Like us on Facebook and follow us on twitter




Executions


There were no executions in the past week.




Scheduled Executions





Michael Dean "Spider" Gonzales

Gonzales has not exhausted all appeals.

After spending nearly 20 years on death row and being sentenced to death in 1995 and 2009, Michael Dean "Spider" Gonzales is still pursuing to get out of the death penalty.

Gonzales' attorneys filed for a writ of habeas corpus and motion for stay of execution in federal court, according to the Odessa American.

His attorneys claim that Gonzales was not competent at the time of his trail and he may not be guilty of killing Mercedes and Manuel Aguirre due to mental instability.

Gonzales is accused of stabbing the couple to death in 1994.

If motion is not granted, he will be executed on March 21, 2013.




New Execution Date




Ricky Lynn Lewis - Texas Execution - April 09, 2013

Rickey Lynn Lewis, a death row inmate claiming he is mentally retarded, learned Thursday that his most recent appeal of his death sentence was denied and that an execution date has been set.

He was granted a stay of execution in 2005. The execution date is now scheduled for April 9 of this year.

Lewis was convicted for the Sept. 17, 1990, murder of George Newman during a burglary at the victim's house. He was also found guilty of sexually assaulting Newman's common-law wife, Connie Hilton.

Judge Kent ruled in 2005 that Lewis was not mentally retarded, a claim made by his attorney. The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, which ordered the trial judge to preside over the writ of habeas corpus hearing, agreed with her ruling and ordered her to set an execution date.

Lewis' appellate attorney Mike Charlton of New Mexico filed the motion for stay of execution, appealing the mental retardation ruling.

If a judge had ruled Lewis is retarded, his sentence would automatically be commuted to life in prison. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited the execution of mentally retarded people.

Lewis has been on death row for close to two decades.

The first Smith County jury selected convicted Lewis and sentenced him to death. But in 1996, the Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the punishment back to the trial court.

In 1997, another jury again sentenced him to the death penalty, finding that he committed the murder deliberately, that there was a high probability he would be a continuing threat to society and that there were no mitigating circumstances that warranted a life sentence rather that the death penalty.

Former 241st District Judge Diane DeVasto set Lewis' execution date for Aug. 7, 2003, but Lewis' attorneys claimed he was mentally retarded.

Defense attorneys tried to prove that Lewis was wrongly sentenced to death. Mental retardation experts hired by the state testified that he has learning disabilities but is not retarded; doctors hired by the defense disagreed.

The burden of proof in a mental retardation claim is on the defense.

The three-pronged approach to diagnosing mental retardation includes below-average intellectual functioning usually denoted by an IQ score of 70 or less, manifestation of the disorder by age 18 and consideration of adaptive functioning, or how a person operates in daily life.

Judge Kent concluded that Lewis entered the home to burglarize it but was interrupted by the victims.

He shot Newman and sexually assaulted, bit and hit Ms. Hilton, threatening to kill her.

He also killed the couple's dog.




New Death Sentences


Osman Canales - California Death Row

A man convicted in the killings of two people inside an Inglewood insurance office more than five years ago was sentenced to death Friday, with a judge calling him a "monster."

Osman Canales, 31, was convicted last year of two counts of first-degree murder for the Sept. 26, 2007, slayings of Lorena Rodriguez, 48, of Hawthorne, and Joel Cruz Perez, 51, of Los Angeles.

Jurors also found Canales guilty of three counts of robbery and one count each of kidnapping to commit another crime, dissuading a witness, burglary, unlawful taking of an automobile and misdemeanor sexual battery by restraint involving a third person who was released.

Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders, murder during a robbery and burglary and murder during the kidnapping of Rodriguez, who was taken to a bank and ordered to empty her account, according to Deputy District Attorney Greta Walker.

Rodriguez was then brought back to the business, at 415 W. Manchester Blvd., where she and Perez both had their throats slit with a kitchen knife, the deputy district attorney said.

Torrance Superior Court Judge Steven Van Sicklen lashed out at Canales during the hearing, saying he showed no sign of remorse or compassion for the victims or their families during his trial.

"Animals kill to survive, to eat and to protect themselves," the judge said. "To call you an animal would be an insult to the animal kingdom. The only word that comes to mind when I think of you is the word monster."

Authorities believe the crimes may have been motivated by Canales being upset over a business transaction with Rodriguez, who rented space in the office for her real estate business, according to the prosecutor.

