Lethal Injection Roundup - AP: Lawyer Concerned by Inmate's Shaking at AZ Execution | Additional coverage of KY lethal injection ruling

[Steve Hall]

This e-mail contains news articles from:
AZ - AP - Lawyer Concerned by Inmate's Shaking at Execution
KY - Louisville Courier-Journal - KY must consider single-drug
executions, judge says
KY - AP - Judge: Ky. must consider single drug executions
- - - - -
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/lawyer-concerned-inmates-shaking-executio
n-16216182
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ariz-lawyer-disturbed-by-inmates-shak
ing-during-execution-wants-to-know-if-he-was-in-pain/2012/04/25/gIQAJsklhT_s
tory.html
April 26, 2012 | via ABC News

Lawyer Concerned by Inmate's Shaking at Execution
By Amanda Lee Myers | Associated Press

FLORENCE, Ariz. — The attorney for an Arizona death-row inmate executed
Wednesday said he was “very disturbed” after seeing his client shake for
several seconds upon receiving his lethal injection, and he wants to find
out if the man felt any unnecessary pain.

Thomas Arnold Kemp, 63, was executed at the state prison in Florence for
killing a Tucson college student after robbing him of $200 in July 1992.

Kemp lay strapped to a table in the death chamber as he delivered his final
words: “I regret nothing.” He then nodded and smiled at his attorney, Tim
Gabrielsen, looked at the ceiling and calmly waited.

As the one-drug execution began, Kemp’s eyes closed and his body visibly
shook for several seconds before he went quiet and appeared to fall asleep
with a few deep breaths. His time of death was 10:08 a.m.

Gabrielsen later told The Associated Press he was concerned about his
client’s shaking and was considering what action could be taken to determine
if Kemp experienced pain, including an autopsy by an independent
pathologist.

“It was unmistakable,” said Gabrielsen, who has witnessed one other
execution. “He was shaking very violently. We’re very disturbed by that.”

In the past nine Arizona executions attended by the AP since 2007, no other
inmates shook as they were given a lethal injection.

State Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Lamoreaux said Kemp was
offered a mild sedative before the execution but turned it down.

“Also, the air conditioner was on and he expressed he was a little chilly,”
Lamoreaux said in an email to the AP. “The air conditioner was turned off,
and (Corrections Director Charles Ryan) personally directed the inmate be
covered with a couple of blankets.”

All inmates executed in Arizona are offered a sedative, but the vast
majority decline it.

Kemp was executed using one drug, pentobarbital. Most states use a
three-drug process and “the second drug would mask any movement or pain,”
said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information
Center in Washington, D.C.

Dieter said it’s hard to know if Kemp “had a strong adverse reaction” to the
pentobarbital.

“Sometimes it depends on the individual,” he said. “Maybe he had an unknown
(medical) problem.”

Jonathan Groner, an Ohio State University surgeon who has studied lethal
injection extensively, said high doses of pentobarbital are associated with
seizures, and that may have caused Kemp’s shaking.

“The problem is the people that give it are not physicians. They try to push
it as fast as possible,” Groner said. “It’s nothing anyone would do in a
hospital or medical center. It’s not a very good way to kill people.”

Kemp was sentenced to death for kidnapping Hector Soto Juarez from outside
Juarez’s Tucson home on July 11, 1992, and robbing him before taking him
into the desert near Marana, forcing him to undress and shooting him twice
in the head.

Juarez, 25, had just left his apartment and fiancée to get food when Kemp
and Jeffery Logan spotted him. They held him at gunpoint and used his debit
card to withdraw $200 before driving him to the Silverbell Mine area, where
Kemp killed Juarez.

The two men then went to Flagstaff, where they kidnapped a married couple
traveling from California to Kansas and made them drive to Durango, Colo.,
where Kemp raped the man in a hotel room. Later, Kemp and Logan forced the
couple to drive to Denver, where the couple escaped. Logan soon after
separated from Kemp and called police about Juarez’s murder.

Logan led police to Juarez’s body, and Kemp was arrested. Logan was later
sentenced to life in prison.

With three lethal injections already this year, Arizona could match its
record year for executions.

Arizona executed Robert Henry Moormann on Feb. 29 and Robert Charles Towery
on March 8. Another inmate, Samuel Villegas Lopez, is scheduled to be
executed May 16 for the brutal rape and murder of a Phoenix woman.

Three other inmates who are near the end of their appeals also could be put
to death this year, putting the state on pace to execute seven men in 2012.

