Journal editorial, 8-31: Page case 'a farce'

By The Journal Editorial Board | Thursday, August 31, 2006

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A Page family friend, Suzanne Sanduh of Kansas City, perhaps best summed up Tuesday evening's 11th-hour halt of convicted killer Elijah Page's execution: "It's a farce."

Gov. Mike Rounds granted Page the reprieve he didn't want when he stopped his scheduled 10 p.m. MDT execution at 4:45 p.m. because state law specifies the use of two drugs in lethal injection when the state had planned to use three drugs as is currently practiced nationwide. Rounds and Attorney General Larry Long said using three drugs violated the law.

We still think Rounds could have allowed the execution to proceed since the intent of the law is to provide a humane method of execution and the presence of the third drug is intended to ensure a more humane method than specified by law. The execution also could have been carried out with just the two drugs as specified by law.

But Rounds chose to apply the letter of the law and a strict interpretation of the statute - something that should have been done weeks ago. If you're going to strictly apply the state's death penalty law to the letter, shouldn't Long or someone in the Rounds administration have read the statute and alerted Rounds long ago to the glaring discrepancy that the governor said forced his hand just hours before the execution?

Even if no one in the administration thought to check the statute earlier, when the lawyer for death-row inmate Donald Moeller filed an appeal last week challenging the method of lethal injection, shouldn't someone have looked it up and immediately advised Rounds?

Someone in Rounds' administration failed to do their job in researching the death penalty statute. At best, Rounds has been ill-informed and advised; at worst, he was looking for an out and only decided at the last minute to take it.

We expect our governor to make tough decisions, and Gov. Rounds has pushed making this one off to the state Legislature and next year.

The unexpected halt to Page's execution for the 2000 murder of Chester Allan Poage has upset family members, put Department of Corrections employees through a pointless exercise and cost state taxpayers thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, the needlessly chaotic finish to Page's execution request has shaken public confidence in the state's ability to carry out the death penalty.