Co-defendant Julius Laulu, 29, was also convicted of the murders. The District Attorney's Office opted not to seek the death penalty against Laulu, who was sentenced Dec. 18 to two life prison terms without the possibility of parole plus 74 years and four months to life.

A third defendant, Juan Pablo Maldonado, 22, is set to be sentenced Jan. 16 following his plea to lesser charges, including involuntary manslaughter. He is facing 26 years in prison, according to the prosecutor.

Van Sicklen noted during today's hearing that Maldonado was forced by Canales -- his stepfather -- to take part in the crime, and now he is facing years behind bars.

"You are the among the worst of the worst," he told Canales.



Current Death Row Inmates




Josepg Duncan III - Federal Death Row

One of the state's most notorious killers is back in Boise for a court hearing.

Joseph Edward Duncan III is in solitary confinement at the Ada County Jail, where he arrived Thursday about noon after U.S. Marshals transported him on a private plane from a federal prison in the Seattle area.

The 49-year-old serial killer's hearing before U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge, which begins Tuesday morning at the federal courthouse in downtown Boise, is expected to last six to eight weeks.

Duncan is on federal death row for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a North Idaho boy. At issue is whether the five-time convicted killer was competent when he waived his right to appeal his death sentences, which a federal jury imposed in August 2008 after a three-week trial in Boise.

Duncan represented himself during the trial, but a team of federal defense attorneys, led by noted anti-death penalty Judy Clarke, whose clients have included Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Tucson, Ariz., gunman Jared Loughner, stood by to assist. They appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals against his wishes and said they didn't feel he was mentally competent. The court ruled last March that Lodge should have held a competency hearing before allowing Duncan to waive his right to appeal the sentence in November 2008.

Court documents filed by prosecutors in preparation for the hearing reveal for the first time that Duncan explained in detail his decision to act as his own attorney and to waive his right to appeal during interviews with FBI Special Agents Mike Gneckow and Gail Gneckow after his sentencing. No other details were provided, and the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment on Friday.

Transcripts and audio excerpts from those interviews are listed as evidence in court documents filed by prosecutors on Friday. Other evidence includes letters Duncan wrote to attorneys and the judge who presided over his murder case in Riverside County.

Duncan pleaded guilty to 10 federal felonies in December 2007 for kidnapping 9-year-old Dylan Groene and his sister, Shasta, in May 2005 and murdering Dylan. He had already pleaded guilty in Kootenai County in October 2005 to kidnapping murdering the children's mother and brother, Brenda Groene and Slade Groene, and their mother's fiance, Mark McKenzie.

He's now represented by Michael Burt and Randall Martin of San Francisco.




Marvin Pete Walker Jr. - California Death Row

Marvin Pete Walker Jr., a condemned killer from Santa Clara County, is a member of an exclusive club -- he's one of a dozen or so inmates who've spent more than 30 years on San Quentin State Prison's death row.

Now, a federal appeals court is weighing whether Walker's 1980 murder conviction and death sentence should be overturned, the latest twist in a legal journey that has been tortuous even for California's notoriously sluggish capital punishment system. And Walker's appeal is hardly a long shot: An Oakland federal judge already sided with him in a decision last year.

In early December, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the state's appeal of that ruling, which found Walker's murder conviction and death sentence should be set aside because he had been improperly shackled in front of the jury throughout the trial.

Attorney General Kamala Harris' office argues that the shackling, while perhaps a mistake, did not alter the outcome of the jury's verdict. U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong concluded it did taint the trial, saying that forcing Walker to "wear visible and painful restraints ... undermined the dignity of the judicial process."

The three 9th Circuit judges appeared receptive to the state's arguments, at least in terms of the effect on the jury's decision to convict Walker for a 1979 murder in a San Jose liquor store, as well as related attempted murder and robbery convictions. The judges
seemed less certain about how the shackling might have swayed the jury's penalty deliberations, casting doubt on the death sentence.

Just eight of the 728 inmates on death row have awaited execution dates longer than Walker, who was 19 when he fatally shot Joseph Vasquez, a 15-year-old Mt. Pleasant High School student, and wounded two others during a $150 liquor store holdup. During his trial, Walker also was convicted of assaulting, robbing and critically wounding 20-year-old Rosa Olveda during a separate holdup at a San Jose medical center.




