Death Penalty Watch

Ivan Cantu was sentenced to death for the 2000 murder of his cousin and his cousin’s fiancée, James Mosqueda and Amy Kitchen. 

Over twenty years, if not extremely as over forty of the second case, raises continual concern (cited by Breyer, Stevens, and Ginsburg) of extended delays between sentencing and execution. As Breyer once noted:

First, a lengthy delay in and of itself is especially cruel because it subjects death row inmates to decades of especially severe, dehumanizing conditions of confinement. Second, lengthy delay undermines the death penalty's penological rationale.

Consider punishing someone for something they did over twenty years ago. The state of the person's life was very different. Society is different. The opinion of the victim's family (which is not likely to be of one mind) might have changed.  Add the fact that the person already is being punished all that time. As a person ages, the safety rationale of execution diminishes decade by decade.  All that time in cruel conditions is a problem too.

Consider Thomas Eugene Creech. He is a serial killer. Once in prison, he killed an inmate who threatened him. This last murder specifically is why he was sentenced to die by Idaho. The facts sound like a form of self-defense but I can understand that murder in prison is a special case.

[ETA: The additional discussion of his failed execution that I linked in the footnote cites an earlier Supreme Court opinion rejecting a challenge to his sentence. The dissent flagged the details of this specific crime (not all his crimes) make the special degree of heinousness required for a death sentence questionable at best.]

That murder was in 1981. He's in his seventies now. What public interest, other than a form of euthanasia, requires them to execute the guy now?  

Since this length of time on death row claim never received traction, his lawyers tried other things. For instance, a judge is the one who sentenced him. Well, a recent capital case involved a judge overruling a jury. If no justice was going to flag that, why would this get much more attention?  

(The lawyers argued that the "evolving standards of decency" require a jury to decide who lives or dies. This Court is not a great fan of that concept, especially as applied to courts overriding executive and legislative action.)  

A parole committee deadlocked 3-3, with one member deciding not to take part (not sure why). So, it is not only a bunch of death penalty absolutists who are promoting his case.  When life turns on such close calls, I think life should win. It underlines the corruptness of the system where even executing a clearly guilty serial killer raises red flags.*

SCOTUS rejected his claims without comment. Then, Idaho tried to execute him. They tried for forty-five minutes, but there was some vein access issue. They failed. The death warrant expired. Idaho now has to decide what to do next. 

Idaho wants to assure us that it was not "botched" and "the process worked as intended." Oh? Forty-five minutes and eight (by one count) failed attempts? They are now talking about using the firing squad in executions, which some experts think is the "best" method. Why not just avoid executions? The last one was in 2012. 

So, that left Texas. 

Texas sentenced Cantu to death. There is credible evidence, now convincing more than one of the original jurors [second guessing is a thing in such cases, especially as new evidence arises], of reasonable doubt of his guilt. It is doubtful enough to commute the sentence. 

Cantu's case is more fact-bound so it is harder to raise a last-minute Supreme Court review. The Supreme Court never totally closed off a rule against executing the innocent. 

But, even before the Court became more conservative, the level of proof necessary to have a chance was darn hard. He tried to get the chance to make a claim, citing new evidence. A challenging uphill battle.  The court of appeals rejected his attempt.  

He was executed without a final SCOTUS appeal. His final statement included a continual declaration of innocence.  

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* Chris Geidner summarized:

He has three cases pending at the U.S. Supreme Court. The first petition and application for a stay of execution address the judge-only sentencing scheme; the second petition and stay application address the state’s secrecy; and the third petition and stay application question the constitutional effect of alleged false evidence being presented by a prosecutor at a clemency hearing.

I have addressed the problems with the lack of opaqueness regarding the rules ("protocols") used for executions. Relatedly, there have been concerns about the safety of the drugs used, especially with the lack of clarity of details. This includes rejecting requests by media for more information. 

The secrecy claim appears from a perusal of the brief to focus on the drugs used to execute him. The botched execution turned on not being able to inject them in the first place. 

But, it still underlines the importance of safeguards regarding methods of execution.  ETA: More here.