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Thread: Gerald Ross Pizzuto, Jr. - Idaho Death Row

  1. #131
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    This is an administrative date.

    Idaho seeks to execute longtime death row inmate Gerald Pizzuto, again. What we know

    By KEVIN FIXLER
    The Idaho Statesman

    For the third time in two years, Idaho has issued a death warrant for inmate Gerald Pizzuto, seeking to execute him next month.

    Attorney General Raúl Labrador announced the latest attempt to execute Pizzuto, a convicted murderer, on Friday morning, seeking a conclusion to his conviction from 36 years ago.

    Labrador, a former Idaho Republican congressman, has been in the new role just eight weeks. Pizzuto’s execution is scheduled for March 23.

    “Idaho law is clear; those who commit the most egregious crimes deserve the ultimate punishment,” Labrador said in a statement. “Pizzuto was sentenced to death. We followed the law and obtained a new death warrant.”

    Idaho most recently pursued Pizzuto’s death by lethal injection in November. But the state prison system proved unable to obtain the lethal injection drugs needed to fulfill his death sentence, indefinitely postponing his scheduled Dec. 15 execution.

    Labrador said the Idaho Department of Correction, which is tasked with executing Pizzuto, is now in the process of trying to find the lethal injection drugs it failed to obtain just three months ago. A spokesperson for the state prison system did not immediately return an Idaho Statesman request for comment.

    It is unclear what, if anything, has changed in that procurement process since the last time the state tried to execute Pizzuto. It’s now the state’s fifth attempt to do so since his 1986 conviction for the murder of two people at a cabin north of McCall. State prisons director Josh Tewalt told the agency’s board in December they have remained unable to acquire the drugs to execute an inmate.

    “While our efforts to secure chemicals remain ongoing, I have no reason to believe our status will change prior to the scheduled execution,” Tewalt wrote in the memo at that time. “In my professional judgment, I believe it is in the best interest of justice to allow the death warrant to expire and stand down our execution preparation.”

    Bill would let firing squad execute inmates

    State Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, a former Ada County deputy prosecutor, introduced on Wednesday a bill that would restore use of a firing squad as a backup method of execution. The attorney general’s office helped author the bill, spokesperson Emily Kleinworth told the Statesman on Thursday, and Labrador was “personally involved,” she said.

    Labrador emphasized his hope that Idaho lawmakers would pass House Bill 186, which has yet to receive a hearing date in the House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee, which Skaug chairs. If the firing squad bill advances with a majority from that 18-member committee, it would move on to the House floor for an initial vote.

    “We hope the Legislature will also consider giving the state an alternative method of execution,” Labrador said in the statement.

    Gov. Brad Little would entertain signing the bill, if passed by the Legislature, a spokesperson for the Republican governor, told the Statesman on Thursday.

    “Gov. Little supports capital punishment and will continue to support policies adopted by the Legislature that enable the state of Idaho to successfully and constitutionally carry out the death penalty,” Madison Hardy, Little’s spokesperson, said by email.

    The Statesman also has reached out for comment from the nonprofit Federal Defender Services of Idaho, which represents Pizzuto.

    https://www.aol.com/boise-state-sign...181640064.html
    "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

  2. #132
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mastro Titta's Avatar
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    Just two questions:

    1) Is the State of Idaho legally required to ask for a death warrant every two months if an inmate has exhausted his appeals? If yes, where is it written? If not, why this? Does this mean they're close to get the drugs?

    2) Idaho has a secrecy law currently in place. So, what's the holdup? Where all this trouble getting the drugs stems from?

  3. #133
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Execution of Pizzuto postponed again by judge's ruling

    By Kevin Fixler
    The Idaho Statesman

    A federal judge late Thursday put off the scheduled lethal injection of Idaho death row inmate Gerald Pizzuto later this month, once again preventing the state’s first execution in nearly 11 years.

    U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled that not enough time was available for him to review at least one of the filings in his court before Pizzuto’s planned March 23 execution. In a three-page stay of execution, he ordered the halt of all state preparations and court actions related to the execution until he has time to “fully consider and adjudicate” the case.

    Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, who took office in January, obtained Pizzuto’s latest death warrant last month. The state allowed a prior death warrant for Pizzuto to expire in December when prison officials were unable to obtain lethal injection drugs.

    At Winmill’s request, the state acknowledged in a separate legal filing on Tuesday — just over two weeks before the execution date — that officials still did not have the drugs required under state law to carry it out. Lethal injection drugs have become more difficult to locate, as pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies began refusing to sell the chemicals to prison systems for executions across the U.S.

    IDOC ‘working hard’ to obtain lethal drugs

    Pizzuto, 66, was convicted of the 1985 murders of Berta Herndon and her nephew Del Herndon at a remote cabin north of McCall in Idaho County. He has been on Idaho death row for nearly 37 years.

    Pizzuto is terminally ill with late-stage bladder cancer, among several serious health issues. He has been under hospice care for more than three years.

    The most recent death warrant represented the third attempt in the past two years to execute Pizzuto — and the fifth time overall since his 1986 conviction and death sentence. Pizzuto’s attorneys with the nonprofit Federal Defender Services of Idaho filed a separate legal complaint that repeatedly scheduling their client’s execution represented cruel and unusual punishment, violating Pizzuto’s constitutional rights.

    The Idaho Statesman has requested comment from Pizzuto’s attorneys and the attorney general’s office in response to Thursday’s stay of execution.

    “Idaho law is clear: Those who commit the most egregious crimes deserve the ultimate punishment,” Labrador said in a Feb. 24 statement announcing Pizzuto’s death warrant. “Pizzuto was sentenced to death. We followed the law and obtained a new death warrant.

    “We understand IDOC is working hard to acquire the chemicals necessary to fulfill this death warrant,” he added.

