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Thread: Tennessee Capital Punishment News

  1. #21
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    Tennessee searches for new death penalty drug


    No death row inmates are scheduled to die in Tennessee anytime soon.

    The state’s entire stock of a key lethal injection drug has been confiscated by the federal government amid questions about whether it was legally obtained and the state hasn’t yet figured out how — or when — it plans to execute inmates in the future.

    But Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Derrick Schofield said the state’s lethal injection protocol is a top priority and he is pursuing alternative drugs. He declined to detail exactly what options he was considering, but other states have turned to an alternative drug used in animal euthanasia.

    “I’ve been a little cautious talking about this because some of it turns into litigation,” Schofield said in a recent interview. “I don’t have a time frame, but it’s a matter of urgency for us. We have been pushing and working. I want to assure that we haven’t been sitting on our hands.”

    Eighty-four people sit on Tennessee’s death row, 67 have been there for more than 10 years. For death penalty opponents, the sudden shortage in 2011 of the anesthetic sodium thiopental has been a godsend.

    Five states in recent years decided it was easier and cheaper to do away with their death penalties than to keep them. And, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, the nation tied 2011 for having the second-fewest number of new death penalty convictions since 1976.

    “We’re very relieved,” said the Rev. Stacy Rector, with Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “Unfortunately for us, until we get the (death penalty) statute repealed, it’s always going to be a concern.”

    But death penalty advocates say the drug shortage and Tennessee’s delay in finding an alternative drug, like pentobarbital which has been used in states like Ohio, is preventing justice from being carried out.

    “That’s something that the people of Tennessee need to bring to the governor’s attention,” said Michael Rushford, president of CEO of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation which helps litigate in support of the death penalty. “This isn’t the legal system failing, it’s politics. It’s really kind of a slap in the face to state voters and to the victims who wait for justice, when a politician can stop the entire process.”

    The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office, which requests execution dates, said it is also waiting for orders to proceed.

    “We will file the appropriate motions to set executions as soon as the executive branch indicates its readiness to proceed with executions,” said spokeswoman Sharon Curtis-Flair.

    Gov. Bill Haslam’s office said the department of correction is continuing to explore options.
    Both sides frustrated

    As of today, Tennessee’s death penalty protocol is the same as it was when the state legislature made lethal injection the only way to execute inmates in 1998. The condemned are strapped to a gurney and then injected with three separate chemicals.

    They start with the sodium thiopental, which puts the inmate to sleep. Then, they inject pancuronium bromide, which stops the inmate’s breathing. Finally, they administer potassium chloride, which stops the inmate’s heart.

    The first drug has been key to staving off challenges that lethal injection is “cruel and unusual punishment”, in that it is supposed to render the entire process painless. In late 2010, however, the sole supplier of sodium thiopental stopped supplying the drug, leading to shortages across the nation. Attempts to obtain the drug overseas by states like Tennessee led to a federal lawsuit and the seizure of those drugs.

    In the meantime, rather than fight to maintain the old methods, some states have turned to pentobarbital, which is commonly used to euthanize animals.

    When asked if Tennessee was considering such a switch, Schofield would not say.

    “There are a couple that we’re looking at, I’d just prefer not to say which one,” he said. “Whatever drug we choose, it has to have the backing and the knowledge that it will work and meet the requirements of the court.”

    In November 2010, Stephen Michael West was ready to die. A last-second appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court stopped his execution 30 hours before he was to be put to death.

    West, who was convicted in 1986 in the murder of Wanda Romines and her 15-year-old daughter, Sheila, in Union County, illustrates the criticisms — on both sides — of the death penalty debate. He was first scheduled for execution in 2001, but it was stayed. He was scheduled for early November 2010, but it was delayed until late November, which was then again indefinitely delayed.

    “I don’t know how you find a system any more wasteful than the death penalty system,” said Rector, with Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “We don’t know how much we’re spending on a system that’s executed six people since 1960.”

