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Thread: Capital Punishment Discussion

  1. #41
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    Death Penalty Opponents Split Over Taking Issue to Supreme Court

    In the long legal struggle against the death penalty, the future has in some ways never looked brighter.

    In a passionate dissent in June, Justice Stephen G. Breyer invited a major challenge to the constitutionality of capital punishment. This fall, Justice Antonin Scalia all but predicted that the court's more liberal justices would strike down the death penalty.

    But lawyers and activists opposed to the death penalty, acutely conscious of what is at stake, are bitterly divided about how to proceed. Some say it is imperative to bring a major case to the court as soon as practicable. Others worry that haste may result in a losing decision that could entrench capital punishment for years.

    "If you don't go now, there's a real possibility you have blood on your hands," said Robert J. Smith, a fellow at Harvard Law School's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute. His scholarship was cited in Justice Breyer's dissent from a decision upholding the use of an execution drug that 3 death row inmates argued risked causing excruciating pain.

    But others are wary. "There are reasons to be cautious about pushing the court to a decision too early," said Jordan M. Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas.

    The divide is partly generational. Many veteran litigators have suffered stinging setbacks in the Supreme Court, and they favor an incremental strategy. They would continue to chip away at the death penalty in the courts, seek state-by-state abolition and try to move public opinion.

    Some younger lawyers and activists urge a bolder course: to ask the Supreme Court to end capital punishment nationwide right away.

    Though Justice Breyer's dissent was joined only by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the more aggressive advocates are confident they can persuade 5 justices to do away with a punishment explicitly contemplated in the Fifth and 14th Amendments, which call for grand juries in federal cases involving "a capital or other infamous crime" and say that no person may be deprived "of life, liberty or property, without due process of law." That means picking up the votes of not only the rest of the court's liberal wing - Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan - but also, crucially, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

    Evan J. Mandery, the author of "A Wild Justice," a history of the last major challenges to the death penalty in the 1970s, said there were good arguments on both sides of whether to mount such an effort.

    "It's a very complicated gamble," he said. "The fear is that if you push and you lose, you could end up worse off."

    All concerned agree that much has changed since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 4 years after it had effectively struck it down. Last year, only 7 states carried out executions. 19 states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty entirely, seven of them in the last decade.

    Governors and courts have imposed moratoriums in others, and the number of death sentences and executions continues to drop. The Supreme Court itself has barred the execution of juvenile offenders, people with intellectual disabilities and those convicted of crimes against individuals other than murder in the last decade.

    The more cautious, step-by-step approach would ask the court to further narrow the availability of the death penalty by, for instance, forbidding the execution of mentally ill people and of accomplices who did not kill anyone. The more assertive one would introduce a broad case aimed at the death penalty itself.

    Both sides look to history for instruction, but they draw different lessons.

    Justice Breyer, for his part, has told friends that his dissent was partly inspired by a similar one a half-century before. The earlier dissent, by Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, helped create the modern movement for the abolition of the death penalty and led to a 4-year moratorium on executions.

    The 1963 dissent, in Rudolph v. Alabama, was drafted by a law clerk, Alan M. Dershowitz, who would go on to become a law professor at Harvard and a prominent litigator. A young Stephen G. Breyer began his own clerkship with Justice Goldberg the year after.

    Collecting data on national and international practice, Justice Goldberg's dissent urged the court to hear a case on whether the death penalty for rape violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

    "The goal was to ask litigators to start raising challenges to the death penalty," Professor Dershowitz said. "It was an invitation to litigation. It was not a common tactic back then, and we were much criticized for it."

    The dissent spurred the creation of capital litigation projects at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and at the American Civil Liberties Union.

    Justice Breyer's dissent was far more elaborate. It was 46 pages long, included charts and maps, and set out in detail the argument that the death penalty violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

    Professor Dershowitz said he was delighted that another former clerk of Justice Goldberg's was carrying on his old boss's project.

    "The goal in both cases is to encourage the court to play a more active role and to encourage litigants," he said.

    But opinions vary about the correct reading of the aftermath of the Goldberg dissent. Some veteran opponents of the death penalty noted that it took nine years of methodical litigation after the 1963 dissent before the Supreme Court effectively struck down the death penalty in 1972 in Furman v. Georgia. Even then, they said, the effort in the end yielded only a relatively brief moratorium.

    Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which has long played a central role in the fight against the death penalty, chose her words carefully in response to questions about her group's current strategy.

    "There is something undoubtedly powerful in having a Supreme Court justice lay out the brief for the unconstitutionality of the death penalty and to issue the challenge," she said. But it is Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and not Justice Breyer, she said, whose vote will be crucial.

    Litigators who work in cases in states committed to the death penalty said they were not counting on a general reprieve from the Supreme Court.

    "The Breyer dissent was a dissent that 2 justices signed," said David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston and the founder of the Texas Innocence Network.

    "I don't get too excited about 2 justices," he added. "The Breyer dissent means so little in terms of the imminent demise of the death penalty that I wouldn't spend any time on it."

    On the other side of the debate is the Eighth Amendment Project, a new group seeking prompt action.

    "We certainly have a feeling we're getting close," said Henderson Hill, the group's executive director. "We're getting warm."

