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Tag: capital punishment

  • Oklahoma City Bombing Fast Facts | CNN

    Oklahoma City Bombing Fast Facts | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Here is some background information about the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.

    The blast killed 168 people, including 19 children, and injured several hundred more.

    Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry L. Nichols were convicted of the attack.

    The federal building was later razed and a park and memorial were built on the site.

    The Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum has 168 stone and glass chairs placed in rows on a lawn, one for each victim.

    Both McVeigh and Nichols were former US Army soldiers and were associated with the extreme right-wing and militant Patriot movement.

    The Patriot movement rejects the legitimacy of the federal government and law enforcement.

    April 19 marked two anniversaries. Patriots’ Day is the anniversary of the American rebellion against British authority at Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1775. It is also the date that federal agents raided the compound of a religious sect in Waco, Texas, after a 51-day standoff in 1993. At least 75 members of the Branch Davidian sect died in a fire that began during the raid.

    McVeigh claimed he targeted the building in Oklahoma City to avenge the raid on Waco.

    April 19, 1995 – At 9:02 a.m. CT, a rental truck filled with explosives is detonated outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

    April 19, 1995 – Near Perry, Oklahoma, Army veteran McVeigh is arrested during a traffic stop for driving a vehicle without a license plate.

    April 21, 1995 – McVeigh’s alleged co-conspirator Nichols turns himself in.

    May 23, 1995 – The remaining parts of the Murrah federal building are imploded.

    August 11, 1995 – McVeigh and Nichols are indicted on murder and conspiracy charges.

    April 24, 1997 – McVeigh’s trial begins in Denver.

    June 2, 1997 – McVeigh is convicted on 11 counts of murder, conspiracy and using a weapon of mass destruction. He is later sentenced to death.

    November 2, 1997 – Nichols’ trial begins in McAlester, Oklahoma.

    December 23, 1997 – Nichols is convicted on federal charges of conspiracy and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter. He is later sentenced to life in prison. He is serving his sentence at USP Florence ADMAX federal prison, nicknamed “Supermax,” in Florence, Colorado.

    June 11, 2001 – McVeigh is executed by lethal injection. He is the first person executed for a federal crime in the United States since 1963.

    May 26, 2004 – Nichols is found guilty in Oklahoma state court on 161 counts of murder. The jury spends five hours deliberating before announcing the verdict.

    August 9, 2004 – District Judge Steven Taylor sentences Nichols to 161 consecutive life terms, without the possibility of parole.

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  • Saddam Hussein Trial Fast Facts | CNN

    Saddam Hussein Trial Fast Facts | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Here is some background information about the trials and execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

    Hussein was charged with premeditated murder, imprisonment and the deprivation of physical movement, forced deportation and torture.

    Seven other defendants stood trial with Hussein: Barzan Hassan, Taha Yassin Ramadan, Awad al-Bandar, Abdullah Ruwaid, Ali Dayem Ali, Mohammed Azzawi Ali and Mizher Ruwaid.

    July 8, 1982 – Residents of the Shiite Muslim town of Dujail, Iraq, fire on Hussein’s motorcade. In retaliation, about 150 residents are executed.

    March 19, 2003 – The second Gulf War begins, code named Operation Iraqi Freedom.

    December 14, 2003 – The US Department of Defense announces Hussein has been captured in a cellar, or “spider hole,” at a farmhouse in Tikrit on December 13, 2003.

    June 30, 2004 – The Coalition turns over legal control of Hussein and 11 other former top Iraqi officials to the interim Iraqi government, but they remain in the physical custody of the US for security reasons.

    July 1, 2004 – Hussein makes his first appearance in court at his arraignment and is charged with a variety of crimes, including the invasion of Kuwait and the gassing of the Kurds. He pleads not guilty.

    November 2004 – Hussein’s family fires his chief lawyer Mohammed al-Rashdan, accusing him of using the trial to seek personal fame. Rashdan is replaced by Ziad al-Khasawneh.

    July 7, 2005 – Hussein’s chief lawyer Khasawneh resigns because he says the American defense team is trying to take over the case.

    July 17, 2005 – The Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) files the first criminal charges against Hussein for the 1982 massacre of 148 people in Dujail. Other charges will be heard at separate trials.

    August 23, 2005 – Hussein confirms that he has fired all his previous lawyers and is now solely represented by Khalil Dulaimi.

    September 6, 2005 – Iraqi President Jalal Talabani says Hussein has confessed via videotape, audiotape, and signed confessions, to giving the order to gas thousands of Kurds in the late 1980s.

    September 8, 2005 – Chief attorney Dulaimi denies that Hussein has confessed to ordering executions and waging a campaign against Kurds in which thousands of people are said to have been killed.

    October 19, 2005 – Hussein’s trial begins in Baghdad. He and seven other co-defendants appear before Chief Judge Rizgar Amin and plead not guilty to the torture and murder of Iraqi citizens in Dujail in 1982.

    October 20, 2005 – The lawyer for Bandar, Saadoun al-Janabi, is kidnapped and murdered one day after he appears in court for the opening of the trial.

    November 8, 2005 – Adel al-Zubeidi, a lawyer for one of Saddam’s co-defendants, Ramadan, is killed and another lawyer wounded during a drive-by shooting.

    December 27, 2005 – Three more lawyers join the defense team: Saleh al-Armoti, Ibrahim al-Mulla and Tayseer al-Mudather.

    January 15, 2006 – Chief Judge Amin resigns after complaints that he is too lax with the defendants in the trial.

    January 23, 2006 – Iraqi officials name Chief Judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman to replace Amin.

    January 29, 2006 – Judge Abdel-Rahman warns defendants that he won’t tolerate political speeches in the courtroom. Hassan, Hussein’s half-brother, tests the judge by calling the court the “daughter of a whore.” Hassan is then forcibly removed from the courtroom. In response, several members of the defense team leave the courtroom in protest.

    February 2, 2006 – Hussein, his seven co-defendants and their defense team boycott the proceedings and plan to stay away from the trial until Judge Abdel-Rahman is removed from the court.

    April 4, 2006 – Hussein and six co-defendants are charged by the Iraqi High Criminal Court with genocide relating to the Anfal campaign against Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s. This will be a separate trial from the current one relating to the 1982 Dujail massacre.

    May 15, 2006 – Judge Abdel-Rahman formally charges Hussein and seven other defendants with crimes against humanity. Hussein refuses to enter a plea.

    June 21, 2006 – Defense attorney Khamis al-Ubaidi is kidnapped from his home by men dressed in Iraqi police uniforms, and murdered. Ubaidi had been defending Hussein and his half-brother, Hassan. In response, all seven defendants in the trial said they will go on a hunger strike until their attorneys are put under international protection.

    July 27, 2006 – Court adjourns to deliberate a verdict in the Dujail trial.

    August 21, 2006 – A new trial against Hussein begins. He and six co-defendants are being tried on genocide charges for their role in the 1980s campaign, Operation Anfal, in which 100,000 Kurds were killed. If convicted, they could face the death penalty.

    September 19, 2006 – Chief Judge Abdullah al-Amiri is removed from the case after telling Hussein that he wasn’t a dictator.

    September 20, 2006 – New Chief Judge Mohammad Orabi Majeed Al-Khalefa replaces Amiri.

    November 5, 2006 – Hussein is sentenced to death by hanging for the 1982 Dujail massacre. Co-defendants Hassan and Bandar receive death sentences. Former Vice President Ramadan is sentenced to life in prison. Abdullah Ruwaid, Dayem Ali and Mizher Ruwaid receive 15-year sentences. Azzawi Ali is acquitted for lack of evidence.

