Missouri Executes Russell Bucklew

I covered the Eighth Amendment in my classes today and shared this story with my students. From the piece:

Missouri executes killer despite concern about painful death https://t.co/617A1u8t3G pic.twitter.com/iYtaGMdsFc

— St. Louis Post-Dispatch (@stltoday) October 2, 2019

Bucklew's girlfriend, Stephanie Ray, left him on Valentine's Day 1996. Over the next few weeks, according to court records, he harassed her, cut her with a knife and punched her in the face.

Ray feared for her life and the lives of her children, so she moved into the Cape Girardeau County mobile home that her new boyfriend, Michael Sanders, shared with his children.

On March 21, after stealing his nephew's car and taking two pistols, handcuffs and duct tape from his brother, Bucklew followed Ray to Sanders' home. Sanders confronted Bucklew with a shotgun inside the home. Bucklew fired two shots, one piercing Sanders' lung. He bled to death.

Bucklew then shot at Sanders' 6-year-old son and missed. Court records say he struck Ray in the face with the pistol, handcuffed her and dragged her to his car. He later raped Ray before heading north on Interstate 55.

A trooper spotted Bucklew's car and eventually became engaged in a gunfight near St. Louis. Both men were wounded. Bucklew later escaped from the Cape Girardeau County Jail. He attacked Ray's mother and her boyfriend with a hammer before being recaptured.

Pilate and another attorney for Bucklew, Jeremy Weis, said in a statement that Bucklew was remorseful for his crimes.

Morley Swingle, who was Cape Girardeau County prosecutor when the crimes occurred, said they were among the most heinous of his career.

"He is probably the most pure sociopath I ever prosecuted," Swingle said of Bucklew. "He was relentless in the way he came after his victims."

A human piece of garbage, the guy was on death row for 23 years. Boy, did he ever enjoy some due process, sheesh.

Gavin Newsome Issues Death Penalty Moratorium for California's Death Row

I'm not pleased.

At the Los Angeles Times:

Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign an executive order to impose a moratorium on the death penalty in California, vowing that no prisoner in the state will be executed while he is in office. https://t.co/VfpVjGmv5I

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 13, 2019

Charles Manson, Rose Bird, Caryl Chessman and California’s wrenching death penalty debate https://t.co/3bNgt6s4j2

— maura dolan (@mauradolan) March 16, 2019

One of Elisabeth Semel’s earliest memories of the death penalty in California was the 1960 execution of Caryl Chessman. She remembers seeing her father upset.

She became a criminal defense lawyer and went on to defend inmates convicted of capital crimes, running a death penalty clinic at UC Berkeley.

Kent Scheidegger, a former commercial lawyer, was inspired to join the fight for the death penalty after voters ousted California Chief Justice Rose Bird and two colleagues in 1986 for overturning death sentences.

He said the courts were thwarting the people’s will and he joined a pro-death penalty group to persuade judges to uphold death sentences.

Advocates and others on both sides went on to endure decades of frustration in California’s wrenching wars over the death penalty.

This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom put his own imprint on the saga, declaring a moratorium on executions while he was in office. But the death penalty remains lawful in California, and neither side is ready yet to lay down arms.

The battle started with a 1972 California Supreme Court decision that declared the state’s death penalty unconstitutional. The decision spared the lives of Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan and more than 100 others.

Supporters of the death penalty gradually resurrected the law to pass constitutional muster, and California juries have condemned scores of people to die.

Bird and two other Democratic appointees to the Supreme Court were replaced with conservatives, and the newly formed court routinely upheld death sentences.

The state’s execution logjam broke with the 1992 lethal gassing of Robert Alton Harris, who had killed two teenage boys in San Diego. It was the state’s first execution in 25 years.

Another death row inmate, David Mason, was executed in the gas chamber the following year.

Then a federal court decision in 1996 forced the state to close the gas chamber and execute by lethal injection. Later that year, serial killer William Bonin died by the needle, four years after Harris. Executions continued sporadically.

By the time Republican appointee Ronald M. George was California’s chief justice, there was a massive backlog of death penalty appeals. The cost to the state of trying the cases and handling the appeals was crushing.

George, a former prosecutor who had previously defended California’s death penalty, declared the system “dysfunctional.” An inmate on death row was more likely to die from old age than execution, he said.

In all, 13 inmates have been executed in California since the restoration of the death penalty. More than 100 condemned inmates have died of natural causes or suicide during that time.

A state commission determined that the death penalty would work in California only if the state put in a massive infusion of money.

No one seemed inclined to provide that kind of money, but the death penalty remained on the books and death row began running out of room.