    He said he understood why some were skeptical. "Lawyers are by their nature cautious," he said. "When you've been part of the killing fields of Texas, you have to concentrate on your clients and you don't have the luxury of thinking, 'What if?'"

    Mr. Hill said one case from Texas might serve as the right vehicle to mount a broad challenge. It concerns Julius Murphy, who was convicted of robbing and killing a stranded motorist. Among his lawyers is Neal K. Katyal, a prominent Supreme Court litigator and a former law clerk to Justice Breyer.

    "After Justice Breyer's dissenting opinion," Mr. Katyal said, "the time to test his views in the crucible of argument before the full court has come."

    In a brief to Texas's highest court for criminal matters, Mr. Katyal's law firm devoted a substantial passage to a direct attack on the death penalty, echoing the themes in Justice Breyer's dissent. Should the Texas court rule against Mr. Murphy, an appeal to the Supreme Court seems inevitable.

    In the meantime, the Eighth Amendment Project is hard at work identifying other cases that could serve as vehicles to end the death penalty, ideally ones involving impulsive crimes, intellectual disability and claims of innocence. Among cases the group hopes to avoid are ones arising from killings of police officers, murders for hire and torture.

    Whatever the eventual case, the group wants to have dozens of friend-of-the-court briefs ready for filing.

    Professor Dershowitz said a vigorous litigation strategy was the right approach.

    "Justice Breyer would not have written this dissent if he did not think this was a good time to bring cases to the attention of the court," he said. "Now it's up to litigants to figure out the right case."

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/us...ourt.html?_r=0

  2. #42
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    Death Knell? Executions Hit Two-Decade Low

    The number of executions and the number of people sentenced to death in the U.S. both fell in 2015 as turmoil continued to surround capital punishment across the country.

    In its year-end summary, the Death Penalty Information Center reported Wednesday that there were 28 executions in the last year, the lowest number since 1991. Just six states put inmates to death.

    While there are nearly 3,000 state and federal prisoners on death row, new death sentences also slid in 2015, with just 49 expected by Dec. 31. That would be the lowest number since 1973, the center reported.

    Opponents of capital punishment hailed the statistics as the beginning of the end of executions, even though 6 in 10 Americans still support the death penalty and a majority of states have it on the books.

    "We are seeing the process winding down," said Mike Farrell, an actor and activist who is leading the charge for a ballot initiative to abolish executions in California.

    Supporters of the death penalty, not surprisingly, have a different view. They say the low number of executions reflects the difficulty of getting lethal injection drugs, a challenge that some states have started to overcome.

    The number of executions and the number of people sentenced to death in the U.S. both fell in 2015 as turmoil continued to surround capital punishment across the country.

    In its year-end summary, the Death Penalty Information Center reported Wednesday that there were 28 executions in the last year, the lowest number since 1991. Just six states put inmates to death.

    While there are nearly 3,000 state and federal prisoners on death row, new death sentences also slid in 2015, with just 49 expected by Dec. 31. That would be the lowest number since 1973, the center reported.

    Opponents of capital punishment hailed the statistics as the beginning of the end of executions, even though 6 in 10 Americans still support the death penalty and a majority of states have it on the books.

    "We are seeing the process winding down," said Mike Farrell, an actor and activist who is leading the charge for a ballot initiative to abolish executions in California.

    Supporters of the death penalty, not surprisingly, have a different view. They say the low number of executions reflects the difficulty of getting lethal injection drugs, a challenge that some states have started to overcome.

    "There is a frustration factor, but as these problems are dealt with, that frustration factor will decline," said Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which successfully pushed California to unveil a new execution protocol this year.

    Scheidegger also pointed to this summer's Supreme Court 5-4 ruling that shot down an Oklahoma inmate's challenge to a particular execution drug on the grounds it would not anesthetize him against pain. He called the decision "an out-of-the-park home run."

    Death-penalty headlines from across the year detailed victories for both sides of the debate.

    Nebraska's legislature overrode a veto and repealed the death penalty, but supporters gathered enough signatures for a voter referendum next year.

    Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf imposed a moratorium on executions until lawmakers submit recommendations on overhauling the process.

    Ohio put all executions on hold until 2017 because it hasn't been able to obtain the drugs called for under its new protocol, and the FDA blocked the state from importing the chemicals.

    Texas passed legislation to keep the identity of its drugs suppliers secret, and North Carolina also expanded its secrecy rules.

    A federal appeals panel reversed a California judge's ruling that the death penalty in the state is unconstitutional because legal delays have rendered it arbitrary.

    Farrell said the drop in the number of new death sentences shows juries are becoming more reluctant to impose capital punishment because of high-profile exonerations and botched executions.

    "I think the ugliness of the process is beginning to take its toll," he said.

    Scheidegger said a drop in the number of murders over the last two decades was likely a bigger factor.

    "Prosecutors are being more selective in the cases they seek the death penalty for," he said.

    "I think there is a shift in attitude in the direction that we need the death penalty for the worst cases and not for the typical cases," he added.

    "There were some jurisdictions in the habit of asking for the death penalty wherever legally allowed and that was a dumb policy. No one does that anymore."

    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/let...de-low-n480551

  3. #43
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    As More Americans Turn on Death Penalty, Some States Weigh Harder Stance

    In Oklahoma, a scandal over the state's execution methods has inspired a move to enshrine the death penalty in the state constitution.

