Thread: 3 US inmates set to die by lethal injection in next 24 hours

3 US inmates set to die by lethal injection in next 24 hours

Published June 17, 2014 Associated Press

ST. LOUIS – There have been no U.S. executions in the seven weeks since an Oklahoma inmate died of a heart attack following a botched lethal injection. That soon could change, with three convicted killers scheduled to die in the span of about 24 hours.

All three states planning lethal injections this week -- Florida, Georgia and Missouri -- refuse to say where they get their drugs, or if they are tested. Lawyers for the condemned inmates have challenged the secretive process used by some states to obtain lethal injection drugs from unnamed, loosely regulated compounding pharmacies.

Nine executions nationwide have been stayed or postponed since late April, when Clayton Lockett's vein collapsed just as the drug began flowing into his body in Oklahoma's death chamber. Lockett's punishment was halted, but despite efforts to save him, he died of a heart attack.

"I think after Clayton Lockett's execution everyone is going to be watching very closely," Fordham University School of Law professor Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert, said of this week's executions. "The scrutiny is going to be even closer."

Marcus Wellons is set to die Tuesday night in Georgia, followed six hours later by John Winfield, who faces execution at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday in Missouri. John Ruthell Henry's execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday in Florida.

Georgia and Missouri both use the single drug pentobarbital, a sedative. Florida uses a three-drug combination of midazolam hydrochloride, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

Despite concerns about the drugs and how they are obtained, death penalty supporters say all three convicted killers are getting what they deserve.

Wellons was convicted in the 1989 rape and murder of India Roberts, his 15-year-old neighbor in suburban Atlanta. Soon after the girl left for school, another neighbor heard muffled screams from the apartment where Wellons was living. Later that day, a man told police he saw a man carrying what appeared to be a body in a sheet. Police found the girl's body in a wooded area. She had been strangled and raped.

The Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday denied clemency to Wellons, leaving his fate in the hands of the courts.

In Missouri, Winfield had been dating Carmelita Donald on and off for several years and fathered two of her children. Donald began dating another man. One night in 1996, in a jealous rage, Winfield showed up outside Donald's apartment in St. Louis County and confronted her, along with two friends of Donald.

Winfield shot all three women in the head. Arthea Sanders and Shawnee Murphy died in the attack. Donald survived but was blinded.

Symone Winfield, the daughter of Donald and John Winfield, is among those asking Gov. Jay Nixon for clemency. A federal judge granted a stay of execution last week on a claim that a prison worker dropped plans to write a letter in support of clemency due to intimidation from staff. A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Monday upheld the stay, and the state appealed for a hearing before the full 8th Circuit.

In Florida, the state is moving ahead with the execution despite claims that Henry is mentally ill and intellectually disabled. The state claims anyone with an IQ of at least 70 is not mentally disabled; testing has shown Henry's IQ at 78, though his lawyers say it should be re-evaluated.

Henry stabbed his estranged wife, Suzanne Henry, to death a few days before Christmas in 1985. Hours later, he killed her 5-year-old son from a previous relationship. Henry had previously pleaded no contest to second-degree murder for fatally stabbing his common-law wife, Patricia Roddy, in 1976, and was on parole when Suzanne Henry and the boy were killed.

Florida and Missouri trail only Texas as the most active death penalty states. Florida has executed five men in 2014 and Missouri four. Texas has carried out seven executions. Combined, the three states have performed 16 of the 20 executions this year.

Wellons would be the first Georgia inmate executed since February 2013 and just the second since 2011.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/06/17...next-24-hours/

UPDATE: Court denies stay of execution for Wellons

Atlanta Journal Constitution‎

1. UPDATE: Marcus Wellons has been executed
   
   Atlanta Journal Constitution‎ - 2 minutes ago

1. Supreme Court Allows Missouri Execution To Proceed
   
   by Chris Geidner
   1 hour ago - WASHINGTON — The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed a Missouri execution slated for 12:01 a.m. CT Wednesday to proceed, reversing a ...

1. Missouri man executed by lethal injection
   
   Springfield News-Leader‎ - 1 minute ago

1. Florida Execution « CBS Miami
   
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   WFOR‑TV
   A South Florida man convicted of murdering an exotic dancer 25 years ago has been granted a stay of execution less than two hours before he was scheduled ...