Actor Mike Farrell, a death penalty abolitionist, spent many execution nights outside San Quentin State Prison as peaceful protesters held candles and sang hymns.

He met with two California death row inmates before their executions, including Stanley Tookie Williams in 2005.

Williams, a former Los Angeles gang leader, was convicted of killing four people. In prison he wrote books for young people urging them to eschew gangs.

Farrell also met with then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, another actor, to plead for Williams’ life.

“I just don’t understand the point in killing this man,” Farrell recalled telling Schwarzenegger. “If you commit him to life in prison without parole, he can keep doing the work he is doing with kids.”

Schwarzenegger said Williams had to admit guilt and express remorse, Farrell said. Williams insisted he did not commit the murders and died by lethal injection...

Carol S. Steiker and Jordan M. Steiker, Courting Death

At Amazon, Carol S. Steiker and Jordan M. Steiker, Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment.

Death Penalty Isn't Going Away in California

Apparently, the battle over the death penalty in California isn't going away, despite the failure of the recent voter initiative to ban it.

At LAT, "In California, death penalty abolitionists pledge to keep fighting":

As executions have declined and public opinion of the death penalty has hit a record low nationwide, many looked to California as a test of whether the public — not courts or governments — was ready to overturn the practice.

But California voters on Tuesday defeated a measure to repeal capital punishment and, as of Thursday, were on course to narrowly approve a dueling proposition that aims to amend and expedite it.

Death penalty supporters lauded the outcome, saying it reflected what they have been pointing to all along: Most Americans want the system fixed, not ended. But abolitionists argued that campaigns in favor of capital punishment benefited from the so-called “Trump effect,” a wave of mostly white, male voters from rural areas energized by the Republican presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

Proposition 62, which would have replaced capital punishment for murder with life in prison without parole, was defeated, with nearly 54% of voters in opposition.

Awaiting approval is Proposition 66, which intends to speed up executions by designating trial courts to hear petitions challenging death row convictions, limiting successive petitions and expanding the pool of lawyers who could take on death penalty appeals.

It has won the approval of 50.9% of voters. California elections officials have been sifting through ballots cast by mail, which account for more than half of the state's voter registration, and may not have a full handle on how many are left to count until Monday...

Actually, Prop 66 passed. See the San Jose Mercury News, "California’s death penalty: What to know after Proposition 66."

Look, Hillary won 60 percent of the vote in California. It wasn't just the "Trump effect." People still support capital punishment in this country, despite the vile coddling of murderers by radical leftists.

Efforts to End Death Row in California

I've got to bone up on this. We've got two competing voter initiatives on the November ballot.

At LAT, "On death row, the effort to end the state's death penalty stirs both anxiety and apathy."

Jury Finds Colorado Theater Shooter Guilty on 165 Counts

I wrote all about this case at the time.

No surprise about the verdicts.

At the Los Angeles Times, "James Holmes found guilty of murder; shooter in Colorado theater massacre killed 12 people":

The jury weighing the fate of Aurora, Colo., gunman James E. Holmes on Thursday found the 27-year-old former neuroscience graduate student guilty of murder and attempted murder in a trial that has grabbed international headlines.

The verdicts - guilty on all 165 counts - were announced on the second day of deliberations.

The courtroom was silent as Arapahoe County Judge Carlos Samour Jr. read the verdicts. Holmes stood motionless beside his attorneys as Samour read the names of the victims - the men, the women and the child who were murdered, and those who were injured.

Dozens of names rang out in a process that was strangely dry after the deep emotion of the three-month trial. As Samour read the names and the charges against Holmes, the only other sound was the rustle of pages as he made his way through the 165 charges.

"Verdict form Count 1, murder in the first degree after deliberation, Jonathan Blunk," he began. "We the jury find the defendant James Eagen Holmes guilty of murder in the first degree after deliberation."

Jurors left unanswered Part B of every count: "Did you find the defendant not guilty on this count solely based on the defense of insanity?" And they answered "yes" to Part C of each three-part count: "Did the defendant use, or possess and threaten the use of, a deadly weapon?"

The process took about an hour.

Legal experts following the trial were shocked by the jury’s speed.

“I am very surprised the jury is back with a verdict so soon, especially since the judge told the jury it had to work through each and every count,” said Rick Kornfeld, a former assistant U.S. attorney. “It’s hard to read the tea leaves regarding a short deliberation in a long trial, but it certainly means that the losing side was not in the game in the eyes of the jury in terms of the strength of their argument."

Holmes had faced 165 felony counts, including murder in the first degree, in the July 20, 2012, multiplex massacre, which left 12 people dead and 70 others wounded in one of the worst mass shootings on American soil.

