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Thread: Edmund George Zagorski - Tennessee Execution - November 1, 2018

  1. #21
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Dickson-connected death row inmate’s fate remains unclear

    By Chris Gadd
    The Nashville Tennessean

    The 35-year winding saga of Edmund Zagorski’s time on Tennessee’s death row for the convicted murder of two Dickson County men appeared to be nearing its end.

    A recent lawsuit, however, may have again delayed the execution.

    First, the state Supreme Court opinion a year ago had seemingly cleared the way for lethal injections the state attorney general said were backlogged after legal challenges for using the drugs. The court’s summarized message for death row inmates: A completely pain-free and quick death is not guaranteed.

    “The intended result of an execution is to render the inmate dead,” wrote Chief Justice Jeffrey Bivins in the opinion.

    Next, on Feb. 15, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery wrote in a court document that the state should move forward with eight sentences before June 1, when the availability of lethal injection drugs would become "uncertain." One of those death sentences is for Zagorski.

    "Years of delay between sentencing and execution undermines confidence in our criminal justice system," wrote Slatery, adding that the state, through the Department of Correction, is “required by law to carry out executions by lethal injection.” However delaying past June 1 would make the executions “uncertain due to the ongoing difficulty in obtaining the necessary lethal injection chemicals,” he wrote.

    Five days later, a lawsuit filed by lawyers representing 33 death row inmates argues that Tennessee cannot execute death row inmates using the controversial three-drug mix because doing so would violate constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment.

    The lawsuit filing could delay executions, including Zagorski’s execution.

    Murders, legal system

    Zagorski was convicted of shooting John Dotson of Hickman County and Jimmy Porter of Dickson and then slitting their throats, after robbing them in April of 1983. The victims, who at the time owned the former Eastside Tavern in Dickson, had planned to buy marijuana from Zagorski. Their bodies were found in Robertson County, which where Zagorski was tried.

    Lethal injection is the primary means of carrying out the death penalty in Tennessee, although the electric chair is also legal. The state had used pentobarbital, a barbituate, but manufacturers have largely stopped selling the drug to anyone using it for executions.

    In January, the Tennessee Department of Correction adopted a new protocol for lethal injections, relying on a three-drug mixture intended to put an offender to sleep before stopping the lungs and heart.

    Tennessee corrections officials knew this could be a problem, according to documents obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee that are also cited in the lawsuit.

    In September, a supplier noted potential problems with midazolam in an email to Tennessee prison officials.

    "Here is my concern with midazolam...it does not elicit strong analgesic effects. The subjects may be able to feel pain from the administration of the second and third drugs. Potassium chloride especially," wrote the supplier in an email.

    In January, the Supreme Court and Tennessee Department of Correction confirmed three execution dates had been set for 2018.

    The last time Tennessee executed at least eight people in a single year was 1939, according to Department of Correction records. The last execution in Tennessee was 2009.

    Two of the inmates have additional avenues for appeal, while the third — a Knox County man who has spent more than three decades on death row — has fewer remaining paths to avert execution this year.

    That man — Billy Ray Irick, a 59-year-old convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl — is set to be executed Aug. 9.

    Other inmates referenced in Slatery's court request Thursday are:

    Donnie Johnson, Shelby County: Convicted in 1985 of killing his wife.

    Stephen Michael West, Union County: Convicted in 1987 of kidnapping, rape and murder.

    Leroy Hall, Hamilton County: Convicted in 1992 of murder and aggravated arson.

    Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman, Davidson County: Convicted in 1987 of murder.

    Charles Walton Wright, Davidson County: Convicted in 1985 of two murders.

    Nicholas Todd Sutton, Morgan County: Convicted in 1986 of murder.

    David Earl Miller, Knox County: Convicted in 1982 of murder.

    https://www.tennessean.com/story/new...ear/382525002/
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  2. #22
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Tennessee Supreme Court denies AG's request for 8 executions by June 1

    By Dave Boucher
    The Nashville Tennessean

    The state's high court denied a request from the Tennessee attorney general to schedule eight executions before June 1, when the state's top lawyer believes the availability of lethal injection drugs would become "uncertain."

    But the Tennessee Supreme Court did set two execution dates later this year for death row inmates.

    The decision calls into question whether the state has the capacity to actually carry out those executions, what would be the first for Tennessee since 2007.

