Bart Johnson

Ask Your Doctor If Midazolam is Right for You.

You’ve probably seen the commercials on TV for various medications. One thing they all have in common is that they all tell you to talk to your doctor to see if this drug is right for you. The reason they refer you to your doctor is that the only way to get these drugs is with a prescription from your doctor.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and individual states all regulate prescriptions drugs. There are rules in place to protect individuals from potential adverse effects, sometimes even death, if these medications aren’t used correctly. There are also laws to prevent illicit use of narcotics and other controlled substances. The key to all this regulation is the doctor – patient relationship. Before anyone can obtain a prescription they must be examined and diagnosed by their doctor. There must be a valid medical purpose. Capital punishment, lethal injection, and execution are about as far from valid medical purposes as you can get. So why is the state allowed to obtain these drugs?

Bart Johnson
F-18 Z-778

3 Mistakes Oklahoma’s Solicitor General Patrick Wyrick Made in his Argument to the Supreme Court

He dismissed the relevance of paradoxical reactions, saying they were rare and would be caught by trained staff.
àThey are only rare at normal doses, but as the dose increases the reactions are more frequent.
à The “medical staff” at the Lockett execution failed on so many levels that they couldn’t be counted on to ensure against a paradoxical reaction.
He says that the barbiturates also weren’t analgesics.
à The way that barbiturates block nerve impulses prevents transmission of all nerve activity, including pain sensation.
àBenzodiazepines work differently and only slow nerve impulses by release of an inhibitory chemical called GABA.
He tried to maneuver around the ceiling effect, at one point denying it, at other times saying it was irrelevant.
à The effect of midazolam requires the GABA to work, and since there is a finite amount of GABA, any increase in dose of midazolam would have no effect.
àThat coupled with midazolam’s short duration would lead to extreme pain with the injection of potassium that is masked by the neuromuscular blocking agent.

see: https://theintercept.com/2015/04/30/lockettoneyearlater/

One Step Closer …

Earlier this month North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory granted pardons to Leon Brown and Henry McCollum. This brings the two exonerees one step closer to being financially compensated for the thirty years of wrongful imprisonment that they were subjected to. But this is just one step in a process that began when Leon Brown was just 15 and Henry McCollum 19.

The two teenagers were arrested and accused of a murder that they did not commit. Regardless of their innocence, the judicial system sent them to face the electric chair. That there are flaws in the system there is no doubt, but 10 yrs into the appeals process one flaw jumps up and highlights them all.

That flaw is U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He held up this case as an example of why this county needs the death penalty. So now, we hold up this case as an example of why no country should ever have the death penalty.

Two young men have spent 30 years in prison under the threat of death for a crime no court should have ever convicted them of. The victim’s family spent that time going through their won nightmare, only to find out that someone else was guilty all along.

No one wins in these situations. We can look back with clarity now and see that. So why can’t the Supreme Court bring us one step closer to justice?

Bart Johnson

Leonard Pitts: Death penalty can never be undone

By Leonard Pitts

CommentaryJune 12, 2015

To the Honorable Antonin G. Scalia, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States:

Dear Sir:

Twenty-one years ago, your then-colleague, the late Justice Harry Blackmun, wrote what became a famous dissent to a Supreme Court decision not to review a Texas death penalty conviction. In it, Blackmun declared that he had become convinced “the death penalty experiment has failed” and said he considered capital punishment irretrievably unconstitutional.

The death penalty, he wrote, “remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination … and mistake. … From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.”

You mocked him for this stance in an opinion concurring with the majority, invoking as justification for capital punishment the horrific 1983 case of an 11-year-old girl who was raped then killed by having her panties stuffed down her throat. “How enviable a quiet death by lethal injection,” you wrote, “compared with that!”

A few months later, the very case you had referenced came before the court. Henry Lee McCollum, a mentally disabled man who was on death row in North Carolina after having been convicted of that rape and murder, applied to the court for a review of his case. You were part of the majority that rejected the request without comment.

