Reverend Jeff Hood, 40, wants to help condemned inmates 'feel human again' and vows to continue his efforts to befriend murderers in spite of death threats against his family A reverend who has made it his mission to comfort death row inmates in their final days has revealed the '"moral torture" his endeavor entails. Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, 40, lives with his wife and five children in Little Rock, Arkansas. But away from his normal home life, he can suddenly find himself holding the shoulder of a murderer inside an execution chamber, moments away from the end of their life.
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U.S. | Capital Punishment: Life and Death Row
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Is it ever right to kill someone? Are lethal injections really humane? Is capital punishment going to be around forever?
In some parts of the world the US is infamous for its continued use of the death penalty.
Using the BBC’s Life and Death Row – The Mass Execution as a backdrop, Dr Vivien Miller discusses the history of capital punishment in America. In doing so, she reveals how the death penalty divides the US along several different fault lines: race, gender, religion and region.
The first episode in a four-part series, Life and Death Row – The Mass Execution is a riveting and heartbreaking account of recent events that unfolded in Arkansas as drugs used in legal injections were soon to become unavailable.
The state planned to execute eight men in ten days, leading to a heated debate about the complicated legal, moral, and social factors that are involved in these kinds of decisions.
With lives on the line, and issues of racism arising, this is what some would call a ‘21st-century injustice’…
“It’s much more likely that a black defendant with a white victim will end up with an execution.” – Dr Vivien Miller
Time Stamps:
00:54 – The topic we are looking at today: capital punishment.
01:25 – Meeting our guest Dr Vivien Miller.
03:21 – The documentary that we are looking at today.
04:08 – Why Vivien chose this film.
05:08 – What the film is about.
07:22 – Our first clip, featuring Jeff Rosenzweig, the lawyer for three of the convicted inmates
10:40 – Why the death penalty is still prevalent in the US.
13:40 – Our second clip, where different people say why they support death penalty
15:58 – The reason some people stay on death row for such a long period of time.
18:37 – The issues with some of the inmates’ original trials.
20:55 – The racial discrimination that’s prevalent in death penalty sentencing.
22:22 – Why the death penalty is so prevalent in the South.
26:52 – The supply problems with some of the lethal injection drugs over the last 10 years.
29:53 – When lethal injections don’t work.
30:45 – The argument that lethal injections are a cruel and unusual punishment.
31:27 – Our final clip, showing the advocacy group for abolition of capital punishment.
35:02 – What the future of capital punishment will look like in the US.
37:55 – Why capital punishment increased so much at the beginning of the 20th century.
40:25 – Why the use of the death penalty decreased after 1940.
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Reverend Jeff Hood, 40, wants to help condemned inmates 'feel human again' and vows to continue his efforts to befriend murderers in spite of death threats against his family A reverend who has made it his mission to comfort death row inmates in their final days has revealed the '"moral torture" his endeavor entails. Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, 40, lives with his wife and five children in Little Rock, Arkansas. But away from his normal home life, he can suddenly find himself holding the shoulder of a murderer inside an execution chamber, moments away from the end of their life.
The Islamic Republic's judiciary has executed one more prisoner amid a surge in the death penalty. Nategh Hosseini was executed at Qazvin Central Prison on Saturday, reportedly in the presence of his seven-year-old son. According to the Iran Human Rights Organization, Hosseini had been arrested three years ago on charges of alleged murder and subsequently sentenced to death.
Texas executed Ramiro Gonzales on Wednesday despite a stunning reversal from a psychiatrist who helped send him to death row 17 years ago. Gonzales, 41, was killed by lethal injection as punishment for kidnapping, raping and murdering Bridget Townsend when they were both 18. At the time, Gonzales was struggling with drug addiction. He killed Townsend, his drug dealer’s girlfriend, while trying to steal drugs. He had turned 18 two months before the killing, making him barely old enough to be legally eligible to be sentenced to death.
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana is one of 27 states where state-backed executions are still legal, but no one has been put to death in a Hoosier prison in 15 years. Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita look to change that. On Wednesday, Rokita’s office filed a motion with the Indiana Supreme Court seeking to set a date for the execution of Joseph Corcoran — a Fort Wayne man found guilty of murdering four people in 1997.
Richard Rojem’s death sentence was twice overturned by appellate courts, but his conviction itself has never been fully revisited. RICHARD ROJEM JR. had 20 minutes to address the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. Wearing a maroon prison uniform, he raised his cuffed right hand and swore to tell the truth, then gave his pitch for why his life should be spared. It would take less than 90 seconds.
Governor Eric Holcomb says he isn’t worried about a plan to put to death a state prisoner with a drug that’s never been used in an Indiana execution. Holcomb said Thursday that while Indiana has never used pentobarbital in an execution, “Other states have, and we've done our due diligence.”
Days before his scheduled execution in Texas, Ramiro Gonzales speaks on faith, legacy — and apologizing to the family of his victim, Bridget Townsend. On Wednesday evening, Texas prison officials plan to execute Ramiro Gonzales, the 41-year-old who kidnapped, raped and murdered Bridget Townsend when they were both 18.
The North Carolina mother who tortured and murdered two of her adopted children could face the death penalty after the children's partial remains were found in a metal burn barrel in the back of her house. The siblings Blake and London Deven have not been seen for years, but were never reported missing by their adoptive mother, Avantae Deven.
Judge to decide fate of ex-prison guard trainee Zephen Xaver, who pleaded guilty to 2019 execution-style murders A jury on Wednesday recommended a former prison guard trainee be sentenced to death for his execution-style murders of five women inside a Florida bank five years ago. Jurors voted 9-3 to recommend Zephen Xaver, 27, receive the death penalty for the 23 January 2019 murders at the SunTrust Bank in Sebring, about 85 miles (135km) south-east of Tampa.
OKLAHOMA CITY — The state of Oklahoma has set an execution date for a man convicted of murdering a 7-year-old girl in the 1980s. The Court of Criminal Appeals decided that Richard Rojem will be put to death after decades behind bars for the murder of Layla Dawn Cummings. Rojem has always claimed that he's innocent.
