[CUADPUpdate] "It's not working. It's not working."

[Abraham J. Bonowitz]

Sent *ONLY* to the recipients of CUADPUpdate
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Greetings All!

I was not planning on sending another message so soon, but the day 
can't pass without sharing the following several items with you.

--abe

#1 - CNN on Botched Ohio Execution
#2 - Dr. Groner on Botched Ohio Execution
#3 - Another possibly innocent man executed


#1 - FYI, several days ago another Ohio prisoner won a stay to pursue 
his claim that Ohio's lethal injection process is flawed....

Nancy Hart was quoted thusly regarding last week's assisted suicide 
in Nevada, but it works well here to:

>  "What I'm troubled about is the fact that Nevada, that uses the 
> same cocktail of drugs as the states that are going through this 
> litigation, is preceding with an execution, when there is a pending 
> question of whether or not it's constitutional. There seems to be 
> no pause to say, 'Gosh, maybe we should wait and see what the court 
> says about this,'" Nancy Hart from Amnesty International says.

and now this from CNN.


Killer executed the hard way



Condemned man sits up and tells executioners, 'It's not working'

Tuesday, May 2, 2006; Posted: 3:07 p.m. EDT (19:07 GMT)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) -- A double murderer was put to death in 
Ohio Tuesday but not until after one of his veins collapsed, causing 
the condemned man to sit up and tell his executioners, "It's not 
working," officials said.

The Ohio Department of Corrections said Joseph Clark, 57, was 
pronounced dead at 11:26 a.m. ET following an injection of lethal 
chemicals at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville.

Spokeswoman Andrea Dean said the execution was delayed about 90 
minutes because technicians had trouble initially finding a site in 
Clark's arm for the intravenous line carrying the chemicals.

Then shortly after the poisons were supposed to have been pumping 
into his body, she said, he sat up saying, "It's not working. It's 
not working."

Officials determined that a vein had collapsed. Curtains were closed 
to block witnesses' view until technicians found a vein in his other 
arm. They were then parted to reveal him dying, witnesses said.

Ohio has used lethal injection repeatedly without similar problems, 
but this method of execution, used in all but one of the 38 states 
that impose capital punishment, is under legal attack.

The U.S. Supreme Court has a challenge before it from Florida 
claiming that it causes undue pain, while the matter is also before a 
court in California.

The method involves three separate drugs: the first renders the 
victim unconscious, the second stops all muscle movement except the 
heart and the third stops the heart, causing death.

Clark was given a meal of his request Monday, consisting of shrimp, 
steak, chicken wings, fries, rolls with butter, cherry pie and a soft drink.

Just before the execution process started the first time Clark made a 
final statement apologizing to his victims' families and saying 
"Today my life is being taken because of drugs. If you live by the 
sword you die by the sword."

On January 13, 1984, Clark shot Marine reservist and father of two 
David Manning and stole $65 from the gas station where Manning was working.

The murder came during an eight-day crime spree in which Clark also 
murdered another man, student Donald Harris, and wounded a third man 
during an attempted robbery.

Harris was filling in for a friend at a convenience store when Clark 
entered and demanded the contents of the store's safe. Harris said he 
did not know the safe's combination, and was shot in the back of the head.

Clark later attempted to rob a man at an automated teller machine, 
the two struggled, and the victim was wounded twice. A witness saw 
the attack and noted the license plate number on Clark's car.

After he was arrested, Clark tried to hang himself in his jail cell, 
and confessed to the murders while recovering in a hospital. He was 
sentenced to death for Manning's murder.

Clark said he robbed to support a drug habit.

"Neither the parole board nor I are persuaded by Mr. Clark's attempt 
to explain away Mr. Manning's murder," Gov. Robert Taft said in 
refusing clemency last week.

Taft said Clark's "well established prior criminal conduct, both as a 
juvenile and as an adult, signifies a propensity for violent behavior."

Clark was the 21st person to be executed in Ohio since the state 
resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1999, and the 1,021st 
inmate executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed in 1976.

Copyright 2006 
<http://www.cnn.com/interactive_legal.html#Reuters>Reuters. All 
rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, 
rewritten, or redistributed.

