Christopher Zoukis's Blog - Posts Tagged "execution"
Virginia wants to make the electric chair its back-up, in case execution chemicals are not available
The Virginia House of Delegates has passed a bill (HB 815) to allow executions by electric chair in case the state cannot procure the lethal chemicals it would otherwise use, and a battle over the proposal is shaping up in the state Senate.
lethal injection
The measure passed February10 by a 62-33 margin in the GOP-controlled chamber. During the floor debate, the bill’s sponsor spent over a quarter hour recounting the gruesome details of the torture and murder of a Richmond family of four, including two young girls, by Ricky Javon Gray, who is scheduled to be executed on March 16. According to that sponsor, Del. Jackson Miller (R) of Manassas, the case represents “exactly why” Virginia has “this punishment on our books.”
The Virginia Department of Corrections says it may not have an adequate supply of pentobarbital, a sedative that is one of the chemicals required by the state’s lethal injection protocol. Officials in Texas supplied Virginia with two doses of the drug, which have an April expiration date. The state says any delay would leave the state unable to conduct the execution by lethal chemicals; some legislators and other opponents of capital punishment have criticized what they say is a lack of transparency by state corrections officials. If the Virginia Senate passes the House-cleared bill and Gov. Terry McAuliffe signs it – although a professed opponent of capital punishment, the governor allowed the state’s most recent execution to proceed last October – Gray could face electrocution anytime from July on.
The outcome of the state Senate vote remains in doubt. That chamber stalled a similar House-passed bill two years ago, and, unlike the House of Delegates, Republicans hold only a narrow majority in the upper chamber. If the bill is enacted, Virginia would be the only state where the state could order a prisoner to be electrocuted.
Since 1995, Virginia law has allowed a Death Row prisoner a choice of execution method: lethal injection or electric chair (only seven of the 87 prisoners executed in the state given that choice opted for the chair); if a condemned prisoner fails to name a choice within 15 days of the execution date, the state uses its default method, a combination of three chemicals.
Unavailability of lethal chemicals – drug makers, facing protests and potential boycotts, resisting supplying them for executions – has forced states with capital punishment to search for sources and led some states to postpone executions or authorize other methods. Tennessee has recently taken the same action as the Virginia lower house, authorizing the electric chair if lethal chemicals are not available, and last year Utah adopted firing squads as its back-up execution method, although neither state has thus far employed that alternative method since passing their new law.
Virginia has a long history of capital punishment, recording its first in 1608 and leading all states in the number of persons condemned to death during its history (it’s third behind Texas and Oklahoma for executions within the last 40 years).
lethal injection
The measure passed February10 by a 62-33 margin in the GOP-controlled chamber. During the floor debate, the bill’s sponsor spent over a quarter hour recounting the gruesome details of the torture and murder of a Richmond family of four, including two young girls, by Ricky Javon Gray, who is scheduled to be executed on March 16. According to that sponsor, Del. Jackson Miller (R) of Manassas, the case represents “exactly why” Virginia has “this punishment on our books.”
The Virginia Department of Corrections says it may not have an adequate supply of pentobarbital, a sedative that is one of the chemicals required by the state’s lethal injection protocol. Officials in Texas supplied Virginia with two doses of the drug, which have an April expiration date. The state says any delay would leave the state unable to conduct the execution by lethal chemicals; some legislators and other opponents of capital punishment have criticized what they say is a lack of transparency by state corrections officials. If the Virginia Senate passes the House-cleared bill and Gov. Terry McAuliffe signs it – although a professed opponent of capital punishment, the governor allowed the state’s most recent execution to proceed last October – Gray could face electrocution anytime from July on.
The outcome of the state Senate vote remains in doubt. That chamber stalled a similar House-passed bill two years ago, and, unlike the House of Delegates, Republicans hold only a narrow majority in the upper chamber. If the bill is enacted, Virginia would be the only state where the state could order a prisoner to be electrocuted.
Since 1995, Virginia law has allowed a Death Row prisoner a choice of execution method: lethal injection or electric chair (only seven of the 87 prisoners executed in the state given that choice opted for the chair); if a condemned prisoner fails to name a choice within 15 days of the execution date, the state uses its default method, a combination of three chemicals.
Unavailability of lethal chemicals – drug makers, facing protests and potential boycotts, resisting supplying them for executions – has forced states with capital punishment to search for sources and led some states to postpone executions or authorize other methods. Tennessee has recently taken the same action as the Virginia lower house, authorizing the electric chair if lethal chemicals are not available, and last year Utah adopted firing squads as its back-up execution method, although neither state has thus far employed that alternative method since passing their new law.
Virginia has a long history of capital punishment, recording its first in 1608 and leading all states in the number of persons condemned to death during its history (it’s third behind Texas and Oklahoma for executions within the last 40 years).
Alabama Executes Inmate First Sentenced to Death 34 Years Earlier
On May 26, 75-year-old Tommy Arthur died by lethal injection in Alabama's Holman Correctional Facility, ending a decades-long legal drama begun 34 years earlier.
