CAPITAL PUNISHMENT - Part II

You have the choice . . .

by Alex Hutchins

. . .  of how you want to die.  Imagine that!  Some States actually give death row inmates the choice of how they want to be put to death:  lethal injection or electrocution; in fact, one State allows an inmate to choose whether they want 3 chemicals in their lethal injection or just 1 and I am assuming here but I would suspect that the lesser number of chemicals the more painful it is for the inmate to die.

Presently (as of January 1, 2012), there are 3,189 inmates on death row with California and Florida having the most and Wyoming and New Hampshire having the least.

Ready . . .  Set . . .  Go . . .

There are 58 females on death row which represents a little less than 2% of the overall death row population.  In the past 100 years, only 40 women have been executed and only 12 since 1976.  Of the 12 executed since 1976, all died of lethal injection except for two who were electrocuted.

Since 1976, there has been 1296 executions of inmate on death row.  The youngest person to be executed was 14 years old, in 1944 and the last youth to be executed was in 1959, age 17.  African Americans make up 15% of the death row population with only 34% of those actually being executed.  African Americans make up 47% of the non-death row inmate population.



George Stinney - age 14 . . .

As reported by the New York Times 2010, the oldest man on death row in Arizona dies at the age of 93 of natural causes.  The State was fighting charges that he was not competent to assist in his defense to the Supreme Court; he had spent 25 years in prison for killing a police officer in 1947.

In 2011 in Mississippi, 3 inmates filed a lawsuit contending that officials failed to properly publicize as required by law it switch to a new lethal injection drug because the one they were using was not available.  Apparently, the European supplier of Sodium Thiopental stopped making the drug after receiving serious pressure from a anti-death penalty, so the drug was replaced by Pentobarbital.  Two of the 3 inmates have been executed while awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court.  Only in America are the “rights” of death row inmates still protected.

While death row inmate exercise their legal rights, many are able to sustain their execution and die of natural causes in custody; but, this does not alter the fact that in a “civilized” society does the Government have the right to terminate the life of another human being who took the life of another human being, or as The Bible puts it, “an eye for an eye.”  And, should Governments be endowed with that right but more importantly, what does it mean to be “civilized?” 

Does Capital Punishment of the one who took the life bring back the life of the one whose life was taken?

The forgotten victims . . .

Does Capital Punishment of the one who took the life somehow ease the souls of the victim’s family?

No more last meals in Texas for death row inmates . . .

Does Capital Punishment send a message to “would be” killers who might be high on drugs or alcohol to think twice and are they in a proper “state-of-mind” where they can think twice?

Does education really make a difference?