Arizona established its death penalty in 1910. Since then, the most inmates
Arizona has executed in a given year was seven in 1999.
- - - - -
Associated Press Writer Walter Berry contributed to this report.

/ / / / /

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012304250069
Apr. 26, 2012

Kentucky must consider single-drug executions, judge says
Ruling could force Ky. to change policy
by Andrew Wolfson | The Courier-Journal

In a ruling that could force Kentucky to change the way it carries out
executions, a state judge on Wednesday ordered the state to consider using
one drug instead of three to put inmates to death.

Ruling in cases brought by six death-row inmates, Franklin Circuit Judge
Phillip Shepherd said the three-drug “cocktail” may no longer be needed now
that other states have successfully used a single drug for executions.

The inmates have claimed that executions using the three-drug combination
violate the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual
punishment, citing evidence that some put to death that way have suffered.

Spokeswomen for Gov. Steve Beshear’s office and the state Justice and Public
Safety Cabinet had no immediate comment.

Lawyers for the inmates praised Shepherd’s ruling, which included an order
giving the state 90 days to decide whether to adopt a new regulation
allowing executions to be carried out with one drug.

He also gave the state the same amount of time to consider adopting another
rule that would enhance safeguards against executing offenders who are
insane or mentally retarded.

“My clients don’t want to be executed, first and foremost, but if they are,
they are entitled to a procedure that would be in conformance with the
Eighth Amendment and reduce the risk of pain and suffering,” said David
Barron, an assistant public advocate who represents Ralph Baze, Thomas C.
Bowling, Robert Foley, Brian Keith Moore and Parramore Sanborn.

Chief Jefferson County Public Defender Dan Goyette, who represents Gregory
Wilson, called Shepherd’s ruling “well-reasoned, fair and responsible” and
said he hopes the Corrections Department “proceeds in a like manner.”

In a statement, Gov. Steve Beshear would say only that the state is
reviewing the order, including both of Shepherd’s suggestions, and would
announce its next steps after it completes that process.

In August 2010, Shepherd temporarily halted all executions in Kentucky after
finding a conflict between state law, which appears to allow executions
using one drug, and the state’s execution regulation, which does not. He
also held that the regulation doesn’t provide adequate protections against
executing inmates who are insane or mentally retarded.

Shepherd said he will not have to hold a trial on either of those issues if
the state Corrections Department decides to adopt new rules.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 upheld Kentucky’s three-drug method, but
Shepherd noted that the one-drug method was untested at that time.

Shepherd wrote that at least five states — Arizona, Idaho, South Dakota,
Ohio and Washington — have approved using a one-drug, barbiturate-only
procedure and that at least 18 such executions have taken place.

Barron said even if Kentucky decides to adopt new regulations allowing
one-drug executions, he doesn’t think it would hasten the resumption of
executions.

New proposed regulations can take as long as six months to adopt because of
requiring periods for advertising and public hearings.

Shepherd’s order comes on the heels of an American Bar Association panel
recommending that Kentucky suspend the death penalty until it adopts new
safeguards to prevent execution of the innocent.

In a 520-page report issued in December, a team of lawyers, professors and
retired judges who studied the state’s death penalty laws and procedures for
two years found that they do not “sufficiently protect the innocent, convict
the guilty and ensure the fair and efficient enforcement of criminal law.”

In March a group of 11 current and former prosecutors, including former U.S.
attorneys Steve Pence and Jack Smith and Jefferson County Attorney Mike
O’Connell, endorsed changes recommended, including adequate pay for
appointed counsel, preserving biological evidence and exempting the severely
mentally ill from death.
- - - - -
Reporter Andrew Wolfson can be reached at (502) 582-7189.

/ / / / /

http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=courier-jour
nal&sParam=39130831.story
4/25/2012 3:38 PM ET | via USA Today

Judge: Ky. must consider single drug executions
By Brett Barrouquere | Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Kentucky must either switch to a single drug to perform
executions within 90 days or prepare to go to trial on the claims of death
row inmates challenging the state's three-drug method of carrying out
capital punishment, a judge ruled Wednesday.

In a long-awaited order, Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd wrote that
the state's three-drug method may no longer be necessary now that other
states have successfully used a single drug to execute condemned inmates and
shown that "well-established alternatives" exist for Kentucky.

The ruling comes about 20 months after Shepherd halted all executions in
Kentucky. He imposed the ban after inmates challenged the three-drug method.
Their lawsuit asked whether the state's rules for carrying out a lethal
injection prohibited the use of a single drug and if there were adequate
safeguards against executing a mentally ill inmate.

