US Executions Set To Reach 1,000 Milestone This Week

Five people in as many states are scheduled to be executed this week, bringing the total count in our country to 1,002 since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Texas, not surprisingly, leads the pack with 355 executions. Combined with Virginia and Oklahoma, the three account for over half of all executions performed in this country.

Recently, public support for capital punishment has waned considerably:

The Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that crimes committed by juveniles could not be punished by death. That resulted in 71 people being taken off death row and followed another Supreme Court decision in 2002 declaring that it was unconstitutional to execute criminals who are mentally retarded.
A Gallup poll last month showed 64 percent of Americans favored the death penalty -- the lowest level in 27 years, down from a high of 80 percent in 1994.

"There's now considerable public skepticism about whether all those being executed are really guilty and that has cast doubt on the whole system," said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Meanwhile, an Australian man in Singapore is set to be executed after being convicted of drug trafficking. The Southeast Asian country is notorious for its uncompromising crackdown on narcotics dealers.

Justice served or a faulty, antiquated idea? We're curious what you think.

Elsewhere, here's an excerpt from Howstuffworks' "How Lethal Injection Works" page:

The execution team is either in a separate room or behind a curtain and cannot be seen by witnesses or the condemned. In some cases, the executioners may wear a hood to conceal their identity. At the warden's signal, the execution team will begin injecting lethal doses of two or three drugs into the IVs. Some states use multiple executioners, all of whom inject drugs into an IV tube -- but only one of the executioners is actually delivering the lethal injection. None of the executioners know who has delivered the lethal dose and who has injected drugs into a dummy bag. Within a minute or two after the last drug is administered, a physician or medical technician declares the inmate dead. The amount of time between when the prisoner leaves the holding cell and when he or she is declared dead may be just 30 minutes. Death usually occurs anywhere from five to 18 minutes after the execution order is given.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Allen Y Chen in News on November 29, 2005 1:10 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

truecraig

What I wonder is this: given that mounds of resources have been plowed into incarceration (public and private) rather than into education (public), which is a common champion song of those of us who generally oppose the death penalty... what should be done instead? How should particularly violent criminals be processed and kept if the death penalty is no longer an option? Is abolition a realistic solution to any of our current problems?

Even further than that, is the fact that we even have a death penalty: a sign of our actual culture? A symptom rather than a definitive element? That we do indeed embrace violence of various sorts? And that perhaps, the removal of the death penalty will have to be the last in a chain of events which would necessitate it? If we dropped the fear mongering in local politics, the xenophobia (there’s that word again!) in “diplomacy” abroad, stopped promoting certain Darwin-esque business practices, and dedicated some real effort toward a genuine generalized public healthcare and education system… what is the probability that public execution would continue to be an issue beyond historical discussion?

Yeh. Just a bunch of questions, I know.