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Thread: Tennessee Capital Punishment News

  1. #11
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    Warden to check for consciousness in TN executions

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The prison warden will brush a hand over an inmate's eyelashes and gently shake the inmate to check for consciousness under a new lethal injection procedure that became necessary after a judge ruled the old one was unconstitutional, the attorney general said Wednesday.

    Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman ruled last week that Tennessee's process "allows for death by suffocation while conscious," in an appeal filed by inmate Stephen Michael West, who was convicted of two murders in 1986. Now it will be up to the warden to make sure the condemned inmate is unconscious, including calling out the person's name.

    Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said states that have had recent legal challenges, like Ohio and California, have put in similar procedures to check consciousness.

    Bonnyman's ruling paved the way for delays in West's Nov. 30 execution and one in December of another inmate who joined the appeal, Billy Ray Irick. The state Supreme Court will decide whether to vacate the execution dates, but there was no indication Wednesday before a long holiday weekend when the court might issue a decision.

    During the two-day hearing last week, Bonnyman heard from medical experts and an Ohio prison official who testified about the effects of the three drugs used in the lethal injection procedure.

    Bonnyman said in her ruling that the 5 grams of sodium thiopental, the first drug meant to render the inmate unconscious, was insufficient and said the state should adopt some method to determine whether the inmate was awake before being injected with the second drug, a paralyzing agent.

    The state said that the new checks were implemented Wednesday. If the warden determines the inmate is unconscious following the first injection, he directs the executioner to administer the next two drugs. If the warden determines the inmate is still conscious, a second IV line will give a second dose of 5 grams of sodium thiopental.

    Attorneys for West presented medical experts who testified that the autopsies of three executed Tennessee inmates showed concentrations of the two of the drugs were too low to knock the person out.

    State attorneys argued the levels found in an inmate's body hours or sometimes days after the execution wasn't reliable to determine consciousness.

    West was convicted in the 1986 stabbing deaths of Wanda Romines and her 15-year-old daughter, Sheila Romines, in Union County.

    http://www.seattlepi.com/national/11..._tennesee.html

  2. #12
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    Tennessee courts again address humaneness of lethal injection

    For the 2nd time in three years, executions have been stopped in Tennessee as judges ponder whether supposedly benign lethal injections actually can cause excruciating pain.

    Last week the state Supreme Court, reversing itself in an unusual turn of events, stayed four executions scheduled for the next three months.

    The justices acted 4 days after pronouncing themselves satisfied with Tennessee's method of performing lethal injections — a procedure the state had only just amended in a hurried attempt to pass muster. In suddenly changing course, the court ordered new hearings into whether prison officials are capable of executing inmates humanely.

    Lawyers for condemned prisoners claim the risk of botched executions is too great. Inmates are supposed to lie on a gurney and painlessly drift away to sleep. But if improperly administered, the attorneys contend, lethal injections can cause horrific deaths by suffocation.

    The 1st prisoner whose life was momentarily spared was Stephen Michael West. He was to die last Tuesday for murdering a mother and teenage daughter, Wanda and Sheila Romines, in 1986 in the Big Ridge community 25 miles north of Knoxville. West, who was 23 at the time, raped his victims and stabbed them to death in their home. A young co-worker of West's at McDonald's named Ronnie Martin was convicted as an accomplice and sentenced to two life terms in prison. He was spared the death sentence because he was only 17 at the time of the murders.

    Proponents of the death penalty, including Gov. Phil Bredesen, expressed frustration and outrage with the new delay in the pace of Tennessee executions. In the 10 years since Tennessee resumed executions, six people have been put to death.

    "I'm disgusted that there is litigation over cruel and unusual punishment of the very prisoner who performed cruel and unusual punishment on 2 innocent people, devastating countless lives," said Verna Wyatt, director of the crime victims' group You Have the Power. "I'm insulted and infuriated that they have slapped victims in the face who have suffered so much. It's clear to me that a lot of the judiciary is not in favor of capital punishment. They are finding ways to circumvent the system, and it makes me mad."

    The latest court action began before Thanksgiving with a ruling by Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman. After a 2-day hearing, she declared the state’s method of lethal injection violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

    To reporters afterward, Bredesen pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the same procedure in a Kentucky case in 2008. That ruling ended a de facto moratorium on executions nationally, a delay that lasted nearly two years in Tennessee. During that time, a federal judge ruled Tennessee's method was unconstitutional. That ruling was overturned by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after the Supreme Court ruled in the Kentucky case.

