American Civil Liberties Union : South Dakota Governor Stays Execution

Death Penalty:
The death penalty is the ultimate denial of civil liberties. In the past 35 years, 130 inmates were found to be innocent and released from death row. The ACLU Capital Punishment Project is fighting for the end of the death penalty by supporting moratorium and repeal movements through public education and advocacy. We are engaged in systemic reform of the death penalty process, and case-specific litigation highlighting some of its fundamental flaws.

South Dakota Governor Stays Execution (9/12/2006)

On Wednesday, August 30, 2006, South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds stayed the execution of the death sentence of Elijah Page amid concerns that the state’s lethal injection protocols were as flawed as those in other states such as California, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, and Ohio. Though Page had suspended his appeals in order that that the State of South Dakota carry out his death sentence, Governor Rounds expressed concern that state officials were at risk of violating state law, which calls for use of two, not three, drugs in carrying out the lethal injection.

Governor Rounds’ issued a reprieve until July 1, 2007, to give state lawmakers an opportunity to fix a problem in the state statute regarding the lethal injection protocols. A similar argument, made to state and federal courts in Montana, was rejected less than a month earlier in the case of David Dawson who, as Page, had suspended his appeals in order that the State of Montana carry out its death sentence in his case. This same issue was presented to the North Carolina Supreme Court in a similar situation in 2005, but that court rejected an appeal on that basis.

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