Sentenced to death for the 1982 murder-for-hire shooting of the sleeping husband of the woman with whom he was having an affair, Arthur was scheduled for execution seven times between 2001 and 2016, but each time the state was stymied by challenges brought by his volunteer legal team.
At the time of the slaying, Arthur was on work release while serving a life sentence for the 1977 second-degree murder of his common-law wife's sister. Judy Wicker, the wife of the slain man originally claimed her husband had been killed by an unknown intruder, but eventually recanted, saying she paid Arthur $10,000, part of the proceeds she received from a her husband's life insurance policy.
Testifying against Arthur repeatedly in his trials for aggravated murder, Wicker was convicted of charges related to her husband’s murder and ended up serving 10 years. Two of Arthur’s trials produced convictions that were overturned on appeal, before he was finally found guilty and again sentenced to death in 1992.
The day before his execution, Arthur won a brief stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, only to see it lifted later the same day, and his request for the high court to hear an appeal was denied. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented to both actions, saying she remained concerned about the use of the sedative midazolam in the state’s three-drug execution protocol, questioning its constitutionality in case it failed to render the condemned inmate incapable of feeling excruciating pain as the two other drugs paralyzed his respiratory system and stopped his heart.
Sotomayor’s dissent also cited examples of apparently botched executions in recent years, and noted one federal appeals court had blocked the state of Ohio from using a three-drug execution protocol that included midazolam. Press accounts of the execution described Arthur as seeming to drift off to sleep after being given the sedative, however.
Sotomayor’s dissent also took issue with the state denying Arthur’s counsel the right to have his cellphone when witnessing the execution, in order to be able to call a court to seek legal relief if the execution appeared to be causing Arthur unusual pain. She stated the state had no legitimate reason to block Arthur’s lawyer from having his cellphone while witnessing the carrying out of his client’s death sentence, and as a result the condemned inmate would “leave his constitutional rights at the door” when he entered the execution chamber.
A federal district court judge had upheld the state’s excluding the lawyer’s phone. In February the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Arthur’s challenge to the constitutionality of Alabama’s three-drug execution protocol.
The Supreme Court’s brief consideration of Arthur’s final appeal moved his execution time from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.— an hour before the execution order was due to expire. Afterward, a statement from state Attorney General Steve Marshall said the execution had brought to an end Arthur’s “protracted effort to escape justice” 34 years after he was first sentenced, and would allow the victim’s family to begin their long-delayed process of recovery.
Sentenced to death for the 1982 murder-for-hire shooting of the sleeping husband of the woman with whom he was having an affair, Arthur was scheduled for execution seven times between 2001 and 2016, but each time the state was stymied by challenges brought by his volunteer legal team.
At the time of the slaying, Arthur was on work release while serving a life sentence for the 1977 second-degree murder of his common-law wife's sister. Judy Wicker, the wife of the slain man originally claimed her husband had been killed by an unknown intruder, but eventually recanted, saying she paid Arthur $10,000, part of the proceeds she received from a her husband's life insurance policy.
Testifying against Arthur repeatedly in his trials for aggravated murder, Wicker was convicted of charges related to her husband’s murder and ended up serving 10 years. Two of Arthur’s trials produced convictions that were overturned on appeal, before he was finally found guilty and again sentenced to death in 1992.
The day before his execution, Arthur won a brief stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, only to see it lifted later the same day, and his request for the high court to hear an appeal was denied. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented to both actions, saying she remained concerned about the use of the sedative midazolam in the state’s three-drug execution protocol, questioning its constitutionality in case it failed to render the condemned inmate incapable of feeling excruciating pain as the two other drugs paralyzed his respiratory system and stopped his heart.
Sotomayor’s dissent also cited examples of apparently botched executions in recent years, and noted one federal appeals court had blocked the state of Ohio from using a three-drug execution protocol that included midazolam. Press accounts of the execution described Arthur as seeming to drift off to sleep after being given the sedative, however.
Sotomayor’s dissent also took issue with the state denying Arthur’s counsel the right to have his cellphone when witnessing the execution, in order to be able to call a court to seek legal relief if the execution appeared to be causing Arthur unusual pain. She stated the state had no legitimate reason to block Arthur’s lawyer from having his cellphone while witnessing the carrying out of his client’s death sentence, and as a result the condemned inmate would “leave his constitutional rights at the door” when he entered the execution chamber.
A federal district court judge had upheld the state’s excluding the lawyer’s phone. In February the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Arthur’s challenge to the constitutionality of Alabama’s three-drug execution protocol.
The Supreme Court’s brief consideration of Arthur’s final appeal moved his execution time from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.— an hour before the execution order was due to expire. Afterward, a statement from state Attorney General Steve Marshall said the execution had brought to an end Arthur’s “protracted effort to escape justice” 34 years after he was first sentenced, and would allow the victim’s family to begin their long-delayed process of recovery.