    But those delays are equally frustrating for people like Eddie Campbell, of Andersonville. His uncle, Jack Romines, was married to Wanda Romines when West murdered her. Jack Romines died four years ago.

    “The family’s dying off. He never got to see any justice for his family. That’s just terrible,” Campbell said. “It’s a real slap in the face.”

    Campbell said he’s been waiting for answers for years as to why his family hasn’t seen justice yet.

    “Somebody should be able to give me a reason for that, I don’t know why they’re not,” he said. “They need to step up to the plate and do their job or stand aside and let somebody else.”

    http://www.tennessean.com/article/20...h-penalty-drug
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  2. #22
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    Tenn. mum on search for new lethal injection drugs

    It’s been three years since Tennessee put an inmate to death, and problems with obtaining lethal injection drugs make it unlikely executions will resume anytime soon.

    The state’s supply of sodium thiopental, one of three drugs used in lethal injections, was turned over to the federal government in 2011 over questions about how it was imported. The short supply of sodium thiopental in the U.S. has led many states with the death penalty to seek out other drugs.

    Arizona, Idaho and Ohio already have carried out executions using a single drug, pentobarbital. However, Tennessee officials are staying tight-lipped about their search for alternative drugs.

    The Department of Correction spokeswoman said last week that no decision has been made on revisions to Tennessee’s current three-drug method.

    “The Department of Correction has been monitoring the steps being taken by other states concerning implementation of lethal injection,” department spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said in a response to questions from The Associated Press regarding the search for new drugs.

    The department declined a request from the Associated Press to interview Correction Commissioner Derrick Schofield.

    He told The Tennessean this month that the state’s lethal injection protocol is a top priority and that he is pursuing alternative drugs. But he wouldn’t say which drugs are being considered or when a decision may be reached.

    In addition to the shortage of sodium thiopental, records obtained by The Associated Press through an open records request indicate that Tennessee has also been unable to get pancuronium bromide, a strong muscle relaxant given to the inmate before the final injection of potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

    A memo dated February 2012 stated that the pharmaceutical distributor Morris & Dickson informed the state that pancuronium bromide was recalled in May 2010 and will not be reissued. Carter confirmed last week the state has no supplies of either sodium thiopental or pancuronium bromide.

    The FDA drug shortage list indicates that Hospira, which makes pancuronium bromide, says the drug would be available in the first quarter of 2013.

    This has essentially stalled any executions in Tennessee. The last inmate executed by lethal injection in the state was Cecil Johnson, on Dec. 2, 2009, and the Tennessee Attorney General’s office has not asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date since 2010. Tennessee has 83 inmates on death row.

    The attorney general won’t pursue execution dates until officials are ready to proceed with executions, said office spokeswoman Leigh Ann Apple Jones.

    Death penalty experts say that whenever the state makes its decision, legal challenges to the revised protocol are likely to occur.

    The last major revision to the state’s execution protocols came in 2007, when then-Gov. Phil Bredesen issued an executive order to review the policies and procedures and ordered a moratorium on executions. A committee was formed, a public hearing was held and a detailed report was published on updates made to the execution manuals.

    But this time the state has declined to answer many questions about what options they are considering, leaving defense attorneys and inmates largely in the dark. Under state law, changes to the lethal injection method can be made administratively without legislation. And there’s no timetable for the state to make a decision, said David Raybin, a Nashville attorney and former prosecutor who helped write the Tennessee death penalty law more than 30 years ago.

    Raybin said the state is likely being silent on the issue because officials are being careful to avoid confusion or prompt legal challenges before they are ready to defend them. He said correction officials likely will be consulting with the attorney general’s office about the drugs they are considering.

    “The flip side of that is if they act precipitously then they will trigger months if not years of litigation,” Raybin said. “And that would delay things as well.”