    "When you have something that the Supreme Court of the United States has opined on, which is the legality of that particular effort, it seems sort of not exercising judicial restraint to kind of turn that around in a county courthouse here in Tennessee," Bredesen said.

    But in the Kentucky case — Baze v. Rees — even justices in the majority acknowledged their ruling was far from definitive and left open the possibility of future challenges.

    National attention

    In lethal injections, a series of three chemicals is used — a barbiturate to make the inmate unconscious, a paralyzing agent to prevent seizures and involuntary gasps of pain, and finally a poison to stop the prisoner's heart.

    Chief Justice John Roberts, writing in the majority, acknowledged that the court might rule differently if there's evidence of an insufficient dose of sodium thiopental — the 1st drug. That would pose "a substantial, constitutionally unacceptable risk of suffocation" caused by the 2nd drug, he wrote.

    That's what West's lawyers say they now can prove, and their new evidence is what persuaded the state Supreme Court to order Bonnyman to hold her hearings.

    In her courtroom, anesthesiologist Dr. David Lubarsky testified that autopsies showed 3 inmates — Robert Coe, Philip Workman and Steve Henley — didn't receive enough sodium thiopental to render them unconscious during their executions in Tennessee.

    State attorneys argued that it was impossible to determine accurately the level of barbiturate in the inmates' blood because their autopsies were conducted 12 hours or more after their executions, not immediately afterward. The state presented its own experts who said the inmates were unconscious.

    But Bonnyman ruled the prisoners probably were awake and suffocating in silence before the final heart-stopping chemical even was administered.

    "Not to be too simplistic, but life is about getting a breath of air," the judge said as she ruled from the bench. "The body is tuned to need and get air. It is a primary survival issue. There is great suffering and pain if a patient were to suffocate from lack of air."

    She added, "[N]o one can tell if the prisoner is conscious or unconscious, and this is a tragedy given execution by injection."

    With West's scheduled execution only days away when Bonnyman ruled, state officials tried to overcome her objections and avoid any delays. They quickly changed the state's execution protocol — a kind of instruction manual — to include what they called a check for consciousness. Under this new procedure, the warden would try to make sure the inmate was unconscious after the barbiturate was administered by brushing his hand over the inmate's eyelashes, gently shaking the inmate or calling out his name.

    The state Supreme Court at first accepted this change and ordered West’s execution to proceed on schedule, but reversed itself and ordered new hearings after his lawyers complained that they hadn't been allowed to make their arguments for why the check for consciousness is lacking. Led by federal public defender Stephen Kissinger, they accused the state attorney general’s office of trying to trick the justices into moving too quickly.

    "Due process is not just a matter of fairness," the lawyers said in their motion, "it is a mechanism through which truth and justice may be found. Because due process was not afforded here, both truth and justice are lost."

    When they appear before Bonnyman again, the attorneys are expected to argue the warden hasn’t received training to be qualified to perform the check. In any event, they will contend, it’s pointless because sodium thiopental is a fast-acting anesthetic and could wear off at any time during the execution.

    "The fact that the inmate may be unconscious at the moment when you begin to inject the paralyzing chemical doesn't mean that he will remain unconscious while he is suffocating," said Bradley MacLean, a Nashville lawyer who represents death row inmates.

    Many legal challenges to lethal injection have been mounted around the country, but MacLean says Tennessee's case potentially is the strongest yet because of the autopsy evidence of insufficient anesthesia.

    "This case will receive a lot of national attention," he said.

    (source: Nashville City Paper)

    ****************

    Tenn. warden says he can check consciousness of inmates during execution under new rules

    Prison warden Ricky Bell says he is prepared to check an inmate for consciousness during an execution despite a lack of medical training.

    His qualifications to ensure the inmate is properly sedated will be at the center of court hearings in Davidson County Chancery Court ordered by the Tennessee Supreme Court after all scheduled executions were put on hold.

    Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman last month decided the current 3-drug method of execution put inmates at risk of death by suffocation so the state added a provision that would require the warden to perform checks for consciousness during the process.

