NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A little more than a week after revising its execution procedure manual, Tennessee was preparing Tuesday to carry out a lethal injection for only the third time in state history. Posted on 05/08/2007 10:53:19 AM PDT by SmithL
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A little more than a week after revising its execution procedure manual, Tennessee was preparing Tuesday to carry out a lethal injection for only the third time in state history.
Inmate Philip Workman, convicted of the 1981 shooting death of a Memphis police officer, is scheduled to die at 1 a.m. CDT Wednesday. Tennessee has executed two other prisoners in the past 47 years.
Workman's execution was halted last week over concerns about the revised execution method, but a panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted that temporary restraining order Monday.
In a 2-1 opinion, Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton wrote that Workman has never before challenged the state's three-drug lethal injection procedure.
Workman's lawyers claimed Tennessee's new death penalty guidelines unveiled last week could cause unconstitutional pain and suffering, but similar arguments have failed in the higher courts, Sutton wrote.
"The Supreme Court has never invalidated a state's chosen method of execution. No court has invalidated the three-drug protocol used by Tennessee (and 28 other jurisdictions)," Sutton wrote.
On Tuesday, Workman's attorney, Kelley Henry, filed a petition asking the full court to reconsider that decision and grant a stay of execution.
Henry argued that the panel did not have the authority to vacate the temporary restraining order. She also said Workman could not have challenged the lethal injection protocol before because it is brand new, the result of revisions made over the last three months.
"What Workman could or couldn't do at some point in the past with a now-revoked protocol is not relevant," she wrote.
Gov. Phil Bredesen imposed a 90-day moratorium on the death penalty ending May 2 to give the state time to fix the procedure manual. An Associated Press review found the manual was a jumble of conflicting instructions that mixed lethal injection instructions with those for the old electric chair.
Some legal experts say the new guidelines still need more scrutiny.
Richard Dieter, executive director at the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that researches the death penalty but does not take a position on it, says the revisions don't address concerns over lethal injection that other states are debating.
"There's real concerns over the drugs, dosages, the presence of doctors during lethal injection," Dieter said. "It seems what Tennessee did was fix their older protocols which hadn't been well-written or thought out ... but did not review the major questions like, are the anesthetics working? Are the drugs causing unnecessary pain? Should a doctor be there to monitor whether the person is under anesthetic?"
Besides Tennessee, executions have been halted in 10 other states so procedures could be reevaluated: Florida, California, Missouri, New Jersey, Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina and South Dakota and Ohio.
Tennessee executed Sedley Alley last June and Robert Glen Coe in 2000 _ both by lethal injection. The last previous execution was by electrocution in 1960.
Brad MacLean, a Nashville attorney representing another condemned Tennessee inmate, said the three-chemical injection sometimes fails to work and can cause the paralyzed inmates to suffocate and feel pain.
At least 30 states use the three-drug injection: thiopental, an anesthetic; pancuronium bromide, a nerve blocker and muscle paralyzer; and potassium chloride, a drug to stop the heart.
"The fact that they're continuing to use a protocol, a three-chemical cocktail that's been criticized throughout the county, just illustrates the state is not willing to take a serious look at the problems," he said.
Workman, 53, was robbing a Wendy's restaurant and got into a gun battle with police. He wounded one officer and shot at a second, but he contends another officer's bullet accidentally killed police Lt. Ronald Oliver.
Last week a three-member 6th Circuit panel also denied Workman a stay of execution based on separate claims that he was convicted on perjured testimony and that the state withheld evidence that would have established Workman's innocence.
Workman told The Tennessean newspaper that the state's new execution procedures would do little to ensure his death is not painful and inhumane.
"It didn't fix anything," Philip Workman said in an interview at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. "You can't move if you're in pain. You can't bat your eyelashes. You can't do anything."
Workman's execution has been delayed on five prior occasions _ twice by stays granted by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2000 and 2001, once by a stay granted by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 2001, once by executive reprieve in 2003 and once by the federal district court in 2004.
Terry Workman, Philip Workman's brother, said he believes the state is intent on putting his brother to death this time.
"It would be kind of like standing in front of someone with a loaded weapon and you're wondering if they're going to shoot you," he said.
"If the 6th Circuit doesn't help him this time, the state is going to execute him. They want to be done with him. It doesn't matter if we have all this evidence. The way the state looks at it is, it was a police officer who was killed and he (Workman) caused the situation to occur. They don't really care whose bullet it was."
Of course, Hildy and Walter Burns of The Morning Post expose the lousy low politics and corruption behind his execution and have his sentence commuted to life in prison. The politics is schmatzly, the characters kinda cute. Best line (by Walter Burns): "The last man that said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before I cut his throat"
Sounds like a good reason to execute him to me. Do you disagree?
I vote for drawn and quartered.
I Like it!
He should be grateful that he isn’t disabled. If he was they could starve him to death.
Not it the least. See #20. Funny movie, silly politics.
With all the whimpering about this being cruel and unusual, I don't know why they don't just give the guy enough hydal or heroin to kill a horse. I don't care if he goes out high, and it would put an end to all the whining.
Reminds me of the story of two former death camp inmates who had got a hold of one of the former SS Guards. They happened upon an young U.S. officer. They asked if they could borrow his sidearm. He accommodated them, lending his .45. They took the former SS man around the corner, a shot rang out. The two former inmates returned, sans guard. They returned the officer's sidearm, and politely thanked him.
Rough justice, but justice truly.
Twenty-six stinking years? So much for swift justice!
Say hello to Saddam.
And actually fairly merciful, unless they simply shot him once in the groin or stomach, given how people were treated in those camps.
When did “Cruel and unusual punishment come to simply mean “Pain”.
I have found nothing in the Bill of Rights that says pain should be avoided.
In fact, the twisted thought that thugs should be afforded a painless existence or death makes me ill.
We hung people for hundreds of years after the Bill of rights was ratified.
We shot them, we decapitated them and we electrocuted them.
Now simply giving them a Lunesta is deemed “unfair”.
I’d be fine if they just pushed him off the roof.
If we can get this done, maybe the state can clean out the rest of death row, starting with Reid
That struck me as well when I read this...his brother’s just as stupid as he is.
Growing up, my best friend’s father, who was there from D-Day+2 until VE Day (including with Patton at the Bulge and the liberation of Dachau) said that after Malmady, if they captured an SS-man they gave him three seconds to run before they opened up on him. If a German soldier surrendered with an empty clip, same treatment. (They got sick of Krauts taking potshots at them until they ran out of ammo.)
...and Tookie.
Or just don’t give him any food or water till he eventually dies. The lefties seem to think that’s just hunky dory.
Thanks for explaining it.
I watched it on TV just the other day.
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