[FADPUpdate] Moussaoui - Soon to be forgotten

[melliott3@aol.com]

News update from Abe Bonowitz posted to FADPupdate - Mark
 

 
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May 3 
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE----9/11 Family Members Express Relief Over Verdict 
 
Family members of those killed in the attacks of September 11, 2001 
expressed relief at the jury's decision to sentence Zacarias Moussaoui to 
life today. "More than anyone, we understand why the jury chose the 
sentence they did," said Terry Rockefeller, whose sister Laura Rockefeller 
was in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. 
"As a long-time opponent of the death penalty, a belief even this 
devastating personal tragedy has not altered, I am relieved by the jury's 
decision not to sentence Zacarias Moussaoui to death." 
 
Rockefeller, a member of the Board of Directors of Murder Victims' 
Families for Reconciliation, was among the dozen 9/11 family members to 
testify for the defense in the punishment phase of the trial of Zacarias 
Moussaoui. The federal rules regarding victim statements significantly 
restricted what Terry and others could say on the stand, and the attorneys 
for the defense asked Terry and others not to speak to the press until 
after the jury returned their verdict. 
 
This is the first time victim family members who oppose capital punishment 
have ever testified in a federal death penalty trial. Such testimony is 
becoming more common at the state level where increasing numbers of murder 
victim family members who oppose the death penalty are making their 
feelings known. 
 
"Mr. Moussaoui's trial has been an expensive diversion in the struggle 
against terrorism. His alleged crime of conspiracy could have been quickly 
disposed if the option of execution were not possible," said Patricia 
Perry, whose son John William Perry, was a member of the New York Police 
Department who died at the World Trade Center. "Beyond the verdict in this 
trial, I oppose using the death penalty to demonstrate to citizens that 
murder is so wrong that we will kill to prove it wrong. State killing 
teaches our children that we do not mean what we say and inures us as a 
society to the horror of killing." 
 
"My husband and I both opposed the death penalty in general. For me, now, 
this particular case is no exception," said Andrea LeBlanc, whose husband 
Robert was a passenger on United Flight 175, the 2nd plane that crashed 
into the World Trade Center, hitting the South Tower. 
 
"Violence takes many forms and killing another human being will never undo 
the harm that has been done. Killing Zacarius Moussaoui would not have 
helped us understand those things that lead to 9/11. Nor would it have 
helped create the kind of compassionate world I want to live in." 
 
For Loretta Filipov, whose husband Al was on American Flight 11 from 
Boston, the first plane to hit the World Trade Center, crashing into the 
North Tower, said, "Killing Zacarius Moussaoui will not bring my husband 
back. It will not change the life my family and I now have without my 
husband and their father. But what killing will do is to continue the 
cycle of violence, hate and revenge. This is not the face we want for our 
future, for our children and grandchildren." 
 
Family member Antonio Aversano, who testified for the defense and whose 
father Louis Aversano, Jr., was a World Trade Center victim, believes 
"that our best personal defense against terrorism is to not let the fear 
and hatred of terror consume our lives but to take whatever steps are 
necessary to reclaim our hearts, to honor each other and to live life 
well." 
 
"A number of us have tried to turn our anger and pain into solutions," 
said Rockefeller. "For many who lost loved ones that Tuesday morning the 
answer is not more killing to attempt to solve the past, but rather steps 
to a future in which all killing is condemned and terrorists cannot find 
purchase." 
 
(source: MVFR) 
 
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A death worse than a dog's 
 
For the last 12 years, I have delighted in the companionship of a golden 
retriever, rescued from neglect as a puppy. He is the most amiable dog in 
the world. He is getting on in years, and I know that in the not too 
distant future a vet is going to encourage me to have him put down. I hope 
it never comes to this, but at least when we put animals down the 
injection administered by the vet will not contain the drug potassium 
chloride, as it has been found to cause intense pain unless the animal is 
deeply unconscious. 
 
This is not a reassurance that I can offer to my clients on death row. 
 
