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Three percent of us executions since 1900 were botched, study finds by efwegbe erergeer
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Three percent of us executions since 1900 were botched, study finds |
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"Given the gravity of the decision to put someone to death andthe constitutional prohibition of cruel punishment," saidSarat, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence andPolitical Science, "the fact that 3 out of every 100executions are messed up should be a cause of serious concern toall Americans." By culling through detailed and often grisly newspaper accounts ofcapital punishments that occurred over the past 111 years, Saratand his team created a database -- the only one of its kind, saidSarat -- of all of the mentions of what he describes as"departures from the protocol of killing someone sentenced todeath." He explained that such departures included, amongother things, instances in which inmates caught fire while beingelectrocuted, were strangled during hangings (instead of havingtheir necks broken) or were administered the wrong dosages ofspecific drugs for lethal injections. "What was particularly interesting was the way the mediarepresented these events in the early part of the 1900s," saidSarat. He and his team published a paper about this aspect of theirwork -- the cultural reception of botched executions from 1890 to1920 -- in the current issue of the British Journal of American Legal Studies and also discussed it at the meeting of the Association for theStudy of Law, Culture and the Humanities in Fort Worth, Texas, thispast March. "In the vast majority of the stories about thebotched executions, the narratives were both sensational and whatwe called 'recuperative' -- reporters consistently made the pointthat, despite the gruesomeness of the proceedings, the inmatesdidn't suffer, that justice was done. There was very littlecriticism of the process or questioning of the death penaltyitself.
The stories were used to sell newspapers and nothingelse." Sarat also noted that the group's analysis revealed that while theAmerican penal system has gotten better at administering the deathpenalty, modern society demands more of the process -- that thekilling not be more painful than necessary, in particular -- sothat the acceptable margin of error is smaller today than it everhas been. As a result, capital punishments gone wrong are as muchan issue in the 21st century as they were in the 20th. Sarat cited the case of Romell Broom in Ohio in September of 2009as one recent example of a botched execution. Efforts to find asuitable vein through which prison officials could inject a lethaldose of drugs were terminated after more than two hours of trying.Broom repeatedly grimaced in pain throughout the excruciatingprocess and even attempted, at points, to help his executionersfind a vein. Finally, Ohio Gov.
Ted Strickland put a halt to theexecution and ordered a one-week reprieve. "In my view, no procedure like the one Romell Broomexperienced can comport with our constitutional commitment to avoidcruelty in punishment," said Sarat. What struck student researcher Heather Richard the most was thefact that, in the early 1900s, newspapers didn't just publisharticles about executions in vivid, morbid detail; they often madeaccounts more shocking by deliberately changing the facts. OneAssociated Press wire piece in 1922, for example, described theelectrocution of James Wells on March 10 after 11 unsuccessfulattempts. In the original story, Richard noted, the reporter wrotethat "fully twenty minutes were consumed in putting him todeath" and that the punishment was carried out by an"inexperienced executioner." The Ogden, Utah,Standard-Examiner ran the piece but edited the first phrase to read"few minutes were consumed in putting him to death" anddescribed the executioner as "experienced." This was justone of many instances in which particular papers were loose withthe facts, said Richard.
"We all found it fascinating that these editors and reporterstook what is already an incredibly sensational event -- a botchedexecution -- and made it even more sensational by changing thedetails," she said. "And on top of that, the institutionof capital punishment was not really examined or critiqued. Itcertainly says something about the newspapers and theirreaders." Sarat agreed. "How a society punishes, and then talks aboutit, reveals its true character," he said.
"Punishmenttells us who we are. The way a society punishes demonstrates itscommitment to standards of judgment and justice, its distinctiveviews of blame and responsibility, its understandings of mercy andforgiveness and its particular ways of responding to evil." "Sadly," he said, "our attachment to the deathpenalty reveals an unpleasant, unseemly side of Americancharacter.". I am a professional writer from Remote Control, which contains a great deal of information about qt saucepan lid , 5 quart saucepan, welcome to visit!
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