    He said choosing a drug whose legality has already been tested in court might allow the state to move quickly toward resuming executions.

    Some states have changed their lethal injection procedures to use pentobarbital, a barbiturate that is most commonly used to euthanize animals and treat seizures. And Missouri has switched its lethal injection method to a single, fatal dose of propofol, the anesthetic blamed for Michael Jackson’s death, although officials have not yet carried out an execution using that drug.

    But both those drugs have their own supply issues and legal challenges as well, said Megan McCracken, the Eighth Amendment Resource Counsel with the U.C. Berkeley School of Law’s Death Penalty Clinic.

    Germany-based Fresenius Kabi USA is one of only two domestic suppliers of propofol, and it is the only one currently distributing in the U.S. The company announced last year that it won’t sell propofol for use in U.S. executions.

    McCracken said the use of propofol has been challenged in court because of the pain associated with administering the drug.

    Denmark-based Lundbeck Inc., which was once the only maker of pentobarbital in the U.S., sold its rights to the drug to another manufacturer and said it never intended its product to be used in executions. The company said a distribution system meant to keep the drug out of the hands of prisons will remain in place.

    McCracken said some states still use pentobarbital in executions, and at least one state — South Dakota — has indicated it may obtain that drug through a compounding pharmacy.

    Compounding pharmacies mix drugs to order for hospitals and clinics. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is pushing for more regulation of these facilities after a massive fungal meningitis outbreak last year that has been linked to a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy.

    “If this practice grows, I imagine we will see additional challenges because the use of a compounding facility certainly raises a lot of questions,” McCracken said.

    http://www.tennessean.com/viewart/20...njection-drugs
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  3. #23
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    Tenn. switches from three-drug method to execute death row inmates to single-drug method

    The Tennessee Department of Correction said Friday that it's switching from a three-drug method to execute death row inmates to a single-drug method.

    The new protocol now calls for using the sedative pentobarbital only to put an inmate to death, according to the news release issued by spokeswoman Dorinda Carter.

    Tennessee's supply of sodium thiopental, one of three drugs used in lethal injections, was turned over to the federal government in 2011 over questions about how it was imported. The short supply of sodium thiopental in the U.S. has led many states with the death penalty to seek out other drugs.

    Arizona, Idaho and Ohio already have carried out executions using pentobarbital, a barbiturate that is most commonly used to euthanize animals and treat seizures.

    In addition to the shortage of sodium thiopental, records obtained by The Associated Press through an open records request indicated that Tennessee has also been unable to get pancuronium bromide, a strong muscle relaxant given to the inmate before the final injection of potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

    A memo dated February 2012 stated that the pharmaceutical distributor Morris & Dickson informed the state that pancuronium bromide was recalled in May 2010 and will not be reissued.

    Carter said in an email to the AP on Friday that the state has no supplies of either sodium thiopental or pancuronium bromide.

    The last major revision to the state's execution protocols came in 2007, when then-Gov. Phil Bredesen issued an executive order to review the policies and procedures and ordered a moratorium on executions.

    The last inmate executed by lethal injection in the state was Cecil Johnson, on Dec. 2, 2009, and the Tennessee attorney general's office has not asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date since 2010. Tennessee has 83 inmates on death row.

    http://www.therepublic.com/view/stor...tion-Tennessee
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  4. #24
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    Tennessee's death penalty is back on track

    Tennessee's barely functioning death penalty is on the verge of revival after state officials finally settled on a new lethal injection drug and scheduled a man to die for the first time in more than a year.

    But the state's new method is already running into trouble in other states, thanks to new problems acquiring drugs for executions.

    The state hasn't had any drugs to perform lethal injections since its supply of sodium thiopental was seized by federal law enforcement agencies in April 2011 over questions about how it was obtained. It hasn't put anyone to death in nearly four years and hadn't had an execution scheduled since February 2012.