    Bell told The Tennessean he is comfortable with the change required by the court, which would have him brush his hand over an inmate's eyelashes and gently shake the inmate.

    (source: Associated Press)

    ***************

    Few allowed to attend state executions----When the state imposes capital punishment, seating is limited.


    News Sentinel staff writer Jamie Satterfield's applications recently were approved to attend the scheduled executions of two East Tennessee convicted killers - Stephen Michael West of Lake City and Billy Ray Irick of Knoxville.

    (Both lethal-injection executions have since been postponed while a last-minute legal argument filed in West's case is considered. They have yet to be re-set.)

    Satterfield, a veteran of crime and court beats, was selected to be among a pool of journalists allowed as witnesses. It's a macabre, uncommon assignment in most any reporter's career and one that got Knox Know-It-All wondering:

    Who all is allowed to attend a state execution?

    State law specifies a short list of people who should have any business sitting inside 1 of the 2 observation rooms directly adjacent to the execution chamber at Tennessee's Riverbend Maximum Security prison in Nashville.

    Those parties include the victim's immediate family members, as well as the condemned inmate's immediate family (hence the separate observation rooms). The sheriff of the county where the crime was committed, the state attorney general or designee, the inmate's legal counsel, the warden, the prison physician, and the inmate's chosen spiritual adviser also make the list.

    Lastly, seven members of the media, as selected by the Tennessee Department of Correction, also may attend.

    TDOC spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said that although state executions draw plenty of interest from the media overall, the opportunity to directly bear witness to one doesn't generate a flurry of requests. In fact, nowadays they rarely fill all seven seats, she said.

    Actually, it's a different request for another story angle altogether that Carter said keeps her phone ringing with reporters' calls in days just before and after an execution - the inmate's last meal request.

    "I would like to know what the fascination is with that," said Carter, adding that she's learned to "keep the menu handy."

    And as it turns out, the inmates' tastes are more often simple than sophisticated.

    For example, West, whose execution had been set for Nov. 30, requested a Domino's pizza, she said.

    Part of that is likely prison's way of making someone pine for the little things. But the state of Tennessee's small gesture of mercy in a last meal also comes with a $20 cost limit.

    "We are in a budget crisis," Carter said. "I guess you can't get a surf 'n turf meal for under $20."

    (source: Knoxville News-Sentinel)

  3. #13
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    Tenn. Receives Execution Drug Shipment----Drug In Short Supply Across Nation

    It appears Tennessee has received an overseas shipment of the death penalty drug that's in short supply across the nation.

    The Associated Press reported the state received at least one shipment of sodium thiopental, apparently from a British pharmaceutical company.

    Several states are running low on the drug, and the Food and Drug Administration ruled last week it would not block imports of the execution drug.

    All of Tennessee's scheduled executions are on hold until hearings move forward on whether the state's new lethal injection procedures are constitutional.

    (source: WSMV News)

  4. #14
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    TN asks judge for OK to resume executions

    Lawyers for the state of Tennessee on Friday asked a Nashville judge for authorization to resume executions, arguing that prison officials have a new death penalty procedure in place.

    The new method requires that a prison warden check to see if the prisoner is unconscious before the inmate gets a lethal dose of drugs.

    In November, the Tennessee Supreme Court halted the executions of four prisoners so the judge in the lower court could determine whether the new method is constitutional.

    The order came after Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman ruled that Tennessee's use of a three-drug cocktail to execute prisoners "allows for death by suffocation while conscious."

    A lawyer for the state argued Friday that the U.S. Supreme Court had already upheld a similar execution procedure two years ago. Tennessee is one of several states to use the three drugs in lethal injections.

    Mark Hudson, senior counsel at the Tennessee Attorney General's office, also argued that the ban on cruel and unusual punishment has its limits.

    "It does not have to eliminate all risks of pain," Hudson said.

    But lawyers for death row inmate Stephen Michael West told the judge that the new procedure was still problematic.

    "These changes don't cure the defect," said Stephen Kissinger, West's attorney.
    Under the new protocol, prison officials will administer a fast-acting barbiturate which acts as an anesthetic. The warden will then check for consciousness by brushing his hand over the inmate's eyes, shaking the prisoner gently and calling out his name.

    If the inmate is found to be unconscious, the warden will order the two additional drugs.

