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Thread: Ricky Javon Gray - Virginia Execution - January 18, 2017

  1. #111
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    "Justice at its zenith or its most terrible:" Ricky Gray's execution put an end to a murder's life

    By Joanne Kimberlin and Gary A. Harki
    The Virginian-Pilot

    Compared to the brutality of his crimes, Ricky Gray’s execution last week was peaceful.

    But the act of intentionally killing someone – even the worst of the worst – isn’t simple for a civilized society.

    On Wednesday, executioners had trouble getting IVs into Gray.

    There’s always something.

    Anti- and pro-death penalty camps wrestle. Lawyers fence with filings.

    All the while, the people charged with carrying out the court order press on.

    It’s a surreal job. Clinical. Scripted. Shrouded in secrecy. Tinged with irony.

    Emotionless, yet cloaked in sadness.

    Sadness that things ever come to this at all.

    As a professional, Linda Bryant doesn’t debate the death penalty. Recently hired as the assistant superintendent of the Hampton Roads Regional Jail, she spent years as a Norfolk prosecutor before becoming a top deputy to the state’s attorney general.

    In Norfolk, she sought capital convictions. In Richmond, she oversaw the lawyers who fend off litigation aiming to delay or block executions.

    Bryant says someone has to carry out the moral judgment of the community, and if anyone deserves the ultimate punishment, it’s a guy like Gray: a serial-murderer who slit the throats of a Richmond family during a 2006 home-invasion, beating two little girls to death with a hammer before making off with some odds and ends and a plate of cookies.

    Still, Bryant can choke up about capital convictions.

    “No one I worked with ever looked at it as a victory," she says. "It’s not something to be celebrated. There’s no happiness associated with it. We cry. Jurors cry. Everyone has spent weeks looking at gut-wrenching evidence. Hearing testimony about how the person who committed this monstrous act wasn’t always a monster. No one is born evil.”

    To steel herself, she keeps a photo of Officer Stanley Reaves, a Norfolk policeman who was shot in the head in broad daylight in 2005. Bryant helped send his killer, Thomas Porter, to death row, where he’s awaiting execution.

    In the U.S., the average death sentences takes a decade to carry out. By then, taxpayers have usually funded about $2 million to cover prosecution and defense bills, appeals, other legal steps and expenses – about the same as the average cost of keeping an inmate in prison for 50 years.

    With so much time lapsing between crime and punishment – Gray’s case took 11 years – victims' faces can fade, the voices of loved ones grow quiet.

    “I don’t want to forget,” Bryant says.

    Ricky Javon Gray was sentenced to death on Oct. 23, 2006. He was executed on Jan. 18, 2017 – 10 years, two months and 26 days later.

    This is a look at the prosecution and appeals process that a capital murder case goes through in Virginia.

    Gray spent his last few days close to the cinderblock room where he would die.

    He’d been moved from Sussex 1 State Prison, the home of death row, near Waverly. The death chamber itself is at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, a dot on the map 10 miles north of Emporia.

    Outside the prison walls, the flurry of litigation continues until the very end, but the execution team proceeds as if there’s no doubt.

    Anything less would be considered contempt of court.

    Department of Corrections employees receive no extra pay for performing executions. Their identities are shielded by state code to protect them from revenge or harassment.

    Much angst has gone into finding the most humane way to kill. Not only does the U.S. Constitution forbid “cruel and unusual punishment,” but the law tries to avoid sinking to the same level as those it puts to death.

    A handful of states still authorize hanging, firing squad or gas. Most, including Virginia, have narrowed it to two methods: Inmates can choose between electrocution and lethal injection.

    Lethal injection is typically considered the most painless – akin to a veterinarian euthanizing an animal. But society isn't comfortable treating humans like animals. So while a horse can be efficiently dispatched with a toxic dose of a single barbiturate, Virginia puts people to death with a sequence of three drugs.

    The end is supposed to come quietly – typically within 10 minutes. It’s also easier on the witnesses. No blood, convulsions or mess.

    But lethal injection is not without complications. Major drug companies, leery of the controversy surrounding the death penalty, are refusing to sell the necessary ingredients, forcing the state to turn to "compounding pharmacies" with an offer of anonymity.

    As a result, the going price for the execution package has rocketed from $500 to more than $30,000.

    Administering the drugs correctly poses its own challenges. Most physicians, bound by “do-no-harm” ethics, refuse to be involved. The execution team receives training but is often faced with the collapsed and knotted veins of chronic drug abusers. Veins are inspected by the team in advance.

    But even when the drugs flow properly, reactions aren’t always exactly the same.

    In December, an Alabama inmate executed with the relatively new combination used on Gray gasped and coughed for nearly 15 minutes before dying.

    Bryant doesn’t consider the Alabama case a “botched” execution.

    “To use the term ‘botched’ suggests that killing someone is simple,” she said. “When you’re executing someone it’s not like you snap your fingers and they go to sleep. I think lethal injection is a peaceful as it can be, but you’re still killing someone. Is that ever really peaceful?”

    Prosecutors “agonize” over capital cases from beginning to end, she said. “It’s so intense, there’s not a lot of time to process the emotional part while everything is going on. We’re not talking about a conviction here – we’re talking about death, and that’s not something you want to get wrong. Making sure you get it right. That consumes you.”

