Anesthesiologists face penalty for participating in death penalty

May 3, 2010

by Vicky Eckenrode

The American Board of Anesthesiologists has decided to drop the certification of any member who participates in a prisoner’s death sentence, according to a recent Washington Post article.

If enforced, it would mean anesthesiologists who help administer the lethal injection process could lose their ability to practice in most hospitals.

The issue of whether doctors should be a part of the death penalty has been a controversial one for years though the threat to pull certification is the furthest any physician group has gone.

North Carolina is one of the states that allow death by lethal injection. In the state, it now is the only way to administer the death penalty.

No one has been put to death in the state, however, since 2006, according to the N.C. Department of Corrections, which has 157 people currently on death row.

The de-facto moratorium started when the N.C. Medical Board blocked the doctors it licenses from being present at the procedure.

The state Supreme Court later struck down that position, saying the board could not discipline a doctor just because he or she participated in an execution.

The board stated because of the ruling, it would not take action against a doctor.

“The North Carolina Medical Board does, however, continue to take the position that physician participation in capital punishment is a departure from the ethics of the medical profession,” according to the group’s current position statement, which also points to the American Medical Association’s stance.

The AMA’s opinion on capital punishment states: “An individual’s opinion on capital punishment is the personal moral decision of the individual. A physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution.”

Though the courts have settled the issue about the state medical board, legal challenges about the method of lethal injections and the cocktail of drugs used still have to be resolved.

Anesthesiologist Group To Decertify Physicians Who Help With Lethal Injections

MAY 03, 2010

The American Board of Anesthesiologists "has quietly decided to revoke the certification of any member who participates in executing a prisoner by lethal injection," according toThe Washington Post. The decision "reflects its leaders' belief that 'we are healers, not executioners,' board secretary Mark A. Rockoff said. Although the American Medical Association has long opposed doctor involvement, the anesthesiologists' group is the first to say it will harshly penalize a health-care worker for abetting lethal injections. The loss of certification would prevent an anesthesiologist from working in most hospitals. About half of the 35 states performing executions, including Virginia and North Carolina, require a doctor to be present."

But supporters of capital punishment argue that "doctors are not needed during the procedures, which can be administered by prison employees. … With 3,200 prisoners now on death rows across the country, most of the 50 executions performed each year since 2008 have used lethal injections.” Members of the ABA learned about the new rule in February, and so far, "no doctors have been disciplined, Rockoff said" (Stein, 5/2).

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Briton on death row in Texas seeks stay from Supreme Court

May 03, 2010|By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times

When British consular officials in Houston first learned that Linda Carty was in trouble with the law, the St. Kitts-born British national was already on death row in Texas, convicted in a bizarre plot to kill a neighbor and kidnap her newborn son.

Under the Vienna Convention and a U.S.-British treaty, British authorities should have been notified of Carty's arrest "without delay." The time gap in notification is at the center of an appeal by Carty for a stay of execution, which the Supreme Court may rule on as soon as Monday.

If the court does not grant the stay, Carty, 51, stands to become the first British woman executed in 55 years.

Carty's case is well known in Britain, where capital punishment is outlawed. Newspapers have followed her pleadings since British consular officials learned about her 2002 death sentence more than a year after it was imposed.

Carty has maintained her innocence in the 2001 killing of 25-year-old Joana Rodriguez, and British diplomats and pro bono lawyers have appealed to the Supreme Court with arguments impugning the fairness of her trial.

Carty's defenders argue that the outcome of her trial would have been different had she been accorded the protections offered by the British government.

"It made a material difference in this case," said Paul Lynch, British consul general in Houston. "It is quite clear to us that Linda Carty did not get the assistance she should have and the trial she should have."

Carty's appeal is a long shot. Although the International Court of Justice has upheld treaties that mandate governments inform one another on arrests of their nationals, the Supreme Court two years ago rejected the notion that states were obliged to follow the international court's decisions.

In his appeal to the Supreme Court, attorney Michael Goldberg said Carty's state-appointed defense lawyer, Jerry Guerinot, did not meet with Carty until two weeks before her trial and then only for 15 minutes. Goldberg also said that Guerinot never interviewed potential witnesses.

