Saturday, January 18, 2014

Executing This Post Will Take a Few Minutes

Maybe more…. 

Ohio parole board calls for execution
Reprieve denied for death row inmate in Ohio
Ohio judge will not halt execution
Ohio prepares to use new execution drugs

"Ohio execution takes over 20 minutes" by Andrew Welsh-Huggins |  Associated Press, January 17, 2014

LUCASVILLE, Ohio — A condemned man appeared to gasp several times and took an unusually long time to die — more than 20 minutes — in an execution carried out Thursday with a combination of drugs never before tried in the United States.

Meaning the guy was a guinea pig in an experiment.

Dennis McGuire’s attorney Allen Bohnert called the convicted killer’s death ‘‘a failed, agonizing experiment’’ and added: ‘‘The people of the state of Ohio should be appalled at what was done here today in their names.’’ 

I am at all state-sponsored killing.

McGuire’s lawyers had attempted last week to block his execution, arguing that the untried method could lead to a medical phenomenon known as ‘‘air hunger’’ and cause him to suffer ‘‘agony and terror.’’

McGuire, 53, made loud snorting noises during one of the longest executions since Ohio resumed capital punishment in 1999. Nearly 25 minutes passed between the time the lethal drugs began flowing and McGuire was pronounced dead at 10:53 a.m.

Executions under the old method were typically much shorter and did not cause the kind of sounds McGuire made.

Ohio prisons spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said a review of the execution will be conducted as usual.

If they made a mistake it's a little late, isn't it?

Prison officials gave intravenous doses of two drugs, the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone, to put McGuire to death for the 1989 rape and fatal stabbing of a pregnant newlywed, Joy Stewart.

The method was adopted after supplies of a previously used drug dried up because the manufacturer declared it off limits for capital punishment. The execution is certain to launch a new round of federal lawsuits over Ohio’s injection procedure. The state has five more executions scheduled this year….

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Ohio is inhumane!

"Protracted execution intensifies debate on lethal injection drugs" by Kantele Franko and Andrew Welsh-Huggins |  Associated Press, January 18, 2014

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The long and restless execution of an Ohio inmate with an untested combination of chemicals elicited cries of cruel and unusual punishment Friday and could further narrow the options for other states casting about for new lethal injection drugs.

Related:

"One explanation for the relatively low level of executions is that many drugs used in lethal injections are manufactured in Europe, where some governments opposing capital punishment have banned exporting drugs for executions."

A gasping, snorting Dennis McGuire took 26 minutes to die after the chemicals began flowing Thursday — the longest execution of the 53 carried out in Ohio since capital punishment resumed 15 years ago, according to an Associated Press analysis.

McGuire’s adult children complained it amounted to torture, with the convicted killer’s son, also named Dennis, saying: ‘‘Nobody deserves to go through that.’’

Whether McGuire felt any pain was unclear. But Ohio’s experience could influence the decisions made in the 31 other lethal-injection states, many of which have been forced in the past few years to rethink the drugs they use.

States are in a bind for two main reasons: European companies have cut off supplies of certain execution drugs because of death-penalty opposition overseas. And states can’t simply switch to other chemicals without triggering legal challenges from defense attorneys.

‘‘There’s only so many times you can say we’re going to try a new method, or try something different, where at this point it’s just going to invite a lot of skepticism,’’ said Fordham University law professor and lethal injection expert Deborah Denno.

In light of what happened in Ohio, ‘‘states will now have more of a burden to show that they are using a well-thought-out best practice,’’ said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment. 

I do, too; no way to rectify a mistake and there are way too many innocent Americans framed by law enforcement.

Ohio’s prison system is reviewing the execution and declined to comment on the amount of time it took McGuire to die from the two-drug combination, which had never been used before in a US execution. McGuire, 53, was given both a sedative and a painkiller….

McGuire, who was sentenced to die for raping and stabbing to death a pregnant newlywed in 1989, appeared unconscious but gasped repeatedly as he lay on a gurney.

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Another Ohio scum:

"Cleveland kidnapper’s death a suicide, report says" by Andrew Welsh-Huggins |  AP Legal Affairs Writer, December 04, 2013

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro committed suicide by hanging himself in his prison cell, two corrections consultants concluded following a review of his death that was released Tuesday, rejecting suggestions he may have died accidentally while seeking a sexual thrill.

Translation: he was murdered.

Castro’s Sept. 3 death was probably not the result of autoerotic asphyxiation, in which individuals choke themselves into unconsciousness to achieve sexual satisfaction, according to the consultants. An earlier review by the state prisons agency suggested that possibility.

Related: Castro Commits Suicide

The new report said all evidence pointed to suicide, including a shrine-like arrangement of family pictures and a Bible in Castro’s cell, an increasing tone of frustration in his prison journal, and the reality of spending the rest of his life in prison while subject to constant harassment.

Which is strange because he was exhibiting none of those things.

Castro pleaded guilty to imprisoning three women in his home for a decade while repeatedly raping and assaulting them.

Yeah, who is going to ask questions if he is gone?

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They do stay them sometime:

"Ohio execution stayed to study organ request" by JULIE CARR SMYTH |  Associated Press,  November 14, 2013

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Governor John Kasich delayed a condemned child killer’s execution on Wednesday to study the feasibility of accommodating the man’s request to donate his organs.

Always makes me think of the worldwide Israeli organ-harvesting racket.

Kasich’s decision came less than 24 hours before Ronald Phillips was scheduled to die for the rape and death of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter in Akron in 1993. His lethal injection Thursday was to be the first time a new two-drug combination was tried in the United States.

He avoided that.

In stopping the execution, Kasich said he wanted to allow time to study the request the 40-year-old inmate made Monday to see whether it could help someone else….

Kasich said that while Phillips’s crime was heinous, his willingness to donate organs and tissue could save another life and the state should try to accommodate a donation.

Kasich said if Phillips is found to be a viable donor to his mother, who has kidney disease and is on dialysis, or to others awaiting live transplants of non-vital organs, the stay would allow time for those procedures to be performed and for Phillips to be returned to death row.

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Someone helping himself who deserves to die:

"Man gets 28 years in charity scam" Associated Press, December 17, 2013

CLEVELAND — A man convicted of organizing a $100 million, cross-country Navy veterans charity fraud was sentenced to 28 years in prison Monday.

Judge Steven Gall also ordered the defendant, who identifies himself as 67-year-old Bobby Thompson, to pay a $6 million fine. Authorities say the defendant is Harvard-trained attorney John Donald Cody.

The Ohio attorney general’s office, which handled his trial, asked the judge in a filing last week to sentence him to 41 years in prison.

The judge rejected a request for a new trial. The defense had said comments by jurors after the verdict that they were disappointed he hadn’t testified showed they were biased against him.

The defendant, whose appearance in court Monday was neat in contrast to the final days of his trial, slumped in his chair as the sentence was read. He complained to the judge about alleged abusive treatment by jailers while locked up during the trial.

AmeriKan law enforcement doesn't do such things.

There was no immediate response from the sheriff’s department. Jailers said earlier that the defendant had acted erratically and had bloodied his forehead smashing it against a holding cell wall.

The judge said the crimes had harmed veterans who were the intended beneficiaries of the donations and also had hurt other charities as donors became skeptical of giving.

Defense attorney Joseph Patituce said after the verdict and again after the sentencing that ineffective legal representation issues stemming from limited preparation time might be a basis for an appeal.

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Related: Boston Globe Codyene 

I guess the CIA secrets are safe.

Also see:

Federal judge weighing Ohio gay marriage fight
Ohio judge rejects ban on gay marriage

That make you happy?