Cruel And Unusual Punishment

A sharply divided federal appeals court on Monday denied a stay of execution for a Montana man who has been on Death Row longer than anyone else in the nation, moving him one step closer to being put to death by lethal injection Wednesday. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, denied the stay to Duncan P. McKenzie, 43, who was convicted of murdering Lana Harding, a rural Montana schoolteacher, in 1974.

Seven years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that offenders younger than 18 couldn't be sentenced to death, arguing that juveniles are generally less culpable than adults because they are less mature, more impulsive and more susceptible to peer pressure. By the same unassailable logic, the court should hold that sentencing young murderers to life without parole is cruel and unusual punishment. Evan Miller and Kuntrell Jackson were both 14 when they committed their crimes. Miller and a 16-year-old friend beat a neighbor and set fire to his house in Alabama, leading to the neighbor's death by smoke inhalation.

Joe Sullivan was 13 years old when he and two older boys broke into a home, where they robbed and raped an elderly woman. After a one-day trial in 1989, Sullivan was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole. Terrance Graham was 16 when he and two others robbed a restaurant. When he was arrested again a year later for a home break-in, a Florida judge said he was incorrigible. In 2005, Graham received a life term with no parole. The two young convicts represent an American phenomenon, one the Supreme Court is set to reconsider in the fall term that opens Oct. 5. At issue is whether it is cruel and unusual punishment to imprison a minor until he or she dies when the crime does not involve murder.

Reporting from San Quentin -- Fifteen years ago, Jackie Clark was so disgusted with the healthcare at San Quentin prison that she quit her job there as a nurse consultant. "We didn't have sinks. We didn't have appropriate medical equipment," she recalled recently. "We were in converted offices and converted cells. " The care there and elsewhere in California's overcrowded lockups was so poor that in 2006 a federal judge, saying that an inmate was dying unnecessarily every week, put a receiver in charge of the health system.

California's execution of condemned inmates by lethal injection will be put to its most stringent test ever at a hearing scheduled to start today in San Jose federal court. Attorneys for Michael Morales, who was sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of Terri Lynn Winchell in Lodi, will try to show that California's procedures violate the 8th Amendment to the Constitution because they may inflict unreasonable pain upon inmates.

In the first review by a federal appeals court of a full-scale challenge to a state's lethal-injection law, a court in St. Louis on Monday found Missouri's procedure constitutional, paving the way for the resumption of executions in the state. The ruling becomes the guiding legal principle within the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes two other states using lethal injection -- Arkansas and South Dakota.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled Friday that the state can no longer use the electric chair to execute condemned criminals, saying "its specter of excruciating pain and its certainty of cooked brains" constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The court's 4-3 decision marks the first time an appellate court has issued such a ruling against use of the electric chair--introduced in the U.S. in 1890.

In a precedent-setting decision, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Thursday that random body searches of clothed women prisoners--including of their breast and genital areas--by male guards at a Washington prison violated the Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S.

Locked securely in a federal court safe here is the nation's first authorized filming of an execution: a court-ordered videotape of the death of Robert Alton Harris that news organizations plan to seek for broadcast on television. Although a local TV station failed to win approval to film the execution, attorneys say that with the tape officially made for evidence in another case, the way should be clear for its release to the public.

A federal appeals court carved a small but important exception to the state's rigorous three-strikes law Monday, ruling that a 25-years-to-life sentence for stealing a $199 VCR amounted to unconstitutional "cruel and unusual punishment." In a 2-1 decision, the U.S.

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider putting a new national limit on life sentences for juveniles who are age 14 or younger. Nationwide, there are 73 prisoners who are serving life terms with no possible parole for their role in homicides committed when they were 14 or younger. The justices voted to hear appeals from two of those inmates — one from Alabama and one from Arkansas — to decide whether such a sentence for a very young criminal violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

California moved a step closer to resuming executions Thursday when corrections officials announced new lethal injection procedures, beating a May 1 deadline by one day. The proposed changes in the death chamber procedures, though mostly minor, are intended to address concerns expressed by a federal judge in 2006 that the state's earlier three-drug sequence may have exposed some of those who were executed to unconstitutionally "cruel and unusual...

The man, a thin and gray-haired federal judge, walked nervously up and down the streets of skid row, past drug dealers, pimps and thugs, past rows of men lying like glass-eyed zombies against concrete walls. "Excuse me," he said, pulling out a photograph, "have you seen this man?" He was met by blank faces or angry stares. And, always, one word: "No." He couldn't give up. Down more streets and through urine-soaked alleys. He was the only white person he could see. To Judge Spencer Letts, then 72, this distinction did not matter.

State corrections officials Tuesday proposed new lethal injection procedures, a first step toward resuming executions in California after a four-year halt. The proposals involve only minor changes to the three-drug method used on 11 of the 13 men put to death in the state since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. But the revisions appear to address the concerns of a federal judge who deemed the previous lethal injection practices unconstitutional for their risk of inflicting cruel and unusual punishment.

Ohio became the first state in the nation Friday to adopt a single-injection method for executing condemned inmates, a process that state officials believe will avoid violating the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The single large dose of anesthetic is similar to the method used by veterinarians to euthanize pets and livestock. Other states with capital punishment now use a three-drug formula that is believed to inflict pain if not properly administered. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that Ohio's new method was "a better alternative."

Over the course of two hours, nurses attempted 18 times last month to find a vein in Romell Broom in which to inject the convicted murderer with a lethal combination of drugs. Broom even tried to help them, massaging his arms and straightening tubes. Finally, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland called off the execution -- for the day, at least. A rare occurrence? Ohio, 2006: The execution of Joseph Lewis Clark took close to 90 minutes after executioners had trouble finding a vein. "It don't work, it don't work," Clark told them.

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment, outlawing the electric chair in the only state using it as its sole means of execution. The state's death penalty remains legal, but another method must be approved. The evidence shows that electrocution inflicts "intense pain and agonizing suffering," the court said. "Condemned prisoners must not be tortured to death, regardless of their crimes," Justice William M. Connolly wrote in the 6-1 opinion.

As executioners poked his limbs with an IV needle, Romell Broom initially tried to speed along his own demise, flexing his arm and tugging on a rubber tourniquet to better expose a vein on the inside of his elbow. But as prison workers repeatedly failed to find a vein strong enough to take the lethal injections, the convicted rapist-murderer began to despair over his protracted end. Witnesses and the execution-team log from Tuesday describe how the 53-year-old winced and cried as a shunt inserted in his leg also failed to open a pathway for the fatal drugs.

Joe Sullivan was 13 years old when he and two older boys broke into a home, where they robbed and raped an elderly woman. After a one-day trial in 1989, Sullivan was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole. Terrance Graham was 16 when he and two others robbed a restaurant. When he was arrested again a year later for a home break-in, a Florida judge said he was incorrigible. In 2005, Graham received a life term with no parole. The two young convicts represent an American phenomenon, one the Supreme Court is set to reconsider in the fall term that opens Oct. 5. At issue is whether it is cruel and unusual punishment to imprison a minor until he or she dies when the crime does not involve murder.

As executioners poked his limbs with an IV needle, Romell Broom initially tried to speed along his own demise, flexing his arm and tugging on a rubber tourniquet to better expose a vein on the inside of his elbow. But as prison workers repeatedly failed to find a vein strong enough to take the lethal injections, the convicted rapist-murderer began to despair over his protracted end. Witnesses and the execution-team log from Tuesday describe how the 53-year-old winced and cried as a shunt inserted in his leg also failed to open a pathway for the fatal drugs.