    Representatives for the attorney general and Tennessee Department of Correction did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The two men with new executions scheduled are Edmund Zagorski and David Earl Miller.

    Zagorski, of Robertson County, was sentenced to death in 1984 for murdering two men. Miller, of Knox County, was convicted of the 1981 murder of a mentally disabled young woman, according to the Supreme Court.

    Zagorski is set to die Oct. 11, and Miller's execution is scheduled for Dec. 6.

    The court's order did not give a rationale for why it did not approve the attorney general's request. It did approve requests from attorneys representing the eight men to file additional briefs with the court.

    Earlier this year, Attorney General Herbert Slatery asked the court to set eight executions by June 1 due to the availability of execution drugs.

    "Years of delay between sentencing and execution undermines confidence in our criminal justice system," Slatery wrote in a court document filed in February.

    Zagorski, Miller and the six other inmates are all included in a legal challenge of the state's lethal injection procedure. The legal challenge says the state's proposed three-drug protocol amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, pointing to botched executions in other states where it was used.

    In January, the Department of Correction confirmed executions for three other men have been set. Two of the men still have appeals. But Billy Ray Irick, a 59-year-old Knox County man convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl, has exhausted his state and federal appeals, according to a Supreme Court spokeswoman.

    His execution is scheduled for Aug. 9.

    There are currently 60 people on death row. The 59 men are housed at Riverbend Maximum Security Institute in Nashville. The only woman, Christa Pike, is housed at the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville.

    https://www.tennessean.com/story/new...e-1/430006002/

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    Tennessee executions: Haslam weighs new clemency request as AG battles death row offenders' appeal

    By David Boucher and Adam Tamburin
    The Nashville Tennessean

    As Gov. Bill Haslam considers a request for mercy from a man facing an Oct. 11 execution, state attorneys are blasting legal maneuvers by condemned offenders looking to delay or prevent their own deaths.

    Edmund Zagorski, 63, was convicted in 1984 of shooting two men in Roberston County, slitting their throats and stealing their money.

    Haslam recently said he's reviewing a clemency petition from Zagorski, the second such request from a death row inmate considered by the governor this year.

    “We have the case before us now,” Haslam said. “We’re reviewing that just like we did with Billy Ray Irick.”

    Irick was executed Aur. 9, after Haslam and a bevy of courts declined to stop his death by lethal injection. Before he died, Irick — convicted of the rape and murder of 7-year-old Paula Dyer in 1985 - joined 32 other inmates in a lawsuit alleging the state's use of toxic chemicals to kill the condemned amounts to unconstitutional torture.

    A Davidson County court found death row offenders may feel pain during the execution process, but that pain doesn't necessarily rise to the level of violating the Constitution. While the Tennessee and U.S. supreme courts declined to stop Irick's execution, the remaining death row inmates are appealing the Davidson County court's decision.

    Attorneys for the inmates filed a lengthy motion last week. In the filing, they asked the Court of Appeals to consider testimony from a doctor who said Irick was tortured to death, based on a review of statements from witnesses at his execution. They said the evidence bolstered an argument from the trial: that the three drugs used in a lethal injection inflict pain similar to drowning and being set on fire.

    Lawyers for the Tennessee attorney general said none of that information should be considered by the appellate court.

    The death row offenders are not allowed to simply retry the same case before the appeals court, the state said in a response brief filed Wednesday. And the court should not consider information not presented at the original trial from a "medical opinion offered by an un-cross-examined expert, which opinion is based entirely on hearsay and media accounts," the filing states.

    "By filing the motion after having improperly included non-record material in the brief, they seem to be operating not under the rules, but under the old saw: don’t ask permission in advance, just ask forgiveness afterward," the state argued in the filing.

    Dwight Aarons, a law professor at the University of Tennessee who studies death penalty cases, said the new information from Irick's execution presents "an interesting procedural conundrum because typically you have to have this stuff done at the trial level first."

    Tennessee rules allow new information at the appellate level under limited circumstances. One requirement is that the information can be easily proven.

    The inmates say the information from Irick's execution can be readily proven, while the state argues that the information — that Irick was tortured — is unreliable and debatable.

    After reviewing the documents, Aarons said the state seemed to have the stronger argument.

