Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 43

Thread: Christopher Eugene Brooks - Alabama Execution - January 21, 2016

Hybrid View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,515

    Christopher Eugene Brooks - Alabama Execution - January 21, 2016


    Jo Deann Campbell


    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	75cd149ad12931038e0f6a7067000c21.jpg 
Views:	8 
Size:	68.8 KB 
ID:	1380

    Summary of Offense:

    Was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1993 for the rape and murder of Jo Deanne Campbell on December 31, 1992.

  2. #2
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    On April 29, 2005, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, affirmed the circuit court's denial of Brooks's petition for postconviction relief.

    http://caselaw.findlaw.com/al-court-...s/1455395.html

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Christopher Eugene Brooks v. Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, et al.

    In today's opinions, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals AFFIRMED the district court's DENIAL of Brooks' petition for habeas relief.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  4. #4
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    On September 13, 2013, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied Brooks' petition for an en banc rehearing.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es/13-7848.htm

  5. #5
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Brooks' petition for writ of certiorari was DENIED.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es/13-7848.htm

  6. #6
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    State adopts new execution drugs, seeks death date for 9 inmates

    MONTGOMERY — Alabama this week adopted a new drug protocol for executions by lethal injection and began seeking execution dates for nine inmates on death row.

    Those inmates saw their execution dates indefinitely postponed earlier this year, when state officials ran out of drugs used in executions.

    Several states have faced shortages of those drugs in recent years, largely because drug manufacturers in Europe — where there's substantial opposition to capital punishment — have refused to sell drugs to states for use in executions. In response to the shortage, several states have sought out new combinations of lethal injection drugs.

    Some death-row inmates have filed suits arguing that the use of those experimental drug combinations could lead to pain during executions, violating the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

    Tommy Arthur is one of those inmates. Arthur, sentenced to death for the murder-for-hire of a Muscle Shoals man in the 1980s, was originally scheduled for lethal injection in 2012. He filed suit on the grounds that the state had only recently switched to a new lethal injection drug, pentobarbital. Two other Alabama inmates have similar suits pending.

    State officials acknowledged in March that Alabama no longer had a supply of pentobarbital — leaving Alabama without the drugs it needed to carry out executions.

    In motions filed Thursday with the Alabama Supreme Court, state officials say they now have a new drug protocol for executions. Under the protocol, adopted Wednesday, inmates would be injected with midazolam hydrochloride, an anesthetic; rocuronium bromide to relax the muscles; and potassium chloride to induce cardiac arrest.

    The drug combination is "virtually identical to Florida's newly-revised protocol which has been ruled constitutional," according to the state's motion.

    The protocol has been used for seven executions in Florida, the motion states.

    Midazolam, the first drug in the protocol, has been used in botched executions in other states this year. An Ohio execution in January took 25 minutes, with the inmate gasping for breath, according to accounts in the press. In May, an Oklahoma inmate died 43 minutes after first being lethally injected. Both executions used midazolam.

    Florida’s recent executions haven’t presented the same problems, said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group which studies the death penalty.

    Still, Dieter said, problems might be harder to spot under Florida’s drug protocol because the second drug in the sequence paralyzes the inmate.

    “It’s hard to tell when a paralytic is the second drug,” Dieter said. “They could be conscious or experiencing pain, but they can’t show that.”

    The state filed nine motions seeking execution dates for Arthur as well as inmates David Lee Roberts, Anthony Boyd, Christopher Eugene Brooks, Demetrius Frazier, Gregory Hunt, William Ernest Kuenzel, Robin Dee Myers and Christopher Lee Price.

    The motion in Arthur's case was the first to come to light Friday morning. The Star's attempts to reach Arthur's lawyer, Suhana Han, were not immediately successful Friday morning.

    Jennifer Ardis, a spokeswoman for Gov. Robert Bentley, said the state was ready to carry out the executions.

    "Obviously, the decision to execute an inmate is a serious one, and the governor supports the legal process," Ardis said. "We have a new protocol and the Department of Corrections is ready to carry out an execution order."

    One Alabama death penalty opponent said she didn’t understand the drive to resume executions.

    “I’m disgusted,” said Esther Brown, an activist for Project Hope for Abolition of the Death Penalty. “I’m disgusted with our compulsion, our need, to kill. I just don’t understand it.”