The demagoguery of your response to Justice Blackmun is pretty standard for proponents of state-sanctioned death. Rather than contend with the many logical and irrefutable arguments against capital punishment, they use a brute-force appeal to emotion. Certain crimes, they say, are so awful, heinous and vile that they cry out for the ultimate sanction. For you, Sabrina Buie’s rape and murder was one of those, a symbol of why we need the death penalty.

As you have doubtless heard, it now turns out McCollum was innocent of that crime. Last year, he and his also mentally disabled half-brother Leon Brown (who had been serving a life sentence) were exonerated by DNA evidence and set free. A few days ago, McCollum was pardoned by North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory.

The case against him was never what you’d call ironclad. No physical evidence tied him to the crime. The centerpiece of the prosecution’s case was a confession McCollum, then a 19-year-old said to have the mentality of a child 10 years younger, gave with no lawyer present after five hours of questioning. “I had never been under this much pressure,” he told the News & Observer newspaper in a videotaped death row interview, “with a person hollering at me and threatening me … I just made up a false story so they could let me go home.”

But he didn’t go home for over 30 years. You and your colleagues had a chance to intervene in that injustice and chose not to. Not incidentally, the real culprit avoided accountability all that time.

The argument against the death penalty will never have the visceral, immediate emotionalism of the argument in favor. It does not satisfy that instinctive human need to make somebody pay — now! — when something bad has been done. Rather, it turns on quieter concerns, issues of inherent racial, class, geographic and gender bias, issues of corner-cutting cops and ineffective counsel, and issues of irrevocability, the fact that, once imposed, death cannot be undone.

Those issues were easy for you to ignore in mocking Blackmun. They are always easy to ignore, right up until the moment they are not. This is one of those moments, sir, and it raises a simple and obvious question to which one would hope you feel honor bound to respond. In 1994, you used this case as a symbol of why we need the death penalty.

What do you think it symbolizes now?

Leonard Pitts Jr., is a columnist for the Miami Herald.

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/06/12/3849528/leonard-pitts-death-penalty-can.html#storylink=cpy

A Case For Abolishing the Death Penalty From:

A TEXAS JUDGE

“After the enactment of the life without parole option, juries are now assured that the public at large is forever protected from a capital murder defendant, who will never re-enter our society.”
“Society is now less convinced of the absolute accuracy of the criminal justice system.” “Because the criminal justice system is run by humans, it is naturally subject to human error.”
Texas ranked number three nationally in wrongful convictions over the last 24 years.
“A victim’s family is more likely to quickly experience finality through the criminal justice system when an offender is sentenced to life without parole than when he is sentenced to death.”
“The execution of individuals does not appear to measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes served by the death penalty.”
[Speeding up executions] “would only increase the risk of executing a wrongfully convicted person.”
“Carving out another group that is ineligible for the death penalty is a band-aid solution for the real problem. Evolving societal values indicate that the death penalty should be abolished in its entirety.”
“I am among a very few number of people who have had a front row seat to this process for the past four decades.” And, “based on my specialized knowledge of this process, I know conclude that the death penalty as a form of punishment should be abolished.”

Source: Ex parte Panetti, No. WR-37, 145-04 (Tex.Ct.ofCrim.App. Nov. 26, 2014) (Price J., dissenting)

Lethal injections can get ugly. Alabama wants to continue anyway, but under a veil of secrecy. In fact, secrecy may even be required before the state can obtain the “cocktail” it requires. Put simply, secrecy laws prevent public disclosure. Hiding the drug procurement process, the people involved, and the injection protocol itself. Perhaps the most troubling part is, that it would hide any deviations from procedure that could result in cruel and unusual punishment.

