The flattening of public discourse — political, social, moral and ethical — into a simplistic left-right binary is a disturbing trend that too few of us push back against. People are encouraged to live in their echo chambers through news outlets tailored to confirm their worldviews and social media feeds custom-designed to reinforce their biases. This polarized discourse has created a false narrative around the death penalty that relies on simplistic and overgeneralized notions of our country’s partisan divide. It is a narrative that, while easy to communicate, ignores the diversity of voices expressing serious concerns about how the death penalty operates in America. For instance, the authors of this op-ed belie that simplicity. One of us is a former Democratic U.S. senator from Wisconsin, a state that has not had the death penalty since 1853, and who has worked tirelessly throughout his public life to end the death penalty. The other is the former Republican-appointed United States a
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➤ Clemency
2019. USA. Director: Chinonye Chukwu. Writer: Chinonye Chukwu. Cast: Alfre Woodard, Richard Schiff, Aldis Hodge. Running time: 1h52
Synopsis: Bernadine Williams, a Death Row prison warden whose job has taken a psychological toll on her, must confront her demons when she has to execute another inmate. (Imdb)
"There’s little room to breathe in writer-director Chinonye Chukwu’s constricting, devastating drama Clemency, an intentionally airless film processing a tough subject through an unusual viewpoint. It was the deserved big winner at Sundance this year, making Chukwu the first black woman to win the Grand Jury prize. Our protagonist is prison warden Bernadine (Alfre Woodard), first seen as she prepares for an execution, methodically going through her mental checklist with calm professionalism while keeping emotions at bay. It might be her 12th but experience only seems to make the process that much harder, a growing awareness that the system she’s a part of might not be something she truly believes in. Any back-burner doubt she might have had soon turns into something far less avoidable after she bears witness to a horrifyingly botched lethal injection. Bernadine is sent into an inner tailspin as she confronts her guilt while also prepping for the next execution, this time for an inmate who insists he’s innocent." (The Guardian, Benjamin Lee)
➤ The Current War
2017. USA. Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. Writer: Michael Mitnick. Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Oliver Powell, Katherine Waterston. Running time: 1h42
Synopsis: The dramatic story of the cutthroat race between electricity titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to determine whose electrical system would power the modern world.
This race incidentally led to the invention and the use of the electric chair as a "humane" way to execute death-row inmates. The first execution took about eight minutes. George Westinghouse later commented that, "They would have done better using an axe."
As Edison expanded his direct current (DC) power delivery system, he received stiff competition from companies installing alternating current (AC) systems. From the early 1880s, AC arc lighting systems for streets and large spaces had been an expanding business in the US. With the development of transformers in Europe and by Westinghouse Electric in the US in 1885–1886, it became possible to transmit AC long distances over thinner and cheaper wires, and "step down" the voltage at the destination for distribution to users. This allowed AC to be used in street lighting and in lighting for small business and domestic customers, the market Edison's patented low voltage DC incandescent lamp system was designed to supply. Edison's DC empire suffered from one of its chief drawbacks. Edison's DC plants could not deliver electricity to customers more than one mile from the plant, and left a patchwork of unsupplied customers between plants. Small cities and rural areas could not afford an Edison style system at all, leaving a large part of the market without electrical service.
AC companies expanded into this gap. Edison expressed views that AC was unworkable and the high voltages used were dangerous. As George Westinghouse installed his first AC systems in 1886, Thomas Edison struck out personally against his chief rival stating, "Just as certain as death, Westinghouse will kill a customer within six months after he puts in a system of any size."
Edison took advantage of the public perception of AC as dangerous, and joined with self-styled New York anti-AC crusader Harold P. Brown in a propaganda campaign, aiding Brown in the public electrocution of animals with AC, and supported legislation to control and severely limit AC installations and voltages (to the point of making it an ineffective power delivery system) in what was now being referred to as a "battle of currents".
The development of the electric chair was used in an attempt to portray AC as having a greater lethal potential than DC and smear Westinghouse at the same time via Edison colluding with Brown and Westinghouse's chief AC rival, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, to make sure the first electric chair was powered by a Westinghouse AC generator.
