Gary Gilmore was the first person in the United States to be executed since SCOTUS issued its decision in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S. Ct. 2909, 49 L. Ed. 2d 859 (1976), which reinstated the death penalty in the United States. It had been almost a decade since anyone had been executed
Execution Methods
Pentobarbital in Executions: Cruel and Unusual Punishment?
By Reba Kennedy on
This month, the question is raised once again about what the condemned actually experience when undergoing lethal injection, and whether or not this constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. It appears that the executioners’ perspective on what is taking place and those of the execution witnesses may be far, far different. Read, “Executioners sanitized accounts …
Join the Two Million Plus Listeners to Portrait and Interview of Charlie Jones, Warden and Executioner for the State of Alabama
By Reba Kennedy on
Posted in Death Penalty - States, Execution Methods
It’s only around twenty minutes long, and you can watch it on your phone. It’s haunting. Disturbing. Truth be told, I’m surprised to find how it has left me just a bit shaken, and I worry about bad dreams tonight. I’ve sent the link over to Terry for him to watch, and if he has…
Painful Executions are not Cruel and Unusual Punishment under the Eighth Amendment
By Reba Kennedy on
Posted in Execution Methods
History buffs may recall King Henry VIII granted Anne Boleyn’s request for a special French executioner who would decapitate her using a sword, rather than the standard beheading method of an ax (which might take several blows before succeeding in severing the head from the neck). A swift decapitation was considered to be merciful…
Coronavirus and the Death Penalty: Executions and Prosecutions
By Reba Kennedy on
Posted in Death Penalty - States, Execution Methods
The Coronavirus Pandemic has caused trials to be put on hold in Florida and elsewhere in the country, as efforts to “slow the spread” prohibit groups of people to enter courthouses either as jurors, defense attorneys, prosecutors, or judges.
For the Florida Supreme Court Order suspending criminal proceedings beginning March 16, 2020, including…
Coronavirus and the Death Penalty: University of Miami’s Goodman Joins Doctors In Asking States for Execution Drugs to use in COVID-19 Treatment
By Reba Kennedy on
Posted in Death Penalty - States, Execution Methods
Lethal injection is the most common method of execution in the United States, albeit more and more alternative methods are being used as concerns grow over the use of intravenous drugs as a killing tool.
The Coronavirus Pandemic has shed a different kind of light on these lethal injection drugs, particularly the following: midazolam; vecuronium…
Alamo Pictures: UK Professor Vivien Miller Discusses Death Penalty in America
By Reba Kennedy on
Posted in Death Penalty - States, Execution Methods
Mannie Ponoc of UK’s Alamo Pictures shared this recent documentary podcast with us where Professor Vivien Miller of the University of Nottingham discusses the history of capital punishment in America, using visuals from the BBC’s “Life and Death Row – The Mass Execution” as she delves into various aspects of the death penalty in our…
More Argument for Ending the Death Penalty
By Reba Kennedy on
1. Inequality in Results: Unequal Outcomes in Capital Cases
Recently the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board changed the paper’s official stance on the death penalty in Florida in an editorial entitled “It’s time for Florida to get rid of the death penalty,” and published on November 22, 2019.
Part of their argument includes a…
Lethal Injections and Compounding Pharmacies: Why These Are Very Bad Sources of Supply
By Reba Kennedy on
Posted in Execution Methods
The federal government has announced it will begin executions again this year using a single drug, pentobarbital, as its lethal injection method. The source of that pentobarbital is not known, but many assume it will come from a supplier being used by many other states for their lethal injection protocols: the “compounding pharmacy.” For details,…
How Does Florida Execute People? Florida’s 2019 Lethal Injection Protocol
By Reba Kennedy on
Posted in Execution Methods
States may overwhelmingly choose the lethal injection method of execution these days, but that doesn’t mean that the same procedure is followed or the same drugs are used. Consider and compare the drugs, and drug combinations, used in executions as compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center in its State by State Lethal Injection Protocols…