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Ron Jackson's Perspective
The Sunday Journal -
Think
Kankakee, Illinois
January 13, 2008
Little sympathy for
the condemned
on death rows |
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So what if executions hurt?
Things sometimes
do happen in threes. Dinosaurs are gone. Smoking in public is
banned. Three-ring cocktails may become a thing of the past.
We had nothing to do with the demise of the prehistoric
creatures. Thank goodness, too, because we would have politicians
wasting precious resources trying to alter a predetermined fate.
The ban on smoking in public was written on the walls a long time
ago. And pro or con, people on both sides of that debate are
law-abiding citizens who have the right to protest. But something
must be done to stop the current campaign of some death row
prisoners to restrict or outlaw the existing method of capital
punishment by lethal injection, commonly called the 3-ring cocktail.
Thirty-six states currently use the three-step lethal injection
procedure: knock out, paralyze, and kill. The Supreme Court is
being asked to consider stopping states from using this method or to
modify it in some fashion to make dying a painless experience.
The expeditious and humane 3-step procedure calls for the
prisoner to be given a shot of sodium thiopental to put him or her
to sleep. The barbiturate induces anesthesia in a relatively short
time, usually less than a minute. The condemned can no longer feel
pain. The second step is a shot of pancuronium, a muscle relaxant
to stop breathing by paralyzing the subject’s lungs. This step
takes from one to three minutes. A third and final step is a shot
of potassium chloride to induce cardiac arrest. The final step
takes generally less than two minutes. The entire process takes
less than ten minutes.
Citing the 8th Amendment that prohibits cruel and
inhumane punishment, prisoners claim that when the first step of the
procedure goes awry even for a few moments and fails to knock out
the prisoner before he or she is paralyzed, he or she may suffer
severe pain when the third dose is given. The 8th
Amendment was written to protect ordinary citizens from cruel and
unusual punishment at the hands of the government. Although many
still argue to the contrary, it was not to protect death row inmates
from a little pain.
We generally reserve the death penalty for those who have
committed the most heinous crimes against society. Death row is
full of premeditated murderers, mass murderers, serial killers, cop
killers, and child killers, all of whom have inflicted great, cruel,
and inhumane pain and suffering upon victims and their loved ones.
How dare these same animals have the audacity to seek protection of
the Constitution. A few moments of potentially severe suffering by
a prisoner during execution should not be a concern of the Supreme
Court or anyone else. The Supreme Court cannot outlaw the lifetime
of pain and suffering the victims’ families must endure.
Other than an inmate, who would really give a care if those
deserving of death suffered a bit of excruciating pain? Death row
prisoners should have no say in their execution. If they don’t have
a right to live, why do they need the right to die painlessly? Why
do they feel they still have any constitutional rights at all after
doing something that warrants their removal from the living? The
Supreme Court will be wasting valuable time on this case, and its
decision to hear this case will result in postponing executions
until later this year.
If we start allowing death row inmates to dictate their method
of dying, next thing you know we will have prisoners suing for
better food.
Oops, too late. Three Kane County prisoners are suing the
county for $2 million because the jail food is disgusting and
nutritionally inadequate.
A proponent of capital punishment, I would like to see a change
in the way we carry out death sentences. In states where lethal
injection is the method, go ahead and use dirty unsterilized
needles, and carry out the sentence even if the prisoner isn’t in
perfect health. Don’t let something like a little respiratory
infection delay a debt to society. Save a few bucks in the process
by allowing ordinary citizens to insert the IV lines instead of
paying the costs for medical professionals. If it takes a few times
to find the perfect vein, so be it. It’s not like the prisoners
have any other appointments. Curiously, why do we give a man with
only a few minutes to live a complete physical examination?
My hope is that the Supreme Court in all its wisdom would come
to a unanimous conclusion that these individuals are on death row,
not hospice care. |
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