    'Rocket docket' speeding up appellate process


    The appellate schedule is substantially condensed; state Supreme Court Justice Sharon Lee has called it a "rocket docket" that jeopardizes the inmates' chances for a fair trial.

    Noting they are on the same schedule, attorneys for the state say they should not be forced to respond to every issue included in the 360-page filing by the death row offenders.

    The Tennessee Supreme Court is set to consider the legal fight over lethal injections during oral arguments on Oct. 3.

    https://www.tennessean.com/story/new...ow/1281622002/
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  6. #26
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Federal judge denies Tennessee death row inmate's effort to block lethal injection

    By Adam Tamburin
    The Nashville Tennessean

    A judge this week denied a death row inmate's efforts to block his Oct. 11 execution by reviving a federal lawsuit. The move brings added urgency to a separate lethal injection challenge pending with the Tennessee Supreme Court Edmund Zagorski's federal suit had argued he got faulty legal representation after his 1984 conviction for shooting two men in Robertson County, slitting their throats and then taking their money. His attorneys said a 2012 opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court gave him new grounds to challenge his death penalty sentence.

    But U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger roundly rejected the argument, writing Wednesday that Zagorski's "claims are neither 'winning' nor 'substantial.'"

    Trauger's decision further limits Zagorski's available avenues to avoid his impending execution. But his legal team is holding out hope that one of two remaining options will be effective.

    Zagorski, 63, is part of a class-action suit challenging Tennessee's lethal injection protocol as unconstitutional. Lawyers in that case said the three-drug cocktail used in lethal injections fails to dull pain and subjects inmates to impermissible torture before they die.

    The trial court disagreed, but the case is set to come before the state's high court Oct. 3, after an unusually fast-paced appellate process that Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Sharon Lee described as a "rocket docket."

    Lawyers representing Zagorski and 31 other death row inmates in that case are fighting to bring new evidence to the Tennessee Supreme Court: Details about the Aug. 9 execution of Billy Ray Irick, who was convicted of raping and killing 7-year-old Paula Dyer.

    That evidence suggests Irick was tortured during his execution with the three-drug protocol, the inmates' attorneys say. The inmates say the pain was so intense it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, which is banned by the U.S. Constitution.

    New evidence isn't typically allowed on an appeal, a point the state made in a blistering court filing this week, but the inmates' attorneys say the stakes are high enough and unique enough in this case that this new information merits consideration.

    Gov. Bill Haslam also is mulling a clemency request from Zagorski. Haslam denied a similar request for mercy from Irick in August, allowing his execution to move forward.

    https://www.tennessean.com/story/new...it/1292573002/

  7. #27
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Tennessee inmate convicted in 1983 double murder fights for his life as Oct. 11 execution nears

    By Dave Boucher
    The Nashville Tennessean

    It's unclear how much Jimmy Porter and John Dale Dotson knew about the man who wanted to sell them 100 pounds of marijuana in 1983.

    The man, Edmund Zagorski, had told some he was a mercenary who arrived in the area after parachuting out of a plane. He said he had connections in Central America and was experienced in jungle warfare.

    It was the prospect of at least $25,000 worth of pot that pushed the men to meet him April 23, 1983, at Porter's bar, Eastside Tavern, in Dickson. Porter, 35, and Dotson, 28, arrived in Porter's newly purchased red Datsun truck. Dotson had a change of clothes, a backpack and a revolver.

    They planned to follow the 28-year-old Zagorski into the woods in Hickman County to retrieve the marijuana.

    Dotson's wife, Marsha, told jurors during a 1984 trial that her husband was at least somewhat hesitant: Before leaving, John Dotson told his wife to call a friend if he did not return home that evening.

    He did not.

    Zagorski was later charged and convicted of murdering the two men.

    After 34 years in prison — the second-longest current stint for a death row inmate — Zagorski, now 63, may be living his last days.

    Barring a last-minute reprieve from Gov. Bill Haslam or a state or federal court, Tennessee is scheduled to execute him on Oct. 11.

    Zagorski has asked the governor for clemency and is a member of a long-shot lawsuit challenging Tennessee's lethal injection method.

    Those options were not enough to stop the Aug. 9 execution of Billy Ray Irick, the first lethal injection carried out in Tennessee in nearly a decade.

    Robert Hutton, one of Zagorski's attorneys, declined to discuss the details of his client's clemency petition. He did say Zagorski has "extraordinarily rehabilitated himself," adding he hasn't received a write-up — a form of punishment — during his entire time in prison.