The first person in line to die under New York's new electrocution law was William Kemmler, convicted of murdering his wife with a hatchet. Kemmler was executed in New York's Auburn Prison on August 6, 1890; the "state electrician" was Edwin F. Davis. The first 17-second passage of 1,000 volts AC of current through Kemmler caused unconsciousness, but failed to stop his heart and breathing. The attending physicians, Edward Charles Spitzka and Carlos F. MacDonald, came forward to examine Kemmler. After confirming Kemmler was still alive, Spitzka reportedly called out, "Have the current turned on again, quick, no delay." The generator needed time to re-charge, however. In the second attempt, Kemmler received a 2,000 volt AC shock. Blood vessels under the skin ruptured and bled, and the areas around the electrodes singed. The entire execution took about eight minutes. George Westinghouse later commented that, "They would have done better using an axe", and a witnessing reporter claimed that it was "an awful spectacle, far worse than hanging". (Wikipedia)
➤ Just Mercy
2019. USA. Director: Destin Daniel Cretton. Writer: Destin Daniel Cretton, Andrew Lanham. Cast: Jamie Foxx, Charlie Pye Jr., Michael Harding. Running time: 2h17
Synopsis: "Just Mercy" tells the true story of Walter McMillian, who, with the help of young defense attorney Bryan Stevenson, appealed his murder conviction. The film is based on the memoir of the same name, written by Stevenson.
In 1989, idealistic young Harvard law graduate Bryan Stevenson travels to Alabama hoping to help fight for poor people who cannot afford proper legal representation. He meets with Eva Ansley and founds the Equal Justice Initiative, then travels to a prison to meet its death row inmates. He meets Walter "Johnny D." McMillian, an African-American man who was convicted of the 1986 murder of Ronda Morrison, a white woman.
Stevenson looks over the evidence in the case and discovers it hinges entirely on the testimony of convicted felon Ralph Myers, who provided highly self-contradictory testimony in exchange for a lighter sentence in his own pending trial.
Stevenson approaches Myers, who eventually admits that his testimony was coerced after police played to his fear of being burned and threatened to have him executed by electric chair. Stevenson appeals to the local court to grant McMillan a retrial and successfully convinces Myers to recant his testimony on the stand, but the judge nevertheless refuses to grant a retrial. Distraught, Stevenson vents his frustrations about the case to Ansley. He appears on 60 Minutes to rally public support in favor of McMillan, then appeals to the Supreme Court of Alabama. The Supreme Court overturns the circuit court's decision, and grants McMillan his retrial. (Wikipedia)
High-profile death row inmate Julius Jones has been scheduled for execution Nov. 18. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday set execution dates for Jones and six other inmates convicted of murder. The court set the date for Jones even though the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended Gov. Kevin Stitt commute his death sentence. The board voted 3-1 Sept. 13 to recommend his sentence be commuted to life in prison. If the governor agrees, Jones immediately would be eligible for parole. Stitt could choose to commute the sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He also could deny commutation. Oklahoma's new attorney general, John O'Connor, asked the court to schedule the execution dates. O'Connor made the request in August after a federal judge ruled six of the inmates could no longer participate in a legal challenge to the state's execution procedures. “The seven inmates to be scheduled for execution were convicted of heinous crimes,” O’
We don’t like to talk about it. Many consider it a barbaric anachronism. Others staunchly defend it. As of the end of November 2020, 340 people inhabited it. It’s Florida’s death row. A cluster of institutions between Gainesville and Lake City form the heart of the state prison system. It also houses those who’ve been handed the harshest punishment. No one was put to death in 2020. Before that, the last execution had been Gary Bowles, from the Jacksonville area, who died Aug. 22, 2019. Early on, executions were done by the individual counties. Prisoners often would be hanged in public. In 1923, the state concentrated all executions at the Florida State Prison at Raiford. Inmates carved oak to make the state’s 1st electric chair. The 1st electrocution was in October 1924. Likely the highest-profile execution in that period was of Guiessepe Zangara, who fired at president-elect Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 in Miami but missed and fatally shot Chicago mayor Anton Cermak. No executions
Albert Pierrepoint had a calling for the profession from a young age, and went on to become Britain's chief executioner who delivered some of the most controversial hangings in British history A pub landlord had a part-time job that meant he took the lives of more than 400 prisoners. Photographs show Albert Pierrepoint, who was born in 1905 in Bradford, can be seen smiling and laughing as he stands behind the bar in his pub, the Help the Poor Struggler. But Albert had another job, one that was part-time and that he hid from his wife until after they were married - he was Britain's most famous (or infamous) executioner. Within a 25-year period, it estimated that he had taken the lives of 435-600 people, Yorkshire Live reports . His father had also been a hangman, and from a young age he had felt a desire to follow in his footsteps. “I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy
For Pastor Dana Moore, the request is straightforward. He wants to hold hands and pray with a member of his congregation. But Moore’s otherwise simple desire is caught up in an epic legal struggle at the Supreme Court because of where and with whom he wants to do his work: A Texas execution chamber where the state intends to put convicted murderer John Ramirez to death. "I just want to be able to touch John," said Moore, who for years has made the four-hour drive once a month from his Second Baptist church in Corpus Christi to minister to Ramirez in prison. "If I'm standing right by him, why can't I just reach out?" Ramirez’s case, which will be argued at the Supreme Court Nov. 1, comes as the justices have been expanding religious protections for all Americans, including death row inmates. It raises fundamental questions about what spiritual allowances states must make for those facing a death sentence. When a spiritual adviser is present at an execution,
