Post by janet on Jan 12, 2006 16:03:49 GMT -5
Florida's lethal injection procedure is unconstitutional crual and unusual punishment, a lawyer for one of two inmates facing execution later this month told the state Supreme Court during oral argument Wednesday.
D. Todd Doss, representing death row inmate Clarence Hill, asked the justices for a hearing to determine the validity of new evidence he said shows that the same procedure has resulted in painful executions in other states.
Inmates are injected with drugs to deaden the pain and paralyze their bodies in addition to the lethal chemical, potassium cholride. A study published last year in The Lancet medical journal indicates the pain killer, sodium pentathol, wears off before the inmates die.
"Essentially, they are aware, they're conscious and they're able to feel pain, yet they can't say anything whatsoever in regards to what's going on," Doss said.
Hill, 47, of Mobile, Ala. is scheduled for execution Jan. 24 for fatally shooting Pensacola police officer Stephen Taylor during a 1982 bank robbery.
The Supreme Court has received the same argument in writing on behalf of Arthur D. Rutherford, 56, who is set to die Jan. 31 for killing Stella Salamon at her Santa Rosa County home in 1985. Rutherford had done some repair work for the victim, whose body was found submerged in a bathtub where he had been drowned or asphyxiated.
Assistant Deputy Attorney General Carolyn Snurkowski argued for the state against ordering a hearing on the study that was conducted by Dr. David A. Lubarsky, chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative Medicine and Pain Management at the University of Miami School of Medicine.
She said there's nothing definitive in Lubarsky's study, which was based in part on autopsies conducted in other states that use the same lethal injection procedure.
"There's no evidence that anybody suffered any pain in those other executions," Snuurkowski said. "It's all 'maybe', 'should', 'possibly', 'some may'. That's all it says."
Justice Harry Lee Anstead questioned whether it makes sense to deny an evidentiary hearing to a convict facint imminemtn execution while a trial judge has granted one on the same issue to another condemned inmate not yet under a death warrant.
Snurkowski said the state also opposed that hearing for Ronald Knight, who killed 2 gay men in Palm Beach County in 1993. Justice Charles Wells interjected that court rules provide for such hearings during an inmate's 1st post-conviction appeal. Hill is on his 3rd.
Rutherford's appeal includes an argument that newly found evidence could have swayed jurors who had recommended his death sentence by the narrowest margin, 7-5. The Supreme Court last year had urged the Legislature to require unanimous sentencing recommendations and lawmakers are considering it. Judges are not bound by the recommendations, but they must give them great weight.
Gov. Jeb Bush said on Wednesday that the push for unanimous death recommendations had nothing to do with his decision to sign Rutherford's death warrant. Rutherford had simply run out of appeals," Bush said.
"I have a duty to sign death warrants when it's appropriate to do so," he said.
"If the Legislature proposes a change in the law, I'll look at it then. I'll have a chance to opine by signing the bill into law or vetoing it."
(source: Associated Press)
D. Todd Doss, representing death row inmate Clarence Hill, asked the justices for a hearing to determine the validity of new evidence he said shows that the same procedure has resulted in painful executions in other states.
Inmates are injected with drugs to deaden the pain and paralyze their bodies in addition to the lethal chemical, potassium cholride. A study published last year in The Lancet medical journal indicates the pain killer, sodium pentathol, wears off before the inmates die.
"Essentially, they are aware, they're conscious and they're able to feel pain, yet they can't say anything whatsoever in regards to what's going on," Doss said.
Hill, 47, of Mobile, Ala. is scheduled for execution Jan. 24 for fatally shooting Pensacola police officer Stephen Taylor during a 1982 bank robbery.
The Supreme Court has received the same argument in writing on behalf of Arthur D. Rutherford, 56, who is set to die Jan. 31 for killing Stella Salamon at her Santa Rosa County home in 1985. Rutherford had done some repair work for the victim, whose body was found submerged in a bathtub where he had been drowned or asphyxiated.
Assistant Deputy Attorney General Carolyn Snurkowski argued for the state against ordering a hearing on the study that was conducted by Dr. David A. Lubarsky, chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative Medicine and Pain Management at the University of Miami School of Medicine.
She said there's nothing definitive in Lubarsky's study, which was based in part on autopsies conducted in other states that use the same lethal injection procedure.
"There's no evidence that anybody suffered any pain in those other executions," Snuurkowski said. "It's all 'maybe', 'should', 'possibly', 'some may'. That's all it says."
Justice Harry Lee Anstead questioned whether it makes sense to deny an evidentiary hearing to a convict facint imminemtn execution while a trial judge has granted one on the same issue to another condemned inmate not yet under a death warrant.
Snurkowski said the state also opposed that hearing for Ronald Knight, who killed 2 gay men in Palm Beach County in 1993. Justice Charles Wells interjected that court rules provide for such hearings during an inmate's 1st post-conviction appeal. Hill is on his 3rd.
Rutherford's appeal includes an argument that newly found evidence could have swayed jurors who had recommended his death sentence by the narrowest margin, 7-5. The Supreme Court last year had urged the Legislature to require unanimous sentencing recommendations and lawmakers are considering it. Judges are not bound by the recommendations, but they must give them great weight.
Gov. Jeb Bush said on Wednesday that the push for unanimous death recommendations had nothing to do with his decision to sign Rutherford's death warrant. Rutherford had simply run out of appeals," Bush said.
"I have a duty to sign death warrants when it's appropriate to do so," he said.
"If the Legislature proposes a change in the law, I'll look at it then. I'll have a chance to opine by signing the bill into law or vetoing it."
(source: Associated Press)