[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., NEV., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

March 22



ARKANSAS----impending executions

State hunting for volunteers to witness April's 8 executions


A shortage of required citizen witnesses to watch 8 lethal injections over a 
10-day period next month prompted the state prison director Tuesday to call on 
Rotary Club members to volunteer.

Citizen witnesses are there to verify that the individual executions are 
carried out according to law. A volunteer must be at least 21 years old, an 
Arkansas resident, have no felony criminal history and have no connection to 
the inmate or to the victim.

"The last times these were set, we actually did not have enough people 
volunteer," Department of Correction Director Wendy Kelley told Little Rock 
Rotary Club 99 members. "You seem to be a group that does not have felony 
backgrounds and are over 21. So if you're interested in serving in that area, 
in this serious role, just call my office."

The 8 executions are scheduled two at a time beginning April 17 and ending 
April 27.

Department of Correction spokesman Solomon Graves said he does not have a 
current count on the number of citizen witnesses who have signed up for the 
role. Kelley is making informal inquiries to find more volunteers, he said.

"Depending on the response received, further recruitment may not be necessary," 
Graves said.

The state's death penalty law, A.C.A. 16-90-502, Section 3, requires that the 
prison director procure no fewer than six and no more than 12 citizen witnesses 
for each execution. Kelley must determine that witnesses meet the requirements 
and that they do not present a security risk.

Graves said that while the legal requirement pertains to each individual 
execution, "nothing prohibits a witness from service during multiple 
executions."

Judd Deere, spokesman for Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, said he could not 
speculate about the impact on the execution schedule if a sufficient number of 
citizen witnesses can't be found.

As the execution day approaches, "the attorney general will work in 
consultation with the governor and the Department of Correction director to 
make sure the law is followed as far as executions being carried out," Deere 
said.

Graves would not say whether the lack of witnesses would halt or postpone the 
executions, only that Kelley would "continue her informal recruitment efforts."

Finding volunteers among members of the Little Rock Rotary Club 99 may be 
difficult, said Bill Booker, acting president of the club.