    The state hasn’t executed an inmate since July 2013, when Andrew Reid Lackey died by lethal injection for the 2005 murder of an Athens man.

    http://www.annistonstar.com/news/art...1c5521f3f.html

  7. #7
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    Alabama seeks execution date for man convicted in Homewood woman's slaying

    By Kent Faulk
    AL.com

    The Alabama Attorney General's Office is seeking an execution date for death row inmate Christopher Brooks, who was convicted in the 1992 rape and murder of a Homewood woman.

    Brooks has exhausted his direct appeals, according to the Attorney General's Sept. 24 motion to the Alabama Supreme Court. "As such, it is time for his death sentence to be carried out," the motion states.

    Brooks' attorneys, in a response filed Wednesday, agree that Brooks' conventional appeals ended in March 2014 when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review his case. But they argue there are still constitutional issues regarding Alabama's lethal injection procedure that still have not been resolved.

    "We are surprised that the State has moved to set an execution date for Mr. Brooks, especially since the State agreed to a stay for Mr. Brooks in March and because the federal lethal injection litigation to decide the constitutionality of Alabama's protocol remains unresolved," said Leslie S. Smith, an attorney in the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Defenders Office in the Middle District of Alabama.

    Brooks was convicted in 1993 of murder during the course of a rape, robbery, and burglary for killing Jo Deann Campbell. A jury recommended Brooks receive the death penalty and a judge sentenced him to death.

    According to the appeal court records Campbell and Brooks had met while working as counselors at a camp in New York state. On Dec. 31, 1992, her body was found under the bed in the bedroom of her Homewood apartment. She had been bludgeoned to death, and was naked from the waist down.

    DNA taken from semen found in the victim's body, a palm print on one of Campbell's ankles, and bloody fingerprints on her bedroom door were all linked to Brooks.

    A friend of Brooks, who also was at the apartment, was not indicted on charges.

    A spokesman for the Alabama Attorney General's Office on Thursday said the request to set an execution date for Brooks is the only such request pending for an Alabama death row inmate at this time.

    Brooks and other death row inmates this spring had executions stayed
    pending the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the case of Oklahoma inmate Richard Glossip, who along with other inmates, challenged the constitutionality of the use of the sedative midazolam in Oklahoma's three-drug execution protocol.

    Alabama was among 13 states
    to file briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Oklahoma's execution method, which is similar to their own methods.

    An injection of 500 milligrams of midazolam hydrochloride is part of Alabama's new three-drug combination used for lethal injections. The other drugs are 600 milligrams of rocuronium bromide to stop breathing, and 240 "milliequivalents" of potassium chloride to stop the heart.

    The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, did not believe the arguments that the drug combination including midazolam was cruel and unusual punishment.

    The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling is based on facts in the Oklahoma case, not on Alabama's three-drug lethal injection protocol, Brooks' attorneys' argue in their response.

    "The Supreme Court's opinion in Glossip affirmed a District Court ruling denying Glossip a preliminary injunction. That decision does not resolve or end the litigation in Glossip, does not resolve or end the litigation surrounding Alabama's execution protocol, and does not constitute a ruling on the constitutionality of Oklahoma or Alabama's execution protocol," Brooks' attorneys write.

    Brooks will be filing a federal lawsuit challenging Alabama's method of execution, his attorneys also stated in their response.

    But the Attorney General's Office argued in its motion that even if Brooks files a federal lawsuit, the Alabama Supreme Court should still set an execution date.

    "If Brooks files a civil lawsuit challenging Alabama's method of execution, it will have no relation to the State's lawful criminal judgment," the AG's motion states.

    The Attorney General's Office in July had asked a federal judge to dismiss lawsuits by seven other inmates
    challenging the state's lethal injection method.

    Glossip was to have been executed Wednesday but it was postponed at the last minute by Oklahoma's governor
    over a question regarding the legality of substituting another drug for potassium chloride, CNN reported.

    Two death row inmates were executed this week in other states.

    Alfredo Rolando Prieto, who was convicted of two murders in Virginia, one in California and linked to six others, was executed Thursday night in Virginia, according to The Washington Post.