In the United States District Court ruling to stay the Ohio execution of Kenneth Smith, after another botched execution, judge Gregory L. Frost said “Ohio pays lip service to standards it then often ignores …“ If Alabama enacts a secrecy law then, not only would there be no lip service for standards, but there would also be no court rulings like this one to stay future executions. Which is the real motivation in the first place. How could the Supreme Court decide one way or the other if Alabama’s death penalty is constitutional if, Alabama doesn’t disclose how it carries out executions?

Alabama wants to give anonymity to everyone involved, which is never a good idea and encourages bad behavior. From unethical behavior of any medical professional taking part, to illegal behavior for anyone who takes matters to the point of cruel and unusual punishment, or even torture.

To gain support for this piece of legislation, lawmakers have resorted to scare tactics. Saying that, without it we may be forced to revert back to the electric chair. Not only does this muddy the water, it is just not true. Gov. Bentley, who was a physician, seems to think that as long as the death penalty can be carried out as some sort of twisted medical procedure, that it is acceptable. Bringing back “Yellow Mama” is not an acceptable alternative. Not for the governor and not for the courts.

As investigators in Arizona, Ohio, and Oklahoma try to get the facts surrounding their botched executions, new information is becoming available. While each case is unique, all of them deviated from protocol, and even those protocols were unsound at best. Now imagine trying to get to the bottom of a botched execution under a veil of secrecy. That would be the situation in Alabama if a secrecy law is passed.

Bart Johnson
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Safe And Effective

There is a clear moral dilemma concerning the use of drugs meant to help people, to kill people. There is also a practical problem that arises when this is done. It is this issue that has led to the numerous recent botched executions in the U.S. I’ll mention midazolam and hydromorphone, but the overall problem includes all drugs that go through the process to be used in human patients. All medications are designed to help. To treat an illness or alleviate symptoms, not to end life. Safe and effective are the two most important properties when developing new treatments, and obviously contradictory to what is being done with lethal injections.
Midazolam was first used in a lethal injection in Florida in 2013. Prior to that, the main use for midazolam was in anesthesiology. Anesthesiologists, who are more familiar with the drug than anyone, have spoken out against its use in executions. They don’t believe that good drugs should be used to do harm, but they also know that there are serious issues with this drug specifically. David Waisel from Harvard says “They’re working with doses that are clinically absurd, we have no idea what they do.” We don’t know what doses like this will do because never during the clinical trials do we seek out a dose to kill a patient. That would be wrong. So, now they are doing the testing using prisoners, and that is wrong.
Hydromorphone is another drug being used in 2- and 3-drug lethal cocktails. It is the closest compound to heroin, chemically. Its effects are also similar, including death by overdose.
Overdose victims often convulse, sough up blood, or foam at the mouth while suffocating. If not treated, they often die. While heroin is a natural derivative of opium plants, hydromorphone was developed in a lab as a pain medication. It has been through the FDA approval process, and the dosage range to treat severe pain is clear. Doctors using it know how to adjust the dose based on individual patient conditions to find the right balance between pain relief and adverse effects. But even doctors, and especially DOC’s, don’t know how to find the right (or wrong) dose to adequately kill a person. The purpose of the drug is not to kill, the purpose of the rigorous testing that the drug goes through is not to perfect its use in lethal injections. So, it is no surprise, when its use results in disaster.
Drugs are tested on animals first to examine their toxicity. To observe the ill effects, and to narrow down a dosage range. To be able to safely move on to human trials without too many side effects, and certainly no lethal toxicities. This process makes sense, as it allows us to find new treatments and beneficial compounds. What it does not, and should not do, is help us find harmful drugs that are ideal for human executions.

Bart Johnson
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I love it when a point proves itself. There is entirely too much subjectivity in the U.S. criminal court system to allow a punishment as extreme as death.
When one court can halt an execution for legitimate reasons, only to have another court restart the process without ever considering the reason it was halted to begin with, serves to highlight the capricious nature of the courts.
Personal or political views of individual judges, or panels of judges often overshadow the facts in a particular case (or maybe distorts is the term to use). Either way, the constitution has clearly been thrown out the window. There is no justice in a justice system where a capital sentence is used as political capital in the next election. It hast been said that, the state courts are like experimental labs, trying to fine tune a process that would eventually be fair. Clearly we are not there, and news will be as long as executions are on the table.