    December 26, 2006 – An appellate chamber of the Iraqi High Tribunal upholds Hussein’s death sentence. Judge Aref Shaheen reads the decision of the court and says it is the final word in the case. Therefore, Hussein’s execution must take place before January 27, 2007, under Iraqi law.

    December 30, 2006 – Hussein is hanged a few minutes after 6:00 a.m. Baghdad time.

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  • Idaho is set to execute a long-time death row inmate, a serial killer with a penchant for poetry

    Idaho is set to execute a long-time death row inmate, a serial killer with a penchant for poetry

    BOISE, Idaho — For nearly 50 years, Idaho’s prison staffers have been serving Thomas Eugene Creech three meals a day, checking on him during rounds and taking him to medical appointments.

    This Wednesday, some of Idaho’s prison staffers will be asked to kill him. Barring any last-minute stay, the 73-year-old, one of the nation’s longest-serving death row inmates, will be executed by lethal injection for killing a fellow prisoner with a battery-filled sock in 1981.

    Creech’s killing of David Jensen, a young, disabled man who was serving time for car theft, was his last in a broad path of destruction that saw Creech convicted of five murders in three states. He is also suspected of at least a half-dozen others.

    But now, decades later, Creech is mostly known inside the walls of the Idaho Maximum Security Institution as just “Tom,” a generally well-behaved old-timer with a penchant for poetry. His unsuccessful bid for clemency even found support from a former warden at the penitentiary, prison staffers who recounted how he wrote them poems of support or condolence and the judge who sentenced Creech to death.

    “Some of our correctional officers have grown up with Tom Creech,” Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh Tewalt said Friday. “Our warden has a long-standing relationship with him. … There’s a familiarity and a rapport that has been built over time.”

    Creech’s attorneys have filed a flurry of last-minute appeals in four different courts in recent months trying to halt the execution, which would be Idaho’s first in 12 years. They have argued Idaho’s refusal to say where its execution drug was obtained violates his rights and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel.

    A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected an argument that Creech should not be executed because he was sentenced by a judge rather than a jury.

    It’s not clear how many people Creech, an Ohio native, killed before he was imprisoned in Idaho in 1974. At one point he claimed to have killed as many as 50 people, but many of the confessions were made under the influence of now discredited “truth serum” drugs and filled with outlandish tales of occult-driven human sacrifice and contract killings for a powerful motorcycle gang.

    Official estimates vary, but authorities tend to focus on 11 deaths. Creech’s attorneys did not immediately return phone calls from The Associated Press.

    In 1973, Creech was tried for the murder of 70-year-old Paul Schrader, a retiree who was stabbed to death in the Tucson, Arizona, motel where Creech was living. Creech used Schrader’s credit cards and vehicle to leave Tucson for Portland, Oregon. A jury acquitted him, but authorities say they have no doubt he was responsible.

    The next year, Creech was committed to Oregon State Hospital for a few months. He earned a weekend pass and traveled to Sacramento, California, where he killed Vivian Grant Robinson at her home. Creech then used Robinson’s phone to let the hospital know he would return a day late. That crime went unsolved until Creech later confessed while in custody in Idaho; he wasn’t convicted until 1980.

    After he was released from the Oregon State Hospital, Creech got a job at a church in Portland doing maintenance work. He had living quarters at the church, and it was there he shot and killed 22-year-old William Joseph Dean in 1974. Authorities believe he then fatally shot Sandra Jane Ramsamooj at the Salem grocery store where she worked.

    Creech was finally arrested in November 1974. He and a girlfriend were hitchhiking in Idaho when they were picked up by two painters, Thomas Arnold and John Bradford. Creech shot both men to death and the girlfriend cooperated with authorities.

    While in custody, Creech confessed to a number of other killings. Some appeared to be fabricated, but he provided information that led police to the bodies of Gordon Lee Stanton and Charles Thomas Miller near Las Vegas, and of Rick Stewart McKenzie, 22, near Baggs, Wyoming.

    Creech initially was sentenced to death for killing the painters. But after the U.S. Supreme Court barred automatic death sentences in 1976, his sentence was converted to life in prison.

    That changed after he killed Jensen, who was serving time for car theft. Jensen’s life hadn’t been easy: He suffered a nearly fatal gun injury as a teen that left him with serious disabilities including partial paralysis.

    Jensen’s relatives opposed Creech’s bid for clemency. They described Jensen as a gentle soul and a prankster who loved hunting and spending time outdoors, who was “the peanut butter” to his sister’s jelly. His daughter, who was 4 when he was killed, spoke of how she never got to know him, and how unfair it was that Creech is still around when her father isn’t.

    Creech’s supporters, meanwhile, say decades spent in a prison cell have left him changed. One death row prison staffer told the parole board last month that while she cannot begin to understand the suffering Creech dealt to others, he is now a person who makes positive contributions to his community. His execution date will be difficult for everyone at the prison, she said, especially those who have known him for years.

    “I don’t want to be dismissive of what he did and the countless people who were impacted by that in real significant ways,” said Tewalt, the corrections director. “At the same time, you also can’t be dismissive of the effect it’s going to have on people who have established a relationship with him. On Thursday, Tom’s not going to be there. You know he’s not coming back to that unit — that’s real. It would be really difficult to not feel some sort of emotion about that.”

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  • As Alabama eyes more nitrogen executions, opponents urge companies to cut off plentiful gas supply

    As Alabama eyes more nitrogen executions, opponents urge companies to cut off plentiful gas supply

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama in late January became the first state to use nitrogen gas in an execution, finding a new way to carry out a death sentence after drug companies refused to let their products be used in lethal injections.

    Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was put to death Jan. 25 for the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett. State prison officials put a mask over his face, replacing the air he breathed with nitrogen gas and depriving him of oxygen.

    Alabama has said it plans to continue using this new method. Other states are considering following its lead given that nitrogen gas, the chief material in a nitrogen execution, is readily available to purchase. But at least one company has said it won’t supply nitrogen for execution, and anti-death penalty groups hope others will do the same.

    Despite the availability of nitrogen gas, legal challenges may end up being a big hurdle for prison officials trying to procure it, at least for the time being.

    The refusal of drug companies to allow their products to be used in lethal injections, and ongoing litigation over that execution method, have made it hard for some states to carry out death sentences. That led them to explore alternate means of carrying out executions.

    Three states — Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama — have authorized nitrogen gas as an execution method. In Oklahoma, nitrogen was authorized as a back-up method in case lethal injection is unavailable because of court rulings or a shortage of drugs. Alabama law gives prisoners the option to choose nitrogen as their preferred method.

    Just as the state has refused to name suppliers for lethal injection drugs, the Alabama Department of Corrections won’t say where it obtained the nitrogen gas used to kill Smith. The state redacted information in federal court records that could identify the supplier. Court documents filed by the state showed the gas used was certified as 99.999% pure nitrogen.

    Nitrogen gas can be purchased easily without a license from manufacturers, industrial suppliers or even online retailers. Nitrogen gas is used for a variety of purposes in manufacturing, welding, inflating tires and equipment calibration and maintenance. The plentiful supply is likely one reason that some states have expressed interest in the new method.

    The air surrounding us is 78% nitrogen and generators can be purchased that produce high-purity nitrogen by isolating it from other gasses in the air. That could allow prison officials to get around suppliers’ reluctance to provide nitrogen gas for executions.

    At least one major manufacturer, AirGas, which was acquired by French-owned Air Liquide, has said it will not supply gas for executions. The stance is similar to those taken by drug companies that refuse to supply lethal injection drugs.