The trial now enters the penalty phase. Samour told jurors that court will be in session again on Wednesday and admonished them not to talk about the case and to ignore all media reports in their five days off.

“You’ll have two options,” Samour told the jury after the verdicts were read, “life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. Those are the only choices.”

That Holmes carefully planned the horrific attack, cased the suburban Denver movie theater, strapped on an assault rifle, a shotgun and a Glock pistol and blasted his way through a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" was never in doubt...

Doesn't look like he's getting any slack for his psychiatric illness. He was pretty messed up in the head, but hey, it's premeditated and the jury believes he retained moral reasoning, apparently.

Supreme Court Will Review Use of Lethal Injections

At USA Today:

WASHINGTON -- In a case that could have broad implications for hundreds of death row inmates, the Supreme Court will consider whether a drug protocol used in recent lethal injections violates the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The justices agreed Friday to consider a case originally brought by four death-row inmates in Oklahoma -- one of whom was put to death last week, after the court refused to block his execution with a combination of three drugs that has caused some prisoners to writhe in pain.

Because the court's four liberal justices dissented from the decision to let that execution go forward, it presumably was their votes in private conference Friday that will give the issue a full hearing in open court. Only four votes are needed from the nine-member court to accept a case. It will be heard in late April and decided by late June.

Lawyers for Charles Warner and three other convicts set for execution in Oklahoma over the next six weeks sought the Supreme Court's intervention after two lower federal courts refused their pleas. While the court's conservatives refused to stop Warner's execution, the request for a full court hearing had been held for further consideration.

The lawyers claim that the sedative midazolam, the first drug used in the three-drug protocol, is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a general anesthetic and is being used in state executions virtually on an experimental basis. They say Inmates may not be rendered unconscious and could suffer painfully as the other drugs in the protocol are administered.

That, they claim, was a factor in Oklahoma's botched execution last April of Clayton Lockett, who struggled, groaned and writhed in pain for 43 minutes before dying. A state investigation later blamed Lockett's ordeal on a failure by prison staff to realize that drugs had not been administered directly into his veins. The state has since changed its procedures and increased the dose of midazolam used.

"The time is right for the court to take a careful look at this important issue, particularly given the bungled executions that have occurred since states started using these novel and experimental drugs protocols," said Dale Baich, one of the lawyers representing the death-row inmates...

This could be the case that abolishes the death penalty, or at least that's what the progs will be looking for.

More.

Charles Warner, Black Mofo Dead-Man-Walking, to Be Executed Today for Rape and Murder of 11-Month-Old Baby

Hopefully, it'll be a botched execution and the motherfucker will go down in excruciatingly caustic pain from the burning, death-bringing pharmaceuticals coursing through his evil system.

At NBC News, "Oklahoma Execution: Baby's Mom Says Killer Charles Warner Should Live":

Death-row prisoner Charles Warner is set to be executed in Oklahoma on Thursday for the rape and murder of an 11-month-old baby, but one person who doesn't want to see him killed is the infant's mother.

Shonda Waller told defense lawyers in a videotaped statement that a lethal injection for Warner — the first in the state since a bungled procedure nine months ago — would be a "dishonor" to her daughter Adrianna's name and against her religious beliefs.

"I don't see any justice in just sentencing someone to die," Waller said. "To me, the justice is in someone living with what they have done to you, your family, and having to live with that for the rest of their life knowing they will never walk out those bars."

The statement made last January was played for Oklahoma's parole board in March when Warner was up for clemency. The panel voted not to give him a reprieve and he was scheduled to die April 29. He was waiting to be escorted to the death chamber when an earlier execution that same night was so badly botched it sparked global outrage.

That inmate, Clayton Lockett, was supposed to die within minutes after a doctor ran three drugs through an IV in a vein his groin, but he regained consciousness and appeared to writhe in pain midway through the procedure. He said, "Oh man," and tried to rise from the gurney.

The warden tried to halt the execution, but Lockett died anyway, after 43 minutes of suffering.

The disturbing scene made headlines around the world, prompted President Obama to order a Justice Department review of lethal injection protocols nationwide — and bought extra time for Warner, whose execution was called off while the debacle was investigated.

Among the questions asked: Did Oklahoma's use of midazolam contribute to the debacle? The sedative was the first of three drugs administered and critics say it carries the danger of not rendering an inmate fully unconscious before the other two chemicals, a paralyzing agent and a heart-stopper, hit the bloodstream with potentially excruciating results.

