On Victims and Killers and Survivors. On Life and Death. On Forgiveness. - UPDATE

Lexington, Kentucky.  April.  2015.  An apartment complex.  Salahuddin Jitmoud delivering a pizza. 

Well, not exactly.  Exactly, Jitmoud was delivering his life (so the cops and courts said) to 3 men who were looking to rob pizza delivery guys.  He was 22-years old.

I don't know who actually killed Jitmoud.  Apparently the actual killer hasn't been indicted.  But Alexander Relford, according to the prosecutor (via Marwa Ettagouri at the Washington Post), "set up the robbery, he provided the knife, he tampered with evidence."  And there's the fuck-you factor.

[H]e is the one who ate the pizza afterward.

Relford got 31 years.  

• Complicity in murder.
• Complicity in robbery.
• Attempted tampering with evidence.

He'll be out when he's 55.

In the criminal courts, that's little more than business as usual.  

What's not is what Abdul-Munim Sombat Jitmoud did.  He's the father of Salahuddin Jitmoud.  The kid who was murdered for his pocket change and a pizza.  He's the one who gives the lie to pretty much everything the haters want you to hear.

A Brief Digression

The case involved a shooting.  There were two victims - one intended, one an innocent bystander.  (Shit happens when bullets fly.)    

Wait, did I say there were two victims?  Only sort of.  Oh, the defendant was separately charged for each shooting.  And there's no question they were both shot (one in the leg, the other in the hand).  But the accidental victim of the gunshot?  She couldn't identify anyone as a shooter.  All she knew, all she could tell the cops was that the guy who shot her wore a red hoodie.

But the defendant didn't have a red hoodie. 

The detective said, testified under oath, that she wouldn't cooperate.  All she'd tell us about the shooter, the detective said, is that he wore a red hoodie.  And since she wouldn't cooperate, the detective said, she wasn't an "actual victim."  

Really.  That was the testimony.

End Digression

You hear that Muslims are terrorists.  The President tells you that thousands cheered in the streets in New Jersey as they watched the World Trade Center collapse.  They say it's all about hate.

Talk to Abdul-Munim Sombat Jitmoud.  Whose son was killed for a few bucks and a pizza.  Ask him.  Or just note his words, from the witness stand, at the sentencing of Alexander Relford who was at the least complicit in the murder of his son.  

Forgiveness is the greatest gift of charity in Islam. . . . I don't blame you, I blame the Devil, who misguided you to do such a horrible crime.  

There are things you rarely see in court.  

Teary-eyed after the father's gesture, Fayette County Circuit Judge Kimberly Bunnell called for a break in the hearing.

And then, after court resumed, after Relford apologized, after that.

Then the father and the convict hugged, Relford wiping his face with tissues as Jitmoud wrapped his arms around the 24-year-old.

In a couple of hours, the good people of the State of Ohio will be putting Alva Campbell to death.  It's pretty clear it won't go well. The nurses who examined his arms for the execution team said his veins can't support the needles. He'll be struggling his way to the death house with his walker.  I assume he'll still be wearing his colostomy bag.   They're giving him a special pillow so he won't have trouble breathing while they kill him.  (Yes, you read that right.) 

His will be the 56th state-sponsored murder in Ohio since we got back in the killin' business in 1999.  We've got folks lined up and set to go until well into 2022.

As I said, Relford will get out when he's 55

UPDATE

Execution failed.  They couldn't find a vein.  They're going to try again, another time, if they can manage to keep him alive until then.  It'll get easier, of course, 69-year-old, terminally-ill men routinely have their veins get bigger and sturdier over time.

I can't help but note that Ohio is now the only state to have failed even once to complete an execution since the bungled electrocution of Willie Francis in 1946.  And we've now failed twice.

Just Look at Them and Sigh

It was April 2, 1997, just over 20 years ago.  A sheriff's deputy was taking Alva Campbell from jail to the courthouse where he was set to be arraigned on a charge of aggravated robbery.

But Campbell broke away, stole the deputy's pistol, and ran off.  Charles Dials was driving by in his pickup.  Campbell stopped the truck, jumped in at gunpoint, and drover around with Dials in the passenger seat for a few hours.  Then he had Dials get down on the floor and shot him twice in the head.  (It wasn't Campbell's first killing.  He'd been paroled five years earlier after serving 20 years on a first degree murder conviction.)

Campbell drove around some more, stole another car, though that driver escaped.  He tried unsuccessfully to steal another car, again the driver escaped.  Police caught him hiding in a tree.  He surrendered and confessed.

He's been on death row since 1998.  The State of Ohio plans to kill him on November 15.

I could tell you about his childhood of physical and sexual abuse (even the prosecutor concedes it was terrible).  I could tell you that he's remorseful now, that he claims he's changed, that he sees the world differently than he did before.  I could tell you that he's had a pretty good disciplinary record in prison.  I could . . . .  

Ah, the hell with it.  You know all that.

What I want to consider, want you to consider, is whether Alva Campbell should now, in under two weeks, die for what he did to Charles Dials.  Die for that, because there's no question he'll die (we all do).  And there's no question he'll die in prison.  The question, as always, is the mechanism of death.

