[DP] FW: URGENT ACTION APPEAL UPDATE

[Carole Johnson]

>From: Rick Halperin <rhalperi at mail.smu.edu>
>Reply-To: TCADP-BOARD01 at yahoogroups.com
>To: TCADP-BOARD01 <TCADP-BOARD01 at yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: [TCADP-BOARD01] death penalty news----TEXAS
>Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 17:46:28 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
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>URGENT ACTION APPEAL UPDATE
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>
>19 December 2003
>
>Further information on EXTRA 51/03 issued 27 November
>2003 and re-issued 12 December 2003
>Death penalty / Legal concern
>
>USA (Texas) Kevin Lee Zimmerman
>
>Kevin Zimmerman (m), white, aged 42, has a new execution
>date after the US Supreme Court lifted the stay of execution it
>granted shortly before he was due to be killed on 10 December.
>Sentenced to death in 1990 for the murder of Gilbert Hooks in
>1987, Kevin Zimmerman is now due to be put to death on 21
>January 2004.
>
>In late September 1987, Kevin Zimmerman was released from
>prison in his native Louisiana after serving a three-year sentence
>for possession of drugs. After he returned home to find that his
>wife was having an affair with his best friend, he embarked on
>an alcohol and drug binge with other friends. On the fifth day of
>this spree, 23 October, Kevin Zimmerman and two friends were
>drinking in a motel room in Beaumont, Texas, when they were
>joined by fellow motel guest, 33-year-old Gilbert Hooks. Later
>that night, Zimmerman and Hooks got into an argument, and
>Hooks stabbed Zimmerman in the arm, causing him to bleed
>profusely. Their fight continued and ended in Hooks being
>stabbed to death.
>
>Kevin Zimmerman was charged with murder, not capital murder.
>He was appointed a succession of lawyers who all withdrew
>from the case for various reasons, having done little or no work
>on the case. After a year, Zimmerman wrote letters to the
>prosecutor and court, in effect daring them to charge him with
>capital murder. In his letters he falsely claimed involvement in
>other crimes, and claimed that he had robbed Hooks. Murder
>during the course of a robbery is a capital offence, unlike plain
>murder. He was recharged, this time with capital murder. A
>doctor who recently reviewed the case has stated in an affidavit
>that the claims in Zimmerman's letters were ''patently absurd''
>and that the records indicate that at the time he was ''psychotic'',
>''potentially suicidal and required suicide prevention measures''.
>
>In July 1989, Kevin Zimmerman was appointed the lawyer who
>would represent him at his capital trial, his fifth attorney since he
>was first charged. She had no experience in capital cases and had
>never represented anyone charged with murder. She chose co-
>counsel who had no capital case experience. The lawyers failed
>to have Zimmerman evaluated for his mental competency to
>stand trial even though there was evidence that he might not be
>able to assist in his own defense. They did not investigate his
>family background, and did not learn that he had a history of
>mental problems beginning after a serious bicycle accident at the
>age of 11, as a result of which he had a plate put in his head.
>There were numerous relatives and neighbors who could have
>testified that his personality and behavior changed after the
>accident. The lawyers failed to present expert psychiatric
>evidence to support the claim of self-defense or to present as
>mitigation evidence against the death penalty. Since the trial a
>number of experts have concluded that Kevin Zimmerman's
>brain injury had affected his behavior, including at the time of
>the stabbing. In 2003, for example, a psychologist concluded that
>because of this, the crime ''should not be considered as a
>predatory/premeditated crime'' (see original EXTRA).
>
>Kevin Zimmerman faces lethal injection with three chemicals:
>sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium
>chloride. Pancuronium bromide, a derivative of curare, paralyzes
>the skeletal muscles but does not affect the brain or nerves. A
>person injected with it remains conscious but cannot move or
>speak. Legal challenges are being made against its use in
>executions on the grounds that it may throw a ''chemical veil''
>over the reality of lethal injections by masking suffering and
>giving the false appearance of a serene death. In a challenge in
>Tennessee, a woman testified that she had undergone surgery
>during which the anaesthetic failed. She testified that she was
>able to hear, perceive and feel everything that was going on in
>her surgery, but was unable to move or speak because of an
>injection of pancuronium bromide. She has described the
>experience as ''worse than death''.