    In Nebraska, a governor unhappy with lawmakers' repeal of the death penalty has bankrolled a campaign to bring it back.

    And in California, where condemned killers wait decades to meet their fates, residents will decide either to speed up the process or ban it entirely.

    These three states sit at a crossroads in America's conflicted relationship with capital punishment, with voters set to determine next month whether the practice continues to fade away or stubbornly persists.

    The ballot initiatives come at a critical time, as the death penalty appears to be slouching toward obsolescence.

    Twenty states have abolished capital punishment, and another four have stopped the practice by decree of governors. The 15 people executed so far this year is the lowest number since 1991, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a drop-off driven in part by shortages of execution drugs and successful challenges to capital sentences. National polls show that the public's support for the death penalty has been declining for decades, while opposition has grown.

    But the number of Americans who approve of it still outnumber those who don't.

    And in places where the death penalty has come under attack, proponents are seeking ways to keep it alive.

    "What you have are attempts here not to mount any kind of revival of the death penalty, but to stop the bleeding," said Franklin Zimring, a criminologist at U.C. Berkeley School of Law.

    None of this is surprising to Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. When a social or government institution appears imperiled, it is natural for adherents to rally around it.

    "The death penalty is eroding everywhere," Dunham said. "One by one, states are eliminating it, and even in states that keep it, prosecutors are seeking it less and juries are returning it less frequently. You can see the public support draining away. So for those with a vested interest in retaining the policy, they feel under siege. And they respond."

    The revolt underway in Nebraska is in response to last year's move by the Republican-controlled state Legislature to repeal the death penalty on grounds it was costly, inefficient and wrong (the state hasn't executed anyone since 1997). Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts vetoed it, and the lawmakers overrode him.

    Ricketts and his wealthy father then helped finance a campaign to take the issue directly to voters with a Nov. 8 referendum that asks whether the death penalty ban should be reversed.

    "There's a storm going on in Nebraska," Dunham said, part of the broader "political climate change" underway in regard to capital punishment.

    The results will test whether America's slow turn against the death penalty can move into the country's deeply conservative areas.

    Oklahoma is a different matter. It pursues the death penalty more aggressively than most states, with 112 executions in the last four decades, and another 47 people on death row. But a series of botched lethal injections forced Gov. Mary Fallin to issue a moratorium on executions until the state adopted new procedures.

    Death penalty proponents responded by getting a referendum placed on the Nov. 8 ballot that seeks to add capital punishment to the state constitution. That would make it harder to repeal it, and would protect it from court rulings. But critics say the move subverts government checks and balances.

    "The referendum in Oklahoma looks very much like a disproportionate response by individuals who feel as though the policy is under siege," Dunham said.

    Then there's California, which has the largest number of people on death row (741), in large part because the appeals process is so burdensome. There have been no executions there in a decade, compared with 13 in the previous three decades.

    California voters rejected an attempt to abolish the death penalty four years ago. But abolitionists believe they'll have better luck next month. They've gotten a question on the Nov. 8 ballot that asks whether the death penalty should be repealed.

    But death penalty supporters, who acknowledge that the system is deeply flawed, back a second ballot question that asks to make the appeal process faster, a change that would speed the rate of executions.

    If that measure passes, executions would begin again, and momentum could shift in favor of counter-repeal efforts elsewhere.

    But if the repeal question wins, it will mark a huge leap toward ending the death penalty nationwide, said Douglas Berman, a law professor at The Ohio State University who specializes in criminal law and sentencing.

    "If they do repeal, to me that will not only speed the path for politicians nationwide feeling comfortable with voicing their own repeal affinities, but will also embolden judges who, although they're not supposed to follow the election cycle, are shaped by a sense of which way the winds blow," Berman said.

    Because the ballot questions are separate, both might pass. In that scenario, the one that received the most yes votes would prevail.

    Barring a comprehensive ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, Berman said, the death penalty will probably never disappear in America.

    That's because, between the stalwart proponents and abolitionists, a sizable proportion of people understand the death penalty's shortcomings but don't want to preclude using it in the most heinous crimes, Berman said.

    He predicted that use of the death penalty will diminish to the point where it's applied in those narrowest of circumstances.

    Robert Blecker agrees. He's a professor at New York Law School and author of "The Death of Punishment: Searching for Justice Among the Worst of the Worst." Support for the death penalty, he said, is rooted in a "deeply felt moral intuition" that particularly horrific crimes should be punished with death.

    "There are those of us who will stay angry and morally focused and care about justice," he said. "We will not be argued out of it on the basis of cost and inefficiency."

    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...stance-n660551
    "It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them".--Alfred Adler

  4. #44
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    A few weeks old but still.

    Support for death penalty lowest in more than four decades

    As the Supreme Court prepares to hear the first of two death penalty cases in this year’s term, the share of Americans who support the death penalty for people convicted of murder is now at its lowest point in more than four decades.

    Only about half of Americans (49%) now favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while 42% oppose it. Support has dropped 7 percentage points since March 2015, from 56%. Public support for capital punishment peaked in the mid-1990s, when eight-in-ten Americans (80% in 1994) favored the death penalty and fewer than two-in-ten were opposed (16%). Opposition to the death penalty is now the highest it has been since 1972.