    Kelly Renee Gissendaner was executed early Wednesday morning in Georgia for her role in the 1997 murder of her husband, despite appeals from others, including Pope Francis, USA Today reported.

    http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/in...medium=twitter
    "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

  8. #8
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    U.S. Appeals Court to expedite ruling in death penalty litigation

    The United States Court of Appeals is scheduled to rule quickly on the latest filing in an ongoing stream of appeals, motions and decisions regarding the "Midazolam Litigation" — a lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of Alabama's death penalty protocol.

    Christopher Brooks, a death row inmate and plaintiff in the litigation, filed the most recent appeal which challenges U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins' decision to deny Brooks' emergency stay of execution.

    Normally, the higher court would have 40 days to decide on the appeal. But Brooks is scheduled to be executed on Jan. 21 and the appeal was filed Dec. 28, so the court said it would issue a decision on Jan. 8.

    Litigation leading up to this point:

    Brooks was found guilty of raping and bludgeoning of Deann Campbell to death in 1993 when Alabama's method of execution was still the electric chair.

    He was sentenced to death, and spent the next 10 years appealing his conviction. Virtually all appellate routes have been exhausted with the exception of a petition for clemency from Governor Robert Bentley.

    In 2011, death row inmate Tommy Arthur filed a suit challenging the constitutionality of Alabama's death penalty protocol. He argued that both the drugs and the methods used would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

    A final hearing in Arthur's suit is scheduled for Jan. 12 - nine days before Brooks is to be executed.

    In 2012, five other death row inmates filed a separate law suit which also challenges the constitutionality of Alabama's method of execution. Litigation in that case halted for nearly two years while the United States Supreme Court heard arguments that debated whether using the drug midazolam in a three drug lethal injection protocol was constitutional.

    Alabama had revised its execution protocol to include midazolam in 2014, but had not yet executed anyone under this new protocol. Consequently, executions in the state also halted until June 2015 when SCOTUS ruled that midazolam couldn't be proved unconstitutional.

    Three months after the Supreme Court made its decision, the State asked the Alabama Supreme Court to set an execution date for Brooks.

    Forty days after that, Brooks asked to join the "Midazolam Litigation" as a plaintiff, which was granted.

    Shortly after, Brooks' execution date was set for Jan. 21, but the final hearing for the suit in which he is a plaintiff isn't scheduled until April.

    On Dec. 4, Brooks requested that his execution be delayed, in part because of the pending litigation to which he is now a party.

    Watkins denied that request, stating in his order that, “Naturally, Brooks wants in the game, and he is of late on the roster.” Watkins also noted that Brooks could potentially reap any benefits of Tommy Arthur's final hearing because it's scheduled for nine days before Brooks' execution and also addresses the constitutionality of the death penalty.

    In response, Brooks has asked the United States Court of Appeals to overrule Watkins' decision.

    http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/...tion/78089262/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  9. #9
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    Alabama Death Row inmate tells appeals court why it should stop his execution

    Attorneys for Alabama Death Row inmate Christopher Brooks, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection in less than three weeks, filed a brief Monday telling the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals why it should stop his execution.

    Brooks is scheduled to be executed Jan. 21. It would be the first Alabama execution since July 2013 and the first use of the state's new three-drug lethal injection protocol.

    An attorney for Brooks filed a notice of appeal to the 11th Circuit on Dec. 28 after U.S. District Court Judge Keith Watkins declined to stop the execution. The appeals court gave Brooks until 4 p.m. today to file a brief explaining why it should block the execution.

    Brooks in November joined a lawsuit by five other death row inmates challenging the state's new three-drug protocol as being a violation of the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The lawsuit is specifically aimed at the first drug to be administered – midazolam – this is to sedate the inmates before the other two drugs aimed at stopping the breathing and the heart are given.

    A hearing has been set for April in that lawsuit and Brooks argues that his execution should be delayed until after the issue is resolved.

    "Brooks is an intervening plaintiff in the litigation that is scheduled to go to a hearing on the merits in April," according to today's 40-page brief. "Without a stay of execution, he will be put to death using a constitutionally suspect method of execution that has never been used in Alabama, and before any court will adjudicate the constitutionality of this method of execution."

    The brief asks the 11th Circuit to vacate the district court's order denying Brook's motion for a stay of execution and stay his execution, or, in the alternative, remand the case for an evidentiary hearing on the feasibility of the alternative methods of execution Brooks alleged in his complaint.

