[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., WIS.

[Rick Halperin]

July 27


VIRGINIA:

No good way to carry out an execution


Virginia's electric chair, a relic of barbaric times, needs to go. But so
too does the notion that there's a humane way to kill a human.

Brandon Wayne Hedrick decided last week that if the commonwealth of
Virginia was going to kill him, he'd rather go strapped to the electric
chair than to a gurney. Something about the electric chair struck Hedrick
as less cruel than the needle.

His choice made people squirm, including Gov. Tim Kaine, who said this
week on Washington Post Radio that he'd prefer to end the state's policy
of giving convicted murderers a choice.

Kaine prefers to relegate Virginia's electric chair to the museum housing
former instruments of death: stones, the guillotine, gallows, gas chamber,
a firing squad's rifles, and the hooded executioner's mask and ax. All of
these represent once-acceptable methods for exacting the ultimate
punishment.

Today, society finds these instruments as barbaric as high-noon hangings
in the public square and prefers that the death penalty be delivered in a
clinical manner. Proponents can then remark that lethal injections are no
crueler than putting a sick dog to sleep and much kinder than the gruesome
murders the condemned committed.

Hedrick's visit to the electric chair, as jolts of juice fried his
internal organs, might not have been as serene for observers to watch as a
lethal injection. But it might actually have been a more tolerable death,
if such a thing exists. If delivered properly, the electric chair kills
efficiently and quickly.

The same may not be true of lethal injections, even though they appear to
deliver a serene end. The American Veterinary Medical Association in 2002
banned a similar chemical cocktail for putting animals to sleep because
one drug masks pain and suffering caused by the others. While observers
witness a motionless inmate slipping quietly into a tidy death, it is
quite possible that the inmate is fully aware and feeling excruciating
pain.

At least 5 states have stayed all executions until courts resolve whether
the existing method subjects inmates to unconstitutional pain and
suffering.

The lawsuits allege that sedative doses have been inadequate to
anesthetize inmates. And the inmates couldn't alert officials that they
were in severe pain because they were paralyzed by another drug. Some
states, Missouri being the latest, tried to remedy that by requiring an
anesthesiologist to be on hand, but have found no willing doctors.

The lawsuits challenge a process that witnesses can't necessarily see. But
lethal injections can be botched, although not quite as dramatically as
when a body catches fire from a poorly executed electrocution. Recently,
Ohio prison staff struggled 90 minutes to find a usable vein while the
inmate begged to be killed some other way. Other inmates over the years
have violently choked and writhed; drugs have stopped working because
straps constricted veins or chemicals clogged the IV tube; needles have
popped out.

One day America should come to this inescapable conclusion: There really
isn't a humane way to kill a human being, even one who deserves to die.

(source: Editorial, Roanoke Times)






WISCONSIN:

Don't backpedal on death penalty


Dear Editor: The pending vote on the death penalty referendum in the
Wisconsin state Senate is a crucial moment in our state's long and proud
tradition. If the death penalty was not necessary 150 years ago, when it
was abolished in our state, then we certainly don't need it in today's age
of sophisticated and effective law enforcement.

There are many myths with the death penalty, one of the major ones being
it is cheaper to put a person to death. That is wrong. It is more money
for taxpayers to hold a person on death row than to spend life behind bars
because of the extensive legal process that involves years of legal
appeals and counseling.

Also, in 2005, 94 % of all known "legal" executions took place in China,
Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States of America. Iran executed at
least 94 people, and Saudi Arabia at least 86. There were 60 executions in
the U.S. And over the years there have been innocent people put to death
in our country.

Please look at Amnesty International's Web site for bipartisan facts on
the death penalty. It's www.AIUSA.org.

As a state that prides itself on its rich history in the field of human
rights when we abolished the death penalty, we must continue to live up to
those standards today.

Amber C. Van Galder ---- UW-Whitewater chapter, Amnesty International

(source: Letter to the Editor, The Capital Times)