    But last month, the state said it had solved its lethal injection drug problem by switching to pentobarbital, an anesthetic most commonly used to euthanize pets. State officials scheduled Nickolus Johnson, convicted of killing a policeman in Bristol in 2004, to die on April 22, 2014, at 7:10 p.m.

    That year-and-a-half delay came in part so Tennessee corrections officials could see how the new drug stood up to challenges in states such as Ohio and Texas. State officials also were waiting for a law to keep information about how the state obtained its lethal injection drugs secret from the public.

    If Tennessee were to clear those legal hurdles, it would open the door to begin the process of putting Johnson and 78 other convicted murderers to death. The condemned — 78 men and one woman — have been waiting on death row an average of just under 20 years, seven of them for more than three decades.

    So far, only Johnson's execution has been scheduled.

    "I can tell you we had been considering all options and working to get legislation passed to broaden the confidentiality exemption under the public records act to include a person or entity involved in procuring or providing the chemicals necessary to carry out lethal injection," said Dorinda Carter, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction. "The reason for this particular drug is it has been used in other states and upheld in court challenges."

    Tennessee hasn't executed a prisoner since Cecil Johnson was put to death by lethal injection Dec. 2, 2009, and it has executed only six people since 1960.

    Constitutional concerns

    Death penalty states were forced to scramble in 2010 when the main anesthetic used in lethal injections, sodium thiopental, was pulled from the market by its manufacturer over moral concerns about its use in executions. The drug, typically part of a three-drug cocktail, was important to lethal injections because it was supposed to render executions painless to the condemned — the key to overcoming concerns it was "cruel and unusual punishment" and therefore unconstitutional. Last-ditch attempts by several states — including Tennessee — to acquire thiopental from a questionable overseas source were foiled when federal officials seized stocks as having possibly been imported illegally.

    In the interim, states began exploring other drugs. Ohio and Texas in 2011 turned to a one-drug method using pentobarbital, a barbituate used in animal euthanasia and in physician-assisted suicides in the Netherlands. But shortly after hearing pentobarbital was being used in executions, Danish manufacturer Lundbeck announced it also would ban the importation of the drug for such purposes.

    The supply shortage has forced Ohio and Texas to look at alternative drugs or to compounding pharmacies to make pentobarbital from scratch. Texas earlier this month paid a compounding pharmacy to make pentobarbital, but the company asked for the drugs back when it was outed as a supplier for lethal injection drugs. Texas is now mulling over yet another switch, to propofol, a powerful anesthetic.

    Despite problems in those states and others, Tennessee corrections officials are sticking with pentobarbital.

    "We are not looking at alternatives at this time," Carter said. "Additionally, I can only say we are confident we will be able to secure the necessary chemicals."

    She declined to elaborate on how the state would acquire the drug.

    A 'broken' system

    The lethal injection drug problems have given many death penalty opponents a break from their frantic efforts to stop executions. It only shows how broken the state's death penalty is, said the Rev. Stacy Rector, executive director of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

    "Obviously we feel like the lethal injection debacle is only symptomatic of the larger debacle of the death penalty. Everything about the system is broken," she said. "We've had six executions since 1960 and probably spent millions of dollars to do that."

    But the switch to pentobarbital has opponents worried that the state's death penalty is gearing up yet again.

    That's a good thing, said Michael Rushford, president of the Sacramento, Calif.-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports the death penalty. He said compounding pharmacies could solve the ongoing supply problems.

    "I think the compounding approach will probably be the new 'hip' thing to do. That will solve that problem," he said. "This may be the end of this kind of challenge."

    If not, he said, states should turn to the gas chamber as a method that would be simpler and less likely to be challenged.

    'Waiting for justice'

    Johnson, the man condemned to die in April, initially agreed to an interview with The Tennessean but later changed his mind. Johnson ambushed Bristol police officer Mark Vance on Nov. 27, 2004, amid an investigation into a domestic dispute between Johnson and a 17-year-old girl he had gotten pregnant. As Vance went upstairs in the girl's home, Johnson popped out and shot him in the head, killing him.