The Oklahoma probe ultimately determined the midazolam itself was not the culprit and a poorly placed IV that leaked the drug into the surrounding tissues instead of a central vein was to blame.

The corrections department promised to increase the dose of midazolam for future injections, improve training for the execution team and revamp procedures to make it easier to stop an execution gone awry.

A new date with death was set for Warner, whose latest appeal is sitting with the U.S. Supreme Court after a federal appeals panel this week rejected his claims that midazolam would cause too-painful an end, in violation of the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

There could be no debate about the cruelty of the crime.

It happened Aug. 22, 1997, in the home that Warner and his two children shared with Waller, who is variously described as an ex-girlfriend or former roommate in court papers. Waller went out to run errands and when she returned, the child was unconscious. Resuscitation efforts failed and the baby was pronounced dead at the hospital...

The death penalty is available for society's most heinous crimes. You don't get much more heinous than this. Fry the fucker.

More at Politico, "Oklahoma prepares to use controversial execution drug."

Europe Hasn't Abolished Capital Punishment: Frank Van Den Bleeken, Murderer and Rapist, to Be 'Euthanized' in Humanitarian Gesture

See, for Europe's progressive left, state sponsored murder is just fine. Fine and dandy. As long as it's justified not in terms of "brutal" law and order punishment, but "compassionate" treatment of society's disadvantaged.

At Telegraph UK, "Belgian rapist and murderer to be put to death by lethal injection":

Frank Van Den Bleeken won right to euthanasia after claiming he could not face rest of life in jail.

A rapist and murderer is to be put to death in Belgium this week, despite Europe’s ban on the death penalty, after a court granted him the right to euthanasia.

Frank Van Den Bleeken, 52, is not physically ill but claims his “psychological suffering” is unbearable and that he would prefer to die than spend more of his life behind bars.

He says he has no prospect of ever being released from prison as he cannot overcome his uncontrollable sexual impulses, and that he does not wish another two or three decades in jail.

His application to die was accepted by Belgium’s Federal Euthanasia Commission in September, and over the weekend, official gave approval for him to be taken to a specialist clinic on Sunday, where he will be killed by lethal injection.

Belgium legalised euthanasia in 2002, and is one of only three countries to allow the practice, the others being the Netherlands and Luxembourg. More countries, including Switzerland and some states of America, allow doctors to assist suicide in certain circumstances.

But Belgium has seen a fast growth in the number of cases of euthanasia, and has expanded the practice beyond terminally ill adults. It can now be used in cases of intense pain and psychological distress, while last February the right to euthanasia was extended to terminally ill children, as long as their parents gave consent.

One previous inmate has been euthanased, but he was suffering a terminal illness.

Van Den Bleeken raped Christiane Remacle, a 19-year-old girl, as she came home from a New Year’s Eve party on January 1 1989, and then strangled her with one of her own stockings.

He was deemed insane and not criminally responsible. After seven years on a prison psychiatric ward, he was released, attacking three more victims, aged 11, 17, and 29, within weeks.

He was then ordered to be detained indefinitely, and has seen “the outside” only once since, for his mother’s funeral...

F-king murderous bastard. Why not just label him for what he is: a criminal sociopath who deserves the damned burning needle in his arm?

Frankly, it's just more lies. Belgian leftists are no better than the Nazis. They just turn everything inside out, discombobulating reality, but end up killing just as efficiently as the totalitarian regimes of the 1930s. They make me sick.

More at the link. Ms. Remacle's survivors are not pleased. They want this monster to rot in prison for the rest of his leftist loser life.

James Holmes' Parents Plead Against Death Penalty

At LAT, "James Holmes' parents plead for their son: 'He is not a monster'":

The parents of shooting suspect James Holmes pleaded for their son’s life in a letter sent Friday, arguing that the man accused in the deadly rampage at a suburban Denver movie theater is mentally ill and should be institutionalized for life instead of facing execution.

Holmes, 27, faces the death penalty if he is convicted of killing 12 people and injuring 70 in the 2012 attack on a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. Jury selection is scheduled to start Jan. 20.

The case has reignited arguments over gun control, the death penalty and whether to execute people who are mentally ill. Holmes has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

In a letter sent to the Denver Post and emailed to journalists around the country, Robert and Arlene Holmes wrote: “We are always praying for everyone in Aurora. We wish that July 20, 2012, never happened.”

Of their son, they wrote, “We have read postings on the Internet that have likened him to a monster. He is not a monster. He is a human being gripped by a severe mental illness.”

It was Robert and Arlene Holmes’ first comments except for a brief statement immediately after the attack at the theater.

“Treatment in an institution would be best for our son,” they wrote. “We love our son, we have always loved him and we do not want him to be executed.”

