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 Americas & Beyond | June 2008 
Death Penalty-US: Catch-Up Wave of Executions Feared
 Adrianne Appel - Inter Press Service
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| | William E. Lynd | | |
Boston - Anti-death penalty activists are bracing themselves for a wave of executions across the U.S. after the state of Georgia moved swiftly to end the life of William E. Lynd following the Supreme Court's ruling that lethal injection was not a violation of the constitution.
On May 6, Georgia's executioners ended the life of Lynd, 53, with the unchanged lethal chemical formula used in 34 other death penalty states. The execution ended a seven-month, nationwide moratorium in place while the Supreme Court heard challenges that the cocktail of drugs violated the constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual" punishment.
"Some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution - no matter how humane," the chief Justice John Roberts wrote on Apr. 16 in the court's majority decision in a test case initiated on behalf of two Kentucky death row inmates.
But in a separate opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens disagreed, saying the many problems with the application of the death penalty made it inherently unconstitutional. His stand stunned the legal community because he was previously known as a capital punishment supporter.
Justice Stevens also expressed the hope that the Kentucky case would stimulate debate on the justification for the death penalty.
Justice Stevens delivered "quite an indictment of the death penalty", Sarah Tofte, programme researcher with Human Rights Watch, told IPS.
David Elliot, spokesperson of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, echoed the judge's views, adding that the court's green light for lethal injection "settled nothing".
"The death penalty was flawed before the Supreme Court case. Now that it has ruled it remains flawed," Elliot told IPS.
Michael Mello, professor of law at the Vermont Law School, suggested that 88-year-old Stevens was more in harmony with the changing views of the U.S. public than the other judges who sat with him on the Kentucky case.
"The 7-2 vote makes me wonder how in touch the court is with the genuine and fundamental questions that people and policy makers are asking about the death penalty," Mello told IPS.
Tofte predicted that the "fractured" Supreme Court ruling would open the door to further legal challenges to lethal injection.
Of the 50 U.S. states, 36 still have a death penalty and all but Nebraska use lethal injection to put prisoners to death.
Since Georgia's execution, at least nine other states have indicated they will soon resume executions. The states include Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia.
Several states have already penciled in the names of the inmates to die and their execution dates. Mississippi has set May 21 for the execution of Earl Wesley Berry. On May 27, Virginia will execute Kevin Green. And Texas plans four executions in June and July.
Texas has 360 people on death row and last year was responsible for more than 60 percent of the country's executions. Among those likely to be executed shortly is Jack Harry Smith, 70 years old and wheelchair-bound. Smith has been on death row for 30 years.
"We could easily see an extraordinary execution schedule in the second half of the year," Steve Hall, executive director of Stand Down Texas, told IPS. "For Texas public defenders (court-appointed lawyers) it could be just a nightmare."
The Death Penalty Information Centre (DPIC), a research organisation campaigning against capital punishment, is predicting that the number of executions could reach as many as 60 by the end of the year, compared to 42 in 2007. The U.S. would then retain its current place among the world's leading five executioners. The DPIC puts the total number on death row at 3,263.
But several death penalty states in the U.S. are in the midst of a debate on capital punishment or facing legal challenges to the practice. These are holding back from executions. They include California, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma and Tennessee, Elliot said.
The November nationwide elections of state officials may be influential in taking the debate on capital punishment forward, Elliot suggested.
"If one party wins, it means seismic shifts... It is state legislatures, not the Supreme Court, that will decide the future of the issue," Elliot said.
In a May 7 editorial, The New York Times, one of the country's most influential newspapers, said the country should take up Justice Stevens' call for a national debate on the future of capital punishment.
"These scheduled executions come at a time when many Americans are, rightly, turning away from capital punishment. We believe that the taking of life by the state is in all cases wrong, but it is particularly so with the deeply flawed system that exists today," the paper wrote. |
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