India: Would-be Executioners Line Up to Make a Killing as Wages Hiked

Hundreds of death row inmates are waiting for the hangman in prisons throughout India, but the country's judicial system is facing a shortage of executioners.

The hangmen's tribe have dwindled in recent years with executions becoming a rarity, while negligible remuneration and the ominous nature of the job have prevented newcomers to the profession.

However, all that is set to change at least in the southern state of Kerala, which has found a straightforward way to attract interest - raise the remuneration steeply.

According to report in a regional language daily, the wages for hangmen have gone up from a mere Rupees 500 (4.90, $8.33 pounds) to Rupees 200,000 (1,958, $3,330 pounds) per execution.

The sharp wage hike prompted hordes of aspirants to queue up for the job - in the hope of making a killing.

Apart from the office of the Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi which published the report, the state's central jails and associated departments also received a flurry of enquiries from would-be hangmen. Some called, others wrote and some others came in person, hoping to land the lucrative position, the daily said in a subsequent report.

In all, there are 16 convicts on death row pending appeal and the state has to keep a hangman ready, reports the Hindustan Times.

Kerala's Kannur Central jail, which houses the largest number of convicts sentenced to death in the state, received at least 50 applications after the news broke, according to the Mathrubhumi.

Some of the applicants spoke boastfully about taking on the difficult task, while some others saw it as a great opportunity to become debt free.

One man even picked the prisoner he wanted to hang - a convict sentenced to death in a sensational rape and murder case that rocked the state a few years ago. Another called up the Mathrubhumi's office to plead that he be allowed to hang all 16 convicts at one go as it would help him escape the burden of debts he had incurred.

Jail officials had a tough time convincing them that there was no permanent positions open for the executioner's job and therefore they could not entertain requests for the same, the Malayalam daily reported.

The dearth of people to take up the grim job has been fodder for popular films in Kerala's thriving film industry. The convention has been to look for paid volunteers whenever an execution is confirmed by the country's highest court.

In India, death penalty is by hanging and awarded only in the 'rarest of rare cases' with the last reported high-profile hanging being that of Afzal Guru in February 2013 for his role in the 2001 attack on the country's parliament.

Unfortunately for the applicants, the 16 convicts sentenced to the gallows in Kerala could appeal to commute their death sentences. Only when their appeal is overturned by the higher courts including the Supreme Court, and their final petition of mercy rejected by the president of the country, will they actually be executed.

In short, for all those aspiring executioners in Kerala who dreams of a windfall, hope is hanging by a thread.

Source: Yahoo News, July 26, 2014

Florida Set to Execute Man Who Said He Killed to Reach Death Row, Challenging Misconception that Death Penalty Deters Crime

Florida is scheduled to execute James Robertson at noon on Tuesday, October 13, at Florida State Prison. His execution remains scheduled despite the withdrawal of William Lee Thompson’s death warrant, which had called for a 2nd execution that evening. If completed, this will be Florida’s 17th execution of 2026. Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) and partners will be holding a series of vigils and demonstrations across the state.

Christa Pike's Survival Wasn't a Miracle. That's What Should Scare Us.

What happened in Tennessee's execution chamber is one of the most common failures in medicine Christa Pike is awake. A week after Tennessee strapped her to a gurney and gave her two doses of pentobarbital , she is off the ventilator and speaking from a hospital bed, still shackled to it. Her lawyers call her recovery " medically unprecedented. " Legal scholars say she is the first person in American history to survive a lethal injection after the drug was actually given. I understand the impulse to make such claims. I consulted for Pike's legal team, but I have also spent three decades in operating rooms and intensive care units (ICUs), and I want to resist the word "unprecedented" and the word "miracle" that hovers just behind it.

Tennessee | Republicans legislature to investigate other execution methods after failed lethal injections

Republican leaders in Tennessee’s legislature say they will investigate the reliability of lethal injection as an execution method after the state failed to execute two death row inmates in the span of five months. Gov. Bill Lee stopped the May execution of Tony Carruthers after a physician unsuccessfully attempted to insert intravenous lines to begin the lethal injection process for over an hour. Death row inmate Christa Pike survived two failed rounds of Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol on Sept. 30 before the execution was halted. Pike, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, is receiving medical care in a Nashville hospital.

Christa Pike: 4 Major Questions As She Returns to Death Row

As Christa Pike returns to death row after surviving Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, several questions remain about her case and what comes next. Pike, 50, was discharged from hospital and moved back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said on Saturday. She was hospitalized after surviving 2 doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital as Tennessee attempted to execute her on September 30. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at a Job Corps training program in Knoxville, Tennessee. Pike was 18 at the time.

What Tennessee wants to do next to Christa Pike is beyond grim

Christa Pike, the woman who survived two execution attempts in Tennessee earlier this week, remains hospitalized in critical condition, where presumably medical staff is at work trying to keep her alive. If she wakes from the coma she had entered, Tennessee officials want to start anew to inject lethal drugs into her seemingly too-small veins to kill her and carry out the state death warrant. Pike also is being treated for “significant injuries to both arms” sustained when two lethal injections of pentobarbital failed to kill her. If she dies, there will be no need to try again. As we know by now, Tennessee tried to put Pike to death Wednesday night by lethal injection for a murder she committed when she was 18. She would have been the first woman executed in the state in 200 years.

USA | Firing squad execution to be livestreamed, Pentagon says

The public will be able to watch the execution of a former US Army major by firing squad, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said. A Defense Department official told the BBC the execution of Nidal Hasan, who shot dead 13 unarmed US soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, would be livestreamed. It is believed it would be the first public execution in the US in almost a century. The decision to livestream it is "unprecedented in the modern era" and "on uncertain legal terrain", said John Mills, a lawyer who works with inmates sentenced to death.

Florida executes James Robertson

STARKE, Fla. — A Florida prisoner who said he killed his cellmate specifically to get on death row was executed Tuesday, nearly 18 years after the attack. James Robertson, 63, declined to offer any last words before receiving a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead about 10 minutes later. It was a stark contrast to the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee two weeks ago, where she was rushed to the hospital after surviving two lethal doses of pentobarbital.

Tennessee | Christa Pike’s lawyer says she has not regained consciousness since her failed execution

Christa Pike has remained unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital in the four days since her failed execution in Tennessee, and her prognosis might not be known for days more, one of her lawyers said Sunday. Little has been released about Pike’s condition since Wednesday night’s execution attempt. She has since remained hospitalized under guard as doctors try to get the massive dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital out of her system. When asked whether she ever regained consciousness after the execution attempt, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell, Pike’s lawyer, said on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Not that I am aware of.”

Opinion | I Know Christa Pike’s Medical History. What Tennessee Did Is Unforgivable.

Dr. Zivot is an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician. He consulted on Christa Pike’s case before her attempted execution. On Wednesday night, Christa Pike lay strapped to a gurney at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville while the State of Tennessee injected pentobarbital, a sedative that is lethal in high doses, into her veins. When the 1st dose did not kill her, the execution team gave her a 2nd. At one point, she told the room her arm felt as if it were about to burst. She was nearly correct. More than an hour after the procedure began, an ambulance was called. She was severely injured but still alive.

After Christa Pike survives lethal injection, America's shameful botched executions

The US is one of the few Western nations that still permits the death penalty, carried out regularly in 27 states. And in a country where regional political culture strongly favours retributive justice, it is no wonder capital punishment remains an enduring part of the American legal system. But following Christa Pike's botched lethal injection last week, fresh questions are being raised over whether executing convicted murderers and rapists outweighs the risks of an innocent person being put to death, or of an execution going so badly that a prisoner is left to die in agony, or even survives the attempt.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog