The evolution of civilised behaviour, indicating a retreat from barbarism, has become a distinctive feature of most modern western democracies, but America often disappoints, retaining practices that shock, sadden, and in my case, nearly made me physically sick.
My visit to death row at McAlester State Penitentiary, Oklahoma, brought home to me, how the final setting for government sponsored killings, combined with execution by lethal injection, brought a brutal end to lives. And made a mockery of the idea of justice, offering instead a violent, humiliating, and inhuman act of revenge, with no serious pretence that any of these end of life dramas, provide any deterrence in criminal justice terms. Formerly known as “Indian Territory”, and home of the Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma, with a population of over 4 million, became a state in 1907. Located in America’s “Bible” belt, where there is a strong fundamentalist Christian tradition and powerful Republican politics, Oklahoma remains a pro…
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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)
A Saudi newspaper has carried a film showing the beheading of a man convicted of raping a teenaged boy before murdering him in the heart of the desert.
The rare and shocking 51-second film showed the executioner bringing down his sword on the defendant’s head, which was severed in just a split of second.
The executioner, a tall man wearing traditional Saudi dishdasha (gown) and ghutra (head cover), then wiped blood off his sword with a piece of cloth after the beheading before walking away from the rapist’s headless body.
Sharq newspaper, which published the film, did not say how it was shot as filming of executions in the conservative Gulf kingdom is banned.
Newspapers said the unnamed defendant had been convicted of abducting the Saudi boy to a desolate desert area and raping him. He then forced him to lie on the sand and crushed him with his four-wheel car.
Warning: Graphic Content
✔ RELATED VIDEO: Execution by the sword of a Burmese womanWarning: This Video Contains Extremely Dist…
Reginald Brooks’ execution was carried out. His time of death was 2:04 p.m. An Ohio man who killed his three sons after his wife served him with divorce papers was executed Tuesday afternoon, after exhausting his final appeals, according to officials. Reginald Brooks, who has spent nearly three decades on death row, was convicted of shooting to death each of his three sons, aged 11, 15 and 17, while they were in their beds in East Cleveland in 1982. His wife had served him with divorce papers two days before the killings. Defense lawyers have argued that Brooks was a paranoid schizophrenic and suffered from mental illness before he killed his sons. He was denied clemency by both the Ohio Parole Board and Kasich. Brooks, 66, was the oldest person put to death since Ohio resumed executions in 1999. Brooks was the first person to be put to death in Ohio since a federal judge delayed the execution of Kenneth Smith in July and came after the state issued revised execution procedures in Septembe…
The evolution of civilised behaviour, indicating a retreat from barbarism, has become a distinctive feature of most modern western democracies, but America often disappoints, retaining practices that shock, sadden, and in my case, nearly made me physically sick.
My visit to death row at McAlester State Penitentiary, Oklahoma, brought home to me, how the final setting for government sponsored killings, combined with execution by lethal injection, brought a brutal end to lives. And made a mockery of the idea of justice, offering instead a violent, humiliating, and inhuman act of revenge, with no serious pretence that any of these end of life dramas, provide any deterrence in criminal justice terms. Formerly known as “Indian Territory”, and home of the Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma, with a population of over 4 million, became a state in 1907. Located in America’s “Bible” belt, where there is a strong fundamentalist Christian tradition and powerful Republican politics, Oklahoma remains a pro…
A special education teacher running for mayor in a city in Alabama is proposing public hangings for drug dealers with multiple convictions.
Michael Ray James, who’s a mayoral candidate for Sylacauga, has called for public hangings for drug dealers who have been convicted three times.
“Please consider that Drug Dealers have murdered, for profit, approximately 1,000,000 teenagers, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles in a short 20 year period,” James wrote in a Facebook post on May 13.
“Yes, I’m very aware public hanging is extreme and totally not possible without Federal Approvals and not from city or state officials. Extreme yes, but definitely brings attention to this scourge on Sylacauga, Alabama and the United States of America.”
Some disagreed with James’ proposal on social media.
“A public hanging of any sorts isn’t the proper position anyone, yet alone a someone running for public office should endorse in any way...,” one Facebook user wrote in response. “You …
The following document is a written record of convicted killer Hamida Djandoubi's last moments before he was guillotined in a Marseilles prison on September 10, 1977.
This record -- dated September 9 -- was written by a judge appointed to witness the execution.
Djandoubi's execution was the last execution carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981.