    West's lawyers have argued that the method causes pain and suffering, but since one of the drugs acts as a paralytic, the prisoner cannot cry out.

    West was convicted of the 1986 stabbing deaths of Wanda Romines and her 15-year-old daughter Sheila Romines.

    Bonnyman asked the defense attorney if he could think of an alternative death penalty procedure that would eliminate an intolerable risk of pain. Kissinger declined to give one.

    Death row inmate Billy Ray Irick has intervened in the case. Irick was convicted of first-degree murder for the 1985 rape and killing of a 7-year-old Knoxville girl he was baby-sitting. Both men's executions were postponed.

    Bonnyman said she would rule from the bench Feb. 16.

    http://www.tennessean.com/article/20...yssey=nav|head

  5. #15
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    TN Revises Execution Requirements

    A judge on Wednesday upheld the state's revised execution plan to require the prison warden to confirm that the condemned inmate is rendered unconscious by the first drug injected in a three-drug cocktail.

    Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman ruled that the state's plan appears to address concerns that the inmate could be conscious and in severe pain when the later drugs are injected.

    Last year the Tennessee Supreme Court halted the executions of four prisoners as Bonnyman considered the constitutionality of the state's death penalty procedures.

    Stephen Kissinger, a federal public defender representing death row inmate Stephen Michael West, had said that the state's new method was not effective at determining whether an inmate was awake. Following the ruling Wednesday, he said he would likely appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court.

    West was convicted in the 1986 stabbing deaths of Wanda Romines and her 15-year-old daughter, Sheila Romines, in Union County.

    Wanda Romines' son, David Rucker, said the court hearings over the past several months were often upsetting to him and other family members of the victims.

    "I have to trust that justice will someday be done," he said.

    Bonnyman ruled in November that the previous protocol, which didn't include a check for consciousness, allowed for death by suffocation while conscious and was unconstitutional because that amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. She said the state did not have safeguards to ensure the inmate wasn't awake during the execution.

    Under the new procedure, the check comes after the inmate is given a single dose of sodium thiopental, a sedative. The warden will brush his hand over the inmate's eyelashes, call out the inmate's name and gently shake the inmate. If the inmate shows no response, the warden would instruct the executioner to continue with the next two drugs.

    If the inmate did show a response, the warden would order the executioner to administer a second dose of sodium thiopental.

    In her ruling, Bonnyman said that the Tennessee Supreme Court placed the burden on West's attorneys to prove that the revised protocol contains an objectively intolerable risk of pain, not just simply the possibility of pain.

    The Tennessee Supreme Court will have to lift the stay it placed on the executions scheduled for West and two other inmates, Billy Ray Irick and Edmund Zagorski.

    http://www.corrections.com/news/arti...n-requirements

  6. #16
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    Two more U.S. states turn over executions drug in probe

    Tennessee (Reuters) - Tennessee and Kentucky turned over their supplies of a lethal injection drug to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which is probing how the drug was imported, officials said on Friday.

    Sodium thiopental, a drug which has commonly been used in executions, is in short supply in the U.S. after a U.S. company bowed to European Union pressure and stopped making it.

    U.S. authorities seized Georgia's supplies of sodium thiopental in March due to concerns about how the drug was imported, and Georgia's executions are on hold.

    Dorinda Carter, spokeswoman for Tennessee's Department of Correction, said Friday that the state turned over its supply of the drug at the request of the DEA last week.

    "There was no allegation that Tennessee has done anything improper," said Carter. "The DEA had some concerns about the import procedures of the domestic vendor that we used."

    Carter said the state does not have an execution scheduled until September, but this "will impact our ability to carry out executions."

    "We are reviewing our options today to see what we will do from here," Carter said. Sodium thiopental is one of three drugs Tennessee uses for executions.

    Separately, an official with knowledge of the action, said that Kentucky also had turned over its supply of the drug.

    The investigation of the drug imports started after a letter sent earlier this year to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on behalf of Georgia death row inmate Andrew Grant DeYoung.

    In the February 24 letter, DeYoung attorney John Bentivoglio wrote that Georgia corrections officials ordered the drug from a pharmaceutical distributor in London, England.

    The state received 50 vials of sodium thiopental in July, Bentivoglio said, citing public records.

    But Bentivoglio said the state was not registered to import the controlled substance and failed to notify DEA about the shipment.