    “Since 2019, Airgas has publicly articulated its position that supplying nitrogen for the purpose of human execution is not consistent with our company values and that position has not changed. Airgas has not and will not supply nitrogen or other inert gases to induce hypoxia for the purpose of human execution,” a company spokeswoman wrote in an email.

    Bianca Tylek, the founder of Worth Rises, a criminal justice advocacy group, said she hopes other manufacturers follow the lead of Airgas and drug manufacturers.

    She acknowledged it’s harder to cut off the supply of readily available high-purity nitrogen gas, but urged companies to prohibit their products from being used in executions.

    Even when supplies of lethal injection drugs were cut by manufacturers, states found workarounds such as turning to compounding pharmacies.

    Activists and lawyers for people on death row will continue to fight the use of nitrogen gas for executions and legal challenges could slow things down, at least for a while.

    Already, critics are seizing on witness descriptions of Smith convulsing on the gurney for several minutes to demonstrate that nitrogen gas does not provide a humane and quick death, as the state promised.

    The day after Smith’s death, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall declared the execution a success and said the state will pursue more nitrogen executions in the future. He offered help to other states wishing to follow Alabama’s path.

    But nitrogen hypoxia will not replace lethal injection in Alabama. Going forward, the state’s execution method will be based on “the choice of the inmate,” Marshall said.

    Alabama gave inmates a brief window to select nitrogen as their preferred execution method. More than 40 people on the state’s death row have selected nitrogen as their preferred method. However, there will almost certainly be litigation, citing how Smith’s execution unfolded, the next time the state tries to set an execution date using nitrogen gas.

    An Alabama death row inmate filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of nitrogen gas executions. The lawsuit, which cited witness accounts of Smith shaking and writhing on the gurney, argued that Smith’s execution was “a human experiment that officials botched miserably” and “cannot be allowed to be repeated.” A federal judge has set a March hearing on a death row inmate’s request to see the unredacted nitrogen execution protocol, the gas mask and other information that was disclosed to Smith’s attorneys.

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  • Idaho inmate nearing execution wants a new clemency hearing. The last one was a tie

    Idaho inmate nearing execution wants a new clemency hearing. The last one was a tie


    BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho man scheduled to be executed at the end of the month is asking a federal court to put his lethal injection on hold and order a new clemency hearing after the previous one resulted in a tie vote.

    Thomas Eugene Creech is Idaho’s longest-serving death row inmate. He was already serving time after being convicted of killing two people in Valley County in 1974 when he was sentenced to die for beating a fellow inmate to death with a sock full of batteries in 1981.

    Last month, the state’s parole board voted 3-3 on Creech’s request to have his sentence changed to life without parole after one of its members recused himself from the case. Under state rules, a majority of the board must vote in favor of clemency for that recommendation to be sent to the governor.

    But even that is no guarantee. The state also allows the governor to overrule clemency recommendations, and Gov. Brad Little said last week that he has “zero intention of taking any action that would halt or delay Creech’s execution.”

    “Thomas Creech is a convicted serial killer responsible for acts of extreme violence,” Little said in a statement, later continuing, “His lawful and just sentence must be carried out as ordered by the court. Justice has been delayed long enough.”

    During his clemency hearing, Ada County deputy prosecutor Jill Longhurst characterized Creech as a sociopath with no regard for human life. She noted his long criminal record, which also includes murder convictions in Oregon and in California. Yet another murder indictment in Oregon was dropped by prosecutors because he had already been given four life sentences there.

    At times, Creech has claimed to have killed several more.

    “The facts underlying this case could not be more chilling,” then-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in a 1993 opinion, upholding an Idaho law about when defendants can be sentenced to death. The ruling came after Creech appealed his sentence, arguing that the statute was unconstitutionally vague.

    “Thomas Creech has admitted to killing or participating in the killing of at least 26 people,” O’Connor continued. “The bodies of 11 of his victims — who were shot, stabbed, beaten, or strangled to death — have been recovered in seven states.”

    Creech’s defense attorneys say that the number of killings tied to him is highly exaggerated and that Creech, 73, has changed during his decades behind bars.

    Creech has had a positive influence on younger inmates and went 28 years without a single disciplinary offense before being written up once in 2022 for a “misunderstanding over a card game,” lawyer Jonah Horwitz with the Idaho Federal Defenders Office said during his clemency hearing.

    Creech has drawn support in his commutation request from some seemingly unlikely sources, including a former prison nurse, a former prosecutor and the judge who sentenced him to death.

    Judge Robert Newhouse told a clemency board last year that no purpose would be served by executing Creech after 40 years on death row. Doing so now would just be an act of vengeance, he said in a petition.

    In their federal appeal seeking a new clemency hearing, Creech’s defense attorneys say having one board member absent from the decision put their client at an unfair disadvantage. Normally an inmate would have to convince a simple majority to get a clemency recommendation, but with one person missing, that became two-thirds of the board, his attorneys noted.

    Either another board member should have stepped aside to avoid a tie vote or someone else should have been appointed to fill the seventh seat, they said.

    Creech also has two appeals on other issues pending before the Idaho Supreme Court and has appealed another case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.



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  • Alabama calls nitrogen execution method 'humane,' but critics raise doubts

    Alabama calls nitrogen execution method 'humane,' but critics raise doubts

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama, unless stopped by the courts, intends to strap Kenneth Eugene Smith to a gurney Thursday and use a gas mask to replace breathable air with nitrogen, depriving him of oxygen, in the nation’s first execution attempt with the method.

    The Alabama attorney general’s office told federal appeals court judges last week that nitrogen hypoxia is “the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.” But what exactly Smith, 58, will feel after the warden switches on the gas is unknown, some doctors and critics say.

    “What effect the condemned person will feel from the nitrogen gas itself, no one knows,” Dr. Jeffrey Keller, president of the American College of Correctional Physicians, wrote in an email. “This has never been done before. It is an experimental procedure.”

    Keller, who was not involved in developing the Alabama protocol, said the plan is to “eliminate all of the oxygen from the air” that Smith is breathing by replacing it with nitrogen.

    “Since the condemned person will not be breathing any oxygen, he will die,” Keller said. “It is little different than putting a plastic bag over one’s head.”

    The state of Alabama has predicted in federal court filings that the nitrogen gas will “cause unconsciousness within seconds, and cause death within minutes.”

    The state plans to place a “full facepiece supplied air respirator” over Smith’s face. The nitrogen would be administered for at least 15 minutes or “five minutes following a flatline indication on the EKG, whichever is longer,” according to the state protocol.

    The execution would be the first attempt to use a new method since lethal injection was introduced in 1982. Three states — Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma — have authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method. Some states are exploring new methods as lethal injection drugs have been difficult to find.

    The American Veterinary Medical Association wrote in 2020 euthanasia guidelines that nitrogen hypoxia is not an acceptable euthanasia method for most mammals because the anoxic environment “is distressing.” And experts appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council cautioned they believe the execution method could violate the prohibition on torture.

    Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist who as one of four professionals who filed the U.N. complaint that led to the warning, said Smith is at risk for seizures and choking to death on his own vomit. He said any leak under the mask could prolong the execution.

    “A leak will do two things. It will potentially endanger people around. … Air could then get under the mask as well,” Zivot said. “And so the execution could be prolonged or maybe he might never die, he just could get injured.”

    Much of what is recorded about death from nitrogen comes from industrial accidents — where leaks or cannister mix-ups have killed people — and from suicide attempts. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board found 80 people were killed by nitrogen asphyxiation between 1992 and 2002.