Guerinot didn't return phone calls seeking comment.

In a September ruling, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged deficiencies in Carty's trial but upheld a lower court's denial of relief.

In the trial, prosecutors charged that Carty had participated in the kidnapping and killing of Rodriguez in order to obtain her baby. Texas Assistant Atty. Gen. Katherine D. Hayes said that the 5th Circuit judged the evidence of Carty's guilt as "overwhelming."

carol.williams@latimes.com

Supreme Court rejects plea from British woman on death row

By RENÉE C. LEE
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

May 3, 2010, 9:38AM

The Supreme Court has refused to review the case of a British woman sentenced to death for killing a Houston mother and stealing her baby in 2001.

The justices rejected an appeal from Linda Carty, who complained her trial lawyers were deficient.

Twenty-year-old Joana Rodriguez had just given birth days earlier when four men busted into her Houston apartment on May 16, 2001, pistol-whipped her husband and abducted her and her newborn.

Rodriguez's body was later found in the trunk of a car with a plastic bag over her head. Her arms and legs were bound with duct tape and her mouth and nose also had been covered with tape. An autopsy revealed she suffocated.

Authorities said Carty, a neighbor, plotted the kidnapping because she wanted Rodriguez's baby in a desperate attempt to keep her common-law husband.

Carty, 51, was found guilty of capital murder in February 2002. She is one of 10 women on Texas death row. The British government and anti-death penalty groups have taken up her cause.

Carty, who claims she had ineffective counsel and maintains her innocence, was optimistic before the ruling.

“I think there's a possibility they will take it,” Carty said during an interview last week at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Mountain View Unit, just west of Waco.

Texas officials will now set an execution date and Carty, a British citizen, will become the only woman to have a slot on the state's execution calendar. It could be years before she's actually put to death.

It is rare for women to get the death penalty in the United States and even rarer for them to be put death. Fifty-four women are on death row and in the modern era (1973 to 2009) of the death penalty, only 11 women have been executed.

Part of the reason is that few women commit capital offenses, but Ohio Northern University law professor Victor Streib, who has studied women and death penalty for 25 years, suggests there's a secondary reason.

The justice system, Streib said, treats women differently than men.

“Women aren't sentenced to death at trial as often as you think,” Streib said. “And once they're sentenced to death, they're more likely to have the sentence reversed by an appellate court. As a society, we're nervous about taking women's lives.”

That's even true in Texas, the nation's death penalty capital, he said. The state has executed only three women since 1973. The last female execution in the U.S. was in Texas in 2005. Francis Newton, of Harris County, was put to death for killing her husband and children in 1987. She sat on death row for nearly 20 years.

Bias denied, but . . .

Most prosecutors and judges deny there's a bias, but the statistics show otherwise, said Streib, who publishes an annual report, Death Penalty for Female Offenders.

Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos declined to comment on the issue because of pending death penalty cases, but other prosecutors who have handled capital cases involving women said they review them the same as they do those involving men.

“Our policy has always been if we feel someone committed a crime that merits the death penalty, we're going to seek it no matter who they are or what their gender is,” said Bob Gill, assistant chief of the criminal division of the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office.

Collin County's first assistant district attorney, Gregory Davis, tried two death penalty cases against women when he worked for the Dallas County District Attorney's Office from 1992-2002.

Darlie Routier, the North Texas mother sentenced to death for killing her children in 1996, was one of them. Davis said he had some hesitation about pursuing the death penalty against Routier only because it had never been done before in the county.

“From a practical standpoint, you have to take into account the attitude of jurors and the jurisdiction,” Davis said. “But in the Routier case, I didn't feel that was significant because of the terrible brutality and lack of remorse.”

He said he believes there is a public perception that women are not as violent as men, and jurors are sometimes less likely to impose death sentences against women. And when looking at mitigating factors, they are also more prone to listen to emotional appeals from women than men, he said.

“They have a hard time finding these women are a future danger,” Davis said.

