"Ariz. inmate executed with single drug" March 01, 2012
FLORENCE, Ariz. - Arizona executed an inmate yesterday for killing and dismembering his adoptive mother while he was out of prison on furlough for another crime, despite a spate of last-minute appeals over his mental disabilities and over how the state has violated its own execution protocol.
Laws are only for you and me.
Just before he was put to death, Robert Henry Moormann used his last words to apologize to his family and to the family of an 8-year-old girl he kidnapped and molested in 1972.
“I hope this brings closure and they can start healing now,’’ he said. “I just hope that they will forgive me in time.’’
Moormann is the first Arizona inmate to be executed with one lethal drug, as opposed to the state’s longstanding three-drug protocol.
The switch was made after corrections officials realized Monday that one of the three drugs had expired. In doing so, they violated their own new written execution protocol by giving Moormann only two days’ notice of how he would be put to death instead of seven days’ notice.
Moormann appeared to move more than other inmates executed with the three-drug protocol. Unlike the other inmates, who appeared to fall asleep immediately, Moormann kept his eyes open during the entire execution.
Arizona joins Ohio, Texas, and several other states that last year made the switch to pentobarbital after the only US manufacturer of execution drug sodium thiopental said it would discontinue production.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: States Scramble to Execute
In July, the only US-licensed manufacturer of pentobarbital said it would put the drug off-limits for executions. And a company that bought the pentobarbital line in December is required to also keep it from use by prisons for executions.
Once states use up their current supplies of pentobarbital, executions could be delayed across the country as officials look for yet another alternative.
Oh, what a bummer. The state won't be able to kill people for a while.
Hours after the Supreme Court turned down a request for a stay, the two-member execution team gave the lethal injection to Moormann at 10:23 a.m. The 63-year-old was pronounced dead at 10:33 a.m.
Related: Supreme Court Says Let God Sort 'em Out
The execution happened just a minute’s drive away from the Blue Mist Motel, where on Jan. 13, 1984, he beat, stabbed, and suffocated his adoptive mother, Roberta Moormann, 74, who sexually abused him into adulthood, according to defense lawyers.
He cut off her head, legs, and arms, halved her torso, and flushed all her fingers down the toilet. He then went to various businesses asking if he could dispose of spoiled meat and animal guts before he threw most of her remains in trash bins and sewers throughout the dusty town, about 60 miles southeast of Phoenix.
Gruesome.
--more--"
Related:
"Hundreds of concertgoers waiting outside an Arizona nightclub for a hip-hop show fled in panic as shooting erupted involving three gunmen, leaving at least 14 people wounded. Police arrested one suspect and were hunting two others....
--more--"
"Prison gets OK to keep treating Loughner" Associated Press March 06, 2012
PHOENIX - A federal appeals court denied a request Monday by the Tucson shooting suspect’s lawyers to halt their mentally ill client’s forced medication with psychotropic drugs and end his treatment at a Missouri federal prison facility.
The ruling by the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals allows prison authorities to continue to medicate and treat Jared Lee Loughner.
The court also rejected two other appeals by Loughner’s lawyers over their client’s forced medication.
The 23-year-old has pleaded not guilty to 49 charges stemming from the Jan. 8, 2011, shooting in Tucson that killed six people and wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others.
Loughner is being treated at a Missouri prison facility where he has been forcibly medicated for about seven months in a bid to try to make him mentally fit for trial.
US District Judge Larry Burns had ruled that Loughner was not psychologically fit to stand trial after experts concluded he suffers from schizophrenia. But Burns has said Loughner can eventually be made ready for trial after more treatment in Missouri. His current stay is set to end June 7.
Even though psychologists have said Loughner’s condition is improving, his lawyers have vigorously fought the government’s efforts to medicate him. Last summer, the appeals court temporarily halted Loughner’s forced medication, but it resumed once mental health specialists at the prison concluded that his condition was deteriorating further.
Loughner has demonstrated bizarre behavior since his arrest.
He was removed from a May 25 court hearing when he lowered his head to within inches of the courtroom table, then lifted his head and began a loud and angry rant. But his psychologist has said that since Loughner has been forcibly medicated, his condition has improved. He sat still and expressionless for seven hours at a hearing in September....
--more--"
Also see: Apathetic About Arizona Post
Or anything else I find in my Globe these days.
"An Arizona jury yesterday found a man guilty of child abuse for forcing his grandsons on grueling hikes in the Grand Canyon in searing August heat even as the boys threw up and two repeatedly fell because of cramping....
Yeah, time to move on.
--more--"
