USLegal Reporter

The Nebraska Supreme Court held Friday that the use of the electric chair constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the state’s constitution. The court found that prisoners may retain enough consciousness to suffer from the high voltage electric current during the electrocution process.

The case before the court involved an appeal by Raymond Mata, Jr. of his death sentence for a 1999 murder. The court stayed Mata’s execution as it had earlier the execution of Carey Dean Moore following a request by a state senator to review the constitutionality of electrocution by electric chair.

Nebraska was the only state that allowed execution by electric chair as its only method of execution.

Source: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/02/nebraska-supreme-court-rules-electric.php

The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday stayed the execution of James Harvey Callahan, an Alabama man sentenced to death for murder who challenged lethal injection procedures.

The stay follows the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s decision to lift an earlier stay of Callahan’s execution that was put in place by a district judge in light of the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Baze v. Rees. The Eleventh Circuit had held that Callahan did not timely file his constitutional objection to lethal injection. If Callahan’s petition for writ of certiorari is denied, the stay on his execution will terminate.

Source: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/01/us-supreme-court-stays-execution-of.php

A Circuit Court judge in Virginia commuted the sentence of death row inmate, Daryl Atkins, to life in prison Thursday based on the withholding of evidence by the prosecution from Atkins’ attorneys during his 1998 murder trial. Atkins was convicted of robbery and murder that occurred when he was 18 years old. His case went to the U.S. Supreme Court after defense attorneys argued he should not receive the death penalty because of his mental retardation. The Supreme Court held in 2002 that executions of mentally retarded persons are unconstitutional. Virginia law defines mental retardation as an IQ of 70 or below before the age of 18 and an inability to function well in society. After he was charged with robbery and murder, Atkins’ IQ was found to be between 59 and 76 on four different IQ tests.

In 2003, a new jury upheld Atkins’ original death sentence claiming he was not retarded, but the verdict was overturned due to trial errors. Atkins was waiting for a new trial this year when allegations of the withheld evidence in the 1998 trial were raised.

Source: http://www.lexisone.com/news/ap/ap011808f.html

New Jersey’s governor Jon S. Corzine signed legislation today that abolishes capital punishment in the state. The New Jersey Assembly and Senate approved the bill last week. Corzine commuted the sentences of New Jersey’s eight death row prisoners on Sunday to life in prison without parole.

Source: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/12/new-jersey-governor-signs-bill.php

After a vote by the New Jersey Senate on Monday, the New Jersey Assembly voted Thursday to pass a bill abolishing capital punishment. New Jersey’s governor is expected to sign the legislation, which will replace the death penalty with life imprisonment.

Source: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/12/new-jersey-assembly-passes-death.php

Following a vote by the New Jersey Senate Budget Committee last week, the New Jersey Senate passed a bill Monday to abolish the death penalty and instead enforce life in prison without parole. If the full Assembly and the governor approves the bill, New Jersey will be the first state to abolish capital punishment since the 1976 national reinstatement by the U.S. Supreme Court. (Prior to that, in 1965, Iowa and West Virginia repealed their death penalty statutes). The New Jersey Assembly will vote on the bill Thursday.

Proponents of the law claim that capital punishment costs the state more than imprisonment for life without parole and does not statistically prevent homicide. Although New Jersey currently has eight death row prisoners, the state has not performed an execution since 1963.

Source: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/12/new-jersey-senate-passes-death-penalty.php

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/12/debate_on_abolishing_nj_death.html

Following the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision Thursday, which reversed a district court order to stay the lethal injection execution of Mark Dean Schwab pending the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Baze v. Rees, the U.S. Supreme Court, also on Thursday, stayed the execution of Schwab, pursuant to his filing a writ of certiorari, shortly before he was scheduled to be executed.

Source: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/11/us-supreme-court-stays-execution-of.php

The Florida Supreme Court unanimously held Thursday that its lethal injection procedures, including more recently implemented safeguards, do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The Florida Attorney General stated that the state plans on moving forward with the execution of Mark Dean Schwab, scheduled for November 15, 2007.

Schwab, who was convicted of a 1991 rape and murder, claimed that the chemicals used in lethal injection methods can cause excruciating pain and that new evidence shows he personally suffers from a brain impediment. The argument regarding pain caused by lethal injection chemicals is identical to the claim in the Kentucky case that is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Source: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/11/florida-supreme-court-upholds-state.php

The U.S. Supreme Court late Tuesday granted Earl Wesley Berry’s stay of execution pending the Court’s decision on granting certiorari. Berry was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection for the murder of a woman he kidnapped in 1987.

The stay adds to the list of three other stays granted by the Supreme Court after its decision to review the constitutionality of the lethal injection methods in a Kentucky case.

Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Anti-Capital Punishment Death Penalty Information Center claims that a de facto moratorium on executions by lethal injection is now in place.

Source: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/10/supreme-court-blocks-mississippi-lethal.php

A federal appeals court Wednesday stayed the lethal injection of Daniel L. Siebert, whose execution was scheduled for Thursday for several murders in 1986. Following the refusal by the federal district court in Alabama to stay his exectuion, Siebert appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Siebert, who suffers from pancreatic cancer, claimed that the drugs used for lethal injection could negatively interact with his cancer medications to cause unnecessary pain and suffering.

The state argued that Sibert could be executed using a modified procedure, but the modifications did not involve any change to the chemicals or to the sequence in which they are administered. The federal appeals court held that the changes to the protocol were ‘minor’ and stated that the execution shold be postponed until the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of lethal injection.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/10/federal-appeals-court-stays-alabama.php