    Smith was one of two men convicted of the 1988 murder-for-hire of a preacher’s wife. Prosecutors said the men were paid $1,000 to kill Elizabeth Sennett, 45, on behalf of her husband, who wanted to collect on insurance. The coroner testified Sennett was stabbed repeatedly. Her husband killed himself when he became a suspect. John Forrest Parker, the other man convicted, was executed in 2010.

    The victim’s son, Charles Sennett Jr., said in an interview with WAAY-TV that Smith “has to pay for what he’s done.” He and other family members plan to witness the execution.

    “And some of these people out there say, ‘Well, he doesn’t need to suffer like that.’ Well, he didn’t ask Mama how to suffer?” the son told the station. “They just did it. They stabbed her — multiple times.”

    Smith’s initial conviction was overturned. He was convicted again in 1996. The jury recommended a life sentence by 11-1, but a judge sentenced Smith to death. Alabama no longer allows a judge to override a jury’s sentencing decision in death penalty cases.

    Smith is one of few people to survive a prior execution attempt. The state attempted a lethal injection in 2022, but the prison system called it off before the drugs were administered because the staff had difficulty connecting the two required intravenous lines.

    Smith’s attorneys are asking courts to block the nitrogen execution, arguing that it is unconstitutional for the state to make a second attempt to execute him and that its plan violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment and at least merits more scrutiny before it is used.

    “It’s indefensible for Alabama officials to simply dismiss the very real risks this untested method presents and experiment on a man who has already survived one execution attempt,” Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said.

    Sant’Egidio Community, a Vatican-affiliated Catholic charity based in Rome, on Tuesday urged Alabama not to go through with the execution, saying the chosen method is “barbarous” and “uncivilized” and would bring “indelible shame” to the state.

    The Alabama attorney general’s office noted that Smith, when previously fighting lethal injection, had suggested nitrogen as an alternative execution method. Courts require inmates challenging their execution method to suggest an alternative method.

    “Now that the State is prepared to give Smith what he asked for, he objects,” the attorney general’s office said in a Monday statement.

    The inmate’s spiritual adviser said Smith is afraid of what is about to happen to him.

    “Presently, Kenny is sickened, deeply pained and horrified at the nitrogen hypoxia experiment that is to come,” the Rev. Jeff Hood, a death penalty opponent, said. “Despite the darkness that has descended, he tries very hard to fill every second he might have left with as much love as he can muster.”

    Several protests are planned in the state. A group of faith leaders delivered a petition to the state’s governor on Monday asking her to halt the execution. “Prisoners are not guinea pigs,” the Rev. Shane Isner of First Christian Church said on the Capitol steps.

    Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey told The Associated Press last week that the state was ready to proceed.

    “Execution by that method was passed in 2018,” Ivey said. “The attorney general’s office and the Department of Corrections has assured us that all the protocols are in place, and we will carry out that law.”

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  • Update expected in case of Buffalo supermarket gunman

    Update expected in case of Buffalo supermarket gunman

    BUFFALO, N.Y. — Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket, they said in a court filing Friday.

    Payton Gendron, 20, is already serving a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole after he pleaded guilty to state charges of murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism in the 2022 attack.

    New York does not have capital punishment, but the Justice Department had the option of seeking the death penalty in a separate federal hate crimes case. Gendron had promised to plead guilty in that case if prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.

    In a notice announcing the decision to seek the death penalty, Trini Ross, the U.S. attorney for western New York, wrote that Gendron had selected the supermarket “in order to maximize the number of Black victims.”

    This is the first time Attorney General Merrick Garland has authorized a new pursuit of the death penalty. Under his leadership, the Justice Department has permitted the continuation of two capital prosecution and withdrawn from pursuing death in more than two dozen cases.

    There was no immediate comment from the victims’ families or prosecutors.

    The Justice Department has made federal death penalty cases a rarity since the election of President Joe Biden, a Democrat who opposes capital punishment. Garland instituted a moratorium on federal executions in 2021 pending a review of procedures. Although the moratorium does not prevent prosecutors from seeking death sentences, the Justice Department has done so sparingly.

    It successfully sought the death penalty for a antisemitic gunman who murdered 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue. It also went ahead last year with an effort to get the death sentence against an Islamic extremist who killed eight people on a New York City bike path, though a lack of a unanimous jury meant that prosecution resulted in a life sentence.

    The Justice Department has declined to pursue the death penalty in other mass killings. It passed on seeking the execution of a gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.

    Relatives of the victims in Buffalo have expressed mixed views on whether they think federal prosecutors should pursue the death penalty in that case.

    On May 14, 2022, Gendron attacked shoppers and workers with a semi-automatic rifle at a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo after driving more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) from his home in rural Conklin, New York.

    He chose the business for its location in a predominantly Black neighborhood and livestreamed the massacre from a camera attached to his tactical helmet.

    The dead, who ranged in age from 32 to 86, included eight customers, the store security guard and a church deacon who drove shoppers to and from the store with their groceries. Three people were wounded but survived.

    The rifle Gendron fired was marked with racial slurs and phrases including “The Great Replacement,” a reference to a conspiracy theory that there’s a plot to diminish the influence of white people.

    Mark Talley, whose 63-year-old mother, Geraldine Talley, was killed, has said he’d rather Gendron be imprisoned for life in the community he attacked than be executed.

    “I want that pain to eat at him every second of every day for the rest of his life,” he said after Gendron’s guilty plea in state court.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Jake Offenhartz in New York and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington

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  • Texas inmate faces execution for 2001 abduction and strangulation of 5-year-old girl

    Texas inmate faces execution for 2001 abduction and strangulation of 5-year-old girl

    HOUSTON — A Texas inmate convicted of strangling a 5-year-old girl taken from an El Paso store and then burning her body nearly 22 years ago is scheduled for execution Thursday evening.

    David Renteria, 53, was condemned for the November 2001 death of Alexandra Flores. Prosecutors said that Alexandra was Christmas shopping with her family at a Walmart store when she was abducted by Renteria. Her body was found the next day in an alley 16 miles (26 km) from the store.

    Renteria has long claimed that members of the Barrio Azteca gang, including one named “Flaco,” forced him to take the girl by making threats to his family — and that it was the gang members who killed her.

    Authorities say Renteria’s lawyers did not raise this defense at his trial and evidence in the case shows that he committed the abduction and killing alone. Prosecutors said that blood found in Renteria’s van matched the slain girl’s DNA. His palm print was found on a plastic bag that was put over her head before her body was set on fire. Prosecutors said Renteria was a convicted sex offender on probation at the time of the killing.

    Renteria’s scheduled execution is one of two set to be carried out in the U.S. on Thursday. In Alabama, Casey McWhorter is set to receive a lethal injection for fatally shooting a man during a 1993 robbery.

    Attorneys for Renteria have filed unsuccessful appeals asking state and federal courts to halt the execution, which is set take place at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. A final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was expected after appeals to a lower court concluded.

    Renteria’s lawyers argue they have been denied access to the prosecution’s file on Renteria, which they argued violates his constitutional rights. His legal team said the prosecution hindered their ability to investigate Renteria’s claims that gang members were responsible for the girl’s death.

    The claims by Renteria’s lawyers are based on witness statements released by El Paso police in 2018 and 2020 in which a woman told investigators that her ex-husband, a Barrio Azteca member, was involved in the death of a girl who had gone missing from a Walmart.

    Renteria “will be executed despite recently uncovered evidence of actual innocence, evidence that he is innocent of the death penalty,” Tivon Schardl, one of the defense lawyers, said in court documents.