    Though support for the death penalty has declined across most groups, a Pew Research Center survey conducted Aug. 23-Sept. 2 among 1,201 adults finds that most Republicans continue to largely favor its use in cases of murder, while most Democrats oppose it. By more than two-to-one, more Republicans (72%) than Democrats (34%) currently favor the death penalty.

    Two decades ago, when majorities in both parties favored the death penalty, the partisan gap was only 16 percentage points (87% of Republicans vs. 71% of Democrats).

    And, for the first time in decades, independents are as likely to oppose the use of the death penalty (45%) as they are to favor it (44%). The share of independents who support capital punishment has fallen 13 points since last year (from 57%).

    This shift in views among independents is particularly pronounced among those who lean toward the Democratic Party (a 10-point decrease in support) and those who do not lean to either party (down 16 points). Support for the death penalty among independents who lean toward the GOP is little changed from March 2015 (73% now, 70% then).

    Even as support for the death penalty has declined across nearly all groups, demographic differences remain: Men are more likely to back the use of the death penalty than women, white Americans are more supportive than blacks and Hispanics, and attitudes on the issue also differ by age, education and along religious lines.

    More than half of men (55%) say they are in favor of the death penalty and 38% are opposed. Women’s views are more divided: 43% favor the death penalty, 45% oppose it.

    A 57% majority of whites favor the death penalty for those convicted of murder (down from 63% last year). But blacks and Hispanics support it at much lower rates: Just 29% of blacks and 36% of Hispanics favor capital punishment.

    There are only modest difference by age and education in support for the death penalty, with 18- to 29-year-olds somewhat less likely to support it (42% favor) than those in older age groups (51% of those 30 and older). Those without a college degree are more likely than those with at least a college degree to favor the use of the death penalty in cases of murder (51% vs. 43%).

    White evangelical Protestants continue to back the use of the death penalty by a wide margin (69% favor, 26% oppose). White mainline Protestants also are substantially more likely to support (60%) than oppose (31%) the death penalty. But among Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated, opinion is more divided: 43% of Catholics favor capital punishment, while 46% oppose it. And while 50% of those who are religiously unaffiliated oppose the death penalty, 40% support it.

    A more detailed study last year of attitudes toward capital punishment found that 63% of the public thought the death penalty was morally justified, but majorities said there was some risk of an innocent person being put to death (71%) and that the death penalty does not deter serious crime (61%).

    Note: View the methodology for the Aug. 23-Sept. 2 survey and the topline. (PDF).

    http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...-four-decades/
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  5. #45
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    Death On The Ballot

    Later this month, the Supreme Court will hear a major Eighth Amendment case on the death penalty and intellectual disability. But today, voters will decide the future of capital punishment in three states. I’ll be keeping my eye on these ballot measures today.

    In California, voters are faced with two competing referenda. The passage of Proposition 62 would eliminate the death penalty in the state, replacing it with the maximum penalty of life without the possibility of parole. The passage of Proposition 66 would retain the death penalty, and make it harder for inmates on death row to prolong their appeals. Its supporters argue that the current system delays justice, and that Prop 66 would work to bring closure to victims’ families. They also argue it would save taxpayers’ money. If both pass, whichever receives more “yes” votes will take precedence. A September USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll found that California voters opposed eliminating the death penalty, 40 percent to 51 percent.

    California has over a quarter of the country’s death-row population, but the state hasn’t executed anyone since 2006.

    In Nebraska, voters are considering Referendum 426, the language of which is a bit byzantine. A “repeal” vote would reinstate the death penalty there. Capital punishment was eliminated by the state’s legislature in 2015, that bill was vetoed by Gov. Pete Ricketts, and that veto was then narrowly overturned by the legislature. A “retain” vote would retain the state’s ban on the death penalty. An August poll by Global Marketing Research Services found that Nebraskans supported reinstating the death penalty, 58-30.

    There were 10 people on Nebraska’s death row as of July, and the state has executed three people since 1976.

    And in Oklahoma, voters will decide State Question 776. A “yes” vote would amend the state’s constitution, guaranteeing the state the power to execute and choose the method of execution, and declare that the death penalty “shall not be deemed to be or constitute the infliction of cruel or unusual punishment”. A “no” vote would defeat this amendment.

    There are 47 people on death row in Oklahoma, and state has had the highest per-capita execution rate since 1976. A July SoonerPoll, according to Ballotpedia, found overwhelming popular support for the amendment.

    http://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog...ults-coverage/
    "It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them".--Alfred Adler

  6. #46
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    I know its buzz feed but its accurate.

    How Donald Trump Could Revitalize The Death Penalty

    Now that Trump will become president, he will have a chance to revitalize the death penalty. Here’s how he could do it.

    The Supreme Court

    Trump’s most obvious effect on the death penalty will be through the US Supreme Court. The prospect of the court ruling the death penalty unconstitutional in the near future was already a longshot. Now, abolition would dependent on support from all four more liberal justices and Justice Anthony Kennedy — with no likelihood of getting a supportive sixth possible vote over the next four years.

    In practice, the high court’s actual interaction with the death penalty is much more mundane than a hypothetical sweeping ruling on its constitutionality. The court deals with questions about how the death penalty is carried out: from decisions about who is even eligible for the death penalty to issues with trial procedure and sentencing rules to challenges to the methods of execution.

