Should military execute death row inmates again?

Resuming federal executions unlikely to affect military death row

STARS AND STRIPES
By NANCY MONTGOMERY
Published: August 12, 2019

The Trump administration’s plan to begin executing federal death row inmates for the first time in 16 years will have little effect on the four soldiers sentenced to death, military lawyers and the Army said.

Master Sgt. Timothy Hennis and his wife, Angela Hennis, walk to the Fort Bragg, N.C., courthouse for his murder trial Thursday, April 8, 2010. Hennis was found guilty of the May 9, 1985, murder of Kathryn Eastburn and her two children. STEPHANIE BRUCE, THE FAYETTEVILLE OBSERVE/AP

They include Ronald Gray, a former cook who was convicted three decades ago of multiple rapes and four murders near Fort Bragg, N.C., and was scheduled to be executed in 2008. The case remains ongoing in Kansas federal district court, with no clear end in sight.

Also on death row is former Sgt. Hasan Akbar, convicted in 2005 of killing two officers and wounding 14 other soldiers two years earlier in Kuwait; Timothy Hennis, a master sergeant convicted in 2010 of the 1985 rape and murder of a woman and murder of her two children; and Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist convicted in 2013 of killing 13 people and wounding numerous others on Ft. Hood in 2009.

All “are in various stages of legal action,” Army spokesman William Sharp said in an email. When and how those actions might conclude is unknown.

Presidents must approve the execution of those sentenced to death at court-martial, after receiving a recommendation from the secretary of the associated service branch. The Navy has not executed any of its members since 1849.
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Why Are Veterans With PTSD On Death Row?

Sometimes I am sure I should have just come home from work and taken a nap instead of reading some of the articles I am sent. After this one, I need a good stiff drink first and then maybe a nap.

An Ex-Marine Killed Two People in Cold Blood. Should His PTSD Keep Him From Death Row? "We are sending to war the most proficient and lethal killers in our nation’s history." Mother Jones, By AJ Vicens, May 2, 2016

The ruling on his case has implications for a question that has concerned the military, veterans' groups, and death penalty experts: Should service-related PTSD exclude veterans from the death penalty? An answer to this question could affect some of the estimated 300 veterans who now sit on death rows across the country, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. But it's unclear how many of them suffer from PTSD or traumatic brain injuries, given how uneven the screening for these disorders has been.

Experts are divided about whether veterans with PTSD who commit capital crimes deserve what is known as a "categorical exemption" or "exclusion." Juveniles receive such treatment, as do those with mental disabilities. In 2009, Anthony Giardino, a lawyer and Iraq War veteran, argued in favor of this in the Fordham Law Review, writing that courts "should consider the more fundamental question of whether the government should be in the business of putting to death the volunteers they have trained, sent to war, and broken in the process" who likely would not be in that position "but for their military service." In a 2015 Veterans Day USA Today op-ed, three retired military officials argued that in criminal cases, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges often don't consider veterans' PTSD with proper due diligence. "Veterans with PTSD…deserve a complete investigation and presentation of their mental state by the best experts in the field," they wrote.

That part of the article is right. PTSD is not a get off the hook free pass but justice does require disclosure of it. These cases are still very rare, as indicated by the number of veterans reported to be on death row. We have about 22 million veterans in this country.

If we don't take care of them when they are in the service, which clearly evidence proves we don't, and then can't manage to take care of then as veterans, substance abuse usually follows along with a lot of other things. The very nature of someone in the military is to save people even though they are trained to kill in order do to that, but we tend to skip that part. So how is it they go from being willing to die for the sake of someone else into killing others? That is a good place to start but then we have to add in the other simply fact we also like to forget. It is still happening. When it happened to all the other generations of veterans, we had the luxury of ignorance for an excuse. After all these years, no excuse should be acceptable because since 2007 the military and the VA has had 40 years of research to come up with a better plan than they ended up with.

PTSD On Trial: Tim Rojas on Texas Death Row

Ex-Marine on death row says jurors should have been told more about PTSD
Dallas News
By BRANDI GRISSOM
Austin Bureau
Published: 02 August 2015

In Texas, 10 of the 261 death row inmates reported some military service, according to the Department of Criminal Justice.

To Tim Rojas, it feels like just yesterday that he and his Marine buddy John Thuesen were on the battlefield together, looking death in the face and trying to make sure they both got home to their families.

In reality, it’s been more than a decade since they left Iraq. Rojas works at a high-powered Houston investment firm. Thuesen, though, is in a 6-by-10 solitary cell, hoping that Texas’ highest criminal court will spare him from the death penalty.

“Hope is everything,” Rojas said.

