Lacking lethal injection drugs, Va. might turn to the electric chair
"Virginia lawmakers are mulling a bill that would allow state officials to use the electric chair to execute those on death row when lethal-injection drugs are not available a measure that might be needed to put an inmate to death next month.
The legislation passed the Virginia House of Delegates last week, though it still must clear the Senate, which it has failed to do in the past. But this year might be different because an inmate is scheduled for execution in March, and prison officials say they do not have the sedatives they need to do it...
The proposal again thrusts Virginia to the center of a national debate on how the justice system should deal with those it has determined deserve to die. Historically, states turned away from the electric chair, believing lethal injection to be quicker, less painful and less likely to be declared cruel and unusual punishment, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Now with the needed drugs in short supply they are being forced to look at alternatives, sometimes turning to practices that have fallen out of favor, Dunham said..."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...331dea-d02c-11e5-88cd-753e80cd29ad_story.html
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Someone Wrote A Sketchy Guide For Evading New Rules On Prison Phone Costs
"WASHINGTON -- Someone has a clever plan -- outlined in a mysterious, unsigned document -- to help prisons and jails evade Obama administration regulations aimed at stopping prison phone companies from charging inmates and their families hundreds of dollars per month for basic calling services.
Major prison phone companies didn't comment or said they weren't involved in writing the document, obtained by an attorney who represents a group of inmates' families. But the attorney is concerned enough that he has asked regulators to take a look...
Last October, the Federal Communications Commission approved a plan to limit the price of prison phone calls to 11 cents a minute in state and federal prisons, cap certain types of fees and formally discourage commissions to prisons. The FCC, however, stopped short of banning them.
The anonymous document that recently came to light lays out a straightforward way to get around this FCC order: pretend that commissions dont exist, charge prisoners and their families a whole new set of fees and call them something else..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...6bb5203e4b08ffac1235a00?utm_hp_ref=must-reads
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In the United States, more women are killed by their intimate partners than by any other group of people.
This Is Not A Love Story (America's Deadly Domestic Violence Problem)
"...On just the first day of the year, at least eight women in different parts of the country were killed. In each instance, the suspect was a husband, boyfriend, ex or lover.
And the bloodletting didn't let up in the month that followed. Every day, somewhere in the U.S., at least one woman was allegedly killed by an intimate partner. Some days four or five women died.
All told, at least 112 people were killed last month in suspected intimate partner homicides, a staggering death toll that includes children and bystanders, The Huffington Post found...
But it's not just the government or criminal justice system that can help stop the carnage. Friends, family and employers must hold abusive partners accountable for their behavior, Gandy said, adding that our society needs to treat abuse as morally reprehensible and socially unacceptable.
"The simple answer? We need to stop being OK with men's violence against women," she said."
http://testkitchen.huffingtonpost.com/this-is-not-a-love-story/conclusion/?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003
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California Death Row Inmates Remain Stuck In High Security Limbo (podcast and transcript)
"...KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
This fall, people here in California might get to vote on two very different ballot measures about capital punishment - one to ban the death penalty and another to expedite executions. California still sentences convicted murderers to death, but there hasn't been an execution here since 2006. That's when a federal judge suspended capital punishment. Scott Shafer from member station KQED in San Francisco recently got a rare tour of San Quentin Prison, and he found death row inmates stuck in high-security limbo.
SCOTT SHAFER, BYLINE: California's death row population just keeps growing. There are now about 745 condemned inmates. Most of them are here at San Quentin prison. Between them and the outside - lots of locks and keys. They're some of the state's most notorious criminals. Some were serial killers, the details of their crimes - horrifying. In the prison yard, inmate Robert Galvan takes a break from doing pullups to talk through a chain-link fence.
What's life like here?..."
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/12/46659...w-inmates-remain-stuck-in-high-security-limbo
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Appeals court overturns decision to halt executions in Mississippi
"A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday reversed a decision that halted executions in Mississippi, finding a lower court abused its discretion when it blocked the use of certain lethal injection drugs.
Mississippi officials said the ruling validated the state's three-drug protocol, which they noted was the same as the Oklahoma cocktail upheld in a 5-4 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court last June.
But executions in the state are unlikely to restart immediately, according to a lawyer for two death row inmates challenging the protocol..."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mississippi-execution-idUSKCN0VJ2ME
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Death-row prisoners, victims families wait as Ohio seeks execution drugs
"...For most of the intervening 33 years, Gregory Esparza, the man convicted for killing Gerschultz, has been on Death Row in Ohio. He has moved from prisons in Mansfield and Lucasville, and most recently to Chillicothe, but he has been locked in a one-man cell.
It's been two years since Ohio's last execution, and it will be at least another year before another one happens because of continuing problems securing drugs for lethal injection. That means many of the 138 men and one woman on Death Row are racking up long stays at taxpayer expense.
The five longest-serving inmates have spent a combined total of more than 150 years on Death Row.
More than two dozen Death Row inmates have died from disease while awaiting execution...
One of the reasons for the long delays on Death Row is an intentionally created, multistep legal process designed to make sure all necessary precautions are taken when the ultimate punishment is at stake. Add in delays based on DNA evidence and diminished mental capacity, plus challenges to the lethal injection process and years accumulate on Death Row...
Sullivan said that while some murder victim families want to see the killer executed, "others just want support to help the family move along and move forward.".."
http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto...w-as-state-tries-to-find-execution-drugs.html
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