International Herald Tribune - November 4, 2006
Florida executed 3 after legal challenges failed
|
The Associated Press JACKSONVILLE, Florida. For a while it appeared attorneys representing Florida's death row inmates were in high gear when it came to legal challenges that kept their clients from the execution chamber and Gov. Jeb Bush stopped signing death warrants. But those challenges over Florida's lethal injection methods and other issues ultimately failed, and the state has executed serial killer Danny Rolling and two other inmates in five weeks. That is the most since 1998 when four inmates were put to death in the electric chair in eight days. Since 1979, Florida has executed 63 inmates and there are 375 inmates on death row. Attorney Martin McClain, who represented executed killer Arthur Rutherford, thought the court ultimately gave the challenges short shrift. "I was convinced that Rutherford shouldn't be executed and if the court had really looked at it, he wouldn't have been", McClain said. "I was outraged the court couldn't do something". After the governor signs a black-bordered death warrant, sometimes an inmate's execution will hinge on an issue that catches the attention of the courts and becomes "the issue du jour". Earlier this year it appeared appeals attorneys had three such issues:
But those challenges failed when they were used in last-minute appeals. Hill, who murdered a Pensacola police officer in 1982, had been minutes from execution in January when the Supreme Court stopped it so it consider his appeal. After ruling that Hill could challenge the state's death penalty procedure, he never got a chance for a hearing because the courts ruled he had filed too late. The high court rejected his second appeal and request for a stay by a 5-4 vote and he was executed Sept. 20. Rutherford, who had been scheduled to die a week after Hill for murdering a Milton woman, also got a stay on the same challenge. But he added challenges to the state's new death penalty procedure and the ABA's. His arguments, however, carried no weight with the courts or the U.S. Supreme Court, which voted against him 8-1. He was executed Oct. 18. McClain believes the court should have considered the written lethal injection procedure because he believed it contained significant changes to the procedure used to put inmates to death. "I'm shocked that the court didn't seem to care", McClain said. "It looks like a big deal and we will be finding out more information — how this change came out, whose idea it was and why was it kept a secret". The state has maintained there were no changes to the procedure, that the policy merely spelled out what it had been doing since it switched from electrocution to lethal injection in 2000. But the policy did reveal that the state hires two executioners at $150 (€117.55) each; more than doubles the amount of sodium pentothal administered and provides a checklist of items the execution team must perform. Rolling's last-minute court filings were almost carbon copies of Rutherford's appeals. Rolling, who killed five Gainesville college students in 1990, was turned down in state and federal courts and 7-2 by the U.S. Supreme Court. He was executed Oct. 25. McClain says Hill and Rutherford were executed solely because their appeals were filed too late. T. Todd Doss, Hill's appeals attorney, agreed, saying the challenge over whether the chemicals cause undue pain was never considered by the court. "It is still an ongoing battle front", Doss said. "They still haven't dealt with the concerns whether sodium pentothal is effective or not". He said other inmates might be successful if they use the same claim. "Courts are grappling with it around the country", he said. "No one has taken it on its merits yet". Carolyn Snurkowski, who handles death appeals in the Attorney General's Office, had argued against allowing inmates to challenge the chemicals, but she also does not believe the issue has gone away. "There are going to be issues that erupt", she said. "We just have to see whether they get legs and impact a certain case". The issues which failed in Florida are being considered by other courts in North Carolina, Oklahoma, Mississippi and California, McClain said. "I've always maintained there a very few issues that are across the board", Snurkowski said, adding that different issues apply to different inmates. "I haven't seen or heard anything out there that seems to be next issue du jour", Snurkowski said. Related links: |