    These are the questions that, absent outright abolition, have a massive effect on how the death penalty works in practice. Another conservative vote (or more) could have a lasting effect. This is particularly true when it comes to challenges relating to sentencing law. Justice Antonin Scalia had been a leader on the court in advancing a resurgent jury trial right, which — in one of his last votes — was solidly, and broadly, applied to provide the protection of a jury vote not just for guilt but also as to the sentencing part of a death penalty trial. Whether that area of law continues to advance — as criminal defense lawyers hope — could change dramatically depending on Trump’s nominee or nominees to the court.

    Reinvigorating The Federal Death Penalty

    A Trump administration — from Trump and his attorney general on down — likely will be more supportive of the death penalty across the board.

    The federal death penalty exists, but is extremely rare currently. There are only 64 people on federal death row, and there’s hasn’t been a serious prospect of them being executed in years. There have only been three federal executions in the modern era.

    Obama has called the death penalty “deeply troubling” and his former Attorney General, Eric Holder, was an outspoken critic of it. His current attorney general, Loretta Lynch, still has not announced findings of a review of the death penalty that was begun during Holder’s tenure. Needless to say, the outcome of the review — even if it comes before the end of the Obama administration and is critical of the death penalty — likely will not form the basis of a Trump administration’s implementation of it.

    These effects wouldn’t only be seen in the higher echelons of the administration, either. Trump almost certainly will appoint U.S. attorneys more eager for the death penalty than those under Obama.

    Across the country, this could have a broader effect as well. Currently, new death sentences are way down. The sentences that are given out now are sought by just a handful of prosecutors, and the cases are incredibly expensive. A Trump administration could be more eager to help provide assistance to state death penalty prosecutions — or to seek the death penalty more frequently when it is possible to do so under federal law.

    Allow States To Get (Illegal) Execution Drugs

    An important reason executions have been on decline is because there’s been a difficulty in obtaining lethal injection drugs. For years, states have struggled to find a consistent supply of them after manufacturers began enacting stringent guidelines to keep their products away from lethal injections.

    Trump’s largest impact on executions in the United States could be getting involved in an ongoing, but little noticed, feud between death penalty states and the federal government over importing illegal execution drugs.

    The states’ reliable lethal injection drug for decades, sodium thiopental, has been impossible for states to get. The sole Food and Drug Administration-approved manufacturer stopped making the drug to keep it out of the hands of executioners.

    States have turned to illegal suppliers of the drug. Last year, BuzzFeed News reported that Texas, Arizona, and Nebraska all purchased illegal sodium thiopental from a supplier in India. Nebraska’s shipment never left India. The Texas and Arizona shipments were detained by the FDA once they entered the US.

    Two thousand vials of execution drugs have sat in a government warehouse for well over a year while the states and the FDA argue behind the scenes over whether the drugs can be released. The FDA argues that there is a court order preventing them from releasing the drugs.

    The decision over what to do with these execution drugs involves the highest-ranking people at the FDA. Documents obtained by BuzzFeed News show the commissioner of the FDA asked to be briefed on the issue last year.

    With a Trump-appointed FDA head, the decision could be different.

    The FDA, under Obama, initially wanted no part of the issue. Years ago, the FDA allowed drugs to be imported by states wishing to carry out the death penalty, with the federal agency saying it wasn’t its role to regulate execution drugs. But a federal appeals court panel ruled the FDA didn’t have discretion to ignore a law that says unapproved drugs aren’t allowed into the country — leaving in place a court order that mandates such continued enforcement.

    If Texas and Arizona were to sue over such drug importation while Obama was president, they would not only have to argue that the drugs should be allowed to come in — they’d have to go much further. They’d also have to argue that the court order doesn’t apply and that the FDA doesn’t have discretion to bar the drug.

    Under an FDA commissioner that’s more sympathetic to the states’ argument, however, their case could become significantly easier to make. If the FDA wants to allow the drugs in, states would just need to convince the court that the earlier injunction doesn’t apply now and that the court should defer to the FDA’s interpretation and expertise on what drugs should be allowed into the country.

    Large drug manufacturers in the US and Europe take great lengths to keep their products away from executioners. That would not be true of small manufacturers and distributors in countries like India. The change could be huge — and could allow for a steady supply of execution drugs.

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrismcdani...d1#.qmL3vOvWK7
    "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

  7. #47
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    The U.S. executed fewer people in 2016 than in any other year since 1991

    Capital punishment in the U.S. is gradually becoming a thing of the past.

    Twenty death row inmates were executed in 2016 — the lowest number in 25 years, according to a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a non-profit organization that collects and analyzes data on capital punishment. The DPIC projects that 30 new death sentences will have been handed down this year, a 37 percent drop from 2015. Public support for executions is also waning among people of all political and social backgrounds.

    The DPIC’s annual findings, published on Wednesday, included an analysis of death penalty trends since the 1970s, when the U.S. Supreme Court abolished and then reinstated capital punishment.
    The number of executions skyrocketed in the 1990s and peaked in 1999, when 98 people were put to death; since then, there’s been a long-term, downward trend in the number of executions nationwide.

    This year was no exception. Executions occurred in five states, the lowest number of states in 33 years. And while the total number of people put to death in 2016 wasn’t record-breaking — there were fewer than 20 annual executions between 1976 and 1984 — it was lower than any year since 1991.