Genghis Kocaker - Florida Death Row

On Thursday the Florida Supreme Court affirmed Kocaker's conviction and sentence of death for the the murder of Eric J. Stanton, 26.

Stanton's body was found September 1, 2004, in his cab, which was parked in the parking lot of the Eckerd Drug store at 1605 Missouri Ave. S. Authorities were alerted to the cab by an anonymous man who called 911 and said someone was dead inside a taxi at the store.

The killer had stabbed Stanton and cut his throat, then bound him with a seat belt, put him in the taxi's trunk and set the car on fire. Stanton was able to push his way into the cab of the taxi. He died from smoke inhalation, though an autopsy showed the stab wounds contributed to his death.

Kocaker was sentenced to death on December 19, 2009.




Jodi Lee Miles - Maryland Death Row

The Maryland Court of Appeals heard a new argument against the death penalty Thursday, when attorneys for a man convicted of a 1997 murder argued that the state's constitution only allows capital punishment in cases of treason.

Public defender Brian Saccenti argued that a clause in the Maryland Declaration of Rights referring to "sanguinary laws" limits the death penalty to crimes that threaten the stability of the state government.

"We have ways to fairly incapacitate people that we lacked in 1776," Saccenti told the judges, arguing that the state can be protected without executions.

James E. Williams, a senior counsel with the Maryland Attorney General's office, argued in reply that the framers of the state's constitution intended for the death penalty to be used in a range of cases — and that one went on to sign death warrants as governor.

"The legislature has determined that a narrowly construed death penalty does serve the safety of the state," he added.

The appeal was brought on behalf of Jody Lee Miles, who was convicted in 1998 of a Wicomico County killing.




Byron Black - Tennessee Death Row

Attorneys for a Tennessee death row inmate are asked a federal judge to spare him from facing the death penalty because he is mentally disabled.

Byron Lewis Black was convicted in 1989 of killing his girlfriend, Angela Clay, and her two young daughters, Latoya and Lakeisha, in Nashville. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case back to district court after deciding his claims were not adequately considered by a state appeals court.

Oral arguments were scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Prosecutors argue that Black's scores on IQ tests taken before he turned 18 were not less than 70, which is a factor in determining mental disability. His attorneys say they are unable to communicate with Black because of his intellectual disability and argue that clinical evaluation should also be considered.




Manuel Vasquez - Texas Death Row

A Mexican Mafia member sent to death row for strangling a woman in San Antonio 15 years ago for failing to pay the gang a 10 percent tax on illegal drug sales has lost a federal court appeal.

Forty-four-year-old Manuel Vasquez was condemned for the slaying of 51-year-old Juanita Ybarra at a San Antonio motel.

Appeals lawyers argued Vasquez had deficient legal help at his 1999 trial and that prosecutors withheld some interview notes from a man who was severely beaten in the same attack. The defense also challenged the racial makeup of the grand jury that indicted Vasquez and contended one of his gang partners gave perjured testimony.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Wednesday rejected all claims.





Reversed/New Trials/Resentenced/Released/Commuted/Died


Esaw Jackson - Alabama

Esaw "Wolf" Jackson won't be sent back to Alabama's Death Row a second time after a Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge ruled Monday that he was mentally retarded.

Instead, the 34-year-old man was ordered by Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Stephen Wallace to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Wallace wrote in his 13-page ruling that after considering evidence presented regarding Jackson's mental condition he finds "that Jackson is mentally retarded or otherwise intellectually disabled and that U.S. Supreme Court precedent mandates that he cannot be executed."

Pre-sentence testing ordered by Wallace had determined Jackson had an IQ of 56, well below the normal legal threshold for mental retardation, which is 70.

Jackson had been convicted and sentenced by a judge - at the recommendation of the jury - to death at a 2007 trial for the 2006 shooting deaths of Pamela Montgomery, 42, and Milton Poole III, 16. Montgomery's children, Shaniece Montgomery, then 19, and Denaris Montgomery, then 17, were wounded. The four were shot when Jackson fired 15 shots from a rifle into a car stopped at a traffic light on 19th Street and Avenue V in Ensley.

The Alabama Supreme Court overturned his conviction and sentence in 2010, citing improper testimony by a witness at his 2007 trial.

A new trial was held in November-December 2011 and Jackson was convicted. The jury in that trial, in a 10-2 vote, also recommended that the judge impose a death sentence against Jackson. Wallace was only the judge at the second trial.

