Warm greetings to everyone on both sides of the
pond – I hope this finds you all in good spirits and that your friendships,
both new and old, are going well. Thank you to everyone for your letters and
emails; it is always good to hear from you.
I
am sorry to say we lost one of our friends on the row – Albert Carreon died of
an illness on 8th September aged 55. He had been on the row for 14 years. May
he rest in peace now. My thoughts are with his penfriend at this difficult
time.
Now an update on the
legal case originally brought by a coalition of news organisations in 2014,
which has received its final ruling: Arizona does not have to reveal who provides its
execution drugs or divulge the qualifications of people who carry out executions.
U.S. District Judge Snow ruled the media outlets didn't show they had a First
Amendment right to know the suppliers of lethal injection drugs and showed
concern that some drug suppliers would decline to do business with the state if
their identities were not kept secret. However the media coalition has filed
notice that it will appeal the ruling. (Sources: Associated Press & Arizona
Republic)
I’m
glad to say that hope has sprung up in another quarter though. A group of 20
former Arizona judges, prosecutors and legal experts are urging the U.S.
Supreme Court to hear an interesting new case brought by one of the guys on the
row. If it decides to hear the case they will have to decide whether the
state’s death penalty law is constitutional, but also whether the death penalty
as a whole is. The lead lawyer on the case is former Obama administration
acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, also known as the lead lawyer for
Hawaii's challenge to President Trump's travel ban.
The
primary argument of the case is that Arizona’s law doesn't do enough to narrow
who is eligible for the death penalty. After the Supreme Court found the US
death penalty unconstitutional in 1972, it brought it back 4 years later only as
a result of new state laws that imposed new constraints. For example, Arizona’s
new law required the finding of "aggravating" circumstances, which
the court concluded would "direct and limit" who was eligible for
execution "so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious
action." At that point there were just 6 aggravating factors that could
make someone eligible for the death penalty. However 40 years later the law now
lists 14 factors so that, far from the state limiting the application of the
death penalty, it has instead expanded it. Indeed, so much so that in an 11
year period 99% of murder cases in Arizona were classed eligible for the death
penalty. If the suit was successful Dale Baich, the assistant federal public
defender, advises it could result in some death sentences being vacated.
The
secondary aim is that the court should rule the death penalty unconstitutional nationwide
under the Eighth Amendment's guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. It
makes three other key arguments in support of this larger aim: states can't give
guidance that ensures only "the worst offenders" are sentenced to
death; states can't enforce the death penalty without "ensnaring and
putting to death the innocent" and decades spent on death row with
"the remote but very real possibility of execution" is in itself a
constitutional violation. First and foremost though - fingers crossed the
Supreme Court accepts the case onto their docket. (Sources: BuzzFeed News, KJZZ
Radio & Washington Examiner)
Finally,
as indicated in my last Statelines, sadly executions are now legally possible
again, but the state has still not filed with the Arizona Supreme Court for any
execution warrants, in part because it has had difficulty obtaining drugs to
perform the executions. The Arizona Department of Corrections has pledged to
carry out further executions using the anaesthetic sodium thiopental or the
barbiturate pentobarbital without adding paralytic drugs that could mask pain
and suffering, however neither drug is available to prisons from U.S.
pharmaceutical firms. The state has indicated it will continue looking for them
overseas or have them made to order by compounding pharmacies. Hopefully their
search will be a long one. (Source: Arizona Republic)
I wish you
all good health and strength of spirit in the coming months.
LIndesay Mace