    The officer's mother, Karen Vance, who lives on the Virginia side of Bristol, said she was tired of the delays and appeals.

    "It's taken a long time, and we're just waiting for justice," she said. "Then I can finally say I've kind of got closure, once I see him gone."

    http://www.wbir.com/story/news/local...track/3168925/
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  5. #25
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    Public defender's office says it can't take on new death penalty case

    Nashville's public defenders say they can't take on any more death penalty cases right now.

    Resources and manpower are simply too limited to take on the case of Lorenzo Jenkins, 40, a man accused of murdering 3 people over drugs in October. That's according to Assistant Public Defender Mike Engle, who told Criminal Court Judge Randall Wyatt Jr. Monday that the state should instead hire Jenkins a private attorney to handle his defense.

    Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the deaths of Patrick Sullivan, 56, his wife, Deborah Sullivan, 48, and their daughter, Wendy Sullivan, 28, who were all found stabbed Oct. 22, 2012.

    "Because of the state's filing of a death motion in this case, our office quite frankly lacks the resources to defend a death penalty case," Engle told Wyatt in court Monday morning.

    Engle said the American Bar Association estimates a typical death penalty case requires upward of 2,000 hours of preparation. He explained that the office only has a few attorneys qualified to defend capital cases, 2 of whom are already on 1 case, and one of whom is retiring soon. The others, he said, have supervisory duties over other public defenders, making it impossible for them to take on a case of the magnitude of the one against Jenkins.

    Deputy District Attorney General Tom Thurman, who is prosecuting the case, disagreed. He said the public defender's office has plenty of people and could simply reassign lesser cases to free up one of the five attorneys qualified to handle a death penalty case. Besides, he said, he's handling more than 1 case.

    "I am involved in three cases," Thurman told the court. "So, I guess according to the ABA, I should be in the psych ward."

    Dawn Deaner, Nashville's elected public defender, said she was surprised by Thurman's comments. She said it's unfair to compare workloads of prosecutors, who have police officers, detectives, forensic experts and witnesses at their disposal before a case is even filed, with those of public defenders, who must start their own investigations after a case has already moved to court.

    "I don't understand why the state takes the position that they take. I don't know why they're concerned about it, quite frankly," Deaner said. "You can't compare their workload to our workload. It's 2 different measurements."

    She said her office has been chronically underfunded and understaffed and that taking on another death penalty case would require significant reshuffling of personnel and criminal cases that could, in the end, require more private attorneys hired to take over the reshuffled cases.

    "There are maximum caseload standards that are recommended for public defenders in Tennessee," she said. "If you apply those standards to the number of cases we handled in fiscal year '13, we were 22 lawyers short in our office to be able to handle the workload that we have."

    Her office is already participating in 2 other death penalty cases.

    The charges against Jenkins began last October, when the Sullivans were found dead in their Maxon Avenue home, the victims of a crime police say could have been the result of a dispute over drugs that were dealt out of that home. Jenkins is charged with 3 counts of 1st-degree murder, 3 counts of felony murder and 1 count of especially aggravated robbery. He's being held without bond because of a 6-year sentence for violating his probation on a previous conviction for aggravated burglary and theft.

    At Monday's hearing, Wyatt said he'd need some time to think the matter over, but not before asking Jenkins what he thought. Jenkins said he got along well with Engle, but was worried about his defense.

    "I would want the best counsel possible," he said. "I respect his (Engle's) concerns."

    (source: The Tennessean)
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  6. #26
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    The Cost of Capital Punishment

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Those who oppose capital punishment and those who support it don't usually agree on much but both sides say the real waste in regard to capital punishment in Tennessee stems from the lengthy appeals process that keeps inmates on death row for decades.

