Three months
By Patrick Kelley
Originally published 02:01 p.m., December 20, 2007
Updated 02:01 p.m., December 20, 2007
Come Christmas day, it will be three months since there has been an execution in the United States. Outside the legal community, the lull has passed almost unnoticed.
The only time the death penalty has made the front pages in the past three months was earlier this week, when New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine signed the bill abolishing the death penalty in his state. Unless New Jersey changes its mind, the most severe sentence the state can now impose on a criminal is life in prison without parole.
But the moratorium on executions is not the result of New Jersey or any other state’s second-guessing itself on the death penalty. Nor is it because the various states have run out of condemned criminals. There are currently more than 3,000 prisoners on death row in the United States.
The reason execution chambers have been gathering dust is that on Sept. 25, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case in which two death-row inmates challenge the process of lethal injection used in 35 of the 36 death-penalty states. The challenge argues that the method violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Until the court rules on the case, no state is willing to carry out an execution with a method that could soon be declared illegal.
Lethal injection was once touted as a humane form of execution. It was designed to avoid the excruciating pain caused by botched electrocutions or hangings. But since lethal injection has come into widespread use, reports of botched and painful executions have continued to accumulate, as have questions about what the executed prisoner — strapped to a gurney and chemically paralyzed — actually experiences in the minutes it takes to die.
That is the question the Supreme Court will attempt to answer when it rules on the challenges to lethal injection.
Running in parallel with the questions about lethal injection are questions about the reliability of the system of justice that condemns people to death. Since 1999, a total of 42 prisoners on death row in the United States have been exonerated. Some of them had spent decades in prison awaiting execution. The execution of any of those condemned people would have been a terrible miscarriage of justice.
The possibility of executing an innocent person is real enough to dampen the national enthusiasm of the death penalty. New Jersey is the first state to repeal the death penalty since 1976, but two other states — Maryland and Illinois — have declared moratoriums on executions.
And now the Supreme Court’s acceptance of the lethal-injection challenges has imposed a de facto moratorium on the whole country.
It has been three months since there has been an execution in the United States.
Has that harmed the nation in any way?
emporialifer (anonymous) says...
I think a convicted criminal who has committed a heinous crime against another human being that tries to claim that lethal injection (a darn needle in the arm) is "cruel and usual punishment" is the biggest joke I've ever heard. And the fact that people take it seriously is frightening! How quickly people forget the real VICTIMS and the pain and suffering that was forced on them for no reason. The VICTIMS had no choice on how they died or how they were treated, so why should the CRIMINALS who carried out those acts have a choice. They made their choice - they broke the law and took a life - something that can never be replaced. Remember that.
December 21, 2007 at 8:36 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
CAFEmporia (anonymous) says...
By reason of common decency and a morally rising culture, we are obligated to extend a compassionate and logically productive treatment to all people, whether criminal or not. Killing is neither compassionate nor productive.
By reason of our pursuit of justice, executions are wrong. Never in our history have we been capable of convicting and sentencing criminals with confidence of fairness, let alone justice. In light of the many, many overturned cases where men have been convicted and sentenced to death only to later discover that they were innocent, execution is morally wrong. Because execution is levied disproportionately by race, class, gender, and financial worth, it is inherently unfair and conflicts with our avowals of equality.
Politically, we suffer by the repercussions of our executions. Other nations are less cooperative with us on investigations and extraditions because of our tendency to kill. We are looked down upon by individuals in other countries who consider executions to be reprehensible and barbaric. Meeting world standards is a form of neighborliness and, given the other negatives involved with executions, complying only makes sense.
Economically, within our criminal justice system, executing prisoners is an outrageous expense with absolutely no objective positive outcome. It costs millions of dollars to kill each one. It makes no sense to spend such monies which are so badly needed for other purposes.
Executions are nothing more than base revenge serving no other purpose.
CAF
December 21, 2007 at 11:18 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
admireed (anonymous) says...
Positive outcome? Sure is. No more bad person to do bad things
December 21, 2007 at 12:06 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
CAFEmporia (anonymous) says...
Executing people means the entire society is complicit in doing bad things. Revenge is like that. To commit it, you have to crawl right down in the hole with the criminal. To execute someone, you murder.
You can have no more bad person doing bad things by locking them away, too. That is a better option from any perspective: moral, economic, political, as justice, in fairness . . .
CAF
December 21, 2007 at 12:14 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
emporialifer (anonymous) says...
There is also a thing called Justice. Something along the lines of the punishment fitting the crime. Our system has gotten so easy on criminals now that people don't realize the value of a life until it affects them personally. I'm sure if a criminal knew he/she would be facing death if they killed someone and got caught and tried and convicted, perhaps - just perhaps that person would think twice since the outcome would affect his/her life. Otherwise, the criminal gets a free ride, living off the hard working tax payers.
December 21, 2007 at 1:21 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
MelissaE (anonymous) says...
"Otherwise, the criminal gets a free ride, living off the hard working tax payers."
Did you (general) know that it costs more for all the appeals up to the point of, and including execution than it does to house someone for life in prison?
Whose money do you (general) think is paying for all those appeals?
Would you rather spend less housing the criminal or more for his/her appeals so "justice" can be served? I mean, since money is the issue.
And, most criminals do not think of the death penalty before they are charged with any crime. They are thinking of themselves.
Plus, I refuse to acknowledge any death penalty when it's so contrary to honoring life....and no, I'm not refering to the criminal's life, but life in general. I refuse to sink to that level.
Besides, in the great "Christian" society of Emporia, isn't all life supposed to be honored? I never have understood that.....people are "Christian" and yet support the death penalty. Hmmmmm.
M
December 21, 2007 at 1:31 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
emporialifer (anonymous) says...
And people are Pro Abortion yet against the Death Penalty - hmmmmmmmm. It is not ALL about the money - money is obviously a large factor. Personally I don't think our Death Penalty system is the best way to handle it - I'm sure a bullet is a lot cheaper than all those drugs, but that's just my opinion. Hanging would be a lot cheaper too. But I'm sure both of those methods would be considered "cruel and unusual punishment" by some.
I would like to see your facts of how much it costs to carry out the Death Penalty versus providing food, shelter, medical assistance, cable, phone, clothing, personnel payroll, etc. to house a prisoner for a 50+ year sentence. I'm sure there is some article somewhere that will support your argument and I'm sure there is some article somewhere that will support mine. In that case it comes down to agreeing to disagree.
December 21, 2007 at 4:50 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
CAFEmporia (anonymous) says...
The US has among the highest violent crime rates of the developed countries of the world. The death penalty does not seem to be a deterrent at all.
As to costs, you are right that there will be a lot of different estimates. A quick glance says it would be around a million dollars to execute versus perhaps $25,000 per year to imprison. If those numbers are right, an execution is about the same as 40 years in jail. I'm not sure the numbers are correct. If we invested the million . . . . but that then becomes a really stupid argument. Money is a secondary reason.
In terms of deterrence, I would personally be more likely deterred by the threat of a life long sentence to jail. Losing freedom but not life sounds much worse than death, of which I have no fear. Therefore, putting someone in jail forever is the worse punishment. My major personal problem with execution is that it is not reversible at all. When a clear injustice is done, an innocent person convicted, justice becomes impossible if the sentence is execution.
I strongly prefer taking a societal approach to such criminals who cannot be trusted again. Make society safe; put them away in secure jails with no parole.
December 21, 2007 at 5:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )