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Georgia, Missouri Execute Convicted Killers; First Since Botched Lethal Injection

Georgia, Missouri Execute Convicted Killers; First Since Botched Lethal Injection

By Matt Pearce and Ryan Parker, Los Angeles Times

Convicted killers in Georgia and Missouri were executed late Tuesday about an hour apart, marking the first executions in the U.S. since the botched lethal injection of an Oklahoma prisoner in April.

Shortly before midnight in Georgia, Marcus Wellons, 59, was executed by lethal injection after a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied. Wellons was sentenced to death for the 1989 rape and murder of 15-year-old India Roberts. Witnesses at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson reported that he apologized to his victim’s family and asked for a prayer.

An hour later in Missouri, John Winfield, 46, was executed for killing two women who were friends of his ex-girlfriend, whom he shot and blinded in the assault. His death sentence went forward after Gov. Jay Nixon said late Tuesday that he had denied Winfield’s request for clemency.

“The jury in this case properly found that these heinous crimes warranted the death penalty, and my denial of clemency upholds the jury’s decision,” Nixon said in a statement.

After Winfield was pronounced dead shortly after midnight in Missouri, the state’s attorney general issued a statement.

“Nearly two decades have passed since John Winfield’s cowardly acts of rage and jealously changed the lives of three families forever,” wrote Chris Koster. “He brutally murdered two defenseless young women, one in front of her children, and attempted to murder the mother of his own children, leaving her permanently disabled.”

Wellons and Winfield both had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to examine the secrecy laws in their states as a reason to stay their executions because of the undisclosed drug cocktails that would be used to kill them.

Secrecy laws such as Georgia’s and Missouri’s have come under especially heavy scrutiny from death penalty opponents after Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett writhed and groaned before his death in April.

Oklahoma officials had injected Lockett with a secretive, experimental cocktail administered by an execution team whose identities and qualifications were shielded by a secrecy law.

Wellons’ legal team had argued that it was being unconstitutionally blocked from learning more about the quality of the drug to be used on its client and the qualifications of the officials administering it.

Three judges on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected those arguments earlier Tuesday, though one judge, Charles Wilson, wrote that Georgia’s secrecy law had a “disturbing circularity problem.”

Since it was Wellons’ responsibility to prove that the state’s execution plans were likely to cause an unacceptable amount of harm, Wilson wrote, “How could he when the state has passed a law prohibiting him from learning about the compound it plans to use to execute him?”

Wilson added that judges, too, would have difficulty examining the legality of the state’s executions without more information on how they were being carried out. Despite those concerns, he cleared the way for Wellons’ execution.

The U.S. Supreme Court has not fully considered any cases involving state execution secrecy laws, which death penalty opponents argue violate their clients’ protections from cruel and unusual punishment and their First Amendment right to crucial government information about their cases.

Meanwhile, in Missouri, Winfield suddenly faced imminent execution after a federal appeals court removed a stay of execution Tuesday, leading to an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Last week, a federal judge had issued the stay for Winfield’s execution over concerns that state prison officials had improperly hampered his request for clemency to the state’s governor. Winfield’s attorneys said state officials had threatened a prison employee who planned to formally praise Winfield’s character and conduct in prison.

Winfield was convicted of shooting the three women, killing Arthea Sanders and Shawnee Murphy, in 1996.

The full 8th Circuit court threw out the judge’s hold 6-4, with another judge not participating, clearing the way for Winfield’s execution.

In the majority opinion, the court wrote that because the prison employee eventually made his declaration in support of clemency anyway, there was no longer a problem.

The decision led Winfield’s attorneys to make an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“John Winfield is a model prisoner who is trusted by prison guards and serves as a positive role model for younger prisoners,” Joe Luby, Winfield’s attorney, said in a statement, adding: “We are hopeful the U.S. Supreme Court will reinstate the stay so that Mr. Winfield’s clemency obstruction claim can be fully and fairly adjudicated.”

Winfield’s attorneys also attacked the state’s execution secrecy laws.

Photo: Caroline Groussain via AFP

War In Afghanistan Marks First Decade

On Oct. 7, 2001, the United States launched an air campaign in Afghanistan, followed by a later ground invasion. Now, on the 10-year anniversary of the war’s start, the political situation in Afghanistan has changed, and Osama bin Laden has been killed. Even so, violence continues to shake Afghanistan, affecting soldiers and civilians alike. CNN tallies the military lives lost in the war:

More than 2,700 troops from the United States and its partners have died during the 10 years of war, according to a CNN count. Of those, 1,780 were American, 382 were British and 157 were Canadian.

Since the conflict began, the number of casualties has risen by the year, with a significant jump from 2008 to 2009. At least 296 coalition troops died in 2008.

It nearly doubled in 2009 when 517 coalition troops were killed. That year, President Barack Obama authorized a surge of 33,000 U.S. forces to Afghanistan to combat the violence.

Two years later, the United States outlined its plan to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, beginning with pulling the 33,000 surge troops by the end of 2012 and the remaining 68,000 by the end of 2014.

Those who have fought in the war have begun to question whether the mission has been worth these considerable sacrifices. A new study by the Pew Research Center found that 50 percent of post-9/11 veterans believe the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting, compared to 41 percent of the general public.

Meanwhile, civilian casualties are difficult to estimate, but the United Nations reported that 1,462 civilians died in the first six months of 2011 alone. The vast majority — 80 percent — of those deaths were the result of insurgents. Additional reports of violence in Afghanistan, such as the September assassination of former Afghan President Rabbani and periodic suicide bombings, have shown that, a decade into the war, the situation on the ground remains precarious.