    Tennessee's Department of Correction estimates it spends almost $64.72 to house and feed one inmate for one day. The cost is for a death row inmate is $103.74 per day, almost $2.9 Million annually to house 76 death row inmates.

    Many of them stay on death row for decades.

    "Since 1960 we've executed six people,” said Stacy Rector, of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “If you described any other government program that is that ineffective and that costly to taxpayers, I think people would be asking a lot of questions."

    The department of correction declined Fox 17’s request for an interview but a spokesperson says that extra $39 per day pays for heightened security.

    Rector says the additional expense in housing a death row inmate is only the tip of the wasteful spending iceberg.

    "It’s actually the capital trial that's most expensive part of the process,” Rector said.

    Capital trials cost 48 percent more than trials where prosecutors seek life without parole, according to a 2004 state comptroller of the treasury study.

    Rep. Barrett Rich, (R) Somerville is a strong supporter of capital punishment, but he does agree with Rector's group on one thing.

    "I think in some ways they're right,” Rich said. “What we need to do is speed up the process, allow them to make their appeals, expedite it, put time limits on the books and get it done.

    " Rector says the best solution is to get rid of the death penalty altogether.

    "Wouldn’t our money be better spent being to support murder victims family members in the wake of homicide, or to give more resources to our law enforcement community,” Rector said.

    Tennessee planned to execute Billy Irick in January but postponed the date until October.

    Irick has been on death row since 1986, when he was convicted of raping and killing a 7-year-old girl.

    Read More at: http://www.fox17.com/news/features/t...nt-19376.shtml
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  7. #27
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    Tennessee has 10 executions scheduled in 2 years

    The Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts says the state is scheduled to execute 10 death row inmates between this April and November 2015.

    The Tennessean (http://tnne.ws/1kVrQa0) says three executions are scheduled this year, with seven in 2015.

    Gov. Bill Haslam told the newspaper's editorial board Wednesday that he agrees with the decision to seek the executions although they didn't go through him. The state sought the execution dates after changing the drug protocol for lethal injections.

    Kelley Henry of the Federal Public Defender's office in Nashville said it's unfortunate so many death row inmates were being grouped together. Henry and other attorneys have asked a judge to halt the executions over questions about the drug the state now plans to use.

    http://www.wrcbtv.com/story/24650907...led-in-2-years
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  8. #28
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    This illustration shows nine of 11 death row inmates the state of Tennessee is seeking to execute.(Photo: The Tennessean)
    Shows nine of the death row inmates scheduled for execution

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/05/tennessee-seeks-execution-ten-inmates/3876811/

    Last edited by Helen; 02-06-2014 at 10:33 AM.

  9. #29
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    TN bill proposes electrocution as execution backup

    A state senator has proposed a bill that would make electrocution available as backup option in Tennessee death penalty cases.

    Republican Sen. Ken Yager of Kingston, who proposed the bill, said he wants to make electrocution the method of death if lethal injection is ruled constitutional or an essential ingredient isn't available. Rep. Dennis Powers of Jacksboro proposed the House companion bill.

    The state has 10 executions scheduled over the next 2 years, following a 2-year halt because of controversy over lethal injection drugs. Electrocution was the primary form of execution in Tennessee for decades, but lethal replaced it in 2000.

    Any death row inmates who were sentenced to death before 1999 have the option to choose electrocution. Daryl Holton decided to die in the electric chair in 2007, making him the 1st death row inmate killed in the electric chair since 1960.

    (source: WBIR news)
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  10. #30
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    Controversial cases may spark Tennessee Supreme Court shakeup

    By Trent Seibert for Tennessee Watchdog

    The Tennessee Supreme Court may face its first major shakeup since Reconstruction with three of five sitting justices facing retention in an August vote.

    Some controversial decisions made by the judges facing retention will be key, according to one pollster.