Streib said it's difficult to pinpoint why some women get the death penalty and others do not because the justice system is not a rational process. But women who kill like men (kill strangers or commit a senseless act) or commit a brutal, bloody crime tend to get a death sentence, he said.

Roe Wilson, who handles post-conviction writs for the Harris County District Attorney's Office, described the facts in Carty's case as “heinous.” Carty, who pretended to be pregnant, had planned to cut the baby out of Rodriguez's stomach and had brought surgical supplies to do it, Wilson said. When she learned the woman already had the baby, she abducted her, she said.

Witnesses also said they saw Carty put the plastic bag over the mother's head while she lay in the trunk.

Was she framed?

Carty, who came to the United States in the early 1980s, contends that she was framed by the other suspects who learned she was an informant with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. One of them had borrowed her car the day of the crime, she said.

She said the state's case is fabricated and had she had proper counsel during her trial, she wouldn't be on death row. In lower court appeals filed by her appellate attorneys with Baker Botts law firm, Carty claims her state-appointed attorney met with her two weeks before her trial for only 15 minutes. He also failed to properly investigate her case, to interview and inform her common-law husband of his right to spousal immunity and to notify the British consulate about her case.

While the lower courts denied her requests for a new trial, they admitted there were mistakes made in her defense, said Michael Goldberg, a partner with Baker Botts.

The law firm is representing Carty for free at the request of the British government.

“I believe with all my heart that she deserves to have a trial so a jury can hear a real case with a real defense on her behalf,” Goldberg said. “We have 20 key witnesses who were never called and could have testified that Linda is not a murderer and not a danger to society.”

Chronicle reporter Allan Turner contributed to this story.

renee.lee@chron.com

Doctors' board bans work on death row

ROB STEIN

May 3, 2010

WASHINGTON: An American doctors organisation has quietly decided to revoke the certification of any member who participates in executing a prisoner by lethal injection.

The mandate from the American Board of Anesthesiologists reflects its leaders' belief that ''we are healers, not executioners'', the board secretary, Mark Rockoff, said.

Although the American Medical Association has long opposed doctor involvement, the anaesthetists' group is the first to say it will harshly penalise a healthcare worker for abetting lethal injections.

About half of the 35 states performing executions, including Virginia and North Carolina, require a doctor to be present at all executions. Other states have also recruited doctors, including anaesthetists, to play a role in executions involving lethal injections. In some jurisdictions, anaesthetists consult prison officials on dosages. In others, they insert catheters and infuse the three-drug cocktails.

Under the policy, which the group's 40,000 members learned about in February, any of these activities could lead to a loss of certification. Anaesthetists can get state medical licences without certification, but most hospitals require it.

While death penalty opponents welcome the move because it raises more questions about lethal injections, capital punishment supporters say doctors are not needed during the procedures, which can be administered by prison employees.

But as questions mount about the types and combinations of drugs used and whether they cause undue suffering, states have been turning to doctors for advice and assistance.

With 3200 prisoners now on death rows across the country, most of the 50 executions performed each year since 2008 have used lethal injections.

''If I were lying there on the gurney and someone was administering a paralysing drug … I would want someone there who knew what they were doing,'' said Ty Alper, the associate director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Law.

Thus far, no doctors have been disciplined, Dr Rockoff said, but several anaesthetists, including some who have worked as execution consultants or testified in capital punishment litigation, said the step has had a chilling effect.

''They are clearly drawing a line in the sand and saying, 'If you cross this, we'll come after you,''' said Bryan Liang, a law professor at California Western School of Law and a professor of anaesthesia at the University of California at San Diego.

The Washington Post

Government's rendition bully tactics

By Clive Stafford Smith on April 29, 2010

Six years ago the British took two men into custody in Iraq. Working with the Americans, the UK then rendered the men to Afghanistan where they have been held ever since in secret detention, beyond the protection of law.

The charity for which I work, Reprieve, has been trying to reunite them with their legal rights. We do not insist that they are innocent – although the evidence suggests that they are. We do insist that they should be allowed a fair trial.

The government has a policy for this kind of thing of course. Let us identify the policy, and then compare it with the government's practice.

