Lancet Jades
06-16-2004, 05:05 PM
Stay given to inmate questioning lethal injection procedures
Tuesday, June 15, 2004 Posted: 1:05 PM EDT (1705 GMT)
The execution table inside the Metropolitan Transition Center in Baltimore, where Steven Oken was to be executed.
GREENBELT, Maryland (AP) -- A federal judge Tuesday granted an indefinite stay of execution for a convicted triple murderer whose lawyers question the planned method of lethal injection.
In his 22-page opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Peter J. Messitte cited the state's failure to provide Steven Oken's attorneys with details on execution procedures until Friday. They had requested them a month ago.
"Fundamental fairness, if not due process, requires that the execution protocol that will regulate an inmate's death be forwarded to him in prompt and timely fashion," Messitte wrote.
Oken, 42, was scheduled to be executed this week for the 1987 rape and murder of Dawn Marie Garvin, a 20-year-old newlywed. He also was convicted of killing Patricia Hirt, his wife's sister, and Lori Ward, a motel clerk in Maine, during a 15-day spree.
"It's a total miscarriage of justice," Garvin's mother, Betty Romano, said. "What more does anybody need? He's pleaded guilty. He's admitted to the killings. He's used 17 years of the taxpayers' money."
Defense lawyers have questioned whether a barbiturate that was to be the first of three drugs administered to Oken would keep him from feeling pain.
At a hearing Monday in federal court, attorney Jerome Nickerson told Messitte that Oken's lawyers need more time to review the execution protocols, or details, that the state provided to the defense only three days earlier.
He said the document was "very, very disturbing indeed" and there is "a substantial likelihood of the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
David Kennedy, an assistant state attorney general, said at the hearing that the defense was trying to create "a false emergency" and had known the basics of the method of execution for years.
Messitte said in his opinion that he appreciated the desire of Garvin's family "after so many years, to see closure in this case." But he said it was the court's duty to see that constitutional guarantees are respected.
Oken's mother has continued to defend him, saying he should be spared the death penalty. Oken, who is said to be one of only a few Jewish inmates on death row in the country, told the Baltimore Jewish Times he was grappling with severe drug and alcohol problems at the time.
Oken's defense team lost two motions in the state Court of Appeals on Monday, including a request for a stay of execution and for permission to appeal a Baltimore Circuit Court decision refusing to reopen Oken's appeal. His lawyers also have a motion for a stay of execution pending in the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Just have a guard "accidently" kill him after he "allegedly became rowdy". The ****er deserves a death like that.
Tuesday, June 15, 2004 Posted: 1:05 PM EDT (1705 GMT)
The execution table inside the Metropolitan Transition Center in Baltimore, where Steven Oken was to be executed.
GREENBELT, Maryland (AP) -- A federal judge Tuesday granted an indefinite stay of execution for a convicted triple murderer whose lawyers question the planned method of lethal injection.
In his 22-page opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Peter J. Messitte cited the state's failure to provide Steven Oken's attorneys with details on execution procedures until Friday. They had requested them a month ago.
"Fundamental fairness, if not due process, requires that the execution protocol that will regulate an inmate's death be forwarded to him in prompt and timely fashion," Messitte wrote.
Oken, 42, was scheduled to be executed this week for the 1987 rape and murder of Dawn Marie Garvin, a 20-year-old newlywed. He also was convicted of killing Patricia Hirt, his wife's sister, and Lori Ward, a motel clerk in Maine, during a 15-day spree.
"It's a total miscarriage of justice," Garvin's mother, Betty Romano, said. "What more does anybody need? He's pleaded guilty. He's admitted to the killings. He's used 17 years of the taxpayers' money."
Defense lawyers have questioned whether a barbiturate that was to be the first of three drugs administered to Oken would keep him from feeling pain.
At a hearing Monday in federal court, attorney Jerome Nickerson told Messitte that Oken's lawyers need more time to review the execution protocols, or details, that the state provided to the defense only three days earlier.
He said the document was "very, very disturbing indeed" and there is "a substantial likelihood of the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
David Kennedy, an assistant state attorney general, said at the hearing that the defense was trying to create "a false emergency" and had known the basics of the method of execution for years.
Messitte said in his opinion that he appreciated the desire of Garvin's family "after so many years, to see closure in this case." But he said it was the court's duty to see that constitutional guarantees are respected.
Oken's mother has continued to defend him, saying he should be spared the death penalty. Oken, who is said to be one of only a few Jewish inmates on death row in the country, told the Baltimore Jewish Times he was grappling with severe drug and alcohol problems at the time.
Oken's defense team lost two motions in the state Court of Appeals on Monday, including a request for a stay of execution and for permission to appeal a Baltimore Circuit Court decision refusing to reopen Oken's appeal. His lawyers also have a motion for a stay of execution pending in the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Just have a guard "accidently" kill him after he "allegedly became rowdy". The ****er deserves a death like that.