    This year also marks the sixth year in a row that fewer than 100 people were sentenced to capital punishment, either by a jury or judge. The 30 people sentenced to die in 2016 was a 43-year low. And no state handed down 10 or more death penalty sentences — the first time that has happened in 40 years.

    Both execution and sentencing rates have always been incumbent on geography, according to the DPIC. In 2013, the organization reported that 2 percent of all U.S. counties impose more than half of all death sentences and execute more than half of all people in the U.S. But 2016 data shows that the number of sentences in those counties also dropped by 35 percent since last year.

    The latest findings come at a tumultuous time, with President-elect Donald Trump set to take office in January. There is no clear sense of what will come of the bipartisan push for criminal justice reform, or what stance the Trump administration will take on the subject of capital punishment in particular. Based on his past writings, Trump not only favors executions but believes the standard method of killing convicted prisoners is “too comfortable.”

    “Would it have been civilized to put Hitler in prison? No--it would have been an affront to civilization,” Trump wrote in his book, The America We Deserve. “The same is true of criminals who prey on innocent people. They have declared war on civilization. I don’t care if the victim is a CEO or a floor sweeper. A life is a life, and if you criminally take an innocent life you’d better be prepared to forfeit your own. My only complaint is that lethal injection is too comfortable a way to go.”

    But according to DPIC’s Executive Director Robert Dunham, capital punishment will likely continue to lose steam over time.

    “There can be bumps along the way, but the long-term trend is clear, and that is away from the death penalty,” he told ThinkProgress.

    National polls by the Pew Research Center and Gallup show that public support for the death penalty is steadily declining, and outright opposition is on the rise. For “the first time in 45 years,” less than half of the country support it, Pew concluded. Gallup put the percentage of support at 60 percent, which still reflects a drop in favorable opinion nationwide.

    Polling data from states that disproportionately sentence and execute people — including Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma — show that the majority of their residents favor an alternative to the death penalty, such as life without parole. This year, voters across the country also ousted prosecutors who aggressively prosecuted death penalty cases, including Angela Corey in Duval County, Florida and Devon Anderson in Harris County, Texas — once considered the “death penalty capital of America.”

    Dunham attributes declining public support to growing concern about the ethics behind capital punishment.

    “There is a point at which the risk of sending an innocent person to death row stops being a hypothetical risk and becomes accepted as a reality,” he said. “We have reached the point where the facts are clear and unequivocal: Innocent people are being wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. There is also significant evidence that innocent people have been executed.”

    Since 1973, 156 people sentenced to die have been exonerated. DPIC also identified 13 people who were executed despite “strong evidence of innocence.” And there is still no concrete evidence that killing people actually deters crime. After scouring decades of research about it’s efficacy, the National Research Council was unable to identify a single piece of evidence that the death penalty increased public safety.

    People are also less keen to support capital punishment because of how it is being applied.

    “The people we’re executing, year after year, don’t look like the worst of the worst. They look like the most mentally or emotionally damaged,” Dunham said. “They look like people who have been convicted of killing favored classes of victims. Mostly, they look like they were prosecuted in the wrong jurisdiction at the wrong time.”

    The way executions are administered is also alarming. “States are botching executions, and engaging in secret practices, and trying to shield the inner workings of the death penalty from public scrutiny. That undermines public confidence and trust in both the government and the death penalty,” Dunham said.

    Just last week, death row prisoner Ronald B. Smith heaved and gasped for air during his lethal injection. The drug that was supposed to knock him out, midazolam, wasn’t strong enough to render him unconscious. But at no point was there talk of ending the procedure.

    “You can think that it’s unfair. You can think that it’s discriminatorily imposed. You can think it costs too much, and you can think that it doesn’t make people safer,” Dunham said. “But if you have a visceral reaction to it, because of the manner in which it’s being carried out, that affects the way you respond when you have to make a decision about whether someone should live or die.”

    Altogether, the death penalty is increasingly viewed as an archaic and inhumane practice, and that perception is having an effect in courtrooms across the country. And even with a tough on crime president-elect who has given the green light to commit hate crimes, a reversal of death penalty trends is unlikely, Dunham said.

    “I think everyone has concerns about the rise in hate speech and whether the increase in hostility that has been noticeable over the last several months carries over into jury panels,” he said. “We don’t know the answer to that, but when you look at what juries did this year, including during juries in which there was possible political rhetoric, they imposed the death penalty at record lows.”

    https://thinkprogress.org/death-pena...256#.nuu9fumc0
    "It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them".--Alfred Adler

  8. #48
    Catsratz
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    Quote Originally Posted by Heidi View Post
    I don't care about the poll findings. I just thought the GIF was cool.
    Ya, looks like a blooming pomegranate

  9. #49
    Moderator mostlyclassics's Avatar
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    Death-Penalty Opponents Are Being Dishonest in Their Arguments

    By Jonah Goldberg
    The National Review

    They make the appeals process long and costly, then say the death penalty is unworkable because … it’s long and costly.

    The debate over the death penalty can be infuriatingly dishonest.

    Consider the April 17 broadcast of Fox News Channel’s Special Report with Bret Baier (a show on which I am an occasional commentator).

