The state of Oklahoma is scheduled to execute Scott Hain, a juvenile offender, on April 3 for the 1987 murders of Michael William Houghton and Laura Lee Sanders in Tulsa. Hain, who is white, was 17 years old at the time of the crime, and had no prior history of violence.

From Hill Connections:

Touched by the death penalty in the most opposite of ways, two men traveled a brave road to forgiveness, turning anger into healing and a fight for justice. It is hard to imagine two more disparate experiences than those of the men featured in this story. Juan Melendez spent 17 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. Bud Welch is the father of a young woman killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Action alert received today from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) on the upcoming execution of Larry Moon set for March 25:

The state of Georgia is scheduled to execute Larry Moon March 25 for the 1984 robbery and murder of Ricky Callahan in Catoosa County. Moon, a white man, allegedly shot Callahan twice in the head and stole his car before fleeing to Tennessee. He received his death sentence in 1988, but only after a trial plagued by prosecutorial misconduct. Through all the procedural flaws in Moon’s case, one critical possibility now stands out as the obvious reason to halt this pending execution: Moon may very well be innocent.

The action alert lays out all the facts and has the addresses of those to contact.

Prosecutors have issued a self-serving "public relations" document as a report it claims supports the death penalty in Calfornia and shows there is no need for a moratorium.

Here's more.

Death penalty critics denounced virtually every aspect of the report, branding it a political document based on faulty information or misinterpreted data.

Attorney General John Ascroft has backed off his demand for the death penalty for a mentally retarded man from Brooklyn, who was facing murder charges in Binghamton, NY.

Defense lawyers say that federal prosecutors in Binghamton have told them that the government now concurs with the defense's contention that Mr. McMillian is mentally retarded. Mr. McMillian's case was the focus of a story that appeared on Tuesday in The New York Times.

Terence L. Kindlon, one of Mr. McMillian's lawyers, said prosecutors told the defense team last night that they would file formal notice of the Justice Department's decision today in United States District Court in Binghamton.

"I can't imagine receiving better news," Mr. Kindlon said. "I'm walking on air."

Statement from Attorney Timothy Floyd on the Execution of Sgt. Louis Jones, Jr.

Louis Jones, Jr. died at approximately 7:00 a.m. on March 18, 2003.

It is a cruel irony that on the day that we go to war, the life of Sgt. Louis Jones, Jr., a consummate soldier, was ended at the hand of the government whom he proudly served -- the same government that failed to acknowledge the impact of nerve agents on Sgt. Jones, the brain damage that it caused, and the fact that jurors could not have known about this at the time of his trial.

As we mark his death, we need to remember his victim, Tracie McBride, and her family. They have suffered an unspeakable loss-a loss caused by Louis Jones. Louis Jones was put to death for a crime for which he accepted responsibility and experienced great remorse until the moment he died.

The act of lethal injection that ended Louis Jones's life came after eight years of legal proceedings and enormous devotion of government resources to a single goal: ensuring his death as an act of retribution. It was a deliberate death carried out by the United States government-carried out on behalf of all Americans, including you and me. Lou acknowledged his guilt and would have pled guilty to a sentence of life without possibility of shortly after he was arrested in 1995. But our national system of capital punishment had targeted him, and the government spent eight years ensuring his death.

The execution of Louis Jones represents the failure of the federal government to understand and be accountable for the impact of nerve agents on the soldiers who are exposed to it in the service of their country-and on others who are affected by the damage done to those soldiers. It is a sad message that goes with our soldiers and their families-if you return from war damaged, the U.S. government won't take responsibility for that damage and its consequences. Indeed, it may not even acknowledge it. And, it's a frightening message for those who may be harmed because of the government's failure to understand and to deal appropriately with the consequences of chemical warfare.

There was much more to Louis Jones's life than the crime for which his life was ended.

Gulf War veteran Louis Jones was executed in Terre Haute this morning. He was pronounced dead at 7:08 a.m.

The federal government has executed three people in the last forty years. Two were Gulf War Vets with no prior criminal record.

President Bush declined late Monday to stop the execution of a decorated Gulf War veteran who claims severe brain damage from his exposure to Iraqi nerve gas led him to kill.

Without presidential clemency, it was virtually assured Louis Jones Jr. will be executed by injection Tuesday morning at the U.S. Penitentiary near Terre Haute, Ind.

As the execution neared, Jones met Monday with his 22-year-old daughter, his attorney and two spiritual advisers. Attorney Timothy Floyd said his client had been hopeful as he awaited word on whether Bush would consider his request to commute his death sentence to life in prison.

"He was really remarkably strong and I think at peace with whatever happens. I attribute that to his deep faith -- I think that's sustained him through this," Floyd said.