Then-President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who had voiced his "loathing for the death penalty" before he was elected to office, flatly turned down Djandoubi's appeal for clemency and chose to let "Justice run its course", as he did on two previous instances (Christian Ranucci, executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein, executed on June 23, 1977).
Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet.
He was executed in Marseilles' Baumettes prison in September 1977.
The following text was written on the night of the e…
After another officer-involved death, officials face a skeptical public.
Four Minneapolis police officers were fired and federal authorities are investigating after a video surfaced Monday showing an officer kneeling on a handcuffed suspect’s neck and ignoring the man’s protests that he couldn’t breathe. The man, identified as George Floyd, later died.
Another African-American man has died during an encounter with Minneapolis police, leaving a community to process more outrage and heartbreak.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey announced Tuesday that the four officers involved in George Floyd's death have been fired. Both the FBI and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) are investigating, and the Minneapolis Police Department is likely to conduct its own review. That process is critical. All of the facts must be examined in a credible and transparent process.
Yet based on the shocking Facebook video that the public has seen thus far, it's difficult to imagine why it would be n…
(RNS) — Among the things disrupted by the pandemic is our government’s ability to carry out executions. Some of us might say it is one of the rare silver linings of this coronavirus nightmare.
It’s been over two months (75 days to be exact) since we’ve had an execution. There are only two other times since the turn of the century the state has gone that long without executing someone.
But last Tuesday (May 19), that pause came to an end when the state of Missouri executed Walter Barton for the murder of Gladys Kuehler.
Barton was convicted of killing his 81-year-old landlord, despite all kinds of inconsistencies in his case that should cause hesitation in even the most staunch supporter of the death penalty.
Barton’s execution is but the latest evidence of how irreparably broken our system of capital punishment is in America.
In the years since his arrest in 1991, Barton had five separate trials for his crime – nearly three decades of appeals, mistrials and overturned convictions. He…
HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A man who became known as Houston's "Tourniquet Killer" because of his signature murder technique has become the nation's first prisoner executed in 2018.
Anthony Allen Shore received lethal injection Thursday evening in Texas for the 1992 strangling of a 21-year-old woman whose body was dumped in the drive-thru of a Houston Dairy Queen.
In the moments before the execution, he spoke briefly to some of his victim's family members in attendance.
"He sounded apologetic," said AP reporter and eyewitness Mike Graczyk. "His voice cracked several times. His chin and lips were quivering as he was speaking."
In his final statement, Shore said:
"I like to take a moment to say I'm sorry. No amount of words could ever undo what I've done. To the family of my victims, I wish I could undo the past. It is what it is. God bless all of you. I will die with a clear conscious. I made my peace. There is no others. I will like t…
Abolition Movement member Lucha Rodriguez just received a phone call from Morris Moon, one of several attorneys for former death row prisoner Nanon Williams and he told her that Federal Judge Nancy Atlas has today ordered Nanon released from prison. On August 17 Judge Atlas held a de novo on Nanon's case on the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel. Now, the state of Texas has 30 days to appeal this ruling by Judge Atlas. To appeal, they would have to go to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. But it was the 5th Circuit that ordered Nanon's case sent back to the Federal District Court for a de novo hearing. It seems unlikely the 5th Circuit would deny Atlas' ruling. Nanon Williams was only 17 years old when he was arrested for capital murder in 1992. He was on Texas death row until the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the execution of juveniles in 2005. Nanon Williams is now 36 years old and at the Ramsey Unit south of Houston serving a life sentence. Source: T…
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — An Indiana man who embarked on a cross-country crime spree with his girlfriend a decade ago that ended in a gun battle with police in San Francisco was executed Thursday for robbing and murdering a sheriff's officer in San Antonio. No late court appeals were filed for 31-year-old Joshua Maxwell (pictured), who was condemned for gunning down Bexar County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Rudy Lopes and stealing his truck. The 45-year-old veteran jailer was off duty at the time.
The U.S. Supreme Court last week refused to review Maxwell's case.
Maxwell, his voice breaking and choking back tears, apologized repeatedly in the seconds before lethal drugs began flowing into his arms.
"The person that did that 10 years ago isn't the same person you see today," he said. "I hurt a lot of people with decisions I made. I can't be more sorry than I am right now."
Nine minutes later, at 6:27 p.m. CST, he was pronounced dead, making him the fourth …
