Last Tuesday the Supreme Court agreed to hear Baze v. Reese a case that challenges the constitutionality of lethal injection. Since that news was announced, the court has, one by one, put a temporary freeze on every subsequent execution by lethal injection, including two death cases in Texas.
Every execution but one, that is. On the day the news about the Baze case came out, a man named Michael Richard was scheduled to die in Texas and many wondered if the Supremes would step in to delay the execution. But, they didn’t, and by the end of the day, Richards was dead.
When later in the week, the Supremes froze two subsequent Texas executions, the inconsistency caused SCOTUS watchers across the country to begin muttering to themselves. Why, they wanted to know, did the court stop two Texas executions but let the earlier one, that of Michael Richard, go forward?
Over the last couple of days the answer to that question has gradually come to light and, trust me, it’s a doozie.
At 10am on September 25, the US Supreme Court announced it would review in early 2008 an appeal by two Kentucky death row inmates challenging the legality of the lethal injection.
The same day, Michael Richard, 48, was due to receive the deadly cocktail at 6pm in southern Texas for the rape and murder of a woman in 1986.
His attorneys said they rushed to draft an appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest court for criminal cases.At 4.50pm, the lawyers called the court to ask it to remain open 20 more minutes after they were stalled by a computer malfunction.
“We close at five,” was the response from the court clerk, a quote widely reported by local media.In a last-ditch effort, Richard’s attorneys took their case to the Supreme Court, which remains open for executions.
The legal move delayed the execution by a few hours, but since the convict did not file his appeal with a local court first, his arguments were not accepted in Washington.The execution went ahead that evening and Richard was declared dead at 8.23pm.
In other words, the Supreme Court did not stop Richards’ execution because it couldn’t—all due to the fact that the Richards case was not properly filed in the lower court.
In the last few days, additional details about the incident have become public. According to the Houston Chronicle, the person who refused to stretch her closing time was not a clerk but a judge by the name of Sharon Keller.
The Austin American-Statesman reported Tuesday that Keller made the decision to close without consulting any of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals’ eight other judges or later informing them about the decision — including Johnson, who was assigned to handle any late motions in Richard’s case.“And I was angry,” she said. “If I’m in charge of the execution, I ought to have known about those things, and I ought to have been asked whether I was willing to stay late and accept those filings.”
Johnson said her first reaction was “utter dismay.”Johnson said she would have accepted the brief for consideration by the court. “Sure,” she said. “I mean, this is a death case.”
That is, of course, exactly the point. The relentlessly punctual Judge Keller was not preventing someone from picking up their dry cleaning after hours. She held a human life in her hands when she decided it was time to close up shop.
Think about it. Twenty minutes.
Wherever you stand on the death penalty, Dallas Morning News has it right.
You might not lose sleep over the fact that the court wouldn’t stay open for 20 minutes to help a convicted rapist-murderer’s attempt to evade the needle a bit longer. You should think again.
When the state takes the life of a condemned criminal, it must do so with a sense of sobriety commensurate with its grave responsibility. Hastening the death of a man, even a bad one, because office personnel couldn’t be bothered to bend bureaucratic procedure was a breathtakingly petty act and evinced a relish for death that makes the blood of decent people run cold.
(Chapeau tip to commenter Woody for drawing this news to my attention.)
While I’m besides myself over the judge rushing off to get her hair done or whatever, rather than staying late a few minutes to accept an appeal, there is minor consolation in knowing that the appeal was based upon the means of execution rather than determination of guilt and that the convict would have been executed anyway, although just later on and maybe with a different method.
Believe me though, as someone who has to deal with government almost every day, attitudes like that are not unusual.
Gee, one more example of poor service from the government workers.
Remember this case when someone you love is not able to get the medical attention they need because the proper government form was not filled out on-time under Hillerycare.
Michael Richard has been in on death row for 20 years too long already. The method as his victim died would have been fine with me, but if the liberals insist lets make is like taking a nap.
Celeste needs to find more “sympathy inspiring” victims to defend a murderer/rapist is not going to inspire any comments but like those of Pokey and Woody and. Most of us aren’t even going to notice the significance of the “twenty minute†story.
Pokey’s comment brings visions of prisons guards placing the death-row victim on a comfy mattress and giving him a soft blanket and reading him a bed-time story before he goes night-night. For many death-row inmates a firing squad would be way more compassion than they deserve.
Hey, guys. I’m not pretending this Michael Richard person is sympathetic. I didn’t read the details of his case, and I am going to presume he’s guilty. What is more, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m opposed to the death penalty. But if we are going to execute people, we need to do so with the utmost seriousness and sobriety. This means, an otherwise stayed execution cannot not hinge on someone’s 20-minute convenience.
The execution Lawrence Russell Brewer is coming up soon. He’s one of the three guys who chained a man named James Byrd up behind a pick-up truck on a country road in Jasper, Texas, and dragged him to death. These guys are among the few in the last 20 years who test my resolve about the death penalty. Yet even Brewer should not be executed behind somebody’s unwillingness to, as Woody puts it, be late to the hairdresser.
Well, to look on the bright side of things, Richard got to meet Jesus faster.
Woody actually makes a decent point here. There’s a big difference between refusing to bend beaurocratic rules in a question of innocence and one where there’s a question of cruelty in the type of execution. Obviously the judge has very little respect for the power of her office and should be sanctioned at the very least, but there are some mitigating factors here.
The mitigating factors are that the guy was doomed, anyway. Some may try to claim “No harm, no foul.” (The Democrats used to say this about crimes of Clinton. Try telling that to a cop who got you for speeding.) However, I don’t care if there was or wasn’t harm. What I care about is maintaining the system of justice from all sides.
“What I care about is maintaining the system of justice from all sides.”
Perfectly said, Woody.
Hmmmmmm. What does it mean that Woody and I—normally on opposites sides of any given issue— are the only ones ardently espousing this POV????? (With possibly Mavis leaning slightly our direction.)