    Although Zagorski has been scheduled to die before, courts have intervened to delay his death. But this time, neither his plea to the governor, legal filings stating police coerced some of Zagorski's statements nor experts' opinions that Tennessee's lethal injection protocol will torture Zagorski to death are likely to prevent his execution.

    Meeting in rural Hickman County

    Porter and Dotson drove to the bar to meet Zagorski, also known to some as Jesse Lee Hardin. That's the name he'd given Marsha Dotson, according to a review of Tennessean archives.

    He'd also told Dotson's wife he was a mercenary who'd parachuted into Hickman County earlier that month, jumping out of a plane headed from Memphis to Nashville.

    The man said he was very familiar with military tactics. He'd discussed time spent in Belize and El Salvador training men in jungle warfare. During his time abroad, he said, he'd made connections necessary to have marijuana delivered to him whenever he wanted it.

    Despite any misgivings, the men followed Zagorski into the woods. Police and prosecutors say Zagorski's statements were part of a ruse to lure the two men to a secluded area, and rob and murder them.

    He shot them, slit their throats, took the money and truck, and fled to Ohio, prosecutors say.

    Confronted by Ohio police in late May 1983, Zagorski engaged in a shootout. He shot and injured several officers before he was shot and arrested.

    Reasons for appeals

    In a West Virginia hospital the day after his shootout with police, Zagorski told law enforcement he didn't want to answer any questions until he spoke to a lawyer.

    Police ignored him, questioning Zagorski that day and at least two other times that summer after subjecting him to torturous living conditions, writes federal public defender Kelley Henry in a legal filing earlier this year.

    After being returned to Robertson County in June 1983, he was placed in solitary confinement in the jail.

    "The jail was like a dungeon. There was no natural light. There was no airconditioning, no air circulation, and the meager ventilation system rarely worked," she wrote in the legal filing.

    Zagorski spent five months in solitary confinement, during which, Henry writes, the area experienced a brutal heat wave.

    His physical and mental health plummeted: Henry says Zagorski lost 30 pounds and repeatedly tried to kill himself.

    Zagorski had other inmates smuggle pills to him through a small hole in his cell wall in September, when he overdosed, Tennessean archives show.

    That same month, Zagorski also was briefly hospitalized after he was electrocuted by touching a frayed extension cord. Tennessean archives show police considered the incident an accident, but Henry's filing says this was also a suicide attempt.

    "There is little question that Ed Zagorski's statements (and his waiver of the right to counsel) were involuntary. He was kept in solitary confinement for weeks on end, driven to mental illness and multiple attempts of suicide, and tortured by being cooked in a 110-120 degree metal box," Henry wrote in the filing.

    "There is no meaningful dispute that he was both physically and mentally coerced into talking to the authorities. He was both physically and mentally 'injured' by the shocking, barbarous treatment inflicted upon him by authorities."

    The Tennessee Supreme Court still set an execution date for Zagorski.

    After his trial but before his sentencing, Tennessean archives show Zagorski reportedly told his attorneys not to argue against the death penalty. After he was sentenced to death, though, Zagorski argued his attorneys did not do a good enough job representing him.

    Courts have denied all his requests for relief, where arguments about coerced statements and ineffective counsel have been made before.

    In her filing, Henry also argues Zagorski's punishment is arbitrary. As first reported in the Nashville Scene, she notes a recent review published in the Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy shows the vast majority of people convicted of first-degree murder are not sentenced to death.

    "Given that Tennessee is imposing death sentences on only 3.4 percent of first degree murderers, and only 10 percent of murderers with more than one victim; and given that the state so far has executed only one out of 400 of those convicted, how is our system selecting the very few from the very many for imposing the ultimate penalty?" Henry writes.

    Zagorski's clemency petition focuses on his record as a model inmate and the fact that at the time of his sentencing, Tennessee juries did not have the option of sentencing someone to life without the possibility of parole.

    Haslam spokeswoman Jennifer Donnals said Monday the governor is still reviewing the petition and there is no timeline as to when he might make a decision.

    Lethal injection protocol

    Zagorski also is one of 32 death row offenders suing the state over its lethal injection method.

    A Davidson County court rejected the inmates' legal arguments, and no other court ruled in the inmates' favor before Irick's Aug. 9 execution.