Florida becomes the third state in 24 hours to execute an inmate

Marcus A. Wellons, left, was recently executed in Georgia. At right is John Ruthell Henry, who was executed in Florida on Wednesday evening. (Associated Press)

MATT PEARCE contact the reporter

In the past 24 hours, Florida, Georgia and Missouri have each executed a convicted murderer
Executions in the U.S. have continued with the Supreme Court's blessing after two months of controversy

Three states, three convicted killers, three executions in a row.
On Wednesday, Florida became the third state in 24 hours to execute an inmate on death row, signaling that capital punishment in the U.S. was clear to continue with the Supreme Court's blessing after a botched execution in Oklahoma in April brought widespread criticism and scrutiny to the practice.

John Ruthell Henry, 63, who had been sentenced to death after killing his wife and her 5-year-old son in 1985, died Wednesday evening after receiving a three-drug lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford.

This guy does not want to die. ... [But] frankly, I've done everything I can.- Baya Harrison III, attorney for John Ruthell Henry

His death came shortly after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas denied Henry's appeal for a stay of execution Wednesday.

Henry, who once scored 78 on an IQ test, had argued that he was too mentally disabled to be executed.

Henry's own attorney of several years, Baya Harrison III, told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday that the mental-disability claim was a bit of a stretch, given that Henry was prone to writing elaborate, "very kind-of-intelligent" letters to judges about his case.


"He's killing me with these very well-written letters quoting the Constitution and things of that nature. I’m sitting here saying, 'John, for God's sake!'" Harrison told The Times in an interview before Henry's execution. "It is what it is. He’s a human being, he's entitled to say what he wants to say. I've never tried to shut him up."

Harrison added: "This guy does not want to die. ... [But] frankly, I’ve done everything I can."

As with Henry's lethal injection, this week's executions of Marcus Wellons, 59, in Georgia, and of John Winfield, 46, in Missouri, came with the explicit approval of several high courts and public officials.

Until Wellons, there had been no executions in the U.S. since the gruesome execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma in April, which lasted more than 40 minutes after an executioner apparently failed to properly insert a needle into a vein in Lockett's groin.


Related story: Georgia, Missouri execute convicted killers; first since botched lethal injectionMatt Pearce, Ryan Parker


President Obama criticized the execution, and capital punishment opponents around the country have since cited Lockett's death in their arguments that execution secrecy laws are unconstitutional and that lethal injection drugs may be unreliable.

For almost two months afterward, no executions were carried out across the U.S. and legal experts were mixed on whether the drought was the result of a newfound caution or just a coincidence in scheduling.

What became clear, however, was that capital punishment would not be coming to an end because of Lockett's death.

The first of the three executions this week, in Georgia, was carried out under a high level of media scrutiny -- at least as much as scrutiny was possible, given that the state's secrecy laws protect information about where it gets its drugs and who administers them.

Wellons had been sentenced to death in Georgia for the 1989 rape and murder of 15-year-old India Roberts, and the Supreme Court gave its blessing for the procedure to go ahead. The Associated Press, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian and other outlets watched (albeit not all in person) to see whether his execution would be carried out without incident, which media witnesses said it was.

"Departments of corrections are aware they're under intense scrutiny now," said Fordham Law School professor and execution expert Deborah Denno. "They certainly always were. ... But I think the Lockett execution is going to continue to resonate because of the extraordinary impact the [botch] had."

An hour after Wellons was executed, John Winfield was swiftly put to death in Missouri: His procedure started at 12:01 a.m. and his death was declared at 12:10 a.m.

Winfield's execution had been scheduled for 12:01 a.m., but he didn't know it was actually going to happen until several hours before, when the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals abruptly revoked a stay of execution that had been granted a week earlier. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito later approved that decision.

Winfield's attorneys had argued that state officials improperly tampered with a prison employee who planned to praise Winfield's character and stellar behavior in prison in a request for clemency from Missouri's governor.

But the act that had put Winfield on death row in the first place was one that Missouri's governor, Jay Nixon, and several courts could not overlook.

Winfield was convicted of shooting three women, killing two of them -- Arthea Sanders and Shawnee Murphy -- in 1996. The third woman was permanently blinded

Winfield, Nixon said in a statement that announced his denial of clemency, "showed no mercy that night on his victims. The jury in this case properly found that these heinous crimes warranted the death penalty, and my denial of clemency upholds the jury’s decision."

And with his announcement, Missouri, like Georgia and Florida, was officially back in the execution business.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nation...618-story.html