Death Penalty

The planned execution this week of a man convicted in one of Houston's most brutal murder cases in a generation has become among the most contentious in the state that has the nation's busiest capital punishment system. International attention has been focused on the execution of convicted killer Jose Medellin scheduled for Tuesday. The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, said the Mexican-born Medellin and some 50 other Mexicans on death row around the nation should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether a 1963 treaty was violated during their arrests. Medellin, now 33, is the first among the 50 who is set to die.

The planned execution this week of a man convicted in one of Houston's most brutal murder cases in a generation has become among the most contentious in the state that has the nation's busiest capital punishment system. International attention has been focused on the execution of convicted killer Jose Medellin scheduled for Tuesday. The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, said the Mexican-born Medellin and some 50 other Mexicans on death row around the nation should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether a 1963 treaty was violated during their arrests. Medellin, now 33, is the first among the 50 who is set to die.

On July 11, the Ohio Supreme Court set Oct. 14 as the execution date for Richard Cooey for the 1986 rape and murder of two University of Akron students. There has been a self-imposed moratorium for executions in Ohio while lethal-injection cases were pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, we begin again to kill people in Ohio to prove that killing people is wrong. As a Christian and a religious leader, I see no other sane choice than to end executions now.

A high-profile panel examining capital punishment in Maryland began its work yesterday with a review of statistics suggesting racial and jurisdictional disparities in the application of the death penalty and dramatic testimony from the brother of the notorious Unabomber. The panel's meeting in Annapolis was the first of several planned in coming months to draft a recommendation to Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and lawmakers on whether executions should continue in Maryland. The issue has been one of the most emotional and heavily debated in the state in recent years.

President Bush on Monday approved the first execution by the military since 1961, upholding the death penalty of an Army private convicted of a series of rapes and murders more than two decades ago. As commander in chief, the president has the final authority to approve capital punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and he did so on Monday morning in the case of Pvt. Ronald A. Gray, convicted by court-martial for two killings and an attempted murder at Fort Bragg, N.C., the White House said in a statement. Although the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty in the military in 1996, no one has been executed since President Ronald Reagan reinstated capital punishment in 1984 for military crimes.

Despite pleas from the White House and the State Department, as well as an international court order to review their cases, Texas will execute five Mexicans on death row, a spokeswoman for the governor said Thursday. The first of the executions- that of Jose Ernesto Medellin, 33, convicted in the 1993 rape and murder of two teenage girls here- is scheduled for Aug. 5. The decision by Gov. Rick Perry to allow the executions is the latest twist in a long-running battle between Mexico, which has no death penalty, and the United States over the fate of 51 Mexicans facing capital punishment in several states, including 14 in Texas.

Florida's Catholic bishops have called on Gov. Charlie Crist to "set a new standard of respect for life" in the state by ending the use of the death penalty, beginning by halting the July 1 scheduled execution of Mark Dean Schwab. In a letter to Crist dated June 25, the bishops said they are praying for the victim and know they are unable to fully grasp the pain experienced by his family. They lamented, though, that taking the life of another who has killed perpetuates violence as a solution.

A leading Catholic advocate against capital punishment commended the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling June 25 barring the death penalty for anyone convicted of raping a child. The decision said the death penalty was reserved for murder and crimes against the state such as treason, espionage and terrorism. Although the opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana did not deny the pain and suffering inflicted in childhood rape, the court found the death penalty was not a "proportionate penalty for the crime" and thus amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Capital punishment can claim nothing to commend it. It will not bring healing or justice or restitution. It offers no hope for a nonviolent society. It reinforces the heart-rending cycle of violence; it lays the burden of yet another murder. Execution gives death as social purpose ever greater sway. When a nation decides who lives, who dies, it becomes small potatoes indeed for it to manipulate who enjoys full civil rights, who doesn't, who partakes of the fat of the suburbs, who subsists in the crumbling cities. And of course who goes off to war to fatten the American way of life, and who remains home to pluck the fat fruit and pursue affluent careers.

Ohio must stop using a common combination of three chemicals to execute condemned inmates because they may produce excruciating pain, a state court judge there ruled Tuesday. The decision is an exception to recent judicial trends in the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in April in Baze v. Rees, which upheld Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol, similar to the one used in Ohio. There have been five executions — two in Georgia and one each in Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia — since Baze ended a de facto seven-month moratorium. And Texas is to resume executions on Wednesday.