Sidebar With an Expert Capital Litigator
Johnny Depp will appear this evening on CBS-TV’s 48 Hours, bringing attention to the West Memphis 3, fighting against the execution of Damion Echols.
Please watch – it’s a major event for Mr. Depp to bring his celebrity power to this Death Penalty case, especially when everyone would expect Johnny Depp to be…
The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is the only fully-staffed national organization working to abolish capital punishment in the United States. Its annual conference starts today and runs through the weekend. Sister Helen Prejean is the keynote speaker this year, she’s always wonderful — and if I didn’t have courtroom commitments, I would…
Right before Halloween, we posted about the new Death Penalty Information Center revelation that focusing solely on a state’s budget bottom line, capital punishment should be outlawed because it just costs too much — and how Billy Joe Johnson’s request to be sentenced to death in California only added fuel to that fire. (Billy Joe…
Today’s news includes the story about the Death Penalty Information Center’s new study of capital punishment costs. Released this week, and looking solely at the bottom line, the DPIC analysis demonstrates that significant monies can be saved by eliminating the death penalty. Since 1976, $2,000,000,000 (that’s two billion dollars) has been spent on capital punishment…
The Death Penalty Information Center is providing details on their website regarding a new online tool for those interested in the death penalty. Created by OpposingViews.com, an entire database of information on Death Row inmates in this country has been provided for our free use.
What’s encouraging about this particular project is that this…
The role of state governors cannot be underestimated in any death penalty case: this one man or woman has the ability to save a life by commuting a death sentence to one of life imprisonment. Rick Perry has been known to exercise this power and commute death sentences in the past, but not this week.…
I have real concerns about the constitutionality of the current means of capital punishment here in Florida – and really, in most of the country today. And it’s not just me – many Death Penalty Qualified Defense attorneys here in Florida share the same concern regarding execution by lethal injection.
Why?
There is a strong argument that execution by lethal injection violates both the Florida Constitution and the U.S. Constitution. In the next series of scholarly posts that appear here on the blog every Friday, we’ll be looking at this issue.
The State and Federal Constitutions forbid foreseeable and unnecessary pain in the execution of an individual.
Much of the language that you will be seeing here is language that commonly appears in motions filed by counsel representing defendants who have been sentenced to death by the State of Florida. It’s a solid and sturdy argument against the use of lethal injection, and there are many attorneys, legal scholars, professors, sociologists, and other professionals, who stand on this position:
Both the Florida and the U.S. Constitutions forbid the infliction of unnecessary pain — that is, any pain that could reasonably be avoided — in the execution of a sentence of death. The courts have ruled that the infliction of a severe punishment by the state cannot comport with human dignity when it is unnecessary and nothing more than the pointless infliction of suffering. Furthermore, [p]unishments are held to be cruel when they involve . . . a lingering death. In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 447 (1890); see also Nelson v. Campbell, 541 U.S. 637, 125 S.Ct. 2117, 2122,158 L.Ed. 2d 924 (2004).
A punishment is particularly constitutionally offensive – and therefore, illegal — if it involves the foreseeable infliction of suffering. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 273 (1973). Such things as (1) the probable length of time the condemned remains conscious of the process; (2) the physical or psychological pain he or she suffers during this period; and (3) the time it takes for death to occur must all be taken into consideration in determining whether a means of execution violates the constitution. See Fierro v. Gomez, 865 F. Supp. 1387, 1413 (N.D. Cal. 1994), aff’d, 77 F.3d 301, 308 (9th Cir. 1996), vacated on other grounds, 519 U.S. 918 (1996).
Continue Reading In-Depth Look at the Law: Does the Florida Death Penalty by Lethal Injection Violate the Constitution?