If Kentucky sticks with a three-drug method, Shepherd wrote, the challenge
by the inmates will be allowed to go to trial. If Kentucky adopts a new
regulation allowing for a one-drug execution, similar to what is done in
Arizona, Ohio and other states, any claims of cruel and unusual punishment
by the inmates "will be rendered moot."

Shepherd's ruling comes just months after the American Bar Association
issued a report calling for a moratorium on executions in Kentucky, in part,
because of the number of cases overturned since the reinstatement of the
death penalty in 1976.

Shelley Catherine Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Attorney General's
Office, said the order is being reviewed and the Department of Corrections
will be consulted in "the near future."

Kenton County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders, a death penalty
proponent, said the state should heed Shepherd's ruling and go further.

"I think it would be faster, less expensive, and prudent for Kentucky to
adopt new administrative regulations that provide flexibility in selection
of the drug or drugs used to carry out executions," Sanders told The
Associated Press. "In fact, the process of adopting new regulations should
have been started 20 months ago."

Dan Goyette, a Louisville public defender who represents death row inmate
Gregory Lee Wilson, said Shepherd "thoroughly considered and addressed the
issues" and reached a "well-reasoned, fair and responsible" conclusion.

"I hope the Department of Corrections proceeds in a like manner in
determining its course of action, and takes into account the recent report
of the ABA Assessment Team on the administration of the death penalty in
Kentucky," Goyette told The Associated Press.

Public defender David Barron, who represents several death row inmates, said
the recent use of a single drug by other states shows that a single-drug
execution is workable and doesn't violate the constitution's prohibition
against cruel and unusual punishment.

At least seven states use a single drug to carry out executions, with three
states, Idaho, Washington and South Dakota giving an option to use more than
one drug. Kentucky currently uses sodium thiopental, pancurionium bromide
and potassium chloride, a combination similar to the one used by Georgia and
some other states.

The ruling does not require Kentucky to switch to a single drug for
executions. Instead, Shepherd cited the language in the state's lethal
injection statute allowing the Department of Corrections to use "a substance
or combination of substances" in executing an inmate. Shepherd contrasted
the wording the law with administrative regulations that allow only for a
three-drug mixture to be used in executions.

"The disjunctive language of this statute makes clear that the use of a
single drug was not only contemplated by the legislature, but also expressly
permitted," Shepherd wrote.

At the time the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's three-drug method in
2007, Shepherd wrote, a one-drug method was still untested. That's no longer
the case.

"The Supreme Court clearly held that the constitutionality of the three-drug
protocol under the Eighth Amendment is an issue that can only be decided in
the context of available alternatives," Shepherd wrote. "It did not hold
that the three-drug protocol was constitutional in all circumstances
regardless of the available alternatives."

The only U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental stopped making it in 2009
and dropped plans to resume production last year. Kentucky bought some doses
from a foreign supplier, but the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration began
seizing supplies over questions of whether the states broke the law to get
it. Kentucky surrendered its supply in 2011.

In the meantime, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Ohio purchased another
powerful sedative, pentobarbital, to carry out executions. Ohio and Arizona
have carried out one-drug executions. Other states allow for it, but haven't
used the single drug for a lethal injection.

Shepherd's initial ruling halting all executions came as the state prepared
to Wilson, 55, to death for the 1987 rape, kidnapping and murder of
36-year-old Debbie Pooley in Kenton County. Gov. Steve Beshear had also
signed execution warrants for 56-year-old Ralph S. Baze, convicted of
killing a sheriff and deputy in 1992, and 55-year-old Robert Foley,
condemned to death for six killings in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The appeals of least five Kentucky death row inmates have run their course.
They include Baze, Foley and Wilson, all of whom remain on death row at the
Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville.

Kentucky last executed an inmate in 2008 and has executed three people since
the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976.

Shepherd also ordered Kentucky to reconsider how it determines if a
condemned inmate is legally insane before an execution. Shepherd found that
Kentucky currently has no way to determine the mental capacity of a death
row inmate, which could lead to a violation of the ban on executing mentally
ill inmates.
- - - - -
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

/ / / / /
Steve Hall
The StandDown Texas Project
PO Box 13475
Austin, TX 78711

512.879.1675 (o
512.627.3011 (m
Skype: shall78711

www.StandDown.org
sh...@standdown.org
@standdown_tx
@steve_hall