***************

#2 -  Press Release

"It's not working. It's not working."

Barbarous Execution Shames Ohio

For immediate release

Contact information:
Jonathan I. Groner MD
Gronerj at chi.osu.edu
Office:  614-722-3919
Cell Phone:  614-204-1824

Ohio, May 2, 2006:  Today's execution of Joseph Lewis  Clark, age 57, 
took nearly 90 minutes, making it one of the longest lethal injection 
executions in U.S history.  The execution team struggled for 25 
minutes to insert an intravenous line for the lethal injection, only 
to have Mr. Clark complain, "It's not working. It's not working" when 
the lethal chemicals began flowing.  Prison officials then drew 
curtains and attempted to re-establish the intravenous line, while 
Mr. Clark could be heard "moaning and groaning" by witnesses.  A new 
IV was established, the curtains were re-opened, and the drug 
infusion began again.  Mr. Clark raised his head several times and 
breathed deeply before becoming still.

In response to this grisly execution, Jonathan I. Groner MD, national 
expert on lethal injection, commented: "The opaque curtain pulled 
across the execution chamber could not hide the fact that this man 
was tortured to death.  Furthermore, the three drug injection used to 
extinguish his life is considered so inhumane that veterinarians are 
forbidden from using it in a similar fashion to euthanize animals.

"Today's execution demonstrates the terrible dilemma of lethal 
injection as medical charade.  On the one hand, this 'medicalized' 
killing procedure, which uses IV tubing, anesthetic drugs, and other 
medical equipment, becomes torture in the hands of unqualified 
individuals.  On the other hand, the involvement of medical 
professionals such as physicians and nurses in executions violates 
the fundamental ethics of these professions."

"No human, regardless of his or her crime, should be subjected to the 
torture that Mr. Clark faced.  The barbarity of this execution is 
making news headlines around the world.  I urge Ohio's political 
leaders to call for a moratorium on lethal injection immediately."

                                               # #                         #

Dr. Groner is an associate professor of surgery at The Ohio State 
University College of Medicine and Public Health.  He has written and 
spoken extensively on lethal injection and the medicalization of 
capital punishment.

*****************


#3 - Man executed on disproven evidence, experts say
--------------------

By Maurice Possley
Tribune staff reporter

May 2, 2006, 12:08 PM CDT

Four of the nation's top arson experts have concluded that the state 
of Texas executed a man in 2004 based on scientifically invalid 
evidence, and they called for an official re-investigation of the case.

In a report released this morning, the experts, assembled by the 
Innocence Project, a non-profit organization responsible for scores 
of exonerations, concluded that the conviction and 2004 execution of 
Cameron Todd Willingham for the arson-murders of his three daughters 
was based on interpretations by fire investigators that have been 
scientifically disproved.

The experts were asked to perform an independent review of the 
evidence following an investigation by the Tribune that showed 
Willingham had been found guilty on arson theories that have been 
repudiated by scientific advances. In fact, many of the theories were 
simply lore that had been handed down by several generations of arson 
investigators who relied upon what they were told.

The report's conclusions match the findings of the Tribune, published 
in December 2004. The newspaper began investigating the Willingham 
case following an October 2004 series, "Forensics Under the 
Microscope," which examined the use of forensics in the courtroom, 
including the continued use of disproved arson theories to obtain convictions.

In strong language harshly critical of the investigation of the 1991 
fire in Corsicana, located southeast of Dallas, the report said 
evidence examined in the Willingham case and relied upon by fire 
investigators was the type of evidence "routinely created by accidental fires."

"The whole system has broken down. It's time to find out whether 
Texas has executed an innocent man,'' said Barry Scheck, co-founder 
and director of the Innocence Project. The report was unveiled at a 
news conference in the state capital in Texas, attended by Scheck, 
some of the report's authors and relatives of Willingham.

His stepmother, Eugenia Willingham, wept as she said, "We want the 
truth to be known in Todd's case. We want to keep this from ever 
happening again."

Since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, 
1,020 men and women have been executed, with more than 
one-third--362--in Texas.

Although more than 100 people have been released from death row in 
the United States during that same time, there has been no official 
conclusion by any government authority that an innocent person has 
been executed.

