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Joseph Clark civil lawsuit: John Seewer has this expanded AP coverage of yesterday's filing of a federal lawsuit seeking damages for the botched Ohio execution of Joseph Clark. The Toledo Blade has more coverage in this article by Erica Blake, entitled "Family sues over botched Ohio execution; 2006 procedure lasted 86 minutes."
(Earlier coverage of yesterday's court filing in Clark v. Voorhies here.)
(More information on botched execution of Joseph Clark here - including this recent post noting the anticipated involvement in support of the lawsuit by some members of the family of David Manning, who was murdered by Clark in 1984.)
UPDATE: Today's court filing in Clark v. Voorhies, et. al., seeking compensatory damages via a jury determination of facts regarding the execution, is here (8-page pdf).
Excerpt:
...execution staffs now are instructed to take their time, to remove the "artificial self-imposed time barrier resulting in enormous pressure on the execution team members," to complete "the process in a professional and dignified manner for all parties."
State officials, thus, have substituted self-imposed coolness for self-imposed expediency. And, in the process, they have drawn another curtain to mask a still deeply flawed execution process.
The main objection to lethal injections is not just that things can and do go wrong. Rather, the problem is that the protocol used in Ohio and across the nation appears to be a medical farce: A growing body of evidence reveals that the three-step chemical regimen was adopted without basic research. There is no professional, clinical or ethical oversight of the execution process. As a result, according to a just released study from the University of Miami's medical school, no one can say with certainty whether sedated prisoners are put to death humanely, or whether they are paralyzed but aware as they are chemically asphyxiated.
Some may believe condemned prisoners who committed horrifying crimes deserve no better. But Ohio deserves better — and so do the prison system employees asked to do the state's dirty work.
And Gov. Strickland should not pretend the system is working as it is supposed to.
Excerpt:
A former Toledo man said yesterday he is cooperating with a federal lawsuit to be filed next month against the state by the family of the man executed last year for murdering his brother, saying the execution he personally witnessed was cruel and unusual punishment.
Michael Manning, a death-penalty supporter, said he also plans to ask Gov. Ted Strickland to enact a moratorium on Ohio executions until problems seen in the execution of Joseph Lewis Clark on May 2, 2006, and Christopher Newton, a Huron, Ohio, native, on Thursday are corrected. In both cases, the executions were delayed while prison personnel struggled to find usable veins through which the lethal cocktail of drugs could flow.
"What happened was cruel and unusual punishment, which is against the Constitution of the United States," said Mr. Manning, now living in Marion, Ohio. "We all heard [Clark] moaning and groaning. ... The executions should be temporarily halted until they come to grips with how to insert the needles for accuracy. I believe I counted 10 to 15 times that Clark was stuck with a needle, and I don't know how many times there were after the curtain was closed."
...Strickland spokesman Keith Dailey said the governor has no plans to issue a moratorium.
"The governor's understanding regarding the Newton execution procedure is that it worked the way it was supposed to," he said. "Out of abundance of caution, as much time as was needed was taken before the execution to ensure there would not be problems similar to that of the Clark case."
...The family of Clark plans to file a federal suit against the state next month.
"There are other witnesses who can confirm what he said," said Alan Konop, the Clarks' attorney.
"He's an important witness. I thought it was quite admirable that he took this position, considering his brother was one of the victims."
Mr. Manning said he didn't speak out immediately after the execution because the administrator of the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction's Office of Victim Services had told the three Manning family witnesses to be consistent in their statements.
Karen Ho, the administrator, said yesterday her role was only to provide a path for family members to be heard through the clemency and execution processes, not to advise them what or what not to say. ...
Some earlier posts related to the Ohio lethal injection challenge:
Excerpt:Without explanation, the court rejected usually routine motions from Attorney General Jim Petro to schedule executions for Johnnie Baston, 32, convicted in the 1994 robbery slaying of a downtown Toledo merchant, and Arthur Tyler, 46, convicted in the 1983 robbery shooting of a Cleveland produce vendor.
The motions were triggered by the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear their appeals.
"Typically, [the state justices] set the dates," Petro spokesman Kim Norris said. "They have not provided us with an explanation of why they were denied."
Both Baston and Tyler have joined a suit in U.S. District Court that argues Ohio's lethal-injection protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, a claim further fueled by the problem-plagued execution of Toledo native Joseph Lewis Clark.
"The [U.S.] Constitution precludes cruel and unusual punishment, and until we know that they aren't being tortured to death, the executions shouldn't proceed," said Assistant Public Defender Kyle Timken, Baston's attorney.
U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost had previously halted the already-scheduled execution of Jeffrey Hill of Hamilton County, who had joined the suit. The stay was issued just days before the state executed Clark, who never sought to join the federal lawsuit.
"After the Joseph Clark execution, I tried to file a supplemental objection to the motion [to set a date] on the grounds it was cruel and unusual punishment, but they refused to even take it," said Tyler's attorney, Richard Kerger of Toledo. "But I'm fairly sure, based on the fact that Baston and Tyler both had their dates denied, that that was what was troubling them."
Speaking generally, Justice Paul Pfeifer said the court usually will not set a date if the justices believe it would simply prompt another court to step in and issue a stay.
"If that's a probability, we don't set a date," he said.
The attorney general's office essentially had taken the position that the court should set the date and leave it to Judge Frost to later stay the execution.
Four death-row inmates are plaintiffs in the federal case, which, in part, contends that the first drug used in Ohio's lethal injection process may not render the inmate unconscious but, rather, paralyze him to suffer as the next two drugs shut down his lungs and heart.
Joseph L. Clark's long execution in May was the kind of horror story that lends substance to the opponents of capital punishment who insist there's no humane way to carry out an execution.
Scheduled to die by lethal injection in the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville, Clark endured more than 80 minutes while the execution team struggled to find an open vein in either of his arms to complete the injection. At one point, Clark told the team the procedure wasn't working. He reportedly asked at another point to be killed some other way.
The fumbled execution opened another front in a growing national debate over whether the combination of drugs used in lethal injections masked suffering, making the method cruel and unusual punishment. Richard Cooey, condemned to die for the 1989 murders of two University of Akron students, is pursuing an appeal in federal court making that very claim. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the right of inmates to challenge lethal injections as a method of execution. As long as Ohio retains the death penalty, it has a responsibility to be flawless in conducting executions to spare not only the condemned but also prison teams and witnesses the trauma of protracted executions.
Last week, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections adopted new procedures to prevent a repeat of the ghoulish circumstances of Clark's final hour. To reduce errors from pressure, prison staff members will also be advised they don't have to complete their tasks in a specific time. Prison staff will now make sure that inmates scheduled for execution are physically examined three times to forestall such difficulties. The execution team will identify two open veins and make sure they stay open by using a low pressure saline solution.
The changes will reduce the incidence of sloppy executions. They won't remove the many flaws in using the death penalty as the ultimate punishment.
(Cleveland Plain Dealer July 1 editorial on the new Ohio lethal injection protocol is here.)
Excerpt:
It took nearly 40 minutes to kill Clark, a long-term drug abuser, as an ill-trained staff struggled to find a suitable vein. At one point, he reportedly pleaded for another manner of death. This sideshow understandably drew national attention and forced the state to take another close look at the way it kills.Collins says future executions will be performed more carefully. The state will examine death row inmates more closely before executions for potential complications, and changes in the injection process itself are likely.Tweaking may help, but it won't dispel critics' belief that lethal injection violates the Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.Florida has postponed all executions while the federal courts explore that constitutional question, and it's only a matter of time until it finds its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. There is no reason why Ohio shouldn't do the same.