    Labrador also helped draft a bill this legislative session that aims to add a firing squad as a backup method of execution when lethal injection drugs are unavailable. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, passed the House and awaits a Senate committee hearing as early as next week.

    In neither Pizzuto’s recent death warrant nor the firing squad bill did the attorney general’s office inform the Idaho Department of Correction about the efforts, as the Statesman previously reported. IDOC is tasked with carrying out executions.

    Winmill provided three weeks for the state or Pizzuto’s attorneys to respond to his order that granted the stay of execution if they disagree with his ruling.

    https://www.lmtribune.com/execution-...7b3fe6907.html
    "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

  4. #134
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Judge permits lawsuit claiming cruel, unusual punishment toward Idaho death row inmate

    By RUTH BROWN
    kpvi.com

    Idaho U.S. Federal District Judge B. Lynn Winmill is allowing a potential lawsuit to move forward over a claim of cruel and unusual punishment.

    Gerald Pizzuto Jr., 65, has been on death row for more than 35 years for the 1985 murders of Delbert and Berta Herndon. Sought by the attorney general’s office, judges have issued death warrants for Pizzuto, with the most recent being issued in May of 2021, November of 2022, and February of 2023.

    The federal court stayed Pizzuto’s last execution, stemming from the February death warrant.

    On Feb. 24, Pizzuto filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Raúl Labrador and the Idaho Department of Correction, claiming the defendants had violated his Eighth Amendment and 14th Amendment rights.

    On Tuesday, Winmill sided with Pizzuto on the potential for an Eighth Amendment right violation, which allows the case to move forward. The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments. The 14th Amendment prohibits the state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process.

    Pizzuto’s complaint argued that the U.S. Supreme Court has previously described punishments to be unconstitutionally cruel “when they involve torture or a lingering death.”

    “The setting of multiple execution dates, without the ability to actually carry out the intended execution, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment,” Pizzuto’s counsel wrote in February. “What Defendants did and are doing to Mr. Pizzuto does not fall within this society’s standards for a constitutional execution. The setting of multiple execution dates has been psychologically traumatizing to Mr. Pizzuto.”

    On Tuesday, Winmill agreed that Pizzuto could move forward with the claim that his Eighth Amendment right may have been violated, but denied Pizzuto’s claim that his 14th Amendment right was violated.

    “As Pizzuto describes it, Defendants’ repeated rescheduling of his execution is like dry firing in a mock execution or a game of Russian roulette,” Winmill wrote. “With each new death warrant comes another spin of the revolver’s cylinder, restarting the thirty-day countdown until the trigger pulls. Not knowing whether a round is chambered, Pizzuto must re-live his last days in a delirium of uncertainty until the click sounds the cylinder spins again. Defendants’ alleged practice of keeping Pizzuto in a state of perpetual terror by scheduling and re-scheduling his execution, despite knowing that the lethal injection almost certainly will not be performed, plausibly constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.”

    Winmill’s decision only means the court found that the violation is plausible, not that it is proven. That means Pizzuto may seek further litigation.

    The attorney general obtained Pizzuto’s most recent death warrant in February, during the legislative session. That warrant came just two days after legislators introduced a bill that would allow Idaho to bring back the firing squad as a legal form of execution if lethal injection chemicals are not available.

    Ultimately, lawmakers passed that legislation, along with an appropriation to build a facility to accommodate a firing squad.

    That 2023 death warrant came after the Idaho Department of Correction had to cancel a previously scheduled execution in 2022 because it could not obtain the needed chemicals. At the time, the only legal form of execution was lethal injection.

    https://www.kpvi.com/news/regional_n...9f13c0b03.html
    "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

  5. #135
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Laughable. Try that in a real death penalty state.
    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. #136
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    What Ohio?

    If this gets through the Circuit Court which is the Ninth, which it will. Then Ohio's whole system will go up in flames on the years of appeals this will generate.
    "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

  7. #137
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Steven AB's Avatar
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    No Ohio is in the Sixth Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court can overturn any federal lower court stay, even if the litigation is ongoing, on the ground that the lawsuit doesn't have a likelihood of success on the merits, and after the execution the case is moot. Scotus already did so many previous times, including many recent times.

    It is mistaken to focus on an obstruction attempt that is not the decisive one. The problem in Idaho is not this bogus lawsuit, but the correction director wrongly claiming inability to enforce either lethal injection or firing squad. Compel him to apply the law, or replace him. In Ohio, the only real problem is the governor, but he is not life-tenured or he can change his mind.
    Last edited by Steven AB; 08-06-2023 at 10:02 AM.
    "If ever there were a case for a referendum, this is one on which the people should be allowed to express their own views and not irresponsible votes in the House of Commons." — Winston Churchill, on the death penalty

    The self-styled "Death Penalty Information Center" is financed by the oligarchic European Union. — The Daily Signal

  8. #138
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mastro Titta's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steven AB View Post
    The problem in Idaho is not this bogus lawsuit, but the correction director wrongly claiming inability to enforce either lethal injection or firing squad. Compel him to apply the law, or replace him. In Ohio, the only real problem is the governor, but he is not life-tenured or he can change his mind.
    Director Josh Tewalt's behavior is more than suspect. AG Labrador needs to find a way to make him explain under oath 1) why under his tenure IDOC seems incapacitated to obtain lethal drugs despite a secrecy law in place; 2) the stage that the refurbishment of the death chamber has reached under the recent firing squad law; 3) why IDOC should lose an undetermined amount of time trying to develop a complex "automatic trigger" system while there is no doubt that in a deep red State like Idaho there would be plenty of volunteers who would be more than happy to partake in a firing squad execution.

    If he can't answer, he should be fired on the spot, because it would be evident that he is deliberately refusing to apply the law.

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