    One of Brooks' attorneys, John Palombi, Assistant Federal Defender for the Federal Defenders Office of the Middle District of Alabama, issued a statement after filing today's brief.

    "The United States Supreme Court deals with challenges to methods of execution based on a belief that the States have, over time, taken steps to ensure that methods of execution become more and more humane," Palombi stated. "The District Court's opinion in this case takes a step back and has the potential to reward states that take no efforts to make their method of execution more humane. It allows the Alabama Department of Corrections to control the meaning of the Eighth Amendment in Alabama merely by what efforts they choose to take to obtain drugs that would allow for a more humane execution."

    "This will encourage states to look for the easiest way to carry out the most solemn duty that a State can undertake," Palombi stated, citing part of the brief. "The most used method of execution in the last two years in the United States is a single dose of pentobarbital. This indicates that it is feasible for the Alabama Department of Corrections to obtain pentobarbital, and this case should not be decided merely on their declaration that they cannot get it."

    Alabama has stated that it can no longer get pentobarbital.

    Lawyers for the Alabama Attorney General's Office, which represents the state, have until Friday to respond to Brooks' brief.

    Brooks was convicted in 1993 of murder during the course of a rape, robbery, and burglary for killing Jo Deann Campbell at the Ski Lodge Apartments in Homewood. A jury recommended Brooks receive the death penalty and a judge sentenced him to death.

    Brooks and Campbell, 23, met in 1991 when they worked at different summer camps on a lake in New York, where Brooks and his parents then lived.

    Brooks and a friend, Robert Leeper, came to Homewood on Dec. 30, 1992, to visit Campbell and stay the night.

    The next evening, police found Campbell's body stuffed under her bed, her badly beaten head wrapped in her sweat pants. Police testified they found one of Brooks' palm prints on Campbell's ankle and his thumbprint in her blood on her bedroom doorknob. A state forensic scientist testified that DNA tests matched semen from Campbell's body to Brooks.

    Police arrested Brooks and Leeper in Columbus, Ga., on charges that they bought beer, soda, gas and other items the day before with Campbell's credit card.

    Leeper was sentenced to 5 years after pleading guilty to credit card theft and was released on probation with time served awaiting trial in jail. Leeper denied any knowledge of Campbell's murder and forensic evidence did not link him to the crime, prosecutors said.

    http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/in...mate_says.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

  10. #10
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217

    Death row inmate seeks postponement of execution; Sister of victim speaks out

    After spending more than two decades on Alabama's death row, Christopher Brooks is asking the court to postpone his execution. Brooks was convicted for raping and murdering JoDeann Campbell in her Homewood apartment on New Year’s Eve in 1992.

    Brooks’ execution is scheduled for January 21, 2016. His lawyers filed a request Tuesday to delay the execution to allow him to participate in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the lethal injection drugs.

    According to court documents, the lethal injection drugs allegedly paralyze muscles allowing for a “painful death by asphyxiation.” The drugs will also cause “a burning sensation as it travels through the body destroying the internal organs.” The lawyers say these physical effects violate the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

    JoDeann’s older sister, Corinne Campbell, learned of Brooks’ request for a postponement on Tuesday. “That’s his right,” Corinne said. “The justice system is set up the way that it is, and he has a right to do so. Again, my focus is on my sister and not on him so much.”

    Corinne remembers JoDeann as bubbly, outgoing, and full of life. Corinne treasures the photos of the last time she saw JoDeann on Christmas Day in 1992. She saves the festive yellow blouse JoDeann wore that day in her closet.

    After waiting two decades for Brooks’ sentence to be carried out, Corinne maintains faith in the justice system. “I didn’t decide his fate. A jury did that. So whatever happens, happens,” she said.

    Only two days shy of the twenty-third anniversary of her sister’s murder, Corinne says she is not angry. “Yes, I do wish she was still here and had an opportunity to live a full life. But I do know that the years that she did have had a positive effect on everyone she was around. You know, I’m proud of that,” she said.

    A lawyer for Christopher Brooks expects the federal appellate court to rule on his request for a stay before the January 21 execution date.

    If the execution moves forward as scheduled, Corinne says she plans to attend.

    http://www.wbrc.com/story/30849983/d...tim-speaks-out
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •