WASHINGTON (AP) -- Stop executions for a while and perhaps they can be stopped forever. That calculation has been part of the strategy of capital punishment opponents for decades.

The Supreme Court-inspired slowdown in executions offers the first nationwide opportunity in 20-plus years to test whether the absence of regularly scheduled executions will lead some states to abandon the death penalty and change public attitudes about capital punishment.

Recent decisions by judges and elected officials have made clear that most executions will not proceed until the Supreme Court rules in a challenge by two death row inmates to the lethal injection procedures used by Kentucky. The inmates say Kentucky's method creates the risk of pain severe enough to be cruel and unusual punishment, banned by the Eighth Amendment.
Similar procedures are used by Texas, the far-and-away leader in lethal injections, and the 16 other states that have executed prisoners in the past two years.

It is clear the high court will not go so far as to outlaw the use of lethal injections. That issue is not even before the court in the Kentucky case.
Rather, the justices could decide whether Kentucky's procedures violate the Constitution and what standard the courts should use to evaluate the risk a prisoner will feel pain as he is put to death.

No matter how the court rules, it appears there will be few, if any, prisoners executed before the court rules, probably by late June.
"We're probably looking at delaying executions, not preventing them," said Ronald Tabak, a New York-based lawyer with the Skadden Arps firm who has represented death row inmates.

Tabak said states with the death penalty now have a chance to review capital punishment procedures. The American Bar Association has for the past 10 years called for such a freeze and review.
"The ABA's position is unless you have fair practices, executions should not resume," said Tabak, who has worked with the lawyers' organization on this issue.

But Douglas Berman, a sentencing expert at the Ohio State University law school, said the possibility exists for more dramatic action.

"The abolitionists will say if we have no executions for six months to a year, and the universe is not imploding and murder rates are not going through the roof ... it becomes easier to say, 'Why do we even need the death penalty, let's just get rid of it,'" Berman said.

"Texas and other high-execution states aren't going to get there anytime soon, but the argument against capital punishment gets even more force in those states squeamish about the death penalty in the first instance," Berman said.

Questions about the administration of lethal injections are only part of the equation.

Death-penalty opponents also have pointed to doubts about the competence of some court-appointed defense lawyers and the rise in the number of exonerations through DNA evidence of people already convicted of crimes.
Polling has shown that the public increasingly believes that life in prison without parole will keep the worst offenders off the streets. A recent Associated Presss-Ipsos poll that asked what method of punishment people prefer for murderers found only a slight preference for the death penalty over life in prison - 52 percent to 46 percent.

"There is a deeper societal appreciation for life without the possibility of parole. Ten to 15 years ago, no one thought they meant it," Berman said.
At the same time, there have been several studies, challenged by the anti-death penalty camp, that have shown a deterrent effect in the use of capital punishment. Also, public support for executions remains high. More than two-thirds of those polled favor the death penalty for murderers when the question does not include other possible punishments.

Then there is the example of the last time the country went without executions for an extended period. There were no executions from June 1967 to January 1977.

The Supreme Court in 1972 struck down 40 state death penalty laws, but did not ban capital punishment as cruel and unusual.

Some justices at the time thought their decision in Furman v. Georgia would bring an end to the death penalty.

By 1976, though, in the midst of a "law-and-order" backlash to the court's decisions in favor of the rights of criminal defendants, elected officials in 35 states had adopted laws to comply with the death penalty ruling.

A more conservative court upheld some of those laws, and a half-year later executions resumed.

Nearly 1,100 people have been put to death since 1977 and more than 3,000 others are on death row.
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On the Net:
Death Penalty Information Center: Death Penalty Information Center
Criminal Justice Legal Foundation: Criminal Justice Legal Foundation (CJLF) Homepage

I agree w/Douglas Berman, the possibility exist for more dramatic action coming out of this, I see it too.

Also that lethal injections are only a part of the equation, coming into play on the whole topic of the DP. Why do we really need the DP?
Since DNA and our technology has proven to, that many are now being exonerated, even one human being is to much if put to death then found to be innocent after the fact" is obviously to late for him, as well as the poor familys and the children who lost a parent through what appears to be due to "some" incompetent public defenders.
We have spent also millions if not billions to house the most dangerous safely, for society and staff inside..

The DP has proven also not to be a deterent from crimes being commited.

The list is so long and proven now as to why is the DP even necessary beside's just being now revenge and becoming what we hate, a part of premeditated murder,calling it justice..

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I saw this in my email.

I agree peanut

Bumping this up,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

I heard on the News yesterday, it will take until middle of next yr for a decision on lethal injection, seems lots more is coming into play on the DP itself ..........a good thing I think !!!

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heck yea it is about dang time too

Nov 15, 10:38 AM EST

Appeals court: Fla. child killer can be executed
By RON WORD
Associated Press Writer

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- A federal appeals court has ruled that the execution of child killer Mark Dean Schwab can proceed Thursday.

If the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't block Schwab's death by lethal injection at 6 p.m. - as many observers expect it to do - it would be the first execution in the country since the high court began considering the appeals of two Kentucky inmates.

Those inmates are challenging Kentucky's lethal toxic three-drug combination, the same mix administered in Florida. Schwab's attorneys claim the chemicals violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Still, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said he expected the execution to proceed.

"At this time, there is nothing impeding the execution," said Sandi Copes, a spokeswoman for McCollum.

The decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which came a day after a federal court in Orlando blocked the execution, noted the Supreme Court had not yet ruled in the Kentucky case, and that it didn't want to pre-empt its actions.

"We don't know how the Supreme Court is going to decide the issues on which it has granted review," the court wrote in an 11-page opinion. "And the Supreme Court itself probably does not know given the fact that briefing has not been completed in that case."

Schwab was released from prison after serving three years of an eight-year sexual assault sentence in March 1991. During the same month, a newspaper published a picture of Junny for winning a kite contest. Schwab gained the confidence of Junny's family, claiming he was with the newspaper and was writing an article on the boy.

Schwab eventually kidnapped the boy, bound his hands and face with duct tape and cut off the boy's clothes. He raped the crying boy before strangling him and leaving his body in a footlocker in a rural part of Brevard County.
After the boy's murder, the Legislature passed the Junny Rios-Martinez Act, which prohibits sex offenders from early release from prison.

Schwab waived a jury trial and argued his case before a trial judge. He was found guilty and sentenced to death.

No executions have been held in Florida since the botched killing of Angel Diaz last Dec. 13. It took 34 minutes for Diaz to die - twice as long as normal - because the guards pushed the needles through his veins.

Schwab's death for the 1991 killing of Junny Rios-Martinez would be the state's 65th execution since 1979 and the 21st since the state switched to lethal injection.

Breaking news, The US Supreme Court halted the execution of Mark Dean Schwab, just now the decision came thru, L/Injection violates the 8th amendment of cruel and unusual punishment ................

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The decision to stay Schwab's execution did not read that execution by lethal injection violates the 8th Amendment prohibition against cruel and inhumane treatment. Instead the Schwab decision simply stayed his execution until the Court considers that argument in another case in which certiorari has been granted.

Thanks for clarifying, I put in the wording AOL Breaking news had, on the eigth amemdment..

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