The lethal cocktail administered in 37 US states and by the federal 
government to prisoners condemned to death typically does include 
potassium chloride, despite years of criticism. This drug is preceded by 
an anaesthetic and then a drug that paralyses the prisoner's muscles. I 
suspect this is done more to make society feel better rather than the 
prisoner. They used to cover the face of the electric chair's victim with 
a leather mask and strap him in so tightly that he could not writhe - not 
for the benefit of the prisoner, but for the witnesses. With lethal 
injection, if the prisoner did not feel pain, there would be little point 
paralysing him, which begs a very troubling question. 
 
Surely the world's most "civilised" nation, which promotes its 
"compassionate conservatism", would ensure that the anaesthetic was 
sufficient? Well, actually, no, it doesn't. Death penalty lawyers have 
been systematically challenging the use of lethal injection recently, as 
the US has failed to come up with a "kinder, gentler" way to kill people. 
Human Rights Watch reports that, in fact, prisons do not permit anyone to 
monitor whether the anaesthetic has been effectively administered during 
an execution. Anaesthesia is a complex science, affected by the condemned 
prisoner's weight, his history of intravenous drug use, the blocking 
ability of the paralysing agent, and many other factors. Once again, the 
vets are doing a better job here, as guidelines require any veterinarian 
to do a hands-on check of the depth of anaesthesia before any painful 
procedure is commenced. 
 
Lethal injection was invented 30 years ago, with no research (volunteer 
for a drug trial, anyone?), and has not been adapted since. A massive dose 
of barbiturates would be an alternative, and likely painless. However this 
has been rejected in the US as the execution audience - typically 
consisting of representatives of the state, a defence lawyer and the 
victim's family - would have to wait 30 minutes to know the prisoner was 
dead. 
 
However, they might want to re-examine their position, since there have 
been a series of botched and lengthy executions under the current regime. 
Steven Morin's executioners took 45 minutes to find a vein. The needle 
inserted in Raymond Landry's arm popped out a couple of minutes after the 
drugs had started to flow and it took officials fourteen minutes to get it 
back in, for a total execution time of 40 minutes. Ricky Ray Rector spent 
50 minutes moaning behind a curtain while five execution team members 
worked on both his arms to find a vein that would accept a needle. A total 
of 36 botched executions have been reported, with prisoners weeping and 
moaning, technicians eventually inserting needles in the prisoner's neck 
or foot, drug flow stopping halfway through, or the prisoner convulsing 
and writhing. There are reports of prisoners breathing long after 
paralysis should have set in under the protocol. 
 
These accounts do not surprise me. I have witnessed death by lethal 
injection, and the prisoner's suffering is only one of the indignities. At 
Leslie Martin's execution, the witnesses chattered through the process and 
actually cheered when his death was ultimately announced. 
 
Of course, the execution hour is just the culmination of years of mental 
suffering. One of my clients had his execution stopped at the eleventh 
hour on four occasions, once less than one minute before the schedule 
time. And, if the actual execution process is cruel, where do you rank 
saying goodbye to your children over and over again, comforting your 
mother, listening to discussions on talk-back radio about the pain you 
deserve to suffer, or simply living in a cell 23 1/2 hours a day, for 2 
decades? 
 
Another of my clients had his sentence commuted to life after 17 years on 
death row. He later told me how odd it felt no longer knowing the form his 
death would take. During many years on death row, he knew that he was 
going to die by electrocution and then, when they changed the method, by 
lethal injection. But now, with a life sentence, he no longer knew. Would 
it be lung cancer from his chronic smoking habit? Would it be a shank in 
his side from a fellow prisoner? Or would he die of old age in the prison 
hospice, 30 years hence? He didn't know, and that felt strange, and also 
liberating. 
 
My dog doesn't know how he will die. Actually I don't think he knows much 
at all. I hope he keels over mid-stride in pursuit of a tennis ball, but 
if it comes down to it, I will hold him while the drugs sweep him away. 
And, inevitably, at that moment I will also be also thinking of many 
people I have met who will suffer far more in their final hour. 
 
(source: Clive Stafford Smith, The Guardian (UK) ) 
 
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