The online auction for the domain "Right to Life.com" ends tomorrow. I would love to see an anti-death penalty group buy it. "Choose Life, End the Death Penalty."

The price right now is at $15,000. For an organization with 1,000 members, that would be a donation of $15.00 per member. Even at $25,000, an anti-death penalty group would recoup its investment through contributions of $25.00 per member.

Another possibility is for a human rights organization to buy it. If you know of any, spread the word.

The ABA yesterday at its annual meeting passed an important resolution on the death penalty. While not taking a position on whether there should be a death penalty, it's very strong on how the death penalty should not be applied. Here it is in its entirety.

RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association, without taking a position supporting or opposing the death penalty, urges each jurisdiction that imposes capital punishment to implement the following policies and procedures:

1. Defendants should not be executed or sentenced to death if, at the time of the offense, they had significant limitations in both their intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills, resulting from mental retardation, dementia, or a traumatic brain injury.

Brandon Wayne Hedrick, age 27, was executed in Virginia this week. Afraid that the combo of lethal injection drugs could cause unbearable pain while paralyzing his body and rendering him incapable of communicating it, he chose the electric chair -- old sparky, as it came to be known. Via Sentencing Law and Policy, here's how one news article described his death.

He was ushered into the electric chair and a half-dozen execution team members secured him stiffly upright with leather and nylon straps on his limbs and torso before asking if he had any last words. A metal device holding a sea sponge soaked in brine was then attached to his right calf, and a wide strap with a hole for his nose but covering his eyes and mouth secured his head to the chair. A metal cap holding another brine-soaked sponge was strapped on the top of his head. Power cables were then connected to the head and leg.

A few weeks ago I wrote about federal Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. in Missouri who ordered the cessation of executions in that state due to the "unconstitutional pain and suffering" the inmate may experience from the drug cocktail used, and because the lone doctor mixing the drugs was dyslexic. He gave the Department of Corrections 15 days to find another protocol.

The 15 days is up today. Last night, the Department of Corrections told Judge Gaitan it had failed to find a board-certified anesthesiologist.

In the state's filing last night, officials said they had sent letters to 298 certified anesthesiologists who reside anywhere near the state's death chamber in Bonne Terre, and were turned down by all of them.

"A requirement of using a board-certified anesthesiologist is a requirement that cannot presently be met," Attorney General Jeremiah W. Nixon wrote. "To enforce it may effectively bar implementation of the death penalty in Missouri. Surely that is not what the court intended."

Via Stand Down:

Tonight on PBS is a special, Do No Harm.

A new controversy about the death penalty focuses not on the convicts, but on doctors and nurses who help end their lives. NOW asks the question: Should medical professionals play a part in state executions?

You can watch a live stream of the show after it airs if you are not by a tv.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. has issued an order preventing Missouri from executing prisoners due to the "unconstitutional pain and suffering" the inmate may experience from the drug cocktail used.

Until satisfactory changes are made, the Judge says no more executions can take place. The Department of Corrections has 15 days to come up with a new protocol.

And this takes the cake: The lone doctor mixing the drugs has dyslexia:

Why am I not surprised? Justice Alito was the swing vote today in a decision that upheld Kansas's death penalty law that the Kansas Supreme Court had ruled unconsitutional.

Justices split 5-4 in the term's oldest case, which was argued in December before Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement. A new argument session was held in April so that Alito could break a deadlock.....The state law says juries should impose death sentences if aggravating evidence of a crime's brutality and mitigating factors explaining a defendant's actions are equal in weight.

Justice David H. Souter, writing for the liberals, said the law was "morally absurd."...Souter said that "in the face of evidence of the hazards of capital prosecution," maintaining a system like the one in Kansas "is obtuse by any moral or social measure."

Via How Appealing: You can access the oral argument transcripts here and here. Additional information about the case is available at this link.

Tennessee is gearing itself up to be the country's latest killing machine. It has scheduled five executions for the same day, June 28, and says it is prepared to carry them all out should last minute appeals not delay them.

Prison officials say they just need two to three hours between them so they can get the families of one inmate out and the next one in.

The record goes to Virginia:

The record for single-day executions is believed to be the eight men convicted of rape who were electrocuted on Feb. 2, 1951, in Martinsville City, Va.

Here's why Sedley Hadley and Dennis Reid should not be executed. I haven't found pages for the other three yet.

The Supreme Court today paved the way for more death row inmates to challenge execution by lethal injection.

In an unanimous decision, the court allowed those condemned to die to make last-minute claims that the chemicals used are too painful _ and therefore amount to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution's Eighth Amendment.

Via ScotusBlog:

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Monday that death row inmates seeking to challenge the lethal injection method of execution may pursue the issue as a civil rights claim, a broader option than federal habeas. The ruling came in Hill v. McDonough (05-8794). While not ruling itself on the constitutionality of that execution procedure, the Court said that inmates who contend that the three-drug protocol most commonly used causes unnecessary pain and suffering may go forward with an Eighth Amendment claim under the 1867 civil rights statute, so-called Section 1983.

Oklahoma joins South Carolina today in approving the death penalty for second time child molesters.

Oklahoma on Friday became the fifth state to allow the death penalty for certain sex crimes, although legal scholars questioned the constitutionality of the new state law. Under the measure signed by Gov. Brad Henry, anyone convicted twice for rape, sodomy or lewd molestation involving children under 14 can face the death penalty.

South Carolina's governor signed a similar law on Thursday allowing the death penalty for offenders convicted twice of raping children younger than 11. Louisiana, Florida and Montana also have laws allowing the death penalty for certain sex crimes.

by TChris

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon will play two lawyers in a movie that dramatizes the wrongful conviction and eventual exoneration of John Thompson. The case may convince viewers, as it did this Philadelphia columnist, that the risk of wrongful conviction is too great to justify death as a penalty.

If you're on the fence about capital punishment, as I have been - vacillating between horror at the growing number of death-row inmates who turn out to be innocent, and rage at the brutal killers responsible for the daily carnage in our streets - this case may settle the issue for you. It did for me.

The case against Thompson seemed clear. He was found with the victim's ring and the murder weapon, making it easy for the police, prosecutors, and the jury to jump to the conclusion that Thompson was the killer.

by TChris

Andrew Cohen sums up the Fifth Circuit:

This appellate court and many of the judges on it are simply hostile to the rights of criminal defendants and have been for many years.

Case in point: a 2-1 death penalty affirmance that upheld a judge's refusal to allow the jury to hear how the defendant's death would affect his family and friends.