There must be some significant doubt about that insanity plea. If the courts find him competent, the f-ker should fry.

More.

Arizona 2-Hour Execution Rekindles Debate on Death Penalty

A federal judge argued this week to bring back the firing squad, and that's where the debate should be going --- toward functionally more humane executions.

And here's the Wall Street Journal, "Lengthy Arizona Execution Heightens Lethal-Injection Questions: Condemned Man Dies Two Hours After Drugs Were Administered."

And video at KNXV-TV ABC15 Phoenix , "Arizona inmate dies 2 hours after execution began," and "Reaction from latest Arizona execution."

'Can't bring myself to feel sorry over the botched execution of a guy who shot a woman and buried her alive after he raped her friend...'

Comment from Dana Loesch, on Facebook.

And that made me realize, after my earlier entry, "Clayton Lockett Botched Execution," that I never did find out about the guy Lockett's conviction.

Here's what I found online, "Appeals Court Upholds Death Penalty for Ponca City Man":

HE BURIED HIS VICTIM ALIVE. MT @DailyMailUS: Killer dies of heart attack after 20 minutes of agony in botched Oklahoma execution

— Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) April 30, 2014

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the death sentence given to convicted murderer Clayton Darrell Lockett, of Ponca City, Oklahoma. Lockett was convicted in August 2000 of the first degree murder of 19-year-old Stephanie Nieman. Lockett was also sentenced to more than 2,285 years in prison for associated non-capital crimes occurring that night, including assault with a dangerous weapon, burglary, first degree rape, and kidnapping.

A jury found that on June 3, 1999, Clayton Lockett and two co-conspirators, Shawn Mathis and Alfonso Lockett, broke into the Perry, Oklahoma, home of Bobby Bornt. They assaulted Bornt before burglarizing his home for drugs. While they were at Bornt's home, two 19-year-old women arrived. The men repeatedly raped and assaulted one woman, whose name is withheld as a victim of sexual assault, before loading Bornt, Bornt's 9-month-old son, Stephanie Nieman, and the other woman into Bornt's and Nieman's trucks and driving them to a rural location in Kay County.

Bornt testified that he heard Clayton Locket say, "Someone has got to go," before he put Nieman in a ditch dug by Shawn Mathis and shot her twice. He also testified to hearing the men laugh about "how tough [Nieman] was" when she did not die after the first shot.

Bornt and the other victim believe they were spared because they have children; however, both testified to hearing Lockett plan to kill them and take Bornt's infant son to either a shelter or Bornt's parents' house.

Clayton Lockett was found to be the instigator of all crimes that evening. According to court documents, State's evidence included a videotaped confession by Locket in which he "confessed to going to Mr. Bornt’s home to rob him; to personally hitting and beating Mr. Bornt, [name withheld], and Ms. Neiman with his fists or with the shotgun; to binding the victims with duct tape; to planning to kill all three adult victims; to forcing them (along with the baby) to leave Mr. Bornt’s house and go to the country, where the adults were to be killed; to taking Ms. Neiman’s and Mr. Bornt’s trucks; to being the ultimate decision maker as to which victims would be killed; to instructing Mr. Mathis on how to dig the grave; to personally shooting Ms. Neiman while she cried; to threatening to kill them if they told anyone of his crimes; and to insisting that his accomplices bury Ms. Neiman when he knew she was still alive." He was convicted of 19 felony counts...

But OMG cruel and unusual!!

Clayton Lockett Botched Execution

Hey, props to Oklahoma whose officials will almost single handedly ensure that the death penalty is finally ruled cruel and unusual.

This execution went so awry that officials tried to resuscitate Lockett.

Frankly, just bring back the firing squad. Damn.

At London's Daily Mail, "Killer dies of heart attack after twenty minutes of agony when Oklahoma experimental drug execution goes wrong. Second lethal injection postponed."

Also at the Tulsa World, "Execution botched before inmate dies of heart attack; second execution postponed":

Prison officials said they will try to get Lockett to hospital to resuscitate him.

— Bailey Elise McBride (@baileyelise) April 30, 2014

He was conscious and blinking, licking his lips even after the process began. He then began to seize.

— Bailey Elise McBride (@baileyelise) April 30, 2014

At 6:33 the doctor said Lockett was unconscious and then at 6:34 Lockett began to nod, mumble move body.

— Bailey Elise McBride (@baileyelise) April 30, 2014

Director of Corrections addressing media now, no questions.

— Bailey Elise McBride (@baileyelise) April 30, 2014

Sedated 7 minutes into execution, at that time began pushing 2nd and 3rd drugs. Some concern durgs were not having an effect.