Thuesen, 31, has been on death row since he was convicted in 2010 of fatally shooting his girlfriend Rachel Joiner and her brother Travis Joiner in their College Station home.

In July, Brazos County District Judge Travis Bryan III agreed with Thuesen’s appellate lawyers that the attorneys who defended Thuesen at trial didn’t adequately inform jurors about their client’s post-traumatic stress disorder after his return from combat. With more information about PTSD and its effects, Bryan said in court documents, the jurors who sentenced Thuesen to death may have decided differently. Bryan’s ruling is now under review by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which will ultimately decide whether Thuesen should get a new trial and a chance at a lesser sentence.
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Death row inmate missing part of brain

Attorney: Death row inmate missing part of brain
BRETT BARROUQUERE
Associated Press
Wednesday, August 1, 2012

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kevin Wayne Dunlap's decision to plead guilty to killing three children and attacking a woman in her home near Fort Campbell caught his attorneys by surprise. Now, they think they understand why.

Defense attorneys say the former special operations soldier is missing the frontal lobe in his brain that controls impulses and decision making. The damage rendered Dunlap incompetent to plead guilty to a capital offense, defense attorney Kathleen Schmidt wrote in a brief to the Kentucky Supreme Court, which will hear arguments in Dunlap's case Aug. 16 in Frankfort.

Schmidt raised the issue of Dunlap's competency in a brief and also wrote that the motivations behind Dunlap's decision to plead guilty "are murky at best, unfathomable at their heart."

"Dunlap's behavior was perplexing from the start," Schmidt said. "In short, he was willing to plead guilty even though he did not even know for certain what he was pleading to at the time the judge conducted the plea colloquy and he admitted guilt.

What could be more impulsive?"

The judge who sentenced Dunlap to death, as well as prosecutors, say he's been examined and they found no basis for a claim of mental incompetence.

Dunlap, 40, was sentenced to death March 19, 2010. He pleaded guilty to stabbing and killing 5-year-old Ethan Frensley, 17-year-old Kayla Williams and 14-year-old Kortney Frensley when they returned home from school on Oct. 15, 2008, in Roaring Springs, near the sprawling Fort Campbell military installation on the Kentucky-Tennessee state line. Dunlap remains on Kentucky's death row at the state penitentiary in Eddyville.
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Vietnam Vet on death row finally gets Purple Heart

Death row for a Vietnam vet is wrong in so many ways, but add in that he is also mentally ill. What is wrong with North Carolina they allowed this to happen? Why didn't they at least give him life in prison insted of this?

That's one of the biggest problems for Vietnam veterans. They never received what they needed when they came home and they are still being forgotten about. Did he commit murder three times over? Yes. Were families left in pain over this? Yes. But is justice the death of this man when we have laws saying that we don't put people with mental illness to death, and the same nation that says we honor the veterans? I don't think so. There are so many in jail and if we don't start to ask if they should be or not, there will never really be justice for Vietnam veterans no many how many monuments we build or parades.

Death row inmate gets Purple Heart from Vietnam

The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Sep 5, 2009 13:29:42 EDT

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Guards took the shackles off death row prisoner James Davis and led him into a small room to get the Army medals he earned more than 40 years ago.

The North Carolina inmate slouched over as retired therapist Jim Johnson picked up the Purple Heart and the Good Conduct medals Davis earned in Vietnam, but never received.

But Johnson recalled that as he prepared to pin the medals on the triple-murderer from Asheville, Davis snapped to attention, hands cupped to the side. Johnson stepped back, and the two Tet Offensive veterans looked at each other. Davis then gave a textbook-sharp salute, Johnson said.

A few minutes later, the medals were tucked away. Davis, who will likely never touch them again, returned to his cell on death row, hard of hearing from the bombs that fell in 1968, one of which rocketed a chunk of metal that remains in his thigh. The leg still throbs when it gets cold.

The 62-year-old killer wants to give up all his appeals for killing two of his former bosses and another person in a tool company in 1995, although an attorney continues to fight for him.

“No soldier’s service to our country should be ignored,” Johnson said. “A lot of people would say, ‘It’s just a medal. Forget it.’ Not to me, it’s not. To me, it’s the recognition that every soldier deserves. No matter what happened, his service should be recognized.”

Davis’ attorney Ken Rose brought the two together. Rose is trying to get Davis off death row, saying his trial attorneys did not do their jobs He contends they mostly ignored signs of mental illness in their client that started early because of abuse when he was a child and was made worse through post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the war.

A Veterans Administration physician determined Davis suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and depression. His marriage collapsed, he attempted suicide and he was fired for fighting with co-workers not long before he returned to his job and went on a shooting spree.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/09/ap_death_row_purple_heart_090509/