Man may dodge death penalty

2007-10-25 21:10

Fanny Carrier

Washington - For many of the 3 300 US inmates languishing on death row, some as long as 20 and 30 years, old age and illness can bring down the final curtain before their date with the executioner.

That's why Alabama state insists on its right to execute convicted murderer Daniel Siebert at 23:00 GMT on Thursday, before the 53-year-old cheats the executioner and succumbs to terminal pancreatic cancer.

It's possible Siebert's lawyers will win a stay of execution with their last minute appeals.

Numerous states have frozen carrying out capital punishment since late September when the US Supreme Court took up the issue of whether the lethal injection method of capital punishment is constitutional.

But not if Alabama Governor Rob Riley can help it. He has refused to intervene to stop the clock on Siebert's execution by the same means.

"I would in essence be commuting his sentence to life in prison and that is not the sentence he was given by a jury," Riley said. "His crimes were monstrous, brutal and ghastly."

Keeping inmates alive

Alabama has a record of upholding death sentences regardless of circumstances. In 2004, it executed convicted murderer James Hubbard, despite his 74 years and precarious health - medical certificates attested to his colon and prostate cancers, hepatitis and senile dementia.

Oklahoma in June also put to death 49-year-old convicted murderer Jimmy Bland who had advanced lung cancer. The state went so far as to pay for Bland's chemotherapy to keep him alive.

Often, however, death does not wait for appeals, even excluding the many suicides among death row inmates.

According to the Texas penitentiary administration, about 20 death row inmates died in the state from natural causes, including cancer, pneumonia, Aids and heart attacks, in the past three decades.

In California, which houses the country's largest death row population, 13 inmates have been executed since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, but 38 died from natural causes.

Currently, 55 of California's inmates awaiting execution are older than 60, and two over 70.

No guarantees

A Justice Department last year said there were 137 death row inmates over 60 across the country in December 2005.

The oldest prisoner awaiting execution is LeRoy Nash, who at 92 is in an Arizona jail along with two other "senior" death row inmates: John Vining, 76, and William Cruse, who will turn 80 in November.

Born in September 1915 and sentenced to death in 1983 for a murder he committed while on the run, LeRoy Nash is still waiting for his final date.

But he dares not hope, since neither age nor illness is a guarantee he will cheat the executioner.

- AFP