    Casey Stegall reported on the legal battle in Arkansas, where officials want to execute eight death-row inmates in eleven days before their supply of midazolam expires. This is one of the drugs used to carry out lethal injections.

    Stegall did his legwork. He talked to Susan Khani, the daughter of the woman murdered, execution-style, by Don Davis in 1990. She told Stegall the last quarter century has been agony for her, adding: “He is just a very cruel person. He needs to be put to death.”

    Stegall then talked to the usual death-penalty opponents. First was Robert Dunham, of the Death Penalty Information Center, who said, “There is a myth that family members of murder victims will get closure out of executions. In fact, for many of the family members, that does not happen.”

    So let’s start there. To say that something is a “myth” is to suggest that it is untrue. The Loch Ness Monster is a myth. Bigfoot is a myth. But on Dunham’s own terms, some family members do get closure. He didn’t say, “No family members of murder victims get closure.” He said “many,” a subjective term that could mean pretty much any number short of “most.”

    Stegall then talked to Stacy Anderson, of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is concerned that we might execute the wrong person. “We know that 156 innocent people have been found on death row in the last 20 years,” she said.

    Added Stegall: “The ACLU says cost is another driving force of the decline. Litigating death-penalty cases is expensive since the condemned often spend years filing appeals and lawsuits.”

    This is also true. But you know what group is arguably most responsible for raising the cost of the death penalty? The American Civil Liberties Union.

    There’s something remarkably cynical about the ACLU’s barraging the courts with often frivolous complaints that raise the costs of the death penalty, then pretending that their objection is the cost.

    The ACLU is well within its rights to clog the courts with lawsuits. But there’s something remarkably cynical about barraging the courts with often frivolous complaints that raise the costs of the death penalty, then pretending that your objection is the cost.

    Indeed, Arkansas is racing to use its drugs before they expire because death-penalty opponents have worked tirelessly to make such drugs extremely difficult to obtain.

    The same cynicism applies to concerns about innocent people being wrongly executed. I’m in favor of the death penalty. You know what? I’m also passionately opposed to executing the wrong person.

    But Don Davis eventually admitted to murdering Jane Daniels in cold blood after breaking into her home, so objections that some other death-row inmate might be innocent have no bearing on his case.

    Ironically, immediately after Stegall’s report, anchor Bret Baier announced: “A massive manhunt is under way at this hour for a suspect who police say engaged in a heinous public crime that can truly be called a sign of the times.”

    The suspect was Steve Stephens, the so-called Facebook Killer, who videotaped himself admitting that he was about to murder someone randomly. He then got out of his car, walked up to 74-year-old Robert Godwin, a father of ten and grandfather of 14, and casually executed him. Stephens then posted the video on Facebook.

    Stephens killed himself two days later. But say he hadn’t. Obviously, he would have gotten a trial. Let’s suppose he was found guilty and got the death penalty. We would still be subjected to all of the sleight-of-hand rhetoric about the risk of executing innocent people, the costs, etc., even though there would be zero doubt in this instance.

    We’d probably also hear that the death penalty is “racist” — Stephens was black — despite the fact that Stephens’s victim was black as well. Meanwhile, Don Davis is white.

    It is entirely legitimate and honorable to oppose the death penalty on principle. The problem is that this is a constitutionally ridiculous position given that the plain text of the Constitution itself allows for the death penalty in several places.

    Acolytes of the “living Constitution” want to believe that nothing bad (as defined by them) can be constitutional. I don’t think the death penalty is bad, but if you want to get rid of it, amend the Constitution. Otherwise, opponents should stop pretending their real objection is something else.

    — Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...R5PM%20Actives

  10. #50
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    What to Know About the Death Penalty in 2018

    Here are the most important places to keep an eye on.

    By MAURICE CHAMMAH
    The Marshall Project

    Only a little more than a year ago, many opponents of the death penalty were cautiously optimistic that the U.S. Supreme Court — perhaps with a Clinton appointee or two — might strike down the punishment for good. Then came President Donald Trump, who tweeted “SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!” about one criminal suspect and recently called for the execution of anyone who kills a police officer. He picked an attorney general, Jeff Sessions, known for his efforts to pursue executions in Alabama, and a Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch, whose first major decision was to deny a prisoner’s request for a stay of execution.

    But does all that matter? The number of executions and new death sentences have been trending downward for years. Support for capital punishment in the U.S. is at about 55 percent, its lowest point in more than four decades. Trump’s first year saw a slight rise in death sentences and executions, but those are the product of counties and states; the president and attorney general have little say beyond the occasional federal case. What can we expect at the beginning of 2018? Is the death penalty almost gone, or will the president’s support rejuvenate it?

    To answer those questions, there will be four places to watch:

    The Counties

    It’s up to local, elected district attorneys to decide whether to ask a jury for the death penalty. In the 1990s, many prosecutors campaigned on their successes sending men to death row. But much has changed. In the last two years, voters elected district attorneys in Denver, Philadelphia, and Orlando, Fla., who all promised to stop seeking the death penalty completely. In Orlando, the move prompted a backlash, as Florida Gov. Rick Scott removed potential death cases from new DA Aramis Ayala’s authority; she sued, lost, and rescinded the death penalty ban.