    “Usually these races are very sleepy,” said Wes Anderson, a GOP pollster and partner with Washington, D.C.-based On Message Inc. “It all comes down to case history, and in my review, these are the kinds of cases that can blow up an election.”

    The only time a judge facing retention for a Tennessee Supreme Court lost a seat since the initial plan to retain judges was implemented in 1971 was Penny White.

    She faced a firestorm after she tipped the scales on a controversial death penalty case.

    According to Great American Judges:

    White became a subject of controversy in 1996 when she voted with the court majority in the 3-2 decision in the case of State v. Odom. That June 3, 1996, decision upheld a conviction for the rape and murder of an elderly woman, but overturned a death sentence in the case on the grounds that the combination of rape with murder did not meet the requirements for the death penalty because the rape did not cause the murder to be “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death.”

    It’s clear a fight is revving up this year over the future of the Tennessee judiciary.

    The three justices facing retention are Justice Cornelia A. Clark, Justice Sharon G. Lee and Chief Justice Gary R. Wade.

    Some political watchers point to one case signed off on by Clark, Wade and Lee that saved a man from death row after he was found guilty of killing an elderly woman who fought back as he tried to rob her.

    In May 1984, Leonard Edward Smith and friend David Hartsock — they had been drinking and smoking pot, according to court records — were speeding away from another killing in another store on the Sullivan-Carter County line.

    In that killing, Smith was the wheelman, driving his black Ford Pinto, court records say. Hartstock told Smith he knew how to get some money, directed him to Malone’s Grocery and got out of the car.

    “I parked on a little paved road beside the store. David had a .32 caliber chrome-plated pistol with him… I heard several shots fired and just a few seconds later David came running around the store,” Smith said in a statement after his arrest. “David jumped into the car and said, ‘Get the hell out of here, I had to shoot him.’ I figured it was Shorty because he ran the store.”

    Indeed, the dead man was John “Shorty” Pierce, who ran the store.

    Trying to speed down the mountain, they ended up at Webb’s Grocery, just outside Bluff City.

    Running in, they saw an elderly couple behind the counter: Novella Webb and her husband.

    “David ran and jumped on the counter, and knocked the old man over and yelled to me to, ‘get that bitch’ referring to an old woman at the end of the counter,” Smith said.

    Smith did as ordered, according to testimony — but Webb put up a fight. She threw store items at Smith and finally grabbed a can of orange spray paint. She started spraying Smith, who was coming at her with the gun.

    “I fired one shot just to scare people, but the old woman just kept spraying orange paint and came towards me,” Smith said. “I couldn’t see because of the paint and I held the gun up and apparently the old lady was trying to get the gun away from me and it went off. We ran from the store when I fired the second shot.

    “When we were in Webb’s Store the old man was hollering, ‘help me, help me,’ and hollering for his wife. The old woman never did say anything that I remember.”

    They duo sped away, but were caught and arrested the next day.

    In 1985, Smith was sentenced to life in prison in connection with the killing of Pierce and received the death sentence for killing Webb.

    That wasn’t the end, though. It was just the beginning of a long history of court appeals and rulings. Ultimately, in 2011, the Tennessee Supreme Court vacated the death sentence.

    Smith had ineffective legal counsel and deprived of the right to a fair trial, the supreme court said. There was also a conflict with a judge in the case. He was the prosecuting attorney in an earlier case in which Smith was convicted of robbery and driving under the influence.

    “The potential injury to the judicial process due to the appearance of impropriety and unfair lack of impartiality by a judge imposing a death sentence is too great to allow the sentence of death to stand,” the court found in its unanimous opinion.

    Still, the case is controversial, since Smith admitted to the killing. In his 1985 trial he demanded his attorneys stop the trial and “that he wanted to waive the presentation of further mitigation proof, offer no final argument, and rest his case.”

    “There’s no question that controversial cases will be a factor in this year’s judicial races,” Anderson said.

    http://tennessee.watchdog.org/2014/0...court-shakeup/

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