“When vengeance wins, we all lose.”

Bart Johnson
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Let’s talk about the electric chair. I don’t want to talk about the electric chair. It’s a torturous killing machine, who would want to talk about that? Apparently enough people to reinstate its use as a backup execution method in Tennessee.

The governor (Haslam) signed the bill in part, because he assumed the legislature had really thought it through and they knew what they were doing. You know what happens when you assume things.

So, I’m not going to assume that if our reading this, you know what an electrocution looks like. I’m going to tell you to look at the pictures of what the electric chair does to a person. ( Link to botched execution) Now that you’ve seen that, I ask you to consider what would constitute cruel and unusual if not that? I’m not saying that it would be a slippery slope that could lead to worse things, I’m saying that this kind of treatment of a human being is what one would find at the bottom of the slippery slope. The only way to avoid behavior like this is to stop state sanctioned killing. Abolish the death penalty, before it’s too late! No, it is already too late, so abolish it NOW!!

Bart Johnson
Z778
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Obama Urges E.U. to Sanction Russia

~ or ~

E.U. Urges Obama to End Capital Punishment

These could be real headlines, one of them already is. I bet you can guess which one. The U.S. always has a laundry list of requests for European countries, individually, or as a group. A little “quid pro quo” never hurt anyone. So, if you’re scratching backs anyway, why not request a bit of reciprocity? And wouldn’t it feel good to have this particular itch relieved? I’d especially like the idea that Germany get credit for bringing the U.S. a giant leap further down the humanitarian path. Imagine the political capitol generated for the party that is capable of pulling off such a feat. Obviously it would take courage and skill, but think about the payoff …

Bart Johnson
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The conversation about capital punishment is currently focused on yet another botched execution. This time it’s Oklahoma, in a rush to execute an apparently problematic inmate, tripping over its own feet. Unable to obtain the usual lethal cocktail, they decided to make do with an already questioned method. Even as problems arose in the process, they pressed on, determined to execute Mr. Lockett at all cost. Oblivious to the problems, and dead set on the outcome.

Unfortunately, most defendants in capital cases face this same blind determination for vengeance from the start, never getting a fair trial or consideration during appeals, and especially not from the department of corrections.

The execution in Oklahoma was tragic, not because it was botched, but because it was allowed to happen in a civilized society. Some death penalty proponents have suggested changing the execution method, but it can’t matter how something’s done when it shouldn’t be happening. I know that there are voices out there that agree on this, but they are drowned out by the shouts of “let’s get’em”. And, let’s face it, what plays better for the media, a well-reasoned argument, or an upset redneck? Don’t be discouraged by this, let it fuel your fire to become an upset abolitionist.

Bart Johnson
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There are no guarantees that, innocent people won’t be executed. In fact, we know that has happened, and we can’t bring them back to life. Hundreds of people in the U.S. have been proven innocent port-conviction. Nationwide for every 100 executions there were 10 exonerations. What does this say about our justice system? It is fundamentally flawed. That’s why, in the last 7 years 6 states have abolished their death penalty, and many other states refuse to utilize theirs. Of course, Alabama wants to continue to execute people, and as usual we are on the wrong side of history. Swimming against the tide of public opinion, knowing that eventually we will have to get with the program, but fighting it every step of the way.

Alabama is not alone in its push for executions, nor is it alone in letting politics erode its justice system. The term “tough on crime” always gets votes during a campaign, whether that’s true or not only matters when a case makes the news. Capital cases usually make the news, and sometimes prosecutors will charge defendants with capital crimes just to attract media attention. Continually issuing press releases stating how tough they are on crime, and how they are seeking justice, when in fact they are seeking re-election or appointment for a higher office. So, the D.A. decides to make it a capital case, now the trial is presided over by a judge who also needs to cash in and gain political capital to make sure he gets re-elected. The particularly disturbing part about the role of a judge in a capital case in Alabama (and only 2 other states) happens during sentencing.