    But the Tennessee Court of Appeals is scheduled to review the lawsuit next month. After Irick's execution, an expert for the death row offenders said media witness testimony showed Irick was tortured to death when the state injected him with three toxic chemicals.

    Attorneys for the death row offenders and the state have noted the case is on an expedited timeline.

    State Supreme Court Justice Sharon Lee has repeatedly blasted that schedule created by her colleagues on the high court.

    Calling the schedule a "rocket docket," Lee has questioned whether the timing prevents the inmates from receiving a fair appeal.

    Court arguments are scheduled for Oct. 3.

    There is one more execution scheduled in Tennessee in 2018. David Earl Miller, convicted in 1982 of murdering a mentally disabled young woman in Knox County, is slated to die Dec. 6.

    https://www.tennessean.com/story/new...11/1408899002/

  8. #28
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Tennessee Supreme Court considers lethal injection challenge 8 days before execution

    Eight days before Tennessee is scheduled to execute another death row inmate, the state's high court met to determine if the lethal injection officials will use to kill him will illegally torture him to death.

    That man, Edmund Zagorski, is one of 32 death row inmates who have sued to block a new cocktail of lethal injection drugs.

    A trial court rejected the challenge in July, and the Tennessee Supreme Court moved quickly to hear the appeal. During oral arguments Wednesday, the justices focused on the legal requirement that the inmates show a viable alternative to the execution method they challenged.

    Attorneys for the inmates argued the state's past acceptance of pentobarbital, and the usage of that drug in other states, showed that at least one alternative was available. They also claimed the state blocked their attempts to question Department of Correction officials who could discuss details about the availability of alternatives.

    The state pushed back forcefully, saying officials did not need to show what drugs were available or unavailable. That burden, they said, rests with the inmates.

    Justices Sharon Lee and Cordelia A. Clark, both Democratic appointees, seemed more receptive of the inmates' arguments and pressed the state with more probing questions.

    Lee pressed the state to explain why Tennessee could not get pentobarbital. She pointed out that Georgia and Texas have executed inmates in 2018 using pentobarbital.

    "Did the commissioner explain why Texas and Georgia are much more competent than Tennessee at getting pentobarbital?" Lee asked, referring to the head of the Department of Correction.

    Jennifer Smith, who represented the state, said Tennessee officials made a "diligent effort" to get the alternative. She did not give a firm reason why Tennessee could not get the alternative drug — although she said there was no evidence death penalty opponents had interfered with the state's efforts to get the drug.

    But, Smith said, the state did not need to explain why it could not get pentobarbital. Instead, she said, it was the inmates who needed to prove that it was available to officials here.

    "The state bears no burden at all in this case," Smith said.

    Based on their questions, Chief Justice Jeffry S. Bivins and justices Holly Kirby and Roger Page — all Republican appointees — agreed the burden was on the inmates.

    Kirby was especially pointed in her questions to Kelley Henry, the federal public defender who represented the inmates.

    "Isn't the burden on you to present affirmative proof that says, state of Tennessee, you can get pentobarbital right now? Here is where you get it," Kirby asked.

    Henry pointed to evidence that suggested the state might have access to some pentobarbital. But she said the state had put up "procedural roadblocks" that kept the inmates from getting more details.

    Arguments came before Oct. 11 execution date

    Their questions took on added urgency Wednesday — the court could decide the case before Zagorski's Oct. 11 execution date.

    A favorable ruling from the high court could delay his execution, although it seems unlikely.

    After a trial court rejected the challenge, the Tennessee Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on a fast-tracked timeline that was so unusually quick Lee blasted it as a "rocket docket."

    And an August opinion from Tennessee Supreme Court signaled a majority of the justices did not find the challenge persuasive. They rejected a request to stop Billy Ray Irick's Aug. 9 execution while the challenge was pending, saying the inmates were not likely to win on appeal.

    Lee disagreed, and issued a scathing dissent. But the rest of the five-member court sided together.

    The case is not about whether the death penalty is constitutional. Rather, it asks if the current cocktail of drugs used in Tennessee violates the law.

    The inmates' attorneys have presented expert witnesses who said the mixture of drugs do nothing to dull intense pain during an execution. The pain is so severe, they said, that it likely violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment.

    Lawyers for the inmates have cited several examples of similar lethal injections that tortured inmates, including Irick, who was once the 33rd plaintiff in the suit.