    A federal judge in 2018 said that the woman’s statement was “fraught with inaccuracies” and was “insufficient to show Renteria’s innocence.”

    In August, state District Judge Monique Reyes in El Paso granted a request to stay the execution and ordered prosecutors to turn over their files in the case.

    The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later overturned Reyes’ orders.

    On Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 against commuting Renteria’s death sentence to a lesser penalty. Members also rejected granting a six-month reprieve.

    Renteria was accused of patrolling the store for about 40 minutes before zeroing in on the 5-year-old girl, the youngest of eight children in her family. The grainy surveillance video showed her following Renteria out of the store.

    In 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out Renteria’s death sentence, saying prosecutors provided misleading evidence that gave jurors the impression Renteria was not remorseful. Renteria’s lawyers had argued that a statement he made to police after his arrest — in which he expressed sympathy for the girl’s family and that her death was “a tragedy that should never have happened” — was an expression of remorse. The appeals court said Renteria’s expression of remorse was “made in the context of minimizing his responsibility for the offense.”

    During a new resentencing trial in 2008, Renteria was again sentenced to death.

    Renteria would be the eighth inmate in Texas to be put to death this year. If Renteria and McWhorter both receive a lethal injection Thursday, there would be 23 executions this year in the U.S.

    ___

    Follow Juan A. Lozano on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

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  • Alabama court says state can execute inmate with nitrogen gas

    Alabama court says state can execute inmate with nitrogen gas

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A divided Alabama Supreme Court said the state can execute an inmate with nitrogen gas, a method that has not previously been used carry out a death sentence.

    The all-Republican court made its 6-2 decision without comment on Wednesday. The justices granted the state attorney general’s request for an execution warrant for Kenneth Eugene Smith, one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett in northwestern Alabama.

    The order did not specify the execution method, but the attorney general indicated in court filings that it intends to use nitrogen to put Smith to death. The exact date of the execution will be set later by Gov. Kay Ivey.

    The decision moves Alabama closer to being the first state to attempt an execution with nitrogen gas, although there is likely to be additional litigation over the proposed new execution method. Three states — Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi — have authorized nitrogen hypoxia for executions but none have tried to use it.

    Under the proposed method, an inmate would be forced to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents have theorized it would be painless, opponents liken it to human experimentation.

    “There are still too many unanswered questions for Alabama officials to responsibly move forward with this protocol,” said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

    Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall praised Wednesday’s ruling, writing that it “cleared the way for Kenneth Eugene Smith to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia,” although he said it was “unconscionable” the family had to wait decades for justice.

    Lawyers for Smith had urged the court to reject the execution request, saying he should not be the “test subject” for the new execution method. After the ruling, attorney Robert Grass vowed to keep up the judicial fight, noting in a statement that two justices — Chief Justice Tom Parker and Justice Greg Cook — dissented in Wednesday’s decision.

    The state unsuccessfully attempted to put Smith to death by lethal injection last year. The Alabama Department of Corrections called off the execution when the execution team could not get the required two intravenous lines connected to Smith.

    Smith’s attorneys have previously accused the state of trying to move him to “the front of the line” for a nitrogen execution in order to moot Smith’s lawsuit challenging lethal injection procedures.

    The jury in Smith’s case recommended a life sentence by a vote of 11-1, but a judge overrode the recommendation and sentenced him to death. Alabama no longer allows judges override a jury’s sentencing recommendation in death penalty cases.

    Prosecutors said Smith was one of two men who were each paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her pastor husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance. The slaying, and the revelations over who was behind it, rocked the small community. Her husband killed himself a week later. The other man convicted in the slaying was executed in 2010.

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  • Mid-November execution date set for Alabama inmate convicted of robbing, killing man in 1993

    Mid-November execution date set for Alabama inmate convicted of robbing, killing man in 1993

    Alabama’s governor has scheduled a November execution date for an inmate convicted of shooting and killing a man during a robbery in 1993

    ByThe Associated Press

    October 19, 2023, 6:40 PM

    This image provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections shows death row inmate Casey McWhorter, who was sentenced for the 1993 shooting death of Edward Lee Williams during a robbery. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey set a Nov. 16, 2023, execution date for McWhorter. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP)

    The Associated Press

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama’s governor has scheduled a November execution date for an inmate convicted of shooting and killing a man during a 1993 robbery.

    Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday set Nov. 16 as the date for Casey A. McWhorter to die by injection. The 48-year-old inmate was convicted of capital murder for his role in the robbery and shooting death of Edward Lee Williams in Marshall County.

    Prosecutors said McWhorter, who was 18 at the time, plotted with two younger teens including William’s 15-year-old son to steal money and other items from Williams’ home and also kill him. Prosecutors said McWhorter and a 16-year-old co-defendant went to Williams’ home with rifles and fashioned homemade silencers from a pillow and milk jug stuffed with napkins. An appellate court wrote that evidence in the case showed Williams grabbed the rifle held by the 16-year-old and they began to struggle over it before the man was shot a total of 11 times by both teens,

    The jury that convicted McWhorter recommended the death sentence by a vote of 10-2, according to court records.

    The U.S. Supreme Court declined in 2021 to review the case. McWhorter’s attorneys argued that a juror in the case failed to disclose in jury selection that she believed her father had been murdered. They also argued that McWhorter’s trial attorney failed to prevent mitigating evidence about McWhorter’s background.

    The Department of Corrections will have until 6 a.m. on Nov. 17 to complete the execution. The state did away with a midnight deadline for carrying out executions after several lethal injections were canceled because of last-minute legal battles or problems inserting intravenous lines.

    The attorney general’s office has asked that another inmate, Kenneth Eugene Smith, be put to death by nitrogen hypoxia, a method the state has authorized but never used. No execution date has been set in that case.

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  • Execution of convicted murderer on death row since 1997 in Florida scheduled for Tuesday night | CNN

    Execution of convicted murderer on death row since 1997 in Florida scheduled for Tuesday night | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Michael Duane Zack III, who was convicted of the 1996 killings of two women he met at bars along the Florida panhandle, is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. at the Florida State Prison, according to the state’s Department of Corrections.

    The US Supreme Court on Monday denied a request to halt the execution of the death row inmate after attorneys for Zack filed a stay of execution last week, court records show.

    In the filing, Zack’s lawyers allege a lower court was wrong to “deny his claim that he is intellectually disabled.”

    “At trial, Zack’s defense counsel argued that Zack suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome and posttraumatic stress disorder which are classified as a brain dysfunction and a mental impairment respectively,” according to a state capital case summary.

    On Thursday, attorneys for the state of Florida filed a response opposing the stay of execution, court records show.

    The nation’s highest court denied the appeal Monday afternoon without comment, court records show.

    In 1997, Zack was convicted and sentenced to death for the June 1996 murder of Ravonne Smith, whom he violently killed in her home after meeting at a bar near Pensacola, according to a state capital case summary. Zack received a life sentence for the murder of Laura Rosillo at an Okaloosa County, Florida, beach, whom he also met at a bar before killing, according to the case summary.

    “After his arrest, Zack confessed to the murder of Ravonne Smith,” said the case summary.

    Zack’s execution will be the eighth under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the sixth in the state this year, according to state death row data.

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  • Fiancée remembers slain California deputy’s goodbye kiss days after they got engaged

    Fiancée remembers slain California deputy’s goodbye kiss days after they got engaged

    Just days after getting engaged, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer said goodbye to his fiancée for the last time.

