Surviving the Death Penalty

In case you haven't guessed, I'm totally against the death penalty. It is, at the very least, hypocritical of the state to say "You cannot take another's life intentionally" and then turn around and say "But we can." My personal beliefs do not give anyone the right to take another's life, but most certainly not as a retaliation. We don't rape a rapists or burn down an arsonist's house or steal from a thief. Our nation's laws are not written to ascribe to the "eye for an eye" philosophy. As Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." The death penalty is also racially and economically biased. The last words of John Spenkelink, who died in Florida's electric chair in May 1979, were "Those without the capital get the punishment." And it's true. If you can afford a good defense attorney, chances are you won't get the death penalty. Many studies have shown time and again that blacks who murder whites are far more likely to face the death penalty than whites who murder blacks. In capital crimes cases, prosecutors are almost twice as likely to seek the death penalty when the accused is black than if the accused is white. But perhaps most importantly, there is the danger of killing an innocent person for something they did not do. The state of Florida just released a man who served 35 years in prison for raping a young boy. The Innocence Project used DNA to prove the man did not do it. He's 54 years old now. Almost 2/3 of his life has been behind bars for something he did not do. On average, an inmate spends more than a decade on death row before being executed. Jamie Bain, the man freed from the Florida prison, would have been long dead had he been convicted of a capital crime.

Ohio attempted to execute a man using lethal injection about three months ago. After two and a half hours and 18 attempts at sticking a needle in a man's arm, the state "gave up" for the day and sent the man back to his cell.  Ohio, like many other states, used a three drug cocktail that paralyzed the condemned, put him into a coma and then stopped his heart. Now the state has gone to a new execution protocol that uses only the drug that puts them into a coma. And if that doesn't work (because they can't get an IV started), then they will give an intramuscular injection of a very potent pain killer and an anesthetic (source), essentially killing them with an overdose. Ohio has already successfully killed someone with this new protocol and the governor has signed a new death warrant for the inmate who survived the botched execution.

Now the man's attorney says the state has no right to attempt to execute him again— at least not by lethal injection. And I, for one, happen to agree. The state had their chance. They couldn't do it. Medical professionals couldn't do it time after time after time. The state blew their chance to kill him. They shouldn't get another chance, by any method.