>
>The use of pancuronium bromide for pet euthanasia is not
>acceptable under American Veterinary Medical Association
>guidelines, and its use has been banned in several states. On 1
>September 2003, a new law came into force in Texas banning its
>use in the euthanasia of cats and dogs. The American Medical
>Association's Code of Ethics prohibits doctors from participating
>in executions. There are reportedly no standards for the training
>of these non-medical personnel who carry out Texas executions,
>increasing the potential for botched executions. According to
>Kevin Zimmerman's lawyers, a law which will come into force
>on 1 January 2005 ''would make the lethal injection process, if
>performed on animals, illegal, because of the lack of training for
>the personnel involved, and the lack of safeguards.''
>
>Kevin Zimmerman's execution was stopped by the US Supreme
>Court about 20 minutes before it was due to be carried out on 10
>December. Lawyers had asked for a stay of execution in a civil
>rights lawsuit challenging the lethal injection process. The lower
>courts had dismissed the appeal by recharacterizing it as a
>procedurally barred successive habeas corpus petition under a
>different law (see EXTRA update). In December, in the case of
>David Nelson, an Alabama inmate challenging his impending
>lethal injection on the grounds that he has collapsed veins and
>would have to face painful surgery before being killed, the
>Supreme Court agreed to consider the question of courts
>reconstruing civil rights suits as habeas corpus petitions. On 15
>December, the Supreme Court lifted Kevin Zimmerman's stay of
>execution, however. Four of the nine Justices dissented, holding
>that his case should await the outcome of the Nelson case. The
>five Justices in the majority gave no reason for lifting the stay.
>On 18 December, the Court upheld a stay of execution for
>Virginia inmate James Reid pending its decision in the Alabama
>case.  Reid has raised a similar complaint to David Nelson.
>
>Prior to Kevin Zimmerman's 10 December execution date, the
>Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency although,
>unusually, two members voted for commutation, at least one of
>whom did not consider the case to have warranted the death
>penalty. The Governor does not have the power to commute
>without a recommendation from the Board, but he does have the
>authority to issue a reprieve.
>
>FURTHER RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send
>appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in your own words,
>using the above information as you see fit:
>- explaining that you are not seeking to minimize the seriousness
>of Gilbert Hooks' killing, or the suffering it has caused;
>- noting that the prosecution did not initially consider this to be a
>case of capital murder, and only upgraded it after an intervention
>by the defendant who was in an apparently psychotic or suicidal
>state; - expressing concern at the poor quality of Kevin
>Zimmerman's trial counsel, who failed to present expert
>evidence of the defendant's mental impairment;
>- noting that since the trial a number of experts have concluded
>that this mental impairment made it unlikely that the crime was
>premeditated or that the defendant could conform his conduct to
>the law;
>- expressing concern that Texas has executed more than 300
>prisoners by a method which evidence suggests could be
>resulting in torturous deaths where the suffering is masked, and
>noting that animals could not be euthanized under this method
>under various states laws, including in Texas;
>- calling on the governor to stop Kevin Zimmerman's execution
>and to ask the Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider its
>earlier decision against clemency.
>
>APPEALS TO:
>The Honorable Rick Perry
>Governor of Texas
>State Capitol
>PO Box 12428
>Austin, TX 78711
>Fax: 1 512 463 1849 / 0039 / 1932
>Salutation: Dear Governor
>
>COPIES TO: You may also write brief letters (not more than
>250 words) to:
>Letters to the Editor, Austin-American Statesman, P.O. Box 670,
>Austin, Texas 78767
>Fax: 1 512 912 5927.       Email:
>http://www.statesman.com/search/content/standing/letters.ht
>ml
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>PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.
>
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>
>Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots
>movement that promotes and defends human
>rights.
>
>This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept
>intact, including contact information and stop
>action date (if applicable). Thank you for your
>help with this appeal.
>
>Urgent Action Network
>Amnesty International USA
>PO Box 1270
>Nederland CO 80466-1270
>Email: uan at aiusa.org
>http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/
>Phone: 303 258 1170
>Fax:     303 258 7881
>
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>END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL UPDATE
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