If, a jury decides that the death penalty is not the appropriate punishment, the judge can override that verdict and sentence a defendant to death anyway. This has happened 26 times since 2000. All to appear “tough on crime” and get re-elected.

This is 2014, and this is still happening.

Bart Johnson
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In the last 7 years 6 states have gone through the legal process of abolishing capital punishment. At least that many stats have stopped executing people without new legislation. They just decided that it was the right thing to do and moved from this barbaric form of punishment. They realized that there is no humane way to kill a person.

Unfortunately, there are still states destined to be the last bastions of the death penalty. Places where revenge trumps humanitarianism. Where people actually get excited about executions, but would never admit it. Places where the method is irrelevant as long as the outcome is death. These places will one day be recognized as being on the wrong side of history, until then we need to continue to send them a message.

Just like the guillotine and the hangman’s nouse, the lethal injection will someday seem obviously cruel and just as grotesque. You can try to dress it up all you want, make the room look like a hospital, like making it more clinical will make it less murderous. But people will see through the thin veneer to the truth.

Many can already see the reality of the death penalty. In 2013 numbers don’t lie. Death sentences went from a high of 315 to only 80 last year, and executions were down as well. Compared to the high of 98 in 1999, the 39 of 2013 seems low (though still way above zero).

As I write this, the State of Texas (one of the worst, no, THE worst when it comes to executions) is out of lethal drugs. Thanks to pressure from manufacturers, Texas has run out, but for how long? Texas corrections officials have been scrambling to find a source. It is my hope that the spotlight will be shining on them bright enough to prevent any shady deals with other states, or suppliers. One day all the states will see the writing on the wall, until then we have to keep the pressure on them to keep their murderous appetites in check.

Bart Johnson F-18 Z778

Sometimes, It’s Simple

Sometimes it’s simple. Alabama cannot carry out lethal injections right now, because the courts must decide whether or not the current method equates to cruel and unusual punishment, which is a violation of the 8^th amendment. So now, Alabama is considering legislation to ensure that all of the facts used to challenge the lethal injection would not be admissible as evidence in a future challenge.

It is no longer relevant how the courts rule in the current case, because Alabama has no access to the key drug being challenged. What is relevant is the challenge itself. No matter what drug Alabama chooses to use, the procedure is flawed so, the only way to avoid a lawsuit is to make “secret” and inadmissible all facts relating to executions.

Lawmakers in Alabama are so hungry for an execution that they are willing to overlook the flaws in the system. Fortunately for death row inmates there are lawyers with wisdom and courage to point out those flaws. Lawyers willing to challenge the process, as well as the laws designed to hide the process. So, sometimes it’s not so simple.

Bart Johnson
Z778 F-18

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to rule on a case involving whether or not a person is mentally competent enough to be put to death. This court has already determined that it is cruel an unusual punishment to execute someone who is mentally incompetent, and the 8^th amendment prevents cruel and unusual punishment. While states with the death penalty continue to press for more executions, it is in the hands of the Supreme Court to press back. It remains to be seen if this ruling will establish any clear guidance for the states, either in this particular case, or in general.

What is clear is the fact that oversight by the federal government is necessary to prevent the states from violating the constitution. Why these death penalty states keep pushing the issue while other states are abandoning capital punishment is open for debate, but what is certain is that these individual states are not capable of operating within the framework of the constitution alone. There are simply too many gray areas that they just can’t or choose not to avoid.