    In the 24 hours before the execution, security tightens around the prison and death chamber. The condemned is under constant observation to prevent escape or suicide. The ticking clock – knowing the exact day, hour and minute of death – is part of the punishment.

    The condemned is allowed approved visitors. Gray met with family members and some of his lawyers. He participated in communion with a Methodist pastor.

    For an inmate’s last meal, special requests can be made, as long as the food is available from the prison kitchen. Gray didn’t ask for or eat a last meal.

    A few hours before the execution – they’re usually scheduled for 9 p.m. – the condemned takes a shower. If requested, he can receive a sedative.

    Outside the prison gates, the public is allowed to gather under the watchful eye of security guards. Back in the day, when executions took place at a penitentiary in Richmond, crowds turned out, which sometimes led to fights. Moving the death chamber to rural Jarratt quieted things down.

    For Gray’s death, about 50 people rolled in after dark, taking up pro or anti positions on opposite sides of the road. They held vigil in the cold, talking in hushed tones, eyes turned toward the prison lights glowing in the distance.

    The loudest sounds came from the trains rumbling along nearby tracks – mournful whistles blowing in the night.

    Inside, as usual on execution night, the prison’s general population of 3,000 was placed on lockdown.

    Bryant says the death penalty is "justice at its zenith or its most terrible – depending on your opinion."

    She understands a philosophical opposition, but too often, she believes, the outcry comes from people who didn’t hear or see the evidence.

    “In some instances, I think the community would argue that the killers got off too easy by having such a peaceful death.”

    Cases like Gray’s “force people to examine their viewpoint from all angles,” she says. Some have argued that Gray, who was severely abused as a child, deserved mercy.

    “But every violent killer is emotionally disturbed,” Bryant says. “They have no soul by the time they reach that point. No conscience. No empathy. It’s a tragedy that there are people who get to the place where they commit these heinous acts. It’s a tragedy all around.”

    Gray apologized for the murders. His years behind bars were the most stable of his life. He said he found God.

    That’s not enough – at least not on this Earth.

    “Remorse,” Bryant said, “doesn’t make up for the kind of crimes he committed.”

    Lethal injection is the default in Virginia if an inmate doesn’t choose. Gray didn’t. Witnesses, ferried deep inside the prison to the death chamber, saw the gurney first thing.

    Executions were once held as publicly as possible – partly as a deterrent, partly as entertainment. Making them more private, with selected official witnesses, was a compromise. More dignity. Less outrage from those opposed to the death penalty.

    Official witnesses are sequestered in one room, family and friends of the victims in another, behind one-way glass. More than two dozen people witnessed Gray’s execution.

    Prison officials wouldn’t say if any family or friends of Gray’s victims attended. The condemned’s own family and friends are not allowed.

    The execution team trains for resistance. None was visible from Gray as he was led into the death chamber, surrounded by eight burly guards. They strapped him down on the gurney, feet toward the witnesses.

    Curtains protect the identities of the execution team. They’re drawn in front of the witness rooms while the team inserts IV needles into the inmate’s arms. Oddly enough, part of the prep involves swabbing the skin with alcohol – standard medical practice to ward off infection. For executions, however, it serves the purpose of raising the veins.

    It took a half-hour for Gray’s IVs to be inserted, longer than usual. So far, DOC officials haven’t said what the problem was, but Gray’s attorneys have called for an investigation.

    When the witness curtains finally reopened, Gray was all hooked up, arms outstretched. The execution team had retreated behind a curtain hung near the head of gurney. The IV tubes, fed through openings in that curtain, are manned from out of sight.

    The warden asked if Gray had any final words. He had nothing to say. A prison official stood by a red phone connected to the governor’s office, in case of a last-minute reprieve.

    Gray started to snore and twitch as soon as the first drug – midazolam – began to flow. That’s often the case with sedatives. A prison official did a “stimuli” test on Gray’s feet to see if he reacted. Satisfied that he was properly anesthetized, the signal was given to continue.

    Rocuronium bromide came down the tubes, paralyzing muscles and lungs. Gray went silent and still. A minute or two later, potassium chloride stopped his heart.

    A second round of the lethal drugs stood ready in case the first didn’t work. A prison physician checked Gray. No heartbeat. An official announced the court order was carried out at 9:42 p.m.

    Outside the gates, no official word reached those gathered. They checked their watches. Some cried. Others looked satisfied. They headed back to their cars solemnly, trickling away.

    An ambulance wooshed out the gate. Before the bodies of the executed are released to family members for burial, they’re taken to a medical examiner. State code says anyone who dies in custody must receive an autopsy.

    To comply, the medical examiner’s office in Richmond must determine – strangely enough– the cause of Gray’s death.

    http://pilotonline.com/news/local/ju...5d5c41ba4.html

  2. #112
    Moderator mostlyclassics's Avatar
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    In the U.S., the average death sentences takes a decade to carry out. By then, taxpayers have usually funded about $2 million to cover prosecution and defense bills, appeals, other legal steps and expenses – about the same as the average cost of keeping an inmate in prison for 50 years.
    Why is the expense always brought up in articles and op-eds like this? If expense were truly a concern, then those convicted of felonies should be released immediately upon conviction to save taxpayers as much money as possible.

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