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After acquittal of ex-death row inmate, debate needed on Japan's death penalty

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Japan should be ensuring the safety of its citizens, but instead it is taking people's lives. Is it acceptable to maintain the ultimate penalty under such circumstances? This is a serious question for society. The acquittal of 88-year-old Iwao Hakamada, who had been handed the death penalty, has been finalized after prosecutors decided not to appeal the verdict issued by the Shizuoka District Court during his retrial.

Botched Oklahoma execution unlikely to change policy in active death-penalty states

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A bungled execution in Oklahoma in which the condemned prisoner writhed and moaned as he received a lethal injection outraged death-penalty opponents, invited court challenges and attracted worldwide attention.

But the inmate's agony alone is highly unlikely to change minds about capital punishment in the nation's most active death-penalty states, where lawmakers say there is little political will to move against lethal injections -- and a single execution gone wrong won't change that.

Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian, a Republican lawmaker who pushed to have state Supreme Court justices impeached for briefly halting Tuesday's execution, was unsparing.

"I realize this may sound harsh," Christian said, "but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."

Attorneys for death-row inmates hope Tuesday's spectacle provides new evidence to argue that the injections are inhumane and illegal. But beyond the courtroom, support for capital punishment is undeterred in the states that perform the greatest number of executions -- Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Missouri, Alabama, Georgia and Ohio. And nowhere in those places are any elected officials of either political party talking seriously about using the incident to seek an end to executions.

Missouri Rep. Paul Fitzwater, a Republican who chairs the state House's corrections committee, called the botched execution "horrible" and "definitely not humane" but said it had not sparked any calls for reform.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment, predicted the execution's biggest effect would be in the courts, where Oklahoma, Texas and other states are being challenged to name execution drug suppliers. The states argue they must keep the names secret to protect suppliers and ensure they can get the hard-to-obtain drugs.


Source: The Times-Picayune, May 3, 2014
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After acquittal of ex-death row inmate, debate needed on Japan's death penalty

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Idaho death-row inmate survived injection intended to kill him. Now state will try again.

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Switzerland | The Guillotine of Geneva

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Alabama set to tie record for executions in 50 years with upcoming lethal injection

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Iran Executes 16 People in One Day Amid Surge in Death Penalties

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