    "I think it raises very troubling questions about the lengths to which they would go to pursue lethal injections when that process requires careful attention to the integrity of the process," Bentivoglio told Reuters after Georgia's supply of the drug was seized last month.

    Ohio and Oklahoma have switched to using pentobarbital, which is often used to euthanize pets. Texas plans to switch for the next scheduled execution. Some death row inmates and opponents of the death penalty are trying to slow executions because of the drug controversy.

    http://www.whnt.com/sns-rt-usreport-...,7180242.story

  7. #17
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    TN may change execution method

    Tennessee has 86 killers on death row and no way to execute them after the state’s supply of a key lethal injection drug was seized by the federal government.

    Now, Tennessee has to make a death penalty decision.

    If it doesn’t change its lethal injection drug or the legislature doesn’t pass a law allowing the state to use alternative means of executions — electrocution, hanging, gas chamber or some other method — death row inmates will remain indefinitely imprisoned and families of murder victims will be left waiting for final punishment to be meted out.

    “It’s extremely frustrating. We are carrying on our lives, but it’s just such a heavy burden,” said Misti Ellis, whose father, Jerry Hopper, was killed in a shooting rampage in 2005 in Jackson. “I hope that it’s a procedural bump in the road. I hope they can find some way to resolve it or find a new method. I certainly would not want to see, for myself or any other family that feels the same way, to have that changed because of a supply problem.”

    Hopper’s killer, David Jordan, 47, is second in line to be executed this year. He is scheduled to die Sept. 27.

    In less than five months, the state is set to start executing death row inmates like Jordan again. But a nationwide shortage of that key drug used in lethal injections has largely ground to a halt executions across the nation. Like other states, Tennessee has had to turn over its stock of sodium thiopental to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration because of allegations it may have been illegally obtained from an unregulated overseas supplier.

    Neither Gov. Bill Haslam’s office or the Tennessee Department of Correction would say what the state would do to fix the state’s death penalty quandary.

    “The commissioner isn't prepared to discuss what will happen next. He is still reviewing our options,” said Dorinda Carter, spokeswoman for the Department of Correction. When asked about those options, she responded, “He’s not ready to discuss them at this point.”

    Haslam’s office referred all questions to the Department of Correction.


    Next inmates scheduled for execution

    Sept. 13: Joel Schmeiderer, who killed a prison inmate with a sock in Clifton

    Sept. 27: David Jordan, who killed his wife and two others in Jackson

    Oct. 4: John Henretta, a murderer and rapist out of Bradley County

    Oct. 25: Harold Hester, who set his wife and an elderly man on fire in Athens


    http://www.tennessean.com/article/20...ecution-method

  8. #18
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    Tennessee Executions on Hold

    Memphis, Tn - Jessie Dotson and James Hawkins, two names that send chills up the spines of many. Both Shelby County men were sentenced to die for their heinous crimes. But now, executions in Tennessee are on hold.

    There are two reasons why executions are on hold in Tennessee: Litigation by death row inmates, challenging a new death penalty procedure, and the recent seizure of a death penalty drug, by the DEA.

    Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Christopher Craft said, "The death penalty is punishment. It's not about revenge. It’s just the punishment the people, through legislators, decree for the worst of the worst in first degree murder cases."

    Dotson and Hawkins are considered the worst of the worst. Last year, Dotson was sentenced to death for the shooting, stabbing and beating deaths of 6 people on Lester Street.

    This year, Hawkins was sentenced to death for killing and dismembering his ex-girlfriend and forcing their children to help dispose of the body.

    Judge Craft presided over Hawkins' trial. "Every delay is a win for someone under sentence of death because even if they are executed they get to live that much longer," he said.

    And the 88 Tennessee inmates on death row will live longer, at least for the moment, because of what amounts to a massive technicality.

    Records we obtained show the DEA seized the lethal injection drug sodium thiopental in March of 2011 from the Tennessee Department of Corrections.
    Officials with the ACLU of Northern California say they have DEA records showing Tennessee prison officials imported the drug from Dreampharma, a company in Great Britain, and shared the drug with corrections facilities in Alabama and Kentucky.

    Now, there are questions: Did the state properly register with the FDA before allegedly importing the drug?

    Neither the DEA nor Department of Justice are commenting.