— Bailey Elise McBride (@baileyelise) April 30, 2014

7:06 inmate Clayton Lockett suffered heart attack and died.

— Bailey Elise McBride (@baileyelise) April 30, 2014

Prison Director has stayed execution for Charles Warner for 14 days.

— Bailey Elise McBride (@baileyelise) April 30, 2014

Lockett's vein blew during the execution preventing the chemicals from effectively entering his body.

— Bailey Elise McBride (@baileyelise) April 30, 2014

He is still alive, the state stopped his execution. He was lifting head at 6:39 and he was still alive and DOC closed curtain and stopped it

— Cary Aspinwall (@caryaspinwall) April 30, 2014

Clayton Lockett died inside the execution chamber at 7:06 pm of a massive heart attack according to DOC officials.

— Cary Aspinwall (@caryaspinwall) April 30, 2014

FYI this type of scenario is exactly what attorneys for Lockett and Warner had argued might happen with Oklahoma using untested method

— Cary Aspinwall (@caryaspinwall) April 30, 2014

You're right. Let's shoot them. RT @TonyBudetti Another botched execution in Oklahoma. We are better than this, America!

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) April 30, 2014

If the scumbag Oklahoma murderer died, how was the execution "botched" - Seems like a success to me

— Cameron Gray (@Cameron_Gray) April 30, 2014

McALESTER -- The execution of convicted killer Clayton Lockett was botched tonight at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary before he died of a massive heart attack. The event prompted officials to postpone a second execution scheduled for two hours later.
Lockett was given execution drugs and reacted violently, kicking and grimacing while lifting his head off the gurney to which he was strapped. He was pronounced dead at 7:06 p.m. inside the execution chamber -- 43 minutes after the process began -- Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton said.

In a media conference, Patton said Lockett's veins "exploded" during the execution, which began at 6:23 p.m. The inmate died from what Patton called a "massive heart attack." The death occurred after the execution process was halted.

Convicted killer Charles Warner was scheduled to be executed at 8 p.m. Patton said he notified the governor's office and the attorney general's office about the events and asked for a 14-day delay of Warner's execution, which was scheduled for 8 p.m.
Gov. Mary Fallin issued a statement tonight saying she had issued an executive order delaying Warner's execution for 14 days.

“I have asked the Department of Corrections to conduct a full review of Oklahoma’s execution procedures to determine what happened and why during this evening’s execution of Clayton Derrell Lockett,” Fallin said in the statement. “I have issued an executive order delaying the execution of Charles Frederick Warner for 14 days to allow for that review to be completed.”

Tonight's executions were to be the first in Oklahoma using a new three-drug cocktail of vecuronium bromide, midazolam and potassium chloride.

Lockett had no last words as the execution began. Sixteen minutes after it started, OSP Warden Anita Trammell said: “We’re going to lower the blinds temporarily.” A doctor in the chamber went to Lockett’s right arm and lifted the sheet, apparently checking his vein where a tube had been inserted.

Patton left the room for several minutes and was on the phone. Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Thompson then left the observation area to take a phone call from the line inside the execution chamber.

When Patton returned to the observation room, he said: “We’ve had a vein failure in which the chemicals did not make it into the offender. Under my authority, we’re issuing a stay for the second execution.”

More at that top link.

Amazing.

Leftist demands for more "humane" executions ends up bringing about more inhumanity --- and, ultimately, a further erosion of public support for capital punishment.

There's gotta be some Alinskyite angle in here somewhere. Man, those criminal-coddling progs are good!

Ka Pasasouk, Suspect in Northridge Murders, Got Probation Instead of Prison During Recent Criminal Court Hearing

Lovely.

Our wonderfully humane criminal justice system put this dude up for probation despite a string of previous convictions and court hearings.

At the Los Angeles Times, "D.A.'s office admits letting slaying suspect avoid prison":

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office admitted Monday that its prosecutors erred in allowing a suspect — now accused in the killing of four people in Northridge — to receive drug treatment instead of prison time during a September court hearing.

The suspect, Ka Pasasouk, was in Van Nuys Superior Court after being arrested on suspicion of drug possession. He was on probation at the time, and the L.A. County Probation Department had urged that he be sent back to state prison for "long-term detention" because of his lengthy criminal record.

But prosecutors told the judge that Pasasouk was eligible for a drug diversion program under Proposition 36. The judge ordered him to drug treatment rather than prison.

Two months later, authorities alleged, Pasasouk killed four people outside a home in Northridge.

The district attorney's office said it completed an investigation Monday into how that hearing was handled.

