Posts by Chris Cassidy
Ohio Executions: Straight, No Chaser
Published November 15, 2009 @ 06:11AM PT
High-profile failures to humanely administer the lethal, three-drug cocktail used by 35 other states have prompted Ohio to abandon that method in favor of single-drug lethal injections.
The announcement by the director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction endorsed the injection of a "massive dose of anesthetic," reports The New York Times. This method -- preferred for veterinary euthanasia -- has long been pushed by critics of the more popular three-drug cocktail which paralyzes inmates and is intended to also render them unconscious. Paralysis is especially problematic, critics say, as it eliminates inmates' potential to express extreme discomfort with failed or particularly painful executions.
Despite some celebrations of the move, it only represents an effort to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic that is Ohio's death row. Ohio's recent displays of executioners' incompetence were not merely demonstrative of the need for a new approach to executions. Ohio's botched attempt to execute Rommel Broom are illustrative of capital punishment's shortcomings generally.
“To Kill, or Not to Kill?” Asketh Ohio
Published October 12, 2009 @ 12:59PM PT
Cast of Characters:
Romell Broom, sentenced to death for raping and killing a 14-year-old girl in Cleveland in 1984. Most recently scheduled for execution September 15, 2009.
Lawrence Reynolds, sentenced to death for the 1994 murder and attempted rape of a 67-year-old woman in Cuyahoga Falls. Most recently scheduled for execution October 8, 2009.
Governor Ted Strickland (D), elected for his first term in the governor’s mansion in 2007 after 12 years in the House of Representatives. Strickland’s first term in the House ended with his narrow defeat in the landslide elections of 1994. He re-took the seat in 1996, and maintained it for five more terms. Governor Strickland once put his Ph.D. in counseling psychology to work among the prisoners at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, where Broom is an inmate. Before October, 2009, Governor Strickland had delayed three executions, permitting further review, and commuted two death sentences. Of the three executions in which he did not intervene, two were carried out and another was stayed by The Sixth Circuit. Governor Strickland is up for re-election in 2010.
Attorney General Richard Cordray (D), elected for his first term as AG in last year after serving two years as the states treasurer. Cordray began his legal career clerking at the Supreme Court. He is also an undefeated five-time Jeopardy! champion. With a string of defeats for higher office under his belt, including runs for both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, Cordray is generally regarded as having aspirations for higher office. AG Cordray is up for re-election in 2010.
The Sixth Circuit, an esteemed collection of 15 federal judges -- predominantly Republican-appointed white men -- who are the final authority for the vast majority of criminal appeals -- disproportionately from less privileged people of color -- in Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio.
Scene: Ohio, a state with a history of sloppy executions. In 2006, the State’s executioners took almost 90 minutes to complete their task at the expense of inmate and former intravenous drug user Joseph Lewis Clark because of problems finding a vein. Once they found a vein, it then collapsed. Before his ultimate execution, Clark repeatedly told State officials, “It don’t work. It don’t work.”
"Mommy, What Was the Rule of Law?"
Published August 25, 2009 @ 11:03AM PT
As anticipated, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the assignment of a career prosecutor to investigate whether U.S. officials exceeded guidelines provided by the Bush Department of Justice (DOJ) in carrying out so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. Those guidelines, known as the "torture memos," were drafted by officials in the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). To lead the investigation, Holder appointed veteran prosecutor John Durham of Connecticut, previously selected by then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate the CIA's destruction of 92 interrogation tapes.
The Washington Post broke the story, reporting that "Durham's mandate ... will be relatively narrow: to look at whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA personnel who may have broken the law in their dealings with detainees." The Guardian also described the investigation's scope as "relatively narrow." This announcement indicates that, "as far as this DoJ is concerned, all the torture that occurred within [the torture memos,] was 'legal,'" writes Tapped's Adam Serwer. But Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent see it differently: "Holder did not rule out any course of investigative or prosecutorial action."
So is Holder's announcement a validation of the torture memos? Or does the door remain open to hold the attorney-architects of the torture framework accountable?
It depends, methinks: Will the American people stand up for the rule of law, or will we let torture apologists take the day?
Closing Guantanamo: Setting the Record Straight
Published June 09, 2009 @ 12:52PM PT
If you premise your views on cable "news," then you might be mislead to believe that closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility is a national security risk. This could not be further from the truth. The first Guantanamo detainee arrived in New York early this morning, and the world hasn't ended yet.
The facts are clear: (1) maintaining an extra-legal prison at Guantanamo Bay is a clarion call for terrorists; and (2) there is no reason to sacrifice American values and permit endless detentions of criminal suspects outside of our nation's laws.
There's been quite the hullabaloo over what to do with Guantanamo detainees. Losing ground on national security issues, conservative politicians have latched onto the closure of Gitmo as one of the few issues where they can play offense. With scare tactics not unfamiliar to students of witch hunts and the Red Scares, conservatives have mobilized waves of NIMBYs with irrational fears and fabricated threats. And congressional leaders seem to have succumbed to the pressure produced, blocking funding of the President's relocation efforts.