IN the last 100 years, more than 40 women have been executed in the United States. But the death sentencing rate and the death row population remains very low for women in comparison to men. How many women are on death row in the US? According to the Death Penalty Information Center, women are rarely sentenced to death in the United States and executions of women are even rarer. As of April 1, 2021, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund said there were 51 women on death row across the United States. In total, there are around 2,500 people on death row in America. Actual execution of female offenders is quite rare. As of December 31, 2020, there have only been 575 documented executions, with the first recorded in 1632. The executions make up about 3.6 per cent of the total of 16,018 confirmed executions in the United States between 1608 and 2020. Who was the last woman to be executed in the US? Between 1973 and December 2020, 185 death sentences were given to female offenders, ma
I first met Damon Thibodeaux early in 1998, on death row at Angola Prison in Louisiana. I was his lawyer for the next 15 years, while he successfully fought for and won his exoneration and freedom in 2012. I was his friend until he died, on August 31, of COVID-19. The Damon I met that day at Angola was beaten down and almost defeated by injustice and hardship. His childhood had been tough: He was raised by an impoverished single mother who loved him but could not protect him from abuse. At 21, he was arrested for a murder he did not commit. A year later he was convicted at a farce of a trial and sentenced to death. I’d come to ask him to let me represent him on appeal; he answered that he didn’t see the point. If he gave up his appeals, he reasoned, the hell of wrongful imprisonment and solitary confinement would be ended sooner, by his execution. Death penalty lawyers call this “volunteering” for death. We try to offer hope in a dark place, without denying the reality of injustice and
An Australian man and his Thai wife sentenced to death for trafficking half a tonne of crystal methylamphetamine for the Hells Angels have been acquitted after 4 years in a Bangkok jail. Luke Cook, 37, from Duncraig in Western Australia, arrived in Sydney on a Thai Airways flight on Sunday after being cleared by the Supreme Court in Bangkok last week. Pleading his innocence since being jailed in 2017, the father of 2 had been convicted on the evidence provided by an Australian now wanted on a warrant for sex trafficking. Cook, who was an offshore worker as well as running a bar and guest house in the coastal Thai town Pattaya, was accompanied to the departure gate at Bangkok airport by Australian embassy officials and will be held in quarantine in Sydney for a fortnight before being re-united with his 2 sons. His father Paul Cook, a New Zealander, has campaigned tirelessly for his son’s release, maintaining he had been set up. Cook’s Thai wife Kanyarat Wechapitak and an American man Ty
Clinton Young was convicted in a 2001 Midland County murder in which he insists he was framed. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said he was denied the right to a fair trial and an impartial judge. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals tossed out the capital murder conviction and death sentence of Clinton Young on Wednesday after it was discovered that one of the prosecutors in his case also worked for the judge. Young, 38, has been on death row since 2003, convicted of a Midland County murder in which he insists he was framed. But while his other appeals were pending, a new district attorney discovered that a prosecutor who worked on Young’s case worked for the judge at the same time, even drafting the court’s order to deny one of Young’s first appeals. The prosecutor has since retired and, this year, agreed to give up his license in lieu of disciplinary action. “Judicial and prosecutorial misconduct — in the form of an undisclosed employment relationship between the trial judge and t
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — One of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan said the hard-line movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public. In an interview with The Associated Press, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, and he warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers. “Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi told The Associated Press, speaking in Kabul. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.” Since the Taliban overran Kabul on Aug. 15 and seized control of the country, Afghans and the world have been watching to see whether they will re-create their h
James P. Frazier was scheduled to be executed at 10 local time, on Wednesday, October 20, 2021, at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Mansfield, Ohio. 79-year-old James died on Thursday, November 19, 2020, while on death row awaiting his execution. He is believed to have died from the coronavirus. James was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of 49-year-old Mary Stevenson at her North Toledo apartment on March 2, 2004. James spent the last 15 years of his life on Ohio’s death row. Growing up, James had below-average grades in school and he was classified as a slow learner, requiring special education classes. James dropped out of school at age 19, where he was still in the 10th grade. James also abused drugs and alcohol. On the evening of March 2, 2004, the body of Mary Stevenson was found at the foot of her bed by the police. She had been brutally murdered. As the investigation continued the following day, police searched dumpsters that were used by the resident