"The review shows that the office inadvertently erred in indicating the defendant was eligible for a Proposition 36 drug program," said district attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons in a statement. "Training issues raised during the review will be addressed by the District Attorney's office countywide."

Gibbons would not comment further or say whether any prosecutors were being disciplined.

Pasasouk is accused of fatally shooting four people Dec. 1 outside a home in the 17400 block of Devonshire Street.

Officials identified the dead as Amanda Ghossein, 24, of Monterey Park; Jennifer Kim, 26, of Montebello; Robert Calabia, 34, of Los Angeles; and Teofilo Navales, 49, of Castaic.

Detectives have not revealed any information about a possible motive. But law enforcement sources told The Times that the killings appeared to have stemmed from a dispute over personal property, including a computer.

Proposition 36 was a voter-approved ballot measure meant to send some nonviolent drug offenders into drug rehab rather than prison.

Progressive crime policy getting people killed. Who would have thunk it?

Continue reading.

Killer Ronnie Lee Gardner Executed by Firing Squad

At New York Times, "Utah Executes Murderer by Firing Squad." And at ABC News, "'He Will Never Assault Anybody Again'."

It's extremely fascinating. Death by gunshot's obviously more humane than the peace industry's lethal injection horror show. Gardner's attorney's made an 11th hour appeal to stop the execution, but the wheels of justice kept rolling despite late efforts to slow things down. Watch for the international outcry all weekend as criminal rights groups attack the U.S. as "barbaric." And the circumstances surrounding the case would seem to give death penalty opponents ammunition. Gardner's victim, attorney Michael Burdell, was a pacifist who opposed capital punishment. Attorney's for dead-man-walking Gardner invoked Burdell's name in speaking out out against the execution, saying that "Michael Burdell's voice has never been heard."

Couple of videos below. I wonder if someone's got a hidden mini-cam clip of this guy's death? Gardner's arms kept twitching after the shots fired, apparently. And it's hard to keep that stuff off the Internet in this day and age:

Evolving Standards of Decency? Supreme Court Limits 'Harsh' Terms for Minors

The editors at NTY are calling it "A New Standard of Decency," but yesterday's ruling on juvenile sentencing is just one more in a string of leftist decisions designed, ultimately, to chip away at capital punishment. How do we know? Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, as he did for the disastrous Roper v. Simmons (2005).

Joan Biskupic has a report, "Court limits harsh terms for youths":

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that juveniles cannot be sentenced to life without parole for crimes other than murder, in a significant 5-4 decision that says imposing such sentences violates the Constitution's prohibition on "cruel and unusual" punishment.
The court's 5-4 decision — which says that an automatic life sentence for a young offender who has not committed murder violates the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual" punishment — wipes out laws in 37 states.

It means that the 129 juveniles now serving time under such laws will, at some point, have an opportunity to make a case for parole.

Most significantly, the decision — signed by the nine-member court's four more liberal justices and Anthony Kennedy, the conservative who votes with the liberals the most — emphasizes that young criminals are different from adults. And not just when it comes to the death penalty, which the court made off-limits for juveniles in 2005.

"A life without parole sentence improperly denies the juvenile offender a chance to demonstrate growth and maturity," Kennedy wrote for the majority in the decision that found life without parole disproportionally harsh.

The decision immediately generated debate over where the court would go in the future regarding juvenile rights, including the possibility that it could strike down life-without-parole for juvenile murderers.

I can't imagine much public support for such a position, and it's going to get worse if Ruth Bader Ginsberg steps down next year, giving President Obama a chance to appoint a third radical leftist to the court during his first term. Frankly, here's a hint that the radical majority on the court won't stop the campaign of "evolving decency" with juvenile defendants:

In Kennedy's opinion for the majority, he highlighted the limited culpability of young offenders and said the usual justifications for harsh sentences, such as deterrence, do not hold up for those under age 18.

Baylor University criminal law professor Mark Osler said Monday's decision arises against the backdrop of a broader national re-examination of harsh sentences, but it is most significant in how it views offenders who are under age 18.

RTWT at the link. (And Kennedy's appeal to international legal standards is especially appalling.)

Georgia Executes Mark McClain: Activists, Communists Protest 'Freakish' System of 'Arbitrary' Punishment

Mark McClain, the so-called "Pizza Store Killer," was put to death by lethal injection Tuesday evening. The Georgia Department of Corrections issued a pre-execution press release, "McClain Execution Media Advisory." And the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a report, "State Executes Pizza Store Killer":

Condemned inmate Mark McClain was killed by lethal injection at 7:24 p.m. Tuesday in Jackson.

