[FADPUpdate] Florida DP Editorials

[melliott3 at aol.com]

Friends,

Two great editorials from the Daytona Beach News Journal.? The second editorial?refers to?the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Scott Panetti case.? Legal consultants say this was not a broad?decision and affects only the?Panetti appeal.? ?

These and other articles are available at www.FADP.org, "DP in the News".

Hopefully, the problems FADP has been experiencing with randomly placed question marks in FADPUpdates will not re-occur.? We are working to correct this.

Shine the light,

Mark
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Daytona Beach News Journal

July 02, 2007 

Lethal questions 

State's death-penalty rules still flawed
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Gov. Charlie Crist says he's ready to crank up executions again in Florida after the state adopted 37 recommended changes in procedure that supposedly make lethal injection less brutal and less prone to gruesome accidents. 

We'd urge 
Crist to reconsider. Much as the governor backed away from his old persona as "Chain Gang Charlie," the state should back away from its bloodthirsty reputation and move toward a system that emphasizes justice over vengeance. 
The problems with the death penalty aren't going away. Even if Florida found a painless and foolproof execution method (the current system is likely to be neither, even after the changes) fundamental injustices remain. The death penalty is still applied so randomly that it's comparable to lightning striking. Racial and socioeconomic inequities still riddle the system. And the question of innocence still throbs as the sorest point of all. 

The man whose execution prompted a review of lethal-injection procedures went to his death proclaiming his innocence. There were no eyewitnesses to the killing of a Miami strip-club manager for which Angel 
Nieves Diaz was convicted, and a jailhouse "snitch" later testified that he lied when he said Diaz confessed to the crime. 
But it was the manner in which Diaz died that raised so many questions. Florida's lethal-injection procedure was adopted because it was advertised as being sterile and quick, with no unsightly twitching or flames. But Diaz's execution took more than 30 minutes. Needles meant to inject a triple cocktail of lethal chemicals into his bloodstream were inserted through, not into, his veins, leaving the caustic fluid to pool in the muscles of each arm. 
Witnesses said they saw Diaz moving his head, grimacing and mouthing words as the execution dragged on. But state officials say Diaz felt no pain. That claim is barely credible. 

The changes in execution procedure since adopted by the state don't offer much comfort. Among other things, prison officials will take care not to move the gurney onto which a prisoner is strapped during an execution, and watch the inmate's arms for signs that a needle has been 
misinserted. But the state won't change the chemicals used in exections, despite medical testimony that the three-drug combination -- an anesthetic, a paralytic, and a drug that stops the heart -- could be excruciatingly painful. 
Florida leaders shouldn't focus on making executions less dramatic. They should be asking whether all the controversy and debate is worth it, whether the effort is justified to preserve a system that any rational evaluation shows to be unjust. The answer, clearly, is no.
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July 02, 2007 

Insane men, optional justice
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A death sentence overturned Thursday by the U.S. Supreme Court proves how arbitrary the American capital-punishment machine can be. 

Scott Louis 
Panetti, convicted in Texas of killing his wife's parents, claimed to be inhabited by an alter ego named Sarge Ironhorse and said he was being persecuted for his religious beliefs. In other words, he's crazy as a bedbug -- and the Supreme Court held that it's illegal to execute the insane. 

That makes perfect sense. 
Panetti's delusions made him incapable of assisting in his own defense (raising serious questions about the trial court judge's decision to allow Panetti to represent himself.) 

But if it's illegal to execute the insane now, why was it legal in 2000 to kill Thomas 
Provenzano, the man who walked into an Orlando courthouse in 1984 and opened fire? Provenzano had a lengthy history of mental illness and went to his death believing himself to be Jesus Christ. 
Two heinous and inexplicable crimes. Two perpetrators, both obviously insane. One lives, the other dies. And once again, Americans see proof of just how arbitrarily and unfairly the death penalty is administered in this country

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It is not about what they did...it is about what we do.


Mark Elliott

Director, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, FADP.org

2840 W. Bay Drive, #118
Belleair Bluffs, FL 33770 
(727) 215-9646

?mark at fadp.org
mark at fadp.org

?

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."
"The time is always right to do what is right."
Martin Luther King


















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