For his last meal Monday, Jones selected whole fruit: nectarines, peaches and plums.

If the execution proceeds, Jones would be the third person -- after Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and drug kingpin Juan Garza -- put to death by the federal government since 1963.

Here's an update and profile of Louis Jones, who is scheduled to be the third federal inmate executed in the past 40 years. What makes Mr. Jones' case unique is the grounds upon which he is seeking clemency: he was exposed to nerve gas as a soldier in Iraq during Gulf War I and suffered brain damage, which, his lawyers say, contributed to his crime. Jones has asked President Bush to commute his death sentence to one of life without.

Unless the Supreme Court or President Bush acts, Mr. Jones, 53, will be executed at 7 o'clock on Tuesday morning. His lawyer, Timothy Floyd, said the chemicals to which Mr. Jones was exposed in Iraq changed his personality, unbalanced his mind and played a significant role in the crimes he was convicted of committing.

Our earlier coverage of Mr. Jones' case is here. The Washington Post reported on Mr. Jones' and his clemency petition in February, and included this summary:

Jones grew up in Chicago and spent 22 years in the military before retiring in 1993 as a master sergeant in the Airborne Rangers. His honors included a meritorious service medal, a Southwest Asia service medal with three bronze service stars, a Kuwait liberation medal, badges for marksmanship and parachuting, and a good-conduct medal, according to his plea for clemency.

But, the petition says, Jones was a changed man after returning from the Gulf in May 1991.

"It solves the mystery that was at the heart of the trial: how and why someone with the background and character of Louis Jones could have committed such a horrible crime," the petition says.

Dr. Robert W. Haley, an epidemiologist and expert on Gulf War diseases at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said in the clemency petition that Jones suffers from brain damage, not a psychological illness.

Jones and his unit were exposed to chemical fallout following U.S. bombing raids on Iraqi weapons storage sites, the petition said. He suffered from "irritability and hostility, and numerous neurological symptoms," Haley wrote.

Jones' lawyer also notes that he lacks an enzyme that would have helped his body metabolize the nerve gas.

If you'd like to express your opinion to the President, or learn more about Mr. Jones, go here.

"Houston Mayor Lee Brown is asking Gov. Rick Perry to place a moratorium on some Harris County death penalty cases in which DNA evidence was processed by the Police Department's troubled crime lab."

In a statement released Friday, Brown said: "There are a number of cases that will be retested. Certainly as a former police chief and the Mayor of this City, the thought of a wrongful conviction for any crime is disturbing. However, we should not assume that any or all of the cases are `wrongful convictions.' We should wait for retesting to be completed. Then I'll expect the judicial process to correct or corroborate the convictions under scrutiny." Brown mailed letters to Perry requesting a moratorium on the cases until they are reviewed.

Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) has written a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft regarding the federal death penalty. Here is the first part of it:

March 14, 2003

The Honorable John D. Ashcroft
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
10th Street & Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530

Dear Attorney General Ashcroft,

I write to inquire about the decision-making process for determining whether to seek the death penalty in federal capital-eligible cases.

I am concerned about the fairness of the decision-making process, after reading recent news reports that indicate you have overridden the recommendation of local federal prosecutors in at least 28 federal death-eligible cases. You appear to be pursuing consistency in the application of the federal death penalty nationwide by seeking it more aggressively in jurisdictions where federal prosecutors have infrequently requested authorization from the Attorney General to seek the death penalty. In other words, you seem intent on making the federal system replicative of states that aggressively pursue the death
penalty * states like Texas, which next week is scheduled to execute its 300th inmate in the modern death penalty era.

I am concerned that your apparent determination to increase death penalty prosecutions, including sometimes overriding decisions of local prosecutors, increases the risk that the federal government could execute an innocent person. Former federal prosecutors have said that "they need to take every last precaution to avoid the risk of condemning an innocent person to death." See "In Brooklyn Murder Case, Doubts on Identification," New York Times, Feb. 12, 2003. While you and I may disagree on the fundamental question of whether the federal government should be authorized to use capital punishment, I hope that we can agree that the Constitution and the integrity of our criminal justice system require the fair administration of the death penalty and that only the guilty are convicted....

Feingold then calls upon Ashcroft to provide information about his decisions. The list of requested items is too long to print here, but if we (or you) find an online copy of the letter, or a similar one written by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy on February 7, 2003, we'll post it here.

A House Panel in Illinois has voted to approve a death penalty reform bill that incorporates 23 of the 85 reforms recommended by the Illinois Commision in 2002. We don't understand the House reluctance to ban executing the mentally retarded, but the measures it does include represent a significant step towards reform of the broken death penalty system in Illinois.