He had no visitors Tuesday, though a Department of Corrections spokeswoman said he talked to two relatives by phone. McClain, 42, declined to eat his final meal and refused a sedative offered one hour before his execution. At around 6:15 he learned from his attorneys that the U.S. Supreme Court had denied a motion to stay, just as the Georgia Supreme Court had ruled earlier in the day.

McClain did not issue a final statement. When asked if he wanted a prayer said for him, he replied, "No, I'm fine." He lay expressionless and made no eye contact with the attorneys, prison officials and members of the media who witnessed his execution. As his death drew near McClain's ruddy complexion turned pale. His body lunged forward slightly as the potassium chloride raced through his veins, but otherwise his passing was quiet.

His execution, unlike most, kept to schedule.

There were no relatives present, which is not uncommon, according to Department of Corrections spokeswoman Joan Heath.

McClain was sentenced to death by a Richmond County jury for the 1994 murder of Kevin Brown, 28. The Domino's Pizza store manager was shot once in the chest for the $130 in his till.

The Journal-Constitution also published a report critical of Georgia's death penalty system, "Death Sentence for Killer 'Freakish'":

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution examined the facts and circumstances behind 2,328 murder convictions in Georgia from 1995 through 2004. In a series published in 2007, the AJC found Georgia law has fallen short of ensuring a predictable and even-handed application of the death penalty. Instead, death sentences were being arbitrarily imposed, the investigation found.

The main reason was the way state prosecutors handled armed-robbery murder, one of Georgia’s most prevalent capital crimes.

In 1995, McClain’s case proved remarkable because it was the only one of its kind. Over the decade studied, seven other men were sentenced to Death Row for armed-robbery murder. Another 432 got life in prison.

These armed-robbery murders, like McClain’s, did not involve torture, maiming, murder-for-hire or police killing.

The newspaper is attacking the death penalty as unconstitutional as per Furman v. Georgia (1972).

The Augusta Chronicle used McCain's execution as an opportunity to repudiate the system, "Death Penalty Opponents Say Practice a Failure, Waste of Money":

The same day convicted Richmond County killer Mark McClain was executed at a Georgia prison, one of the nation’s leading non-profit death penalty research organizations released a harsh assessment of the practice.

A report by the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center released Tuesday said state executions are wasting millions of dollars that could be funneled to other anti-crime efforts, and that law enforcement officials increasingly view it as a low priority for reducing actual crimes.

The Augusta Chronicle piece never mentions the circumstance of McClain's crime. The story just promotes the NCADP agenda. The organization boasts a large affiliate network of organizations with deep ties to hard left's "struggle" to end the death penalty. The NCADP's former chair is Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking. Prejean is a longtime peace activist with ties to hardline antiwar groups and communist organizations. Prejean is founder of the Moratorium Campaign. The outfit seeks to

Affiliates of the Moratorium Campaign includes the neo-communist Campaign to End the Death Penalty (see its pamphlett, "Five Reasons to Oppose the Death Penalty"). Marlene Martin, a CEDP board member, published "Death Penalty in Retreat" at International Socialist Review in 2007. Another affiliate of Sister Prejean's Moratorium Campaign is Death Penalty Focus, a Marxist international solidarity group in California.

Adam Folk, the reporter for the Atlanta Chronicle, who was an official witness to McClain's execution, has a follow-up report, "Georgia's Execution Procedure Appears Cold, Precise and Final":

As the designated monitor, I was the lone media representative tasked with watching nurses prepare Mr. McClain for his death.

I was inches away from the glass.

When the door opened, the warden entered first, then the guards, then Mr. McClain. He barely glanced our way as he lay down on the table and was strapped into place. His expression never changed.

We were told he had no visitors before the execution. Mr. McClain’s parents are dead and so are the parents of the victim, Kevin Brown. Instead, he had a room filled with more than 20 people who were there because of work or requirement to watch him die.

When he was prepared, they brought in the other reporters, along with the sheriff's investigator who put him in jail and an attorney from Augusta.

With no noise, we watched as the drugs were automatically pumped into his veins -- as his normally ruddy complexion flushed red.

We waited.

His chest heaved violently for about a minute then stopped.

His face turned purple. Then gray. Then white.

A housefly danced upon the white sheet that covered Mr. McClain’s legs. It was the only movement in the room.

Finally, a pair of doctors lifted his lifeless eyelids with their fingers and listened to make sure there was no heartbeat.

The process was complete and Mr. McClain was dead.

We left the room quickly and I didn't look back.

See also, the hardline Atlanta Progressive News, "Vigils Across Georgia to Protest McClain's Execution."