases hinge on what an inmate must do to show an alternate execution method is available that would reduce risk of needless suffering. That's required to meet a previous Supreme Court ruling that says inmates challenging a method of execution must show that there's an alternative that is likely to be less painful. In the Mississippi case, inmates are arguing they should be put to death using a single large dose of a barbiturate called pentobarbital.

    #
    Mississippi prison officials have said they're not going to use pentobarbital anymore because they can't obtain the drug after manufacturers opposed to its use in executions cut off supplies. But lawyers for the Mississippi inmates argue that doesn't make any sense because Texas, Missouri and Georgia continue to execute inmates using pentobarbital that they're obtaining from somewhere.

    #
    Lawyer Jim Craig, who represents some of the inmates, said it would be a waste of time to have a trial when the Supreme Court is likely to clarify the law at issue.

    #
    Death row inmates in the Mississippi case include Richard Jordan, sentenced for kidnapping and killing a Harrison County woman in 1976; Ricky Chase, sentenced for the 1989 killing of a 70-year-old vegetable salesman in Copiah County; Thomas Loden, sentenced for the 2000 kidnapping, rape and murder of an Itawamba County waitress; Roger Thorson, sentenced for killing a former girlfriend in Harrison County in 1987; and Robert Simon, sentenced for the 1990 killings of three members of a Quitman County family.

    #
    The Missouri case is Bucklew v. Precythe , 17-8151.

    http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news...pi-death-pena/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  8. #48
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Federal Judge issues a stay in Mississippi lethal injection case

    By Liz Carroll
    WJTV

    JACKSON, Miss - U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate issued a stay in the case of a challenge by Mississippi death row inmates regarding lethal injection. Wingate released the order pending a review by the Supreme Court in the case of Bucklew v. Precythe.

    Inmates Richard Gerald Jordan and Ricky Chase argue lethal injection violates the 8th amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The case was set to go to trial August 27.

    In the order, Wingate said, "The parties, in this case, agree that this is “one of the most heavily contested issues that the Court will be required to decide.” The Court believes that it would not be an effective use of judicial resources to try this case while the question presented in Bucklew was pending."

    The stay will remain in effect until the SCOTUS judgment is rendered. The parties will have thirty days after that to respond.

    https://www.wjtv.com/news/state/fede...ase/1336562591

  9. #49
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Mississippi justices reject challenges over execution drug

    By JEFF AMY
    The Associated Press

    Mississippi's state Supreme Court on Thursday denied appeals from two death row inmates over Mississippi's plans to execute them using a sedative called midazolam.

    In a pair of 7-2 rulings Thursday, justices found that Thomas Edwin Loden Jr. and Richard Gerald Jordan hadn't presented enough scientific evidence about the drug to justify a hearing on whether inmates executed using it would feel pain.

    A state law calls for an inmate to be unconscious when executed, and the inmates say the drug isn't powerful enough to guarantee unconsciousness.

    However, a federal court challenge involving both Loden and Jordan continues, making it unlikely either will be executed soon.

    Mississippi hasn't executed anyone since 2012, amid efforts by death penalty opponents to cut off supplies of execution drugs and legal challenges to new procedures to get around the resulting shortages of older drugs.

    The use of midazolam has been repeatedly challenged nationwide because prisoners have coughed, gasped and moved for extended periods during executions.

    Mississippi plans to follow the sedative with a second drug to paralyze an inmate and third drug to stop an inmate's heart.

    Jordan has served 41 years on death row for kidnapping and killing Edwina Marta in Harrison County in 1976. Loden pleaded guilty in 2001 to kidnapping, raping and murdering Leesa Marie Gray in Itawamba County.

    The separate cases were parallel, with prisoners and the state relying on sworn statements from the same experts and judges giving similar reasons for their rulings.

    Presiding Justice Michael Randolph wrote for the majority in Loden's case , describing a sworn statement from Oklahoma State University pharmacology professor Craig W. Stevens questioning midazolam as offering so little scientific proof that it was a "sham."

    Under Mississippi law, that means justices could rule in favor of the state's arguments without ordering a lower-court judge to conduct a hearing weighing from Stevens and the state's expert.

    "Loden has not carried his burden of proof in presenting a substantial showing of the denial of a state or federal right," Randolph wrote.

    Randolph also said the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 rejection of a challenge to midazolam in an Oklahoma case "dictates the outcome in this case," saying Stevens "failed to present any new argument that was not already considered and rejected by the United States Supreme Court."

    Chief Justice William Waller Jr. used similar reasoning but more reserved language in Jordan's case , writing that midazolam is "likely to render the condemned inmate unconscious, so that the execution process should not entail a substantial risk of severe pain."

    "Jordan has failed to provide credible evidence to support the contention that midazolam does not meet the statutory requirements," Waller wrote.

    In both cases, justices Leslie King and James Kitchens dissented, arguing Stevens presented enough proof on behalf of the inmates to justify a further hearing.

    "The majority's conclusion, which is essentially that any scientist who disagrees with the majority's unscientific opinion on midazolam is a sham, is simply not supported," King wrote of Loden's case.

    Both said Mississippi's court needs to consider separately whether midazolam meets Mississippi's state law requirement that a prisoner be unconscious.

    They noted that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Oklahoma case turned on the separate legal issue of whether the use of midazolam violated the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

    Jordan and Loden are among plaintiffs in a separate federal court challenge to Mississippi's use of midazolam.

    That case has been stayed pending a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in a challenge to Missouri's lethal injection methods. The high court is scheduled to hear the case in November.

    https://www.sunherald.com/news/state...222761790.html

  10. #50
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
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    Now that Mississippi will have a republican attorney general, I hope Lynn Fitch will be as proactive as Jim Hood once was.

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