Stop Torturous Executions in the U.S.A.

Brandon Rhode, a brain damaged young Georgian, and two other condemned Americans were reportedly tortured to death in recent months. Executioners used faulty sodium thiopental, an anesthetic that is one of three injections used for lethal injections, according to reports. The U.S. supplier for sodium thiopental, Hospira, stopped manufacturing the anesthetic in summer 2010, forcing U.S. executioners to look for the drug elsewhere. They found Dream Pharma, a one-man wholesaler operating in the back of a British driving academy. Dream Pharma supplied the anesthetic used in executing Rhode on September 27, Jeffrey Landrigan on October 26 in Arizona, and Emmanuel Hammond in Georgia last month. Reprieve, a British anti-capital punishment organization, began legal proceedings against British pharmaceutical regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority, for refusing to recall all Dream Pharma’s sodium thiopental in the face of clear risk that the drug is faulty. If successful, the case may halt executions in Arizona and many other states indefinitely.

Disturbing descriptions of the three men’s executions are at the Reprieve.org link at the end of this article. Capital punishment has lost support in recent years, especially since over 400 people were allowed to submit compelling evidence of their innocence in court or were exonerated through post-conviction DNA tests. Many Americans who still support the death penalty join abolitionists in protesting the excruciatingly painful deaths inflicted on Rhode, Landrigan, and Hammond. According to Dr. Mark Heath, a consultant anesthetist at Columbia Hospital in New York, “asphyxiation caused by pancuronium and the caustic burning sensation caused by potassium would be agonizing in the absence of adequate anesthesia.”

After Rhode’s and Landrigan’s horrible deaths, the Southern Center for Human Rights (SCHR) filed an Emergency Injunction on behalf of Emanuel Hammond. The condemned man’s attorneys requested information about the drugs Georgia planned to use under the Freedom of Information Act. “The State has hid from public view critical records about whether the lethal injection process is medically and constitutionally acceptable,” said Gerald Weber, Senior Attorney at SCHR who represented Hammond. “If the State does not have the necessary chemicals, or is using expired ones, it cannot hide those facts from Georgians.” Troy Davis, a likely innocent man who was repeatedly denied an opportunity to present his new evidence before a jury, also awaits execution in Georgia.

For more information about Reprieve, please contact Katherine O’Shea at Reprieve’s Press Office katherine.oshea@reprieve.org.uk  - 020 7427 1099/ 07931592674.

Pray and advocate for America to stop executing people, especially the brain damaged. I attended a vigil for Rhodes on the steps of Georgia’s capital as he was being executed. A handout by Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty stated:

Brandon was barely 18 at the time of the crime. He was born with fetal alcohol syndrome to a mother who was addicted to alcohol and various drugs, including LSD, marijuana, and Quaaludes. His childhood was unstable and filled with violence and many forms of abuse. His history of trauma and lack of consistent of positive adult role models accounts for significant developmental delays in his transition from adolescence to adulthood. Mental health evaluations of Brandon since the crime, by both state and defense clinicians, show he had long-standing organic brain impairments which affect normal functioning in areas of judgment, impulse control, planning, and appreciation of consequences.

Brandon had behavior and attention problems since he was a very young child, including alcohol and drug abuse since age 11, along with more subtle impairments detected by later testing . . .

To see photos of Brandon Rhode, including pictures of the young man on the lethal injection table with his eyes wide open feeling excruciating pain while dying, type his name in the search field at Google Images http://images.google.com/ - Cyberstalkers prevented my uploading Rhode's photograph at this blog, but I will continue to try.  Always visit my blogs days after I originally publish, because I am sometimes able to finish them from computers that the censorship staff does not control.  See FREEDOM FOR EGYPT, IRAN, AND MARY NEAL! http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/freedom-for-egypt-iran-and-mary-neal.html

BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE on March 9 – NO SHOPPING! Abolitionists and people protesting other injustices in the U.S. are invited to participate in a 24-hour shopping moratorium on March 9, 2011. Capital punishment is largely a business decision. Many prisons and jails in America are privately owned. Prisons charge taxpayers an additional $90,000 per year for each death row inmate over and above the cost of containing the same prisoner with the general prison population (per Death Penalty Information Center). Consumers have the power to abolish the death penalty and prison brutality, end the erosion of American’s civil rights, and stop Big Business from shipping jobs overseas and behind bars where one million inmates work for Fortune 500 companies that avoid unions and minimum wage laws.  Protest corporate greed and government indifference without leaving home. Join the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE:  No Shopping on the 9th of every month throughout 2011. Fight unethical business practices financially. Information about the shopping moratorium is at this link:  http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/boycott-4-justice-march-9-no-shopping.html

Descriptions of the three men's agonizing deaths are at the Reprieve.org link below:
http://www.reprieve.org.uk/2011_02_20_dream_pharma_landrigan

Support Reprieve to stop shipments of ineffective sodium thiopental from the UK.
Run for Reprieve - May 15, 2011 – Reprieve is taking part in the ‘Do It for Charity Run,’ and offers you the opportunity to be a superhero and run for Reprieve, having fun and raising vital funds in the process.

Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty - http://www.gfadp.org/

Death Penalty Information Center - http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/

Southern Center for Human Rights – http://www.schr.org/
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I experience continuous stalking online and in person to prevent advocacy for HUMAN RIGHTS FOR PRISONERS and others who are victimized in America.  As I prepared this post for publishing on February 23 on the desktop of my home PC, cyberstalkers prevented my online access (they can see my desktop and occasionally steal documents or data within the documents that are stored there).  I was restoring my PC to the date when the machine was wiped clean and Windows reinstalled when my entire neighborhood had a power failure.  The lights were back on within two hours, and I resumed the process to restore my PC to a date that preceded its takeover by criminal cyberdogs.  Whereas the restoration was proceeding as it should before the power failure, the restoration was interrupted by error messages after power was restored.  I have not been allowed back online using my home PC since that night.  Intense censorship to contain news about the shopping boycott is done because the BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE will show Big Business and government officials that Americans want a justice system that is really just.  Together, we CAN end capital punishment and other injustices if enough people know about and participate in the nonviolent protest.  Please help by notifying your contacts. 

March 9, 2011 Update:  CONGRATULATIONS to the State of Illinois for ending capital punishment!  May God bless Gov. Quinn and legislators for being just-minded, and compassionate, and financially prudent.  See this article: "Illinois Pleased God:  DP Abolition" http://hubpages.com/hub/Illinois-Pleased-God-DP-Abolition

March 28, 2011 Update:  Troy Davis' appeal to the United States Supreme Court was denied.  See the news at this link:  http://marylovesjustice.blogspot.com/2011/03/troy-davis-appeal-rejected-by-us.html

BOYCOTT 4 JUSTICE with Mary Neal on the 9th of every month - No Shopping!
Human Rights for Prisoners Boycott - http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/human-rights-for-prisoners-boycott.html

April 5, 2011 Update:  Good news! Texas Moratorium Network (an anti-capital punishment organization) reported that Cleve Foster was granted a reprieve by the High Court, which stayed Foster's execution that was scheduled for April 5, 2011 - See information at this link -http://campaigns.ratepoint.com/campaigns/324ff2989a09159a622edff23d95636f?r=12f0d14cfff60c1361283bd638efaf90 

The U.S. Supreme Court is charged with interpreting and upholding our rights under the Constitution of the United States of America. The justices did well to stay Foster's execution, a possibly innocent man who faced a torturous death by lethal injection using possibly faulty anesthesia. Happy Heroes Day to Supreme Court justices on this righteous decision.


Mary Neal
Website: http://WrongfulDeathOfLarryNeal.com

ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL
http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI

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Mary Neal's Google Profile - http://www.google.com/profiles/MaryLovesJustice  - Get the RSS feed for my Care2 Sharebook at: http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/rss.html/513396753/0/  - Get the RSS feed for my Twitter KOFFIETIME at http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/59790083.rss  - Current, urgent justice issues from a laywoman's viewpoint at my primary blog http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/  (the name is a joke, believe me) Recommended articles - http://NowPulic.com/duo  and http://topsy.com/site/freespeakblog.blogspot.com  - See also, Mary Neal at HubPages - Write: MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com - phone 678.531.0262 (emails and calls frequently prevented by COINTELPRO)