Arizona executed convicted murderer Joseph R. Wood on Wednesday, a lethal injection that lasted for nearly two hours as Wood snorted and gasped, witnesses said.Read the rest here.
The drawn-out process prompted the governor to order a review and drew renewed criticism of lethal injection, the main method of execution in the United States, just months after a high-profile botched execution in Oklahoma.
“I’ve witnessed a number of executions before and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Dale Baich, one of Wood’s attorneys, told The Washington Post in a phone call. “Nor has an execution that I observed taken this long.”
YARNELL, Ariz. — A fast-moving wildfire killed 19 firefighters Sunday afternoon after the blaze raced through an Arizona community, a state forestry official told The Associated Press.Read the rest here.
Forestry spokesman Art Morrison said the firefighters were caught by the fire near the central Arizona town of Yarnell about 85 miles northwest of Phoenix. He said the firefighters were forced to deploy their fire shelters, tent-like structures meant to shield firefighters from flames and heat.
TUCSON, Ariz. — Jared Lee Loughner agreed Tuesday to spend the rest of his life in prison, accepting that he went on a deadly shooting rampage at an Arizona political gathering and sparing the victims a lengthy, possibly traumatic death-penalty trial.Read the rest here.
His plea came soon after a federal judge found that months of psychiatric treatment for schizophrenia made Loughner able to understand charges that he killed six people and wounded 13 others, including his intended target, then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
The Supreme Court on Monday said states may play a limited role in enforcing laws on illegal immigration, upholding part of Arizona’s controversial law but striking other portions it said intruded on the federal government’s powers.Read the rest here.
The justices let stand for now the part of the law that requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they detain or arrest if they have “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the country illegally. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) declared that decision, on the part of the law that had generated the most controversy, a victory.
IF ONE-FIFTIETH of 1 percent of Arizonans demanded that Ken Bennett, the state’s Republican secretary of state, go to work in the nude, would he comply? Not likely. After all, Mr. Bennett, the former Republican president of the Arizona Senate, is planning to run for governor in two years. It wouldn’t pay to pander to crackpots — and humiliate himself in the bargain. Or would it?Read the rest here.
The question arises because Mr. Bennett, allegedly in response to e-mailed requests from 1,200 Arizonans, has demanded that Hawaii provide him with verification of President Obama’s birth certificate. If he doesn’t get it, he says, he might strike the president’s name from the state’s ballot this fall.
Arizona lawmakers appear close to sending to Gov. Jan Brewer a tea party-backed bill that proponents say would stop a United Nations takeover conspiracy but that critics claim could end state and cities’ pollution-fighting efforts and even dismantle the state unemployment office.Read the rest here.
A final legislative vote is expected Monday on a bill that would outlaw government support of any of the 27 principles contained in the 1992 United Nations Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, also sometimes referred to as Agenda 21.
Senate Bill 1507 was passed by the state Senate last month and received an initial House affirmation Wednesday. It is sponsored by state Sen. Judy Burges, R-Sun City West, who also sponsored a state birther bill that Brewer vetoed last year.
"The bill is designed to protect the rights of Arizona citizens and prevent encroachment on those rights by international institutions," Burges told msnbc.com in an email. "We have three branches of government and when one branch preempts the process through executive orders, the balance of power is lost in the process. It is that simple -- no more, no less."
At a March 15 hearing on the bill, Burges said an executive order signed by then-President Bill Clinton in 1993 started the implementation of Agenda 21 after the Senate refused to pass a treaty ratifying it.
"Any way you want to describe it, Agenda 21 is a direct attack on the middle class and working poor" through "social engineering of our citizens" in "every aspect" of their lives," she told the hearing.
But House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, has a different view.
“It’s the most poorly crafted bill in this state,” Campbell told msnbc.com. “It’s so broad and overreaching, we’re not sure what it could impact.”
The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed receptive to the argument that Arizona’s tough plan to have state and local law enforcement play a much more active role in identifying illegal immigrants was a valid exercise of its power to protect its borders.Read the rest here.
Hearing final oral arguments in the case, justices seemed skeptical of the Obama administration’s claim that a requirement that police check the immigration status of those arrested or detained was an impermissible intrusion on Congress’s power to set immigration policy and the executive branch’s ability to implement it.
PHOENIX — Arizona lawmakers want more fence along the border with Mexico — whether the federal government thinks it's necessary or not.Read the rest here.
They've got a plan that could get a project started using online donations and prison labor. If they get enough money, all they would have to do is get cooperation from landowners and construction could begin as soon as this year.
Gov. Jan Brewer recently signed a bill that sets the state on a course that begins with launching a website to raise money for the work, said state Sen. Steve Smith, the bill's sponsor.
Saying the state can't count on future federal funds, a legislative panel voted Wednesday to make Arizona the first -- and only -- state to withdraw from the federal Medicaid program.Read the rest here.
The plan, approved on an 8-5 vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee, would abolish the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, this state's version of Medicaid, effective Oct. 1. In its place, SB 1519 would direct the Department of Health Services to set up a program to provide care for the needy.
But that definition of "needy'' would be far more narrow than it is now.
How narrow?
Current AHCCCS enrollment, in all its programs, now exceeds 1.3 million. But AHCCCS officials said that, with people coming into and leaving the system, it provided care to about 1.8 million Arizonans last year.
By contrast, the plan by Sen. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, would provide free care for only about 80,000.
PHOENIX — Arizona lawmakers give their first hearing Monday to a bill that challenges automatic U.S. citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, the state's latest foray into the national debate over illegal immigration.Read the rest here
The bill to be heard Monday by the Senate judiciary committee seeks a court interpretation on an element of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to people born in the U.S. who are "subject to the jurisdiction" of this country.
Supporters of the bill the amendment doesn't apply to the children of illegal immigrants because such families don't owe sole allegiance to the U.S.
The bill's sponsors say the goal is to force a court to rule that a child born in the U.S. is a citizen only if either parent is a U.S. citizen or a legal immigrant. Similar proposals have been introduced by lawmakers in Indiana , Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma and South Dakota.
14th Amendment: Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.Pretending the Constitution means something different than its plain English meaning is what liberals do. It is a slippery slope. If you don't like part of the Constitution then amend it. This bill is so blatantly unconstitutional it should be laughed out of court and every legislator who votes for it should be fined for violating their oath of office and wasting the court's time.
WASHINGTON — Ronald Kempfert was a young boy in 1975 when his father was sent to prison for murder, and they had no contact for 28 years.Read the rest here.
Then, in 2003, Mr. Kempfert heard from a lawyer who had been looking into the case. “Your father is innocent,” said the lawyer, Larry A. Hammond. “And we’re pretty sure your mother framed him.”
That would seem a lot to digest, but Mr. Kempfert, 42, said he felt no hesitation. “My reaction was that it didn’t surprise me,” he said. “She’s my mother, and I love her. But I think she’s capable of anything.”
Mr. Kempfert is now certain that his father, William Macumber, is innocent. Arizona’s clemency board, citing Mr. Kempfert’s “very moving testimony” and saying there had been “a miscarriage of justice,” unanimously recommended last year that Mr. Macumber be freed.
But Mr. Macumber remains in prison, and Gov. Jan Brewer has refused to explain why.
