Tag Archive for execution

Can’t Waste that Execution Chemical!

March 22, 2017 Comments Off on Can’t Waste that Execution Chemical!

Next month Arkansas will go on a marathon of executions–8 people in 10 days–that mean doing 4 doubles.  This has never been done before.

Why are they doing this?  Is it because they need to lessen the prison population because of overcrowding?  To end these prisoners’ cruel anxiety of having death constantly hanging over their heads?  To give faster “closure” to victims’ families?  Because a new law was passed?  No.

This  stepped-up execution schedule, after carrying out no executions for almost 12 years, isn’t for legal or humane reasons.  It’s because one of the chemicals used in their executions is  about to expire and they don’t want to waste it.

Unbelievable?  Read  Accelerated executions: Arkansas plans 8 over 10-day period.

Extra stress on staff is expected, so counselling is being arranged for them.  And they promised that they’ll do everything right, even though horrific mistakes have been made during single executions under far less stressful conditions.

The whole thing gives me great pause.

 

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Another Black Mark Against California

June 3, 2015 Comments Off on Another Black Mark Against California

Yesterday I wrote about a free ride for CA legislators. Today I’m again unhappy with my normally beloved state.

We’ve put in a lot of time, energy, and money to solve a problem: executions.  We haven’t had any for 9 years, and 170 people currently sit on Death Row, 17 of whom have no appeals left to them.

After hassling with the Supreme Court for some time, our corrections department has come up with a new form of execution.  Will it succeed where the electric chair, gas chamber, and 3-drug injections failed?  And will “success” be measured in a population of 0 on Death Row?

I can’t help wondering if all the time, effort, research, and money put into devising this new killing system were put into repairing our biased, unequally applied, wealth-driven, often wrong legal system, if maybe we’d reach 0 population on Death Row naturally, through death-by-old-age or morally, by equal application of capital punishment and release of people who, thanks to that equal application and advances in science, should never have been there in the first place.

 

 

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The Execution of Children

March 18, 2015 Comments Off on The Execution of Children

He had an IQ of only 71, reading skills of a 4th grader, an actual hole in his head, and the loss of 8% of his brain due to a sawmill accident long before he committed the crime.  Doctors said the portion of his brain lost included 1/5 of the frontal lobe, the portion that maintains judgment and impulse control. That means he didn’t have the mental capacity to understand why he was being executed or even the crime he committed.  But the state of Missouri executed 74-year-old Cecil Clayton anyway.  Maybe because it was a sheriff’s deputy he killed?

When will our “civilized” country stop killing children who happen to have adult bodies?

 

 

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In Danger for Sticking by her Conscience

March 10, 2015 2 comments

One woman is receiving threats and has to have security because she refused to cave in.  She was the only one who stuck to her “no” vote on whether to execute Jodi Arias.  It wasn’t a religious decision or that she was opposed to the death penalty.  We have to believe her on that; lawyers put prospective jurors through rigorous questioning to disqualify such people. Rather, there was something nagging at her conscience, making her unsure that death was appropriate in this case.

And she wasn’t the only one.  Four members of the original jury also refused to vote for death for Arias.  And those jurors heard the entire case, not an abridged version of it, as this last jury did.

Putting a human being to death is a very serious decision to make.  That’s why it must be unanimous.  And why we must respect the people who have enough doubt to vote against it.

What would have happened if the original four and this one woman had been replaced with others?  Would they have  interpreted facts differently? Would they have felt that doubt but, nonetheless, been influenced to vote with the majority?  Would that have been any more just than the real outcome?

There are too many uncontrollable factors going into jury selection, and a judge alone should not make the determination.  This, in itself, should be reason enough to eliminate the death penalty in America.

 

 

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Executions: Purpose and Practice

July 25, 2014 Comments Off on Executions: Purpose and Practice

 

What do events in Arizona a few days ago, in Oklahoma in April, and in Ohio in January have in common?  Three botched executions, in which the condemned man tried to gulp air for nearly two hours (Arizona), writhed in agony for several minutes before dying of a heart attack (Oklahoma), and snorted, gasped, and struggled for some time before the lethal drugs killed him (Ohio).  These–and many similar events–also show that carrying out a death sentence can be far from the humane practice it’s legally supposed to be.

I feel compassion for families of victims.  I understand their need for “closure” (whatever that is) and that they believe in “an eye for an eye” (even Christians, whose faith says that Christ came to bring mercy and forgiveness, replacing the Old Testament law of getting even).  And I know that executions are codified in our laws.  But unless they can be carried out in a legal (meaning humane) fashion, they should be discontinued.  Otherwise, they aren’t justice but simply vengeance.

 

 

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Ryan Ferguson & Our Justice System

November 13, 2013 Comments Off on Ryan Ferguson & Our Justice System

If Ryan Ferguson had been in Texas or some other states, would he have been executed before he could have been exonerated and released?  As the judge pointed out, he is definitely and obviously innocent of the murder of sports editor Kent Heitholt.

I keep thinking that executions are far too permanent and irrevocable to use in such an imperfect legal system.

 

 

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