The arson report singled out the testimony at Willingham's trial of 
Manuel Vasquez, a deputy Texas state fire marshal, who said he found 
numerous indicators in the debris that he interpreted as evidence 
Willingham intentionally set the fire.

"Each and every one of the 'indicators' listed by Mr. Vasquez means 
absolutely nothing...," the report states.

Scheck plans to turn over the report to the Texas Forensic Science 
Commission and request that the commission open an investigation of 
the prosecution of Willingham. The commission was created in 2005 to 
investigate allegations of "professional negligence or misconduct 
that would substantially affect the integrity of the results of a 
forensic analysis."

Scheck asked that the commission commence a system-wide review of 
arson cases, saying statistics show Texas leads the nation in the 
percentage of people incarcerated for arson convictions--some likely 
based on the same sort of invalid science cited in the Willingham 
case. "There are other people in prison in the state of 
Texas...convicted of arson with the same kind of evidence in play," 
Scheck asserted.

In addition to the Willingham case, the report examined the arson 
prosecution of Ernest Ray Willis, who was charged with the 
arson-murders of two women in Iraan, Texas, on June 11, 1986.

In 2004--a few months after Willingham was executed--Willis, who was 
facing the death penalty in a retrial of his case, was released and 
the case dismissed after arson experts concluded there was no 
evidence the fire was intentionally set.

The report assessing the two cases notes that even though the 
interpretations of the physical evidence in the Willis case were the 
same as in the Willingham case, authorities in Texas have declined to 
say that Willingham was wrongly convicted and executed. The report 
said the "disparity of the outcomes in these two cases warrants a 
closer inspection."

Two days before Christmas in 1991, Willingham's wife left their house 
to pay bills and to shop for Christmas gifts for their 1-year-old 
twins, Karmon and Kameron, and their 2-year-old daughter, Amber.

Willingham testified that he was awakened about an hour later by 
Amber's cries for help and found the house full of smoke. Willingham 
escaped, but the children did not.

At Willingham's trial, Vasquez and Corsicana assistant fire chief 
Doug Fogg testified that the fire was deliberately set and pointed to 
numerous "indicators" as proof. One of those indicators was "crazed 
glass," a phenomena they said was caused by a fire that burned so hot 
and so fast that it could only have been caused by an accelerant.

But the new report notes that scientific testing has established that 
crazed glass can be caused by the act of spraying water on hot glass; 
in effect, the act of extinguishing a fire was being used to prove 
that the fire was an arson.

When he was strapped to the gurney to be executed, Willingham said, 
"I am an innocent man, convicted of a crime I did not commit."

The report urges authorities to examine other cases as well. "To the 
extent that there are still investigators in Texas and elsewhere, who 
[misinterpret fires], there will continue to be serious miscarriages 
of justice."

"In the cases of individuals already convicted using what is now 
known to be bad science [or no science], the courts should treat the 
'new' knowledge as 'newly discovered evidence,' " the report states. 
"It was resistance to this concept that allowed the state to execute 
Mr. Willingham, even though it was known that the evidence used to 
convict him was invalid."

One of the four authors of the report, John Lentini, a private fire 
investigator who first examined the Willingham case at the request of 
the Tribune, is a leading proponent of grounding arson investigation 
in proven science.

The report by him and the other experts calls upon the criminal 
justice system to require arson investigators to have backgrounds in 
the science of fire, and asks that criminal defense lawyers be 
afforded funds to hire independent fire investigators. It also urges 
that participants in the justice system, particularly prosecutors, 
who decide whether to bring charges, be educated about scientific 
advances in fire investigation.

"There is no crime other than homicide by arson for which a person 
can be sent to death row based on the unsupported opinion of someone 
who received all of his training 'on the job,' " the report states.
Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune

***********



REMINDER:  Human Rights Watch recently released a new report on 
lethal injection.  Read the full report at 
<http://hrw.org/reports/2006/us0406/>http://hrw.org/reports/2006/us0406/.


***************


SENT BY:

Abraham J. Bonowitz
abe at cuadp.org
www.CUADP.org
800-973-6548