How can we as individuals, governments, or corporations send a message to these states that what they are doing is wrong? Should we continue to send them jobs and tourism? No. We should openly and publicly condemn the practice of executions. We should stop supporting these states with corporate dollars, tourism dollars, and even government contracts. And tell them why. It is a barbaric practice and it should stop. Don’t leave it up to the courts to press back, be proactive and press first. And, press hard!

Bart Johnson
F-18 Z778

Dark Rooms

With photography moving toward digital processing, one would think that dark rooms would become obsolete. Unfortunately there are other dark rooms, not the kind used to develop film. The purpose of these dark rooms is to give the occupants a place to make decisions without scrutiny from anyone not in the room. To get into these dark rooms one must check one’s conscience at the door, leave ones morals in the hall and out of the discussion.

There are rooms like this all over the world. In the back of a warehouse full of toxic waste someone decides to exploit the people of a developing country to protect the bottom line. It may have fine furnishings, but it’s still a dark room. Politicians line up for kick backs in exchange for government contracts every day, and these campaign donations always come with strings attached. All of this, of course, takes place in a dark room. Maybe not literally, but certainly where prying eyes are not welcome.

In Alabama, a new dark room is under construction. The blueprints already exist as SB325. The purpose of the bill is to keep everything about Alabama’s execution procedure a secret. Not only to ensure, that prying eyes won’t see. Not only to ensure that morals and conscience are left out of all the decisions. Not only to provide anonymity to the people involved. Not only to hide the names, sources and doses of the chemicals involved, but also to circumvent the United States Constitution which, of course, frowns on cruel and unusual punishment. Prohibits it entirely.

Our constitution wasn’t written in a dark room. Quite the opposite in fact. The idea of right over wrong, good over bad is clearly delineated from the beginning. No blueprints containing dark rooms anywhere. It has been amended over time to take a wrong and make it right, but never in a dark room.

Decisions made without considering a moral justification can only lead to corruption and injustice. No one in the room stopped to thing about how that toxic waste would affect people, and no one outside the room, who already knew, was allowed to be a part of the discussion. By the time people started getting sick it was too late to do anything about it. That is exactly what Alabama wants. To keep executing prisoners, using any means necessary, until the Supreme Court stops them. Because then it will be too late.

Mistakes are made in dark rooms, grievous misjudgments. So why build one? Why even draw up the blue prints? If Alabama can’t be open and honest about its execution procedure, it should stop it now, before it’s too late.

Bart Johnson

F-18 Z778

Sometimes

How could 143 men and women be wrongfully convicted in the U.S.? The answer is simple. The way we determine guilt is broken. There are 143 stories of how this process can go wrong, and many more stories are still in progress.

Sometimes new evidence is found. Sometimes the evidence is there all along, but hidden by the state. Sometimes witnesses make mistakes. Sometimes they lie outright. Sometimes DNA testing is used. Sometimes it is not. Sometimes the truth comes out. Sometimes it does not. The problem with the death penalty is that when an innocent life is taken it doesn’t sometimes come back.

Sometimes there is too much at stake to settle for a system that we know has gone wrong before and likely will again.

Bart Johnson

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In a world that’s all about labels and terminology I want to tell you about a particularly disturbing term. “Death Qualified” I heard this term for the first time on the first day of jury selection. I was looking at a room full of potential jurors, hoping that maybe a few of them hadn’t been tainted by the media, hoping that they hadn’t already made up their minds. Then the D. A. starts talking, and when he gets to the death qualification part of his little speech that hope I had turns to worry. You see, in order for these people to even be considered for the jury they had to first be death qualified. So before they ever hear a single fact, they have to decide that they are in favor of the death penalty. Each one must state clearly thet they are willing to give me a death sentence. So if you are against capital punishment, you can’t serve on a jury in a capital case. What this means for the future is that no amount of social change in the people of Alabama will stop capital convictions by these “death qualified” juries. No matter how much progress we make, as long as the death penalty remains, we don’t stand a chance. So let’s make abolishing the death penalty a part of our progress.

Bart Johnson
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