Wallace wrote in Monday's ruling that before his planned final sentencing of Jackson in February of this year, a probation officer conducting a presentencing report informed him that Jackson "seemed to have mental retardation ... nor could did (sic) he have the capability to answer my questions in a competent manner."

As a result, Wallace ordered testing on Jackson and later held a hearing.

"This court certainly respects the jury's advisory verdict," Wallace wrote in his order. "Furthermore, based on the limited evidence presented to the jury at the penalty phase, the court does not necessarily disagree with the jury's verdict. In fact, absent the matters presented at the sentencing phase relating to Jackson's mental retardation, the court would likely have agreed with said verdict and imposed such."




Karl Myers - Oklahoma

On Tuesday authorities said a death-row inmate at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary died of apparent natural causes.

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections said 64-year-old Karl Myers was found unresponsive the previous Friday in the medical unit at the prison in McAlester. The department said Myers pronounced dead a short time later.

Myers was convicted in Rogers County for the 1996 rape and killing of Cindy Michelle Marzano and the 1993 rape and death of Shawn Marie Williams. Myers' arrest and DNA evidence in the Marzano case led authorities to link him to the Williams case. He had received a 20-year prison sentence in 1976 for a conviction for assault with intent to rape a 12-year-old and two sexual assaults in 1981 against a 13-year-old relative. Testimony indicated that, after receiving immunity, he admitted to a Cherokee County, Kansas, sheriff in 1978 that he had killed Charles "Chink'' Enders of Picher, Okla.




State By State Capital Punishment News


Alabama

Once again, an Alabama state senator plans to go after the death penalty. So far all efforts to end capital punishment have gone nowhere in the state legislature. Selma Sen. Hank Sanders says it's a practice that needs to come to an end.

"Capital punishment in Alabama as in other places really has been something reserved for poor people," Sanders said.

Sanders is pushing several bills. One to eliminate capital punishment, one to put a moratorium on capital punishment, limit the death penalty for mentally challenged, juvenile offenders and restrict judges' sentencing authority.

"We spend a lot of money on capital punishment in Alabama. I don't have the figures. We have spent a whole lot of money on so-called capital crime. I think we can do better," Sanders said.

Alabama voters remain split over the controversial issue.

"African Americans in this state receive a lot more and quicker than others. So for the state of Alabama I think should be outlawed," Wanda Spillers said.

"I'm pretty conservative about it. I think it should be left as it is. There should be serious punishment or a plan for serious crime," Matthew Sensintaffer said.

Some Alabama lawmakers tell FOX6 News they don't believe the legislature will end capital punishment. Still, Sanders is not giving up. He says it's too important of issue not to have a serious debate this year. He also points to a large number of inmates sitting on Alabama's death row.

"Either we have more bad people in Alabama or there is a something wrong with our system. I don't think there are more bad people in Alabama," Sanders said.


Colorado

A lawmaker who saw her son's killers sentenced to die says Colorado voters — and not 100 lawmakers under the state Capitol's golden dome — should decide whether to abolish the death penalty.

As state Rep. Rhonda Fields' Democratic colleagues attempt to gather support for ending capital punishment through legislation, she has started work on a bill that would put the death-penalty question on the 2014 ballot, she said.

Her counterproposal sets the stage for a political showdown on a traditionally touchy topic at the Capitol, where some key officials' stances against abolishing the death penalty have recently softened.

"Colorado lawmakers should not slam the door on justice for those who commit heinous crimes," Fields said. "I believe that society must be protected, and the voters should decide the fate of capital punishment."

Colorado has executed one man since the death penalty was reinstated in Colorado in 1975. Three men currently wait on death row.

Two of them — Robert Ray and Sir Mario Owens — were responsible for shooting Javad Marshall-Fields to death in 2005 to prevent him from testifying against them in a previous murder case. Marshall-Fields' fiancée, Vivian Wolfe, was also killed .

Already sentenced to life in prison by the time they went to trial for the murders of Fields' son and would-be daughter-in-law, the killers would have faced no additional penalty had capital punishment been repealed, Attorney General John Suthers pointed out.

"For killing the witness in your case, you're going to get no more serious consequence than if they'd testified against you?" Suthers asked. "Life imprisonment is not an adequate societal response."

Owens and Ray are in the midst of lengthy and costly appeals.

State Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, said that while she has not yet drafted 2013 legislation to end the death penalty, she has no plans to undo the sentences of men already on death row.