    In Houston and Tampa, newly elected DAs made vaguer pledges: they said they would be more judicious about which cases merit the death penalty. Inevitably, there will be high-profile crimes in these communities, and many — perhaps inspired by the president — will call for harsh punishments. It will be worth watching these prosecutors handle the new cases that cross their desks. As the death penalty disappears, it has been replaced by life without parole, a punishment that California prisoner Kenneth Hartman once called "death by another name.” In Texas alone, between 70 and 100 people are sentenced to life without parole each year — far exceeding death sentences there. Keep an eye on prosecutors who spare prisoners from execution to see if they send even greater numbers to prison for life.

    The States

    It takes a DA and a jury to send someone to death row, but it takes a massive state bureaucracy to kill him. Courts must uphold the convictions, prison officials must secure lethal injection drugs, and governors and attorneys general must clear political and legal obstacles. In recent years, executions have become even more difficult to carry out because drug companies have protested the use of their products in lethal injections. States have searched for new sources and combinations of drugs, and defense lawyers have fought these new plans in court. Eight states managed to clear these obstacles and carry out executions in 2017. The result was more executions than the year before, when only five states pulled it off. But numerous other states have made moves to obtain lethal injection drugs and revive their death chambers. In 2018, we will see if they succeed, or whether opponents are able to hold them off through litigation. Nebraska and Nevada are both trying new drug combinations that feature fentanyl, the opioid responsible for thousands of accidental deaths in recent years.

    This is an area where Trump could have an effect. In Arizona, Nebraska, and Texas, efforts to import execution drugs from India have been stymied by the federal Food and Drug Administration. Trump could push the agency to let the drugs in, paving the way for many states to seek drugs abroad.

    The Supreme Court

    Trump could leave a massive legacy at the Supreme Court, especially if Justice Anthony Kennedy follows through on his plan to retire. This would affect many areas of the law, including the death penalty. Kennedy has been a swing vote in the court’s efforts to ban its use on the intellectually disabled and people who committed their crimes before age 18.

    Death row prisoners are likely to find less success under a Trump-nominated successor, but some observers have pointed to Chief Justice John Roberts as a potential swing vote on capital cases. Recently, he rejected the death sentence of Duane Buck, whose trial featured testimony from an expert witness that suggested he was more likely to be dangerous because he is black. "Some toxins can be deadly in small doses,” Roberts wrote of that testimony. The court is currently considering whether to hear a challenge to the Georgia death sentence of Keith Tharpe. A juror from his trial used the n-word and “wondered if black people even have souls.”

    Still, as with Buck, a victory for Tharpe would not have a broad effect on capital punishment as a whole. For that, look to Abel Hidalgo, whose Arizona case the justices are currently considering whether to hear. Hidalgo was convicted of the 2000 murders of two men at an auto repair shop; he was paid $1,000 by a gang that wanted one of the men dead. His lawyer, Neal Katyal — a former solicitor general under Obama, who also represented the state of Hawaii in a challenge to Trump’s travel ban — has asked the Supreme Court to consider whether the death penalty as a whole is unconstitutional. That is a long shot, given that the court has chosen to avoid the question several times in recent years. But Katyal has also given the court an opportunity to take a more modest challenge. Most states with the death penalty have laws that say only certain “aggravating” factors can qualify a murderer for the punishment. Katyal argues that in Arizona there are so many aggravating factors that practically any murder qualifies.

    If the court takes the case, it could cast into doubt the future of the death penalty in a state where 120 people are on death row. Another potentially important case — which Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said he’s watching — comes from Missouri, where a man was sentenced to death last year by a trial judge after his jury deadlocked 11-1. Missouri is one of only two states, along with Indiana, where judges are allowed to break such a deadlock. But two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Hurst v. Florida that judges cannot be the primary decider behind a death sentence. Perhaps, as this case is appealed, it also will land in front of the Supreme Court.

    The U.S. Attorney General

    The federal government has successfully sought capital punishment 76 times since 1988. It will become clear in 2018 whether Sessions will try to impose capital punishment in some current cases. As attorney general of Alabama in the 1990s, he oversaw the state’s efforts to move cases toward execution. But during his confirmation hearings, he said he had dropped the death penalty in an Alabama case when he learned it did not meet the legal criteria, weathering political attacks for the decision (he did not specify the case). The Department of Justice has a bureaucratic process for determining whether to seek death, and it will be up to Sessions to decide whether to overrule the decision brought to him. Obama oversaw several federal death sentences — most famously those of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Dylann Roof — but no executions.

    The federal government, much like the states, has not been able to obtain lethal injection drugs. Sessions could prioritize the issue and seek a revival of the federal execution chamber. Finally, there is one way he could speed up executions in the states. People sent to state death rows can appeal to federal courts, and in 1996, Congress set a one-year deadline for these appeals. Former Marshall Project reporter Ken Armstrong investigated in 2014 how lawyers frequently missed the deadline, leading to their client’s executions. But a little-known provision of that law offered states the opportunity to push the deadline back even further — to six months — and also force federal courts to rule more quickly. The provision has been tied up in a lengthy legal battle, but it will eventually be up to Sessions to decide if states can speed up appeals. “I suspect it hasn't been a priority in this very tumultuous first year of the Trump Administration,” said Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in California, who supports the changes. “But it will go forward at some point.”

    https://www.themarshallproject.org/2...enalty-in-2018

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