"Providing help to those in need has long been an important part of the value lawyers provide to society," Jack Straw said to the Law Society on 8 March 2008. "It shows the profession at its very best, giving up time and expertise to help others."

Of course, this is what Reprieve seeks to do, at no cost to the public.

"The UK's position on secret detention is clear," said a Foreign Office spokesperson recently. "We oppose any deprivation of liberty that amounts to placing individuals beyond the protection of the law."

Here, Reprieve seeks to put an end to the two prisoners' detention beyond the protection of the law.

Thus, one might reasonably assume that the government would want to help us bring the law into this secret prison.

Yet there seems to be no government policy requiring adherence to principle. For several years the government simply lied about their involvement. Consider, for example, the statement that Jack Straw made on 13 December 2005 to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (FASC):

"Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States … there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop, because we have not been … Some of the reports … are in the realms of the fantastic."

Presumably we can all agree that this was false.

A leaked Home Office memorandum to then prime minister Tony Blair from December 2005 advised him to "dodge" questions about the extent of UK involvement in US renditions. Reasonable people may infer that Blair intentionally misled the public as well.

And so it went on. But in 2009, John Hutton admitted that the two men had, indeed, been rendered. I immediately wrote to him asking for their names so that Reprieve could offer them free legal representation. The Ministry of Defence wrote back saying that to disclose their names would violate the Data Protection Act. (It was OK, apparently, for Hutton to say that they were both irredeemable terrorists who should be held without trial by the US military.)

Over the next 14 months, Reprieve spent several thousand pounds trying to identify the men. We tracked down former Bagram prisoners on three continents, and they provided circumstantial hints that we pieced together. Every penny we spent could have been saved had the government merely told the truth.

We discovered evidence that proved Hutton had misled parliament as well. At least one prisoner could not possibly have been a member of the Sunni extremist group, Lashkar e Taiba, since he was a Shia rice farmer.

Over and again, as our investigation progressed, we asked the government simply to confirm their names. We underlined the heartache suffered by their innocent families. The government batted away each reasonable request.

Ultimately, this week, we had no choice but to sue to confirm the prisoners' names.

As the political parties squabble over cutting waste, they would do well to begin with the government's pointless defence of the indefensible with their expensive hired legal guns – here, as in Binyam Mohamed's case.

As if this were not folly enough, now the government has threatened to try to make Reprieve – a charity – pay their legal expenses. This is a blatant ploy to try to intimidate us from bringing suit.

When I complained about it yesterday, the MOD issued a hyperbolic response: "The suggestion that Reprieve has been 'intimidated' by a threat of costs is ridiculous." In a perverse way, this is true: we will not be intimidated, as their stratagem simply offends us.

The MOD goes on to say that they have issued this threat because we would not give them a "reciprocal" assurance that they would not have to pay us for their illegal actions, and their endless stonewalling of the truth. I cannot speak for the British lawyers involved in the case, but there is no question of the government paying Reprieve. They never have paid us for any work we have done for prisoners in secret prisons, and there is no reason to think that they are about to start now.

So it ultimately comes down to this: they want to fritter away billions on banks, but steal donations from Reprieve, a charity doing the work that they claim to encourage. It is the Robin Hood tax with a twist: rob from the poor to give to the rich. Perhaps we have finally learned what the term New Labour means: socialism turned upside-down.

This article first appeared in the Guardian

Doctors' role in executions debated

Doctors' role in executions debated
Death penalty foes go after licenses.

By CARLOS CAMPOS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/01/05

After a lethal dose of chemicals flowed through the veins of convicted killer Timothy Don Carr last Tuesday night, two physicians with stethoscopes around their necks quietly entered the execution chamber.

One at a time, the doctors confirmed with a somber nod to the warden of the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson that the state had succeeded in carrying out the court-ordered death penalty. A third physician, unseen behind a two-way mirror, monitored an electrocardiogram that displayed the prisoner's last heartbeats.


The doctors' identities are carefully protected — as are all involved in lethal injections, including prison officials who activate the plungers that deliver the deadly dose. The contract providing for the doctors' services at an execution forbids the Department of Corrections from disclosing their names.

The doctors have a reason for wanting anonymity: Their medical licenses are under attack from death penalty opponents.

Activists say doctors who participate in executions violate the Hippocratic oath and the American Medical Association's Code of Medical Ethics. Dr. Arthur Zitrin of New York, who calls himself a death penalty "abolitionist," has begun challenging physicians who participate in executions.

In October, Zitrin, two other doctors and a sociology professor lodged a complaint with the Georgia medical board against Dr. Hothur V. Sanjeeva Rao, a physician who testified in a Gwinnett County trial that he had assisted with executions.

"I think it's a totally improper role for a physician to be complicit with the state in killing people, because it's not the role of a doctor to do that," said Zitrin, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine. "The role of a doctor is to heal and to preserve life, whenever there is a possibility of doing so."

Rao quit working executions in June after he learned that Zitrin planned to lodge a complaint against him. The challenge was dismissed in December by the state medical board.

The Georgia Department of Corrections is lobbying for legislation that would prohibit the challenge of physicians' licenses for participating in executions.

Cost to state rises

Corrections officials say they don't want to get involved in the debate over the death penalty. But it is the agency's responsibility to carry out orders of the court, and state law requires two physicians in attendance at executions "to determine when death supervenes."

Prison officials say the challenge to Rao's medical license dramatically drove up the cost of hiring doctors to attend executions. The prison system now pays Rainbow Medical Associates $18,000 per execution. Before Rao's license was challenged, the department paid $850 per execution, said Bill Amideo, a lawyer for the state agency.

The cost jumped because the doctors had to purchase liability insurance to protect themselves from possible license challenges, Amideo said.

While he expected the prison system would have to pay more for the doctor's services, perhaps as much as $6,000 per execution, "we ended up having to pay three times as much to get this contract," Amideo said.

State officials were in a hurry to sign Rainbow on June 29, just two days before the scheduled execution of convicted murderer Robert Karl Hicks on July 1. Since Rainbow Medical Associates has had the contract, its doctors have presided over three executions.

Georgia has executed 14 people by lethal injection since the electric chair was ruled unconstitutional in 2001.

"What they try to do is get publicity and embarrass physicians," Amideo said, making it difficult for the prison system to find doctors who will work executions.

Lawyers who represent prisoners facing the death penalty have been supportive of the effort, including some in Georgia who have argued in court that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.

Dr. Carlo Musso, who signed the contract with the state on behalf of Rainbow Medical Associates, said the group of seven to 10 doctors provides medical services to county jails throughout Georgia and is available to monitor executions.

Musso said he and other doctors in the group are "a little bit worried" about license challenges, but he feels strongly they are providing an important service.

Musso said in an interview that he was one of the doctors who oversaw Carr's execution Jan. 25.

"If an execution is going to be carried out, it's going to be carried out," Musso said. "Our role is to make sure it is to be performed with the least amount of pain and suffering as possible. That's my duty."

The physician said he personally does not approve of the death penalty except "in the most egregious circumstances." But if doctors do not participate in lethal injections, he said, courts could return to more "archaic" methods of execution.

"If health care professionals were not involved in the process, then there very well may be undue suffering to inmates that occurs during execution, and I think that's a greater concern," Musso said.

Musso, who is also medical director of the Rainbow House, an emergency shelter for abused children in Clayton County, said the doctors have donated some of the money they earn from executions.

Musso is a member of the American Medical Association, a 250,000-member organization that represents the interests of doctors nationwide. The AMA has issued an ethical opinion that a physician "should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution."

The opinion goes on to define physician participation in executions as including monitoring vital signs and electrocardiograms and attending or observing an execution as a physician.

The Medical Association of Georgia, with 7,000 members, has adopted the AMA guidelines. But neither group has the power to sanction physicians beyond revoking their membership in the association.

In November, Zitrin and other doctors questioned whether Gov. Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky — also a physician — had jeopardized his medical license by signing a death warrant for a convicted killer. In January, the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure ruled Fletcher was acting as governor, not as a physician.

'An obvious tension'

Dr. Michael Goldrich, chairman of the AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, said physicians should play no role in executions.

