US moratorium on executions

Temporary, no doubt, but still worth celebrating.

[quote=“Guardian”]America’s execution chambers fell idle yesterday after the supreme court made it clear it will allow no more prisoners to be put to death until it reviews the legality of lethal injection.

Death penalty campaigners yesterday said they expected the informal moratorium to last at least until next summer when the supreme court is expected to issue its ruling.

The moratorium follows a decision by the supreme court on Tuesday night to block the execution of a Mississippi inmate minutes before he was to be put to death. Earl Wesley Berry, who has been on death row for 19 years for the murder of a woman, had been served his last supper and was 15 minutes away from execution when the court intervened.

The order for a delay marked the third time in just over a month that the supreme court has overruled state courts and the US court of appeals to block an execution.[/quote] :America:


Florida court ruling puts executions back on calendar

[i]Next![/i]

there should be a moratorium until they find a way to ensure people are not wrongly convicted. that would be a somewhat longer moratorium.

Not so fast TC. While the articles are very confusing and unclear and I really don’t know for sure what the truth is, I believe the death machine is NOT back on track.

[quote=“Jaboney’s article dated Nov 1”]US supreme court calls a halt to executions

America’s execution chambers fell idle yesterday after the supreme court made it clear it will allow no more prisoners to be put to death until it reviews the legality of lethal injection.

Death penalty campaigners yesterday said they expected the informal moratorium to last at least until next summer when the supreme court is expected to issue its ruling. . .

“This is the clearest indication so far from the US supreme court that all lethal injections and probably all executions are going to be held up,” said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Centre. [/quote]

[quote=“TC’s article dated Nov 1”]Florida court ruling puts executions back on calendar

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday denied a death row inmate’s request to stay his execution, saying the state’s lethal injection procedures are not cruel and unusual punishment.

. . . The decision allows Schwab’s execution, scheduled for November 15, to proceed pending further appeals. . .

The Supreme Court of the United States has not ruled directly on the “cruel and unusual” aspect of lethal injection, but did conclude last year that prisoners can make last-ditch legal challenges to the method of execution, using claims they would suffer a painful death[/quote]

Feel free to explain what’s going on if you know, but I’m guessing the USSCt will stop the Florida execution.

As of right now, here is the latest stories on this coming sadists execution.

[i]"The decision clears the path for the Nov. 15 execution of Mark Schwab, whose appeals for a new trial in a separate case were denied Thursday by the state’s highest court.

Even so, Schwab’s victim’s mother said she expects the execution to be halted by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I respect them for following Florida law,” said Vickie Rios-Martinez. “I’m not a betting person but I’ll bet there is not going to be an execution.”

Schwab, 38, has been on death row for 15 years for kidnapping, raping, torturing and murdering 11-year-old Junny Rios-Martinez of Cocoa in April 1991. He was convicted May, 22, 1992, and sentenced to death. "[/i]

[i]" It has been 15 years since Mark Dean Schwab kidnapped, raped and killed 11-year-old Junny Rios-Martinez Jr. And now, with the killer out of appeals, Gov. Charlie Crist has signed a death warrant calling for Schwab’s execution by lethal injection Nov. 15.

Whether you support the death penalty or object to it on moral grounds, the documents signed and delivered by Crist on Thursday – including the original sentencing documents signed by Brevard Circuit Judge Edward Richardson – make a clear and compelling case for the penalty under state and U.S. law. The records also portray a Florida corrections system incapable of controlling Schwab with sex-offender counseling or other conventional means.

Schwab not only was convicted of first-degree murder, sexual battery on a child and kidnapping a child under 13, he was found guilty of three “aggravating circumstances,” records show. Any one of those legally outweighed all the many mitigating circumstances Schwab presented in his defense, [b]the 1992 court records show. Consider:

* 

The defendant was previously convicted of another violent capital felony. Schwab had used a knife in 1987 to rape a 13-year-old Cocoa Beach boy. He served 3 1/2 years of an 8 year sentence and was released a month and a half before he killed Martinez in April 1991.
* He committed murder in the process of committing sexual battery and kidnapping.

* The murder was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel." Schwab strangled Martinez, which automatically counts as heinous under Florida case law. "The victim has time to experience a foreknowledge of death as well as severe anxiety and fear," the sentencing document says. [/b]

After first claiming in court to have been directed by a fictional perpetrator he called “Donald,” records show, Schwab tried to mitigate his sentence by blaming his deviant behavior on a childhood marred by torture, beatings and humiliation at the hands of his parents. The court could find little evidence of those claims. And it dismissed as irrelevant Schwab’s history as a good school student who played first trumpet in the band and once earned an employee award at Kmart.

Could Schwab have been stopped earlier by the justice system? Consider these findings included in Judge Richardson’s death sentence:

"The defendant was accepted for the Mentally Disordered Sex Offender Program which placed him in the very small percentage of those prisoners interviewed. The defendant would have received intensive in-patient treatment within the prison community. However, this program was closed by the state due to a lack of funds and stopped admitting new patients."

"Whether the defendant would have benefited from the Mentally Disordered Sex Offender Program is total speculation. However, what is not speculation is had the defendant remained in prison for the entire length of his sentence, Junny Rios Martinez would be alive today."

"The defendant did, in fact, attend the sex offender program of Dr. Duncan Bowen. He was required to do so by his probation officer. However, the defendant made no effort to gain any benefit from that program. At the same time he was in therapy, he was associating with young boys and planning the abduction and rape of Junny Rios Martinez."[/i]

floridatoday.com/blogs/breva … chive.html

I, for one, would like to see a permanent moratorium on all executions. The state should not use barbarism as a punishment for barbarism.

Wa wa wa. . . :boo-hoo:

I just asked a simple question about the legal status – were you correct that Florida is about to execute a prisoner despite what Jaboney posted? Apparently you were not correct. Most likely it appears that the US Sup Ct will halt this execution too. There was no need to get excited about the underlying crimes. We all know that killers are bad bad men.

Well, it looks like Florida is going to try to execute this guy, but the Supreme Court’s willingness to overturn “the activist Florida court” is well-established.

I really wish I could make up my mind about the death penalty. Sometimes I concur 100% with what Chris said. But then I read the profiles on these guys (like the one TC posted), and I’m all in favor of the death penalty again.

[quote=“gao_bo_han”]I really wish I could make up my mind about the death penalty. Sometimes I concur 100% with what Chris said. But then I read the profiles on these guys (like the one TC posted), and I’m all in favor of the death penalty again.[/quote]Yeah, well, payment on that debt to society can end real quick, or keep on going, and going, and going…

morally, i don’t have a problem with it, when the circumstances warrant it, as would seem to be true after cursory examination of the case above, as long as guilt can be established beyond ANY doubt.

GBH, I’m surprised by your moral confusion on this issue.

So while the US has a moratorium on executions, ironically, the Canadian government seems to have no problems with the US executing Canadian citizens: Canada death penalty shift fires up opposition

Hey, guess what.

[quote=“CNN”]The U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution of convicted child killer Mark Dean Schwab on Thursday, hours before he was scheduled to die.

The move by the high court was widely expected as it considers the appeals of two Kentucky inmates challenging the same lethal toxic three-drug combination used in Florida.[/quote]