    The inmates have also questioned the use of midazolam, the first of the three drugs the state administers during executions.

    Midazolam is supposed to render inmates unconscious and unable to feel pain, but a slew of experts provided by the inmates said it doesn’t work as intended. The experts said midazolam sedates inmates but does not stop them from feeling the effects of the other two drugs, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

    Those drugs lead to torturous pain, they argue — like burning from the inside and being buried alive. Pain that they said Irick suffered while he died.

    But the U.S. Supreme Court has held that inmates must present a viable alternative in order to challenge an execution method. That prong of the case dominated debate before Tennessee's Supreme Court, although Henry repeatedly said inmates would experience excruciating pain under a midazolam protocol.

    "The science shows with certainty that midazolam does not protect from the other two drugs," she said, later adding, "If the Eighth Amendment means anything, then the court rules with the plaintiffs in this matter."

    Three Tennessee inmates could be executed in 2018

    The legal challenge is fueled by the state's decision to start scheduling executions again in 2018, nine years after the last execution in Tennessee.

    Irick's execution was carried out in August, with Zagorski's scheduled this month. Another death row inmate, David Earl Miller, has a Dec. 11 execution date.

    Zagorski, 63, has been on death row since his conviction in 1984. A jury found him guilty of robbing and shooting John Dotson, of Hickman County, and Jimmy Porter, of Dickson, in April 1983 before slitting their throats, according to Tennessean archives.

    https://amp.tennessean.com/amp/1503780002
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    "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

  9. #29
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    Ahead of execution date, Gov. Bill Haslam still weighing clemency for death row inmate Edmund Zagorski

    By Holly Meyer and Adam Tamburin
    The Nashville Tennessean

    Gov. Bill Haslam is still weighing whether to grant clemency to death row inmate Edmund Zagorski who is scheduled to die Thursday.

    Zagorski, who was sentenced to death for the April 1983 killings of two Middle Tennessee men, has asked the governor to spare him by commuting his sentence to life without parole.

    "We'll try to not make a last-minute decision so everybody can know at least where we stand," Haslam said.

    A jury found Zagorski, now 63, guilty of murdering John Dale Dotson, 28, a Hickman County logger, and Jimmy Porter, 35, a Dickson tavern owner. The two men had expected to buy 100 pounds of marijuana from Zagorski. Instead, prosecutors say Zagorski shot them, slit their throats and stole their money and a truck.

    Zagorski has spent 34 years in prison — the second-longest stint of any inmate currently on death row. Barring a last-minute reprieve from Haslam or the courts, his death sentence is scheduled to be carried out at 7 p.m. at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

    Before Haslam makes a decision, his administration is doing research and trying to talk to as many people connected to the case as they can, including the victims' family members.

    "Our job is to see, did the process happen the way it was supposed to happen all along the way," he told reporters Oct. 2 after an event in Williamson County.

    Two days later, Haslam said he was still weighing clemency for Zagorski.

    How Haslam handled the August execution

    Haslam said he is approaching Zagorski's clemency petition as he did Billy Ray Irick's request for reprieve. Irick was convicted in 1986 of the rape and murder of 7-year-old Paula Dyer. The governor chose not to stop Irick's execution, which the state carried out on Aug. 9. Irick was the first inmate Tennessee put to death in nearly a decade.

    At the time, Haslam said he did not want to be the 13th juror and that capitol punishment is state law and took an oath to uphold the law.

    Attorney thinks Zagorski has a strong case for clemency

    Robert Hutton, Zagorski's attorney, thinks his client has a strong case for Haslam to convert his death sentence to a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

    Hutton underlined that point in an Oct. 4 interview, but declined to comment further out of respect for Haslam, and referred the USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee to Zagorski's petition for clemency.

    In the petition, Hutton argues Zagorski's sentence should be commuted for two key reasons. The first is that the jury did not have the option to sentence him to life without parole because their only options in the 1986 trial were death or the life with the possibility of parole. The second reason is Zaroski's "exemplary" behavior during his prison term.

    In 1986 trial, life without parole not an option

    "Today all states that have the death penalty provide jurors with the sentencing option of LWOP (life without parole), recognizing this option as necessary to ensure a just jury verdict," Hutton writes. "Ed's jury was not given that choice, as Tennessee did not change its law to require an instruction on LWOP until years after Ed's trial."