"There's an obvious tension between the state's requirements and the profession's roles," Goldrich said. "Just because the state says that physicians have to be present for there to be an execution, physicians are under ethical obligation that may be in conflict with the state's desires or needs."

David Cook, executive director of the Medical Association of Georgia, said the group has not taken a formal position on a bill filed last month by State Rep. Alan Powell (D-Hartwell) to block challenges to doctors' licenses for participation in an execution. But Cook said the association believes the state medical board should be able to determine on its own whether license challenges have merit.

Rao's testimony at a Gwinnett County trial that drew the attention of Zitrin and death penalty lawyers involved the execution of convicted murderer Jose Martinez High in 2001.

Medical technicians spent 39 minutes trying to find a suitable vein through which the lethal injection could be delivered.

Rao testified he eventually stepped in and inserted a catheter into a vein between High's neck and shoulder, allowing the execution to proceed.

Zitrin's complaint said Rao's conduct "violates established national medical ethics" and asked the state board to "impose appropriate sanctions should the board confirm these serious ethical violations."

LaSharn Hughes, executive director of the Composite State Board of Medical Examiners, declined to comment specifically on the case or on physician participation in executions, except to say that "it's not a burning issue with the board at this time."

A Dec. 15 letter sent to Zitrin from Hughes said that "after careful consideration, the board has determined that there was no violation of the Georgia Medical Practice Act and has consequently determined to close this matter." The letter went on to note that physician attendance at executions is required by Georgia law.

Rao did not return a telephone call seeking comment, but said in an October interview with American Medical News that he merely monitored lethal injections.

"There was just too much harassment, and I didn't want to be involved in these things," Rao told the medical newspaper. "I don't have any problems with prisoners who have killed people and don't have any regrets receiving the death sentence, but I don't want to be involved."

Powell said doctors should not be punished for helping the Department of Corrections carry out sentences "set forth by a judge and jury."

"Nobody wants to be involved in a public execution, but that's the law," he said. "But he's not injecting the drugs. The Department of Corrections actually does the injection."

Senate Resolution 1289

Just when you think the GA legislature can't get anymore outrageous they do  things like recognizing Carlo Musso, the execution doctor! The resolution was  sponsored by dems Gail Buckner and Valencia Seay  Please feel free to get in touch with them and tell them how you feel; these  are their contacts...  ******************

10 LC 94 2777

Senate Resolution 1289
By: Senators Buckner of the 44th and Seay of the 34th
A RESOLUTION

Recognizing and commending Dr. Carlo A. Musso; and for other purposes.
WHEREAS, Dr. Carlo A. Musso has long been recognized by the citizens of this state for his leadership in the field of medicine, his compassionate treatment of his patients, and his deep concern for the well-being of others; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Musso earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and a medical degree from Louisiana State University, completed an internship at Presbyterian/St.Lukes Medical Center in Denver, and served as a resident in emergency medicine at Denver General Hospital; and
WHEREAS, he has diligently and conscientiously devoted his time, talents, and energy as a physician, administrator, and businessman to Georgia Correctional Health (GHC) since 2000 as the organization's founder and president; and
WHEREAS, GHC is a multi-disciplinary medical organization that serves 20 correctional facilities in Georgia and specializes in the delivery and integration of community standards of health care for inmates; and
WHEREAS, GHC operates two nationally accredited facilities and three facilities accredited by the Medical Association of Georgia and has received a perfect score for its Clayton County facility in October, 2004, by the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare; and
WHEREAS, an active community leader, Dr. Musso serves as medical director for Rainbow House, Inc., Emergency Shelter for Children, where children who have recently been brought into Department of Family and Children Services care are housed before being placed in foster care; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Musso is a member of the American Medical Association, the Medical Association of Georgia, the Society of Correctional Physicians, and the Academy of Correctional Health Professionals; and
WHEREAS, a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, prior to establishing GHC, Dr. Musso served as a member of Pinnacle Emergency Consultants, a local emergency physician group, where he helped improve efficiency for operations and practices in emergency medicine; and
WHEREAS, it is abundantly fitting and proper that the extraordinary accomplishments of this distinguished Georgian be appropriately recognized.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE that the members of this body commend Dr. Carlo A. Musso on his incredible career in the medical field and recognize his commitment to and passion for providing quality health care to Georgia's inmates.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of the Senate is authorized and directed to transmit an appropriate copy of this resolution to Dr. Carlo A. Musso.