She pointed to the number of exonerations nationwide, research showing that Colorado's death penalty is applied arbitrarily and the increasing number of states abandoning capital punishment.

"There is a growing consensus that the death penalty is a failed policy that's outlived its time," Levy said.

So far, she has been joined by Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett, who has said publicly that while he has no moral objection to the death penalty, lengthy and complex litigation and appeals are a drain on resources better spent elsewhere.

One of the state senators who helped kill a similar bill Levy carried in 2009 — Senate President-elect John Morse, D-Colorado Springs — said recently that he has rethought his position. And Gov. John Hickenlooper, who told The Denver Post in 2010 that he opposed repealing the death penalty, now says his mind is not made up on the topic.

Fields' proposed referred measure would add some uncertainty to the mix.

For lawmakers, it could take away the risk of appearing soft on crime by giving them the option to send the death-penalty question to their constituents.

A 2008 poll by RBI Strategies found Coloradans evenly split on the most appropriate punishment for murder, with 45 percent favoring death and an equal portion favoring life without parole.

Nationwide, support for the death penalty fell to a 39-year low — 61 percent in favor of it — in 2011, according to the most recent Gallup polling on the topic.

But neither survey takes into account the effect that recent horrific murders — such as the Aurora theater shooting, the slaying of 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway and the Newtown, Conn., massacre of schoolchildren — may have had on the public or lawmakers.

When given the option to repeal capital punishment in 1966 — under circumstances in some ways similar to today — voters opted to keep it, according to a history of capital punishment in Colorado published in the University of Colorado Law Review by sociology professor Michael Radelet.

Then, too, a referred measure was proposed in the wake of a number of failed bills to abolish capital punishment.

But in the months running up to the 1966 election, the public was bombarded with a series of unusually brutal crimes — the bludgeoning death of a woman on a college campus and the mass shooting from a tower on the University of Texas' campus in Austin among them.

The events "arguably affected the vote more than any statements for or against the death penalty," and voters rejected repeal by nearly a two-to-one margin, Radelet writes.

No one can predict how the public's mood might change by November 2014 — or if Fields' measure will be on the ballot that year.

But if it is, Fields said, at least the matter will be decided by a broad array of people, some who have been affected by crime like she has.

And should the vote go against her?

"That," she said, "is a decision I could live with."


Florida

State Representative Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda of District 9, has filed a “Death Penalty Repealer Bill,” according to a recent post on her facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/ConversationsWithMichelle Vasilinda filed House Bill 4005, which would end the death penalty in Florida. Vasilinda states she is concerned over better and more cost effective ways to prevent and fight crime, especially against children and in our schools.

The recent tragedies of Sandy Hook and Webster, NY have resulted in an urgent cry for improved methods and additional resources to prevent such heinous crimes. The Florida Legislature will be working to find more effective ways to use all our resources to prevent similar crimes.

In the words of Rep. Vasilinda, "the appropriate question for state government is how do we keep people safe from crime in the most cost effective way? When you analyze the numbers, state sponsored execution is not the correct answer,"

Executions are carried out at a cost to taxpayers. In its 2000 report, “The High Price of Killing Killers,” the Palm Beach Post found that Florida spent approximately $51 million each year to enforce the death penalty. Other states and nations have done similar studies. With the money saved by passing HB 4005, Florida could add 450 highly trained and well-equipped law enforcement officers and significantly upgrade the FDLE investigative tools, including utilizing cutting-edge technology to apprehend criminals and prevent further crime. “We could take this money and invest it in law enforcement. In the end, Floridians would see a much greater benefit from having hundreds more police officers and detectives on the street, armed with the very best equipment,” said Rehwinkel Vasilinda.

According to Rep. Rehwinkel Vasilinda, "for many Floridians across the state there are additional and important reasons for repealing the death penalty. The one reason that transcends to all Floridians and is the appropriate purview of legislation is the question of how to keep our citizens truly safe while using taxpayer money in the most effective way to keep them from becoming the victims of crime.”


Kentucky

A central Kentucky Democrat will be pushing legislation in the upcoming session that would abolish the death penalty in Kentucky.

Representative Carl Rollins of Midway drafted a measure that would make Kentucky's stiffest sentence life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Rollins bill calls for the term "capital punishment" to be stricken altogether from state law.

Similar legislation has been introduced intermittently in Kentucky over the past 25 years, but has never garnered enough support to pass.



Tennessee

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.”