Missouri has received growing criticism of its secrecy laws around the lethal injection procedure. Recently Governor Jay Nixon was the recipient of the “Golden Padlock” award by Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). The designation by the national journalism organization is given to a U.S. agency or individual deemed most secretive in its dealings.
Missouri has shrouded its execution process in secrecy, and the state Legislature backed it up with laws that mete out punishment to those who dare expose any aspect of the protocol, from what types of drugs are used to who administers the drugs.
IRE used satire to raise the unethical and maybe unconstitutional claims about Missouri’s execution protocol. The satirical honor is just part of what has now become a national obsession – demanding transparency of a process that is paid for by public dollars.
The Kansas City Star, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Springfield News-Leader, Associated Press and The Guardian U.S. joined forces earlier this year to file a suit against the Missouri Department of Corrections. They argued that the department violates the First Amendment in its refusal to identify the sources of lethal drugs the state uses to execute citizens.
Meanwhile, the death machine keeps on cranking. There was a pause in the action when Russell Bucklew and his attorneys were successful in their efforts to halt his execution because of a rare birth condition that in essence creates exploding veins. This could’ve been disastrous during his execution, given that we don’t know what’s in the drugs used for lethal injection. It could be anti-freeze for all we know. After the botched execution in Oklahoma, the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t want to take any chances and halted Bucklew’s execution.
Should John Middleton be executed, legitimate issues were ignored. Middleton was scheduled for execution on July 16.
New evidence shows that Middleton couldn’t have killed Alfred Pinegar in 1995. His lawyers argue that a state highway patrol provided a forensic scientist with the wrong date on which insect remains were taken from the body. This is key to determining the time of death.
The scientist now says his calculations would show that Pinegar died a day later. One little problem – Middleton was in jail in Iowa on an unrelated charge at that time.
In addition, a new witness has come forward to disclose that he was beaten in front of Pinegar’s dead body by some bad guys who told the shaken witness that three people has already been killed and he could be the fourth.
Since each death row case is both unique and complex, they require additional scrutiny, especially when you get to this stage of the deadly game.
Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and other anti-death penalty groups have been on the case to halt executions in any way they can. The state of Missouri has given them ample fodder, with tactics such as meeting execution drug suppliers with a suitcase of cash money at a designated location because the drug dealer was not licensed in Missouri.
I don’t believe that you can sanitize the death penalty; for me, it’s wrong on so many levels. But for the people who believe it has some value in a civilized society, they have to be just as committed as I am to making sure the correct person has been identified to die for the crime for which they were convicted and sentenced. Right now, there’s reasonable doubt that the grim reapers of Missouri have the right man in their clutches.
What happens next will determine if the state is about justice – or misplaced vengeance.