And on that point, and in this case, it's worth looking for a bit at Alva Campbell today.  That's 69-year-old Alva Campbell. 

He moves with a walker.  That's a colostomy bag on his hip.  He gets four breathing treatments a day to keep him going.  And he may have lung cancer.  

They plan to strap him to a table, but he won't be lying down.  That's too hard on his body, so he'll be propped up somehow, sitting.  

And then they're gonna stick needles in his veins and pump poison --

Oh, wait.  They can't do that.  

See, Ohio's fucked up so many executions because our prison guards aren't really competent to do this shit.  So we have some special procedures to make sure the killin' will go well.  For instance, we have nurses assess his veins to be sure that they guards can get the needles in and set.  But damn.  They report that Campbell's veins aren't up to the task.  And, of course, he's allergic to the first drug they're using.

His lawyers suggested death by firing squad.  (Bad veins aren't an issue for death by bullet.)  But of course that's not a legal method of killin' here in the Buckeye State, and who knows if the General Assembly would actually pass a law or if Governor Kasich would sign it.  Anyway, the judge said no.

And so, here's the question.

What, exactly is the point?  

Alva Campbell's gonna die soon.  He says his doctors have told him he has 6 months to a year.  Sure, that's longer than a week and a half, but not all that much longer.  And it's not like he's livin' high on the hog.  His life, what there is of it, pretty much sucks.

A few weeks ago, the Parole Board held it's clemency hearing for Campbell.  

Then they voted 11-1 against recommending clemency.  Clemency was not, the eleven said, in "the interests of justice."*  Sure he had an horrific background, but he has a "disturbing propensity to engage in extreme and senseless violence."**  The one disagreed, pointing to that horrific background. 

So, now that the Board has spoken, Governor Kasich can do what he wants.***  Which brings me back around.

See, the plan is to kill Alva Campbell not because he deserves to die.  But because he deserves to be killed.  

Because it's important that he not be allowed to die of natural causes or any way other than by drugs lawfully administered by prison guards.  Natural causes?  Feh.  That's God or Nature or just the way things go.  Suicide?  Can't allow that.  Those other options would cheat the hangman, deny the good people of Ohio the vengence justice they deserve to inflict. 

And so the old man with the colostomy bag on his hip, with four treatments a day so he can breathe, with veins that can't support the needles they'll be using to push the drugs . . . .

Aw, fuck it.

Dear Governor Kasich:
Please just let Alva Campbell die in his own, and quickly approaching, good time.  It's too late to teach him a lesson.  And killing the old, rapidly failing guy won't teach anyone else, either.  Except, maybe, that we can be as cold-hearted now as he was then.  And that we should be.
Just deserts, and all.

Teach your children well.  Of course, that's not exactly the lesson Crosby, Still, Nash, & Young had in mind.  






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* Whatever those "interests" may be.  The Board didn't explain.  It never does.  Presumably they're kind of like Justice Stewart's obscenity: known when seen but inexplicable.

** Or at least he did.

*** A Board recommendation one way or another is a legal requirement in Ohio before the Governor can grant clemency, but the Gov has no obligation to follow the recommendation.  Mostly, they do, of course.  It's good to let the Board take the heat one way or the other.  But Ted Strickland commuted a sentence when the Board said not to and refused to commute one when the Board said he should.

Contract Killings - with Correction

Ohio 2014 - One

Ohio 2015 - Nobody

Ohio 2016 - Eleven

That's executions, actual for 2014 and now 2015, scheduled for 2016.

You know the backstory. Ohio has an unmatched record of demonstrated incompetence in performing lethal injections.* Our last killing, Dennis McGuire in January last year, was particularly ugly. And precisely what they'd been warned would happen with their new experimental murder method. Alan Johnson covered it for the Columbus Dispatch and described what he saw.

Dennis McGuire struggled, repeatedly gasping loudly for air and making snorting and choking sounds, before succumbing to a new two-drug execution method today. . . .After being injected at 10:29 a.m., about four minutes later McGuire started struggling and gasping loudly for air, making snorting and choking sounds which lasted for at least 10 minutes. His chest heaved and his left fist clinched as deep, snorting sounds emanated from his mouth. However, for the last several minutes before he was pronounced dead, he was still.

So, and given the years of ongoing litigation here, the state backed off, called a brief halt, and saod ot would rewrite its protocol for the umpteenth time.  Which they did.  And given the litigation, well, the judge called halts and then everyone kind of agreed to court-ordered halts for a while.  And they decided not to use midazolam and hydromorphone any more.  But that meant finding some other drug and then the secrecy litigation because if you know where we get the drugs we'll have to kill you.

And finally, on Friday, the Governor who probably wants to be President decided to stop it all for a bit.  This year's planned killings, which included some from years past, all got punted into next year. When there are now 11 scheduled.  One a month from January through November.  

Will they all happen?  Probably not.  Some court will likely stop at least one or two.  The Governor may commute one of the sentences.  And of course the whole thing could implode again if we can't get the drugs or fuck another killing up - as we have so many.

And then there's the Supreme Court which is apparently going to decide by June whether killing with midazolam is unconstitutional and, more important really, whether the states can keep all the details of who's doing what a secret. whether a person complaining that the state intends to kill him unconstitutionally must suggest a constitutional method by which he can be killed.** Whatever they decide, expect more litigation.

In the meantime, though, and in 2016:

January 21 - Ronald Phillips
February 19 - Ray Tibbetts
March 23 - Alva Campbell, Jr.
April 20 - Gregory Lott
May 18 - Angelo Fears
June 22 - Warren Henness
July 20 - Cleveland Jackson
August 15 - William Montgomery
September 21 - Kareem Jackson
October 19 - Robert Van Hook
November 16 - Jeffrey Wogenstahl

To what end, exactly?

Each of them was found guilty of aggravated murder.  In each case, it was determined that the aggravating circumstance of the crime outweighed whatever mitigating factors were presented at trial.

Pretend that they got it right.  Every time.  Pretend these men all did terrible things and they had almost nothing to weigh against the crime but themselves.  Hell, maybe it's even true.  Maybe they are, or some of them are, the worst of the worst who did the worst things.  It could be.  (And the beauty of it is that there's no way actually to know, so we can pretend all we like.)

What then?

Van Hook will have been on death row for just over 31 years at his scheduled murder.  Montgomery nearly 30.  For Cleveland Jackson, the fastest of these 11, it will still be nearly 14 years.  And he'll be 38 when they kill him next year.  If they do.  At the other end, Alva Campbell will be 67. 

Whoever these people are that we're planning to kill, they're not who they were back then.  But by god, we're committed to doing it.  They must die.

Just not until next year.

When we kill Ron Phillips next January, if we do, it will have been just over two years since we botched Dennis McGuire's execution.  For just over two years, Ohio will have managed to kill not a single person on death row.  Somehow, the state will have survived unscathed.  Because, really, there's no need.

But if no need?  Then we're killing because we want to.  It's a conscious choice we make.

You, Ron Phillips.  You, Ray Tibbets.  You Alva Campbell, Gregory Lott, Angelo Fears. You, all of you.  We don't need to kill you. But we want to.
It's not that you need to die.  That's not something we can control.  No, we want to kill you.  More precisely, we want some prison guards we don't know to kill you.
We'll arrange it.  Pay for it.  Read about it in the newspaper afterwards.  Our arranged contract killings.  Because we want you murdered.  By those guys over there.

Next year.

 

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*We are, after all, the state that tried for two hours but ultimately failed to kill Romell Broom.  He remains the only survivor of an execution attempt by lethal injection.  (Oral argument in the Ohio Supreme Court on the question of whether the state gets to try again to kill him will be the morning of June 9.)

**Sorry. I knew the right question when I wrote this last night.  I just didn't type the right question.

The Old Line, The First State, and the Buckeyes

I'd decided not to write about Maryland abolishing the death penalty until it actually does.

Despite all the hype and media coverage and announcements that it's done now that both houses of the legislature have passed the bill and the governor has promised to sign it (hell, he pushed it - hard), it ain't over 'til it's over.  The fat lady hasn't yet sung.  The countdown continues.  Pick your own cliché.  The fact is that Maryland has the death penalty and will have it until Governor O'Malley signs the bill into law.  (And until it takes effect.  I don't know whether there's a waiting period between signing and effective date in Maryland.)  It might be a foregone conclusion, but I'm a cynic.  And cautious.

As I said, I wasn't going to write about Maryland until it was done.  But then The First State (Delaware) came along, held hearings, and on Tuesday the state Senate by an 11-10 politically fragmented vote (5 dems and 5 republicans against; 3 republicans for) for abolition.  Well, abolition light; they specifically amended the bill to allow the 17 folks currently on death row there to be killed.  And it's far from clear that the bill will go any further.  Still.

Delaware's actually an interesting case for abolition.  In at least one respect it's closer to Texas than to - well, almost anywhere but Oklahoma.  For a long time Delaware led the country in executions per capita.  (The latest numbers I've seen have it solidly entrenched in third place, behind number one Oklahoma and Texas, but they're a couple of years out of date, and I'm not about to do the math to figure out today's standings.)  So when Delaware moves toward abolition that's something to note.

Still, I was going to wait.  Let's see what happens, I thought.  Let it all play itself out.  The time to cheer is when it's done.*  Until then, it's still time to work.

As Maryland moves forward and Delaware maybe moves forward with an end to killing in sight, we here in Ohio ("the Heart of It All" per the tourism slogan) look at the future and plan another.

His name is Alva Earl Campbell, Jr. and this morning the Supreme Court of Ohio, in its majesty, decided (6-1, O'Neill, as has become his practice, dissenting) that he should be put to death on July 15, 2015.  

If you're counting, he's currently number 13 on our execution list.


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*There was much hope that Colorado will quickly follow Maryland, but on Tuesday a House committee there killed it's abolition bill after the Governor suggested a likely veto.