    But Dorinda Carter, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Corrections, denies they got the drug overseas, saying, "we turned over our supply to the DEA back in March. Alabama did receive a portion from us. We received our supply from a domestic vendor."

    But, Tennessee executions were on hold, even before the drug was seized, while the courts reviewed the state's lethal injection protocol.

    In 2010, a judge ruled the protocol was unconstitutional because no one checked to see if the inmate was conscious after the first of 3 drugs was administered. The judge said, it could allow for death by suffocation which amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

    It’s a sentiment that Judge Craft understands, "We're supposed to follow the constitution we have to make sure it's done humanely and less cruel a way as possible."

    The state changed its policy and now a warden checks for consciousness before administering the final dose of the deadly drug cocktail. But now that new protocol is expected to be challenged by every inmate on death row. It means no one will be executed until it works its way through court.

    "In this kind of situation I don’t know what kind of thing would show if someone were conscious for 5 seconds before they went under that wouldn't show in an autopsy. So, that's the problem," said Craft.

    As for Dotson and Hawkins, they have plenty of time to sit and wait. After the appeals process, a Tennessee inmate spends an average of 20 years on death row before they're executed. Craft expects the issue to be resolved well before that.

    The last person executed in Tennessee was Cecil Johnson, in 2009. He was convicted of a 1980 shooting spree at a convenience store near the state capital.

    Executions are on hold in 14 states right now, mostly because of challenges to lethal injection protocol. Tennessee is 1 of 5 states where DEA seized sodium thiopental.

    The lethal injection drug has been in short supply since 2009. The only U.S. maker of the drug said it was having trouble getting the active pharmaceutical ingredient.

    http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news...d-rpt-20110802

  9. #19
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    Ruling may allow Tenn. executions to proceed

    An appellate court is paving the way for executions of death row inmates, including two from East Tennessee.

    The Tennessee Court of Appeals last week affirmed the decision of Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman to uphold a new procedure to try to ensure a death row inmate is unconscious before fatal drugs are administered under the state's threedrug lethal injection process.

    "Plaintiffs have simply failed to carry their heavy burden to demonstrate that the lethal injection protocol as revised in November 2010 constitutes wanton exposure to an objectively intolerable risk of severe and unnecessary pain and suffering," the appellate court ruled.

    The ruling paves the way for the executions of four death row inmates, two of whom hail from East Tennessee. Stephen Michael West is set to be executed for the 1986 killings of Wanda Romines and her daughter, Sheila Romines, in their Union County home.

    Billy Ray Irick also has been sentenced to die for the 1985 rape and strangulation of 7-year-old Paula Dyer for whom he was baby-sitting in her Knox County home. Citing autopsy evidence from three recent executions in Tennessee, West's defenders insisted the three-drug protocol used by the state Department of Correction does not, as intended, render a convicted killer unconscious before the fatal drugs are administered.

    They alleged that the first drug instead rendered a convicted killer "paralyzed" as a second drug caused him or her to suffocate and a third drug prompted cardiac arrest, labeling the process cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution.

    Bonnyman initially agreed. However, the DOC agreed to change its protocol to add a check for a death row inmate's consciousness. Under the new procedure, the check comes after the inmate is given a single dose of sodium thiopental, a sedative.

    The warden will brush his hand over the inmate's eyelashes, call out the inmate's name and gently shake the inmate. If the inmate shows no response, the warden would instruct the executioner to continue with the next two drugs. In its ruling, the appellate court opined the new procedure ensures against a death row inmate's suffering. However, West and Irick are likely to appeal the decision to the Tennessee Supreme Court.

    http://www.correctionsone.com/capita...ns-to-proceed/
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  10. #20
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    Tennessee Justices Let Lethal Injection Ruling Stand

    8/22/12

    The Tennessee Supreme Court has decided not to hear an appeal by two death row inmates who claim that changes to the state's lethal injection procedure are unconstitutional.

    The state's high court on Monday declined to hear the case brought by Stephen Michael West and Billy Ray Irick. Their attorneys argued that the state's protocol does not contain sufficient safeguards to ensure that condemned inmates don't suffocate while fully conscious, which could violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

    Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman last year upheld the state's three-drug lethal injection procedure after the state Department of Correction added a new step for the warden to check that the inmate is unconscious after the first drug is injected.

    No execution dates have been set for either inmate.

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