    Of the seven jurors they spoke with, six agreed life without parole was an appropriate sentence for Zagorski, the clemency request stated. Today, a death sentence would not be given if just one juror wanted life without parole.

    "Executive clemency serves as critical safety valve to provide an avenue of relief when the judicial system fails to render a just verdict in a particular case," Hutton writes. "The legal system failed here because Ed's jury was denied the opportunity to sentence him to life without parole."

    Attorney calls Zagorski a 'rehabilitated man'

    Hutton wrote that Zagorski has never received a single disciplinary infraction, and throughout the request for clemency, testimonies from officers and volunteers detail his trustworthy, hardworking, respectful and peacekeeping demeanor.

    "His extraordinary rehabilitation demonstrates that if you commute Ed's sentence, he will continue to make the prison community a safer place for both officers and inmates," Hutton writes.

    District attorney urges Haslam not to grant clemency

    The district attorney who prosecuted Zagorski’s case sent his own letter to Haslam urging the governor to leave the death penalty in place. In it, District Attorney Gen. Lawrence Ray Whitley argues that granting clemency because life without parole was not an option in the Zagorski case makes way for other cases to be commuted, too.

    He also writes that he is glad Zagorski behaves well in prison, but that is how inmates are expected to act and that does not have any bearing on the legal process that put him there.

    "There is no issue of guilt, no question of mental competence and no issue of inadequate legal representation of Mr. Zagorski, all of which could be of concern in some petitions of clemency, but they do not exist in this instance," Whitley writes.

    The courts could stop execution

    The Tennessee Supreme Court also could offer Zagorski a last-minute reprieve. The high court is considering a challenge to the lethal injection protocol that would be used to kill him.

    Attorneys for Zagorski and other death row inmates argue the drugs result in torturous pain that violates the U.S. Constitution. A trial court rejected that argument in July but the Supreme Court took it up on appeal Oct. 3. If the justices side with the inmates before Thursday, Zagorski’s execution could be delayed.

    https://eu.tennessean.com/story/news...am/1513602002/
    In the Shadow of Your Wings
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  10. #30
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    Gov. Haslam said he won't intervene in Zagorski death penalty case

    WVLT 8 News

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- Governor Bill Haslam said he won't intervene in the death penalty case of Edmund Zagorski.

    Zagorski is set to be put to death next week.

    News Channel 5 in Nashville is reporting that while Zagorski is among 33 inmates on death row in Tennessee who are challenging the state's planned use of a three-drug lethal injection protocol to carry out death sentences.

    “While Zagorski has exhibited good behavior during his incarceration, that does not undo the fact that he robbed and brutally murdered two men and attempted to kill a police officer while on the run,” Haslam said.

    Zagorski was convicted in 1983 of the murders of two men, John Dotson and Jimmy Porter, during a bogus drug deal in Robertson County. He shot the two men then slit their throats.

    Zagorski was later arrested in Ohio after a shootout with police where he shot an officer five times and then rammed his police car.

    A jury gave Zagorski two life sentences and found the murders involved "torture and depravity of mind."

    Court records show that before Zagorski's trial, he told his attorneys he preferred the death penalty over life in prison, and asked his attorneys to not show evidence during sentencing that would encourage a life sentence over the death penalty.

    Read Haslam's full statement below.

    “After careful consideration, I am declining to intervene in the case of Edmund Zagorski, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1984 by a Robertson County jury for the murders of John Dale Dotson and Jimmy Porter. Zagorski requests clemency based upon his behavior while incarcerated and juror affidavits obtained nearly 35 years after the trial stating that some jurors would have preferred to impose a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, which was not an option under Tennessee law at the time.

    While Zagorski has exhibited good behavior during his incarceration, that does not undo the fact that he robbed and brutally murdered two men and attempted to kill a police officer while on the run. Further, while juries today have the option of imposing a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in capital cases, the jury in Zagorski’s case heard the evidence at trial and rendered a unanimous verdict in accordance with the law at the time and their duty as jurors.


    Ten courts, including the Tennessee Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the United States, have reviewed and upheld the jury’s verdict and sentence, and the Tennessee Supreme Court has held that the addition of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole as a sentencing option does not affect previous verdicts.”


    https://www.wvlt.tv/content/news/Gov...495294681.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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