    “I remember that day too, he kissed me goodbye, told me he loved me and I said, ‘I’ll see you later,’” Brittany Lindsey said in a “Good Morning America” interview that aired Wednesday. But he “never came home.”

    The couple had been engaged for four days.

    “It was the happiest I’d ever seen him — and myself,” Lindsey said.

    Officials say the 30-year-old deputy was fatally shot on Sept. 16 as he sat in a patrol car in Palmdale.

    Kevin Cataneo Salazar, 29, was charged in the ambush shooting with one count of murder, plus special circumstance allegations of murder of a peace officer, murder committed by lying in wait, murder committed by firing from a car and personal use of a firearm. His attorney entered a plea of not guilty and a dual plea of not guilty by reason of insanity on his behalf last week.

    District Attorney George Gascón has said prosecutors owe it to the slain deputy’s family to secure a conviction and a sentence of life.

    “We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure the defendant never gets out of prison,” Gascón said.

    Gascón was elected in 2020 on a reform platform and pledged not to seek the death penalty in any cases.

    “If I thought that seeking the death penalty was going to bring Ryan back to us, I would seek it without any reservation,” he said in a recent news conference. “But it won’t.”

    California has not executed anyone since 2006. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a moratorium on executions in 2019 and dismantled the prison’s gas chamber, and in 2022 he announced plans to begin transferring inmates sentenced to death to other prisons.

    The deputy’s mother, Kim Clinkunbroomer, said in the interview that she was surprised that prosecutors weren’t pursuing the death penalty.

    “Life in prison? I’m still paying for that then, as a parent, as a taxpayer. It just seems that the district attorney wants to spare a life, when he didn’t spare my son’s life,” she said. “He executed my son. He assassinated my son. He assassinated her fiance. To me, we shouldn’t even be going to court.”

    Ryan Clinkunbroomer’s family worked in law enforcement for generations.

    “It’s all he ever wanted to do, was wear that badge with honor,” Kim Clinkunbroomer said. “He did ’til the day he died.”

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  • Florida to seek death penalty against man accused of murdering Lyft driver

    Florida to seek death penalty against man accused of murdering Lyft driver

    Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty against a Florida man accused of murdering a Lyft driver whose car he allegedly stole in an attempt to escape another killing

    ByThe Associated Press

    September 26, 2023, 4:45 PM

    FILE – Palm Beach Gardens Chief of Police Clinton Shannon stands near an electric board showing photos of Matthew Flores and Gary Levin during a news conference, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, in Boynton Beach, Fla. Shannon and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced that Flores has been indicted on first-degree murder in the killing of Lyft driver Levin. Okeechobee County, Fla., prosecutors filed a court notice on Thursday, Sept. 21, saying they will seek a death sentence against Flores. They cited several aggravating circumstances, including that the killing happened while the suspect was fleeing another felony — a robbery — and that it was done in a “cold, calculated and premeditated manner.” (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier, File)

    The Associated Press

    OKEECHOBEE, Fla. — Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty against a Florida man accused of murdering a Lyft driver whose car he allegedly stole in an attempt to escape another killing.

    Okeechobee County prosecutors recently filed a court notice saying they will seek a death sentence against Mathew Flores, who is charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery for the Jan. 30 slaying of 74-year-old Gary Levin. They cited several aggravating circumstances, including that the killing happened while the suspect was fleeing another felony — a robbery — and that it was done in a “cold, calculated and premeditated manner.”

    Flores, 36, was indicted earlier this month for Levin’s shooting death. Flores, who is jailed without bond, is set to be arraigned next week in Okeechobee County. No attorney is listed for him in the Levin case in court records.

    Flores has pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge for allegedly shooting Jose Carlos Martinez, 43, on Jan. 24 in Hardee County in central Florida.

    Investigators say that after killing Martinez, Flores stole several cars to make his way to Palm Beach County, where he had a friend order him a ride using the Lyft phone app. Officials said that person is not facing charges, as they were unaware that Flores was wanted.

    Levin accepted the Lyft request and picked Flores up.

    Flores shot Levin inside his 2022 Kia Stinger and then dumped his body near Lake Okeechobee, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said. Three days later, Flores was arrested in North Carolina after police say he led them on a high-speed chase in Levin’s car.

    Investigators found Levin’s body five days after the slaying when they retraced his ride with Flores.

    Flores was released from a Florida prison in 2017 after serving a year for auto theft, grand theft and illegal possession of a firearm.

    Levin’s family declined to comment on the prosecutor’s decision. His daughter-in-law is an Associated Press reporter.

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  • After 12 years without an execution, South Carolina says it has secured drugs to resume lethal injections

    After 12 years without an execution, South Carolina says it has secured drugs to resume lethal injections

    After 12 years without an execution, South Carolina says it has secured drugs to resume lethal injections

    ByThe Associated Press

    September 19, 2023, 4:31 PM

    COLUMBIA, S.C. — After 12 years without an execution, South Carolina says it has secured drugs to resume lethal injections.

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  • Retired teacher sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia after tweeting criticism | CNN

    Retired teacher sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia after tweeting criticism | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A Saudi court has sentenced a retired teacher to death over his comments online, say his brother and advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

    Muhammad al-Ghamdi, a 54-year-old retired Saudi teacher, was sentenced “following 5 tweets criticizing corruption and human rights violations,” his brother Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi tweeted last week.

    According to Human Rights Watch, Muhammad al-Ghamdi was arrested last year and given little access to a lawyer before his conviction in July “under article 30 of Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism law for ‘describing the King or the Crown Prince in a way that undermines religion or justice,’ article 34 for ‘supporting a terrorist ideology,’ article 43 for ‘communication with a terrorist entity,’ and article 44 for publishing false news ‘with the intention of executing a terrorist crime.’”

    “Repression in Saudi Arabia has reached a terrifying new stage when a court can hand down the death penalty for nothing more than peaceful tweets,” Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a Tuesday statement.

    According to the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, Saudi Arabia has executed at least 92 people this year so far. In 2022, UK-based human rights organization ALQST cataloged 148 executions in Saudi Arabia – more than twice the number of executions it recorded in 2021.

    The death sentence comes amid an “escalating crackdown” on free speech in the country, said Lina Alhathloul, ALQST head of monitoring and advocacy and sister of released Saudi political prisoner Loujain al-Hathloul.

    “They are sending a clear and sinister message – that nobody is safe, and even a tweet can get you killed,” she said.

    Al-Ghamdi’s brother Saeed, a well-known Saudi Islamic scholar and government critic living in self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom, said he believe the severity of the sentence is designed to punish him as well.

    “The Saudi authorities asked me several times to return to Saudi Arabia, but I refused to do so. It is very probable that this death sentence against my brother is in retaliation for my activity. Otherwise, his charges wouldn’t have carried such a severe penalty,” he said.

    CNN reached out to Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Interior for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.

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  • Alabama Wants To Use Untested Method To Kill Inmate Whose Execution Was Already Botched

    Alabama Wants To Use Untested Method To Kill Inmate Whose Execution Was Already Botched

    The state of Alabama is seeking to use an untested method to execute a man on death row whose execution was already botched once before.

    Prosecutors want to push forward with executing 58-year-old Kenneth Eugene Smith using nitrogen hypoxia, which would involve him inhaling nitrogen without the presence of oxygen, effectively causing suffocation.

    During a scheduled execution last November, Smith survived four hours tightly strapped to the execution gurney. Executioners prodded him repeatedly near his collarbone and arms, failing to find a vein to inject him with a combination of chemicals that was supposed to kill him.

    Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall is looking to set a new date for Smith’s execution.