Calif. Case Spotlights Dysfunctional Death Penalty

Calif. killer's life sentence highlights death penalty flaws; state has 700 stuck on death row

By PAUL ELIAS

The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO

Chelsea King's parents reluctantly agreed to a sentence of life in prison for their daughter's rapist and killer, calling the death penalty in California "an empty promise."

The Kings join a growing list of victims' families, law enforcement officials and other capital punishment proponents who have grown disillusioned with California's death penalty. The decision to forego capital punishment for registered sex offender John Gardner, who this month admitted killing Chelsea King and another teen girl, has once again thrust the gridlocked system into the spotlight.

Five more inmates joined California's death row this year, pushing the population past a record 700 inmates, by far the nation's largest.

Florida is second with 394 inmates on death row, and Texas is third with 333, but both of those states regularly carry out executions.

Legal challenges over how lethal injections are administered to condemned prisoners in California have halted executions in the state since Clarence Ray Allen was put to death Jan. 17, 2006. The lawsuits are far from being resolved, and most observers believe it could be years before another execution takes place at San Quentin Prison.

Even before the suspension, only 13 condemned inmates have been executed from the time capital punishment resumed in the state in 1977 until February 2006, when U.S. District Court Jeremy Fogel halted executions until prison officials revamped their lethal injection process.

After a lengthy regulatory review, the Department of Corrections is expected to issue the long-awaited new protocols this week.

Still, state and federal judges must approve the new regulations before executions can resume — and lawyers challenging the death penalty promise to vigorously attack the new protocols as inadequate.

California Chief Justice Ron George told the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice that the state's capital punishment system is "dysfunctional." Death penalty appeals account for 25 percent of the high court's workload, he has said.

"Most of us realize a death sentence at this time is a hollow promise in California," San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said at the news conference with the King family announcing that Gardner would plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

Dumanis said in a telephone interview Thursday that she still files death penalty cases when appropriate "because it's the law," but the state's glacial execution rate is frustrating to victims' families.

"They have to live with it every day," she said.

In voicing frustration with capital punishment, these supporters of the penalty are lending momentum to a renewed push by death penalty foes to abolish executions in California.

With the state's financial woes as a backdrop, the foes have launched a new assault on the death penalty, saying California cannot afford it.

The state Legislature created the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice to investigate the chronic problems with the state's death penalty. The commission concluded that the state needed to spend more money, mostly on hiring more defense attorneys to hasten the automatic appeal process.

The commission, led by former California Attorney General John Van de Kamp, released a study in 2008 concluding that capital cases cost the state an additional $125 million a year to administer. In response to a court order, the Department of Corrections spent $400 million building a new death chamber and death row.

"We are spending money on a broken death penalty," said Natasha Minsker, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who won the Abolitionist of the Year award from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty in 2008. "We aren't spending money on unsolved murders and other crimes. These are the trade-offs we are making."

The system is so topsy-turvy that convicted killer Billy Joe Johnson last year fought for a lethal injection sentence rather than life imprisonment at Pelican Bay State Prison. The convicted killer said death row inmates enjoy better accommodations such as larger cells that they don't have to share and access to television.

When a jury and a judge granted the white supremacist leader his wish, he was packed off to death row last year knowing that nearly all inmates there die of causes other than executions.

The state's capital punishment system also let down Maria Keever, who was counting on the death penalty to punish her son's killer.

Keever demanded that Scott Erskine receive the death penalty for murdering and raping her 13-year-old son and another boy in 1993 in San Diego.

Erskine was sentenced to die in 2004. The California Supreme Court has yet to schedule a hearing for Erskine's automatic appeal to the high court.

"He's up there watching television knowing I am going to die before he does," said Maria Keever. "The system is not what they say it is."