 |
Gallows, Department of Corrections, Smyrna, Delaware,
1991. Delaware tore down its gallows in 2003. |
Robert James Campbell, a 41-year-old Texas inmate, was supposed to die Tuesday night in a small room at the Huntsville Unit of the Texas State Penitentiary.
His would have been the first death by lethal injection since
the botched execution of Oklahoma prisoner Clayton Lockett just two weeks ago.
Instead, he
was granted a last-minute stay on his execution based on new evidence that Campbell's I.Q. was below 70, the baseline number frequently used to qualify someone for capital punishment.
His lawyers, though, initially petitioned on the grounds that Texas, like Oklahoma, does not disclose the source of the drugs used for lethal injections.
A judge rejected that plea, citing previous court rulings. But even as he said his hands were tied, he
wrote in his decision that the Oklahoma case "requires sober reflection on the manner in which this nation administers the ultimate punishment."
Those reflections may come in the ghostly, eerie images of America's death chambers, collected from some of the 32 states where the death penalty is still legal.
These rooms are empty more often than occupied. Built within prison walls, they are spare and cold and clinical. But what remains carries its own weight — a single gurney, a mirror, a clock hanging alone on a cinder block wall.
The photos in this collection are pieced together from photographers, wire services, and from prison archives.
Click here to read the full article
Source: NYMag, May 16, 2014