    “It is a travesty that Kenneth Smith has been able to avoid his death sentence for nearly 35 years after being convicted of the heinous murder-for-hire slaying of an innocent woman, Elizabeth Sennett,” Marshall said in a statement on Friday.

    Smith was convicted in the 1980s for killing Sennett, whose pastor husband, Charles Sennett, had hired Smith and another person, John Forrest Parker, to kill her so he could cash out on the insurance policy, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.

    In 2022, Smith’s attorneys sought to stay his execution, while the state kept moving to push it forward.

    The day Smith was scheduled to be executed in November 2022, executioners struggled to access a vein for the lethal injection. The execution team was able to establish one of two necessary intravenous lines into one of Smith’s veins, but couldn’t successfully establish a second one before his death warrant expired at midnight, The Associated Press reported. Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm said executioners tried “several locations” on Smith, AL.com reported at the time.

    “At some point before midnight, Defendants [ADOC] stopped their attempted execution of Mr. Smith, but not before inflicting grave physical pain and emotional trauma, the likes of which the human brain is not able to process,” Smith’s attorneys alleged in a motion against ADOC.

    Smith was left on the gurney for hours, unaware that his execution had been stayed.

    Alabama has botched multiple executions involving the highly controversial lethal injection process in recent years, failing to access veins — including that of Alan Eugene Miller, once known to be the “only living execution survivor.” (Smith’s attorneys said that Smith has now joined Miller as one of the only two execution survivors in the U.S.)

    “Alabama has a dismal record of ‘getting it right’ when it comes to executions – the state botched three lethal injection executions in 2022. It is the very last state that should now experiment using an unprecedented, untested procedure with unknown consequences,” Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told HuffPost.

    Smith had originally requested death by nitrogen hypoxia. He is not the first inmate to request an alternate execution method. Two inmates in Oklahoma last year requested death by firing squad in an attempt to avoid the possibility of prolonged pain during the lethal injection process. (While the lethal injection process has been marketed as a “humane” way to kill, the experience has been compared to the sensation of being exposed to a chemical fire.)

    A heavily redacted 41-page document detailing the protocol for nitrogen hypoxia, a never-before-used procedure, says that a mask will be placed on the individual’s face. “After the nitrogen gas is introduced, it will be administered for 15 minutes or five minutes following a flatline indication on the EKG, whichever is longer,” the document reads. The procedure causes people to suffocate to death due to a lack of oxygen, and it’s permitted in Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi.

    The Alabama Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment. Smith’s attorneys declined to comment.

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  • Alabama wants to be the 1st state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe only nitrogen

    Alabama wants to be the 1st state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe only nitrogen

    .Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen. The Alabama attorney general’s office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for Kenneth Smith using the new method of ni…

    ByKIM CHANDLER Associated Press

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen.

    The Alabama attorney general’s office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Kenneth Smith. Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in three states but has never been used.

    Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to pass out and die, according to the theory. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen.

    Critics have likened the untested method to human experimentation.

    Alabama authorized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 but the state has not attempted to use it until now to carry out a death sentence. Oklahoma and Mississippi have also authorized nitrogen hypoxia.

    Alabama has been working for several years to develop the execution method, but has disclosed little about the proposal. The attorney general’s court filing did not disclose the details of the how the execution would be carried out. Corrections Commissioner John Hamm told reporters last month that a protocol was nearly complete.

    Smith’s execution by lethal injection was called off last year because of problems with intravenous lines. Smith was convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of a preacher’s wife.

    Prosecutors said Smith was one of two men who were each paid $1,000 to kill Elizabeth Sennett on behalf of her husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance. The slaying, and the revelations over who was behind it, rocked the small north Alabama community.

    A number of Alabama inmates, including Smith, in seeking to block their executions by lethal injection, have argued they should be allowed to die by nitrogen hypoxia. The disclosure that the state is ready to use nitrogen hypoxia is expected to set off a new round of legal battles over the constitutionality of the method.

    “It is a travesty that Kenneth Smith has been able to avoid his death sentence for nearly 35 years after being convicted of the heinous murder-for-hire slaying of an innocent woman,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement.

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  • No death penalty for a Utah mom accused of killing her husband, then writing a kid book about death

    No death penalty for a Utah mom accused of killing her husband, then writing a kid book about death

    Prosecutors say they will not seek the death penalty against a Utah mother who’s accused of killing her husband, then writing a children’s book about coping with grief

    FILE – Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who authorities say fatally poisoned her husband, Eric Richins, then wrote a children’s book about grieving, looks on during a bail hearing, June 12, 2023, in Park City, Utah. After conferring with the victim’s father and two sisters, prosecutors confirmed Friday, Aug. 18, 2023 that they will not seek the death penalty against Kouri Richins. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, File)

    The Associated Press

    SALT LAKE CITY — Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against a Utah mother who wrote a children’s book about coping with grief after her husband’s death and is now accused of fatally poisoning him.

    Prosecutors say Kouri Richins, 33, poisoned Eric Richins, 39, by slipping five times the lethal dose of fentanyl into a Moscow mule cocktail she made for him last year.

    After her husband’s death, the mother of three self-published a children’s book titled “Are You with Me?” about a deceased father wearing angel wings who watched over his sons. She promoted the book on television and radio, describing the book as a way to help children grieve the loss of a loved one.

    Prosecutors decided not to seek the death penalty after conferring with the victim’s father and two sisters, according to a court filing Friday.

    Following a June hearing in which Richins’ sister-in-law called her “desperate, greedy and extremely manipulative,” a judge has ordered that Richins remain in jail pending trial.

    Prosecutors say Richins planned at length to kill her husband, making financial arrangements and purchasing drugs found in his system after his March 2022 death.

    Richins’ attorneys point out that no drugs were found at the family home after her husband’s death. They’ve also suggested that a witness, a housekeeper who claims to have sold Richins the drugs, had motivation to lie as she sought leniency in the face of state and federal drug charges.

    Richins made major changes to the family’s estate plans and took out life insurance policies on him with benefits totaling nearly $2 million, prosecutors allege. Her attorneys counter that the prosecution’s case based on financial motives proved she was “bad at math,” not guilty of murder.

    Richins, meanwhile, is facing a lawsuit seeking over $13 million in damages for alleged financial wrongdoing before and after his death.

    The lawsuit filed in state court by Katie Richins, the sister of Eric Richins, accuses Kouri Richins of taking money from her husband’s accounts, diverting money intended to pay his taxes and obtaining a fraudulent loan, among other things, before his death.

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  • Biden’s inaction on death penalty may be a top campaign issue as Trump and DeSantis laud executions

    Biden’s inaction on death penalty may be a top campaign issue as Trump and DeSantis laud executions

    CHICAGO — Capital punishment could emerge as a major campaign issue in the U.S. presidential race for the first time in 30 years, with top GOP rivals Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis already one-upping each other by touting tougher, more far-reaching death penalty laws.

    Meanwhile, death penalty foes are poised to draw attention to what Democrat Joe Biden hasn’t done as president: He has taken no action on or even spoken about his 2020 campaign pledge to strike capital punishment from U.S. statutes.

    A demonstration that the death penalty issue is far from academic came Wednesday when federal jurors in Pittsburgh voted to impose a death sentence for Robert Bowers for killing 11 people in a synagogue. It’s the first federal death sentence handed down during Biden’s presidency.

    Trump, who restarted federal executions after a 17-year hiatus and oversaw 13 in his final six months as president, wasted no time making capital punishment a focus in his current, third presidential run. In declaring his candidacy on Nov. 15, he called for the execution of drug dealers.

    In a July campaign video, Trump added another category of criminals he said deserve death.

    “I will urge Congress to ensure that anyone caught trafficking children across our border receives the death penalty, immediately,” he said.

    While the Justice Department announced a moratorium on federal executions in 2021, it’s a temporary pause. Nothing precludes a pro-death penalty candidate elected next year from quickly resuming them.

    Florida Gov. DeSantis has put capital punishment on his agenda, too.

    After not authorizing state executions for three years, DeSantis signed death warrants for the recent executions of four people — two before and two after he declared his candidacy on May 24.

    He has also signed two death penalty laws since April, one allowing for executions of convicted child rapists and another letting jurors impose death sentences with less-than-unanimous votes.

    “One juror,” DeSantis said, “should not be able to veto a capital sentence.”

    Biden’s silence suggests he would rather the death penalty not become a campaign issue. Activists will try to force him to speak about it anyway by lobbying campaign debate moderators to pose questions on capital punishment.

    “We’d like Biden to articulate his position and say it out loud,” said Abraham Bonowitz, director of Death Penalty Action.

    Bonowitz’s group will also call on Biden to order the demolition of the federal death chamber, a small building on the grounds of a prison in Indiana, as proof that he’s serious about permanently ending federal executions.

    According to the Death Penalty Information Center, support for the death penalty has fallen from nearly 80% in the mid-1990s to around 55% in recent years. As support waned, it faded as a campaign issue.

    Among the last times it featured prominently was in 1988, during George H.W. Bush’s successful race against Michael Dukakis. Bush spotlighted Dukakis’ lifelong opposition to capital punishment. In 1992, Bill Clinton emphasized his support for it in defeating Bush.

    Declaring such support has long been a way for politicians to send a broader message — that they’re tough on crime.

    Trump has mastered that, said Lee Kovarsky, a death penalty scholar at the University of Texas at Austin.

    “So much of his campaign and government style centers on strength and masculinity — to punish without compromise,” he said. “It’s a damaging combination.”

    Trump established himself as the most prolific execution president since Grover Cleveland in the 1890s when U.S. executions restarted during his 2020 campaign and continued into the lame duck period after his defeat.

    William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, argued in his 2022 book that the executions were legally and morally right. He said they delivered long delayed justice to victims of brutal killings, many of them children.

    Trump’s record may have partly inspired DeSantis, said Melanie Kalmanson, a Florida attorney who writes the Tracking Florida’s Death Penalty blog, noting: “It seems that there’s some sort of competition between the two” on capital punishment.

    The four Florida executions this year brought the total under DeSantis to six. The most recent on June 15 was of Duane Owen who was convicted in the fatal stabbing of 14-year-old Karen Slattery and the killing of Georgianna Worden, 38.

    DeSantis granted a May 22 stay so Owen could undergo mental health exams. Three days later, the day after DeSantis announced his run, he lifted the stay.

    The bill lowering the juror-vote requirement to eight made Florida the state with the lowest threshold. He backed the change after jurors failed to reach unanimity to impose a death sentence on Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17.

    DeSantis hopes the law he signed allowing for capital punishment for the rape of children will invite the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse its 5-4 finding in 2008 that executions for most crimes not involving murder violate prohibitions against “cruel and unusual” punishment.

    Despite his full-throated endorsement of capital punishment, DeSantis doesn’t have Trump’s knack for wooing voters who respond to over-the-top, anti-crime rhetoric, Kovarsky said.

    “That space is already occupied by Trump,” he said.

    As a U.S. senator, Biden enthusiastically supported capital punishment, leading passage of a 1994 crime bill that greatly expanded the number of federal capital crimes.

    “We do everything but hang people for jaywalking,” he boasted then.

    Only in 2016 did the Democratic Party platform first call for the abolition of capital punishment. Biden made his opposition explicit in 2020.

    Many expected Biden to fulfill his campaign pledge within days of his inauguration, perhaps by commuting all federal death sentences to life. He didn’t. And he’s taken no executive action since.

    Biden may calculate his continued silence is a prudent strategy because even those frustrated by his inaction wouldn’t dare back Republicans.

    “I am not at risk of voting for Donald Trump,” Kovarsky said.

    Bonowitz says Biden won’t take action to keep his 2020 promise during the 2024 campaign, because he understands that voters care more about pocketbook issues than capital punishment. But skittishness by candidates worried that speaking against the death penalty will damage them politically is no longer well founded, he added.

    “That,” he said, “should also make it safe for politicians to say what they really believe and stand by it.”

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  • Florida set to execute inmate James Phillip Barnes in nurse’s 1988 hammer killing

    Florida set to execute inmate James Phillip Barnes in nurse’s 1988 hammer killing

    A Florida man sentenced to death for the 1988 attack on a woman who was sexually assaulted and killed with a hammer, then set on fire in her own bed, is set for execution Thursday after dropping all his appeals and saying he was ready to die.

    James Phillip Barnes, 61, was to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison in Starke. It would mark the fifth execution this year in Florida.

    Barnes was serving a life sentence for the 1997 strangulation of his wife, 44-year-old Linda Barnes, when he wrote letters in 2005 to a state prosecutor claiming responsibility for the killing years earlier of Patricia “Patsy” Miller, a nurse who lived in a condominium in Melbourne, along Florida’s east coast.

    Barnes represented himself in court hearings where he offered no defense, pleaded guilty to killing Miller and accepted the death penalty. Miller, who was 41 when Barnes killed her, had some previous unspecified negative interactions with him, according to a jailhouse interview he gave to German film director Werner Herzog.

    “There were several events that happened (with Miller). I felt terribly humiliated, that’s all I can say,” Barnes said in the interview.

    Barnes killed Miller at her home on April 20, 1988. When he pleaded guilty, Barnes told the judge that after breaking into Miller’s unit, “I raped her twice. I tried to strangle her to death. I hit her head with a hammer and killed her and I set her bed on fire,” according to court records.

    There was also DNA evidence linking Barnes to Miller’s killing. After pleading guilty, Barnes was sentenced to death on Dec. 13, 2007. He also pleaded guilty to sexual battery, arson, and burglary with an assault and battery.

    Barnes killed his wife in 1997 after she discovered that he was dealing drugs. Her body was found stuffed in a closet after she was strangled, court records show. Barnes has claimed to have killed at least two other people but has never been charged in those cases.

    Barnes had been in and out of prison since his teenage years, including convictions for grand theft, forgery, burglary and trafficking in stolen property.

    In the Miller case, state lawyers appointed to represent Barnes filed initial appeals, including one that led to mental competency evaluations. Two doctors found that Barnes had symptoms of personality disorder with “borderline antisocial and sociopathic features.” However, they pronounced him competent to understand his legal situation and plead guilty, and his convictions and death sentence were upheld.

    After Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant in June, a Brevard County judge granted Barnes’ motion to drop all appeals involving mitigating evidence such as his mental condition and said “that he wanted to accept responsibility for his actions and to proceed to execution (his death) without any delay,” court records show.

    Though unusual, condemned inmates sometimes don’t pursue every legal avenue to avoid execution. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that about 150 such inmates have been put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the death penalty as constitutional in 1976.

    The Florida Supreme Court accepted the Brevard County ruling, noting that no other motion seeking a stay of execution for Barnes had been filed in state or federal court.

    In the Herzog interview, Barnes said he converted to Islam in prison and wanted to clear his conscience about the Miller case during the holy month of Ramadan.

    “They say I’m remorseless. I’m not. There are no more questions on this case. And I’m going to be executed,” Barnes said.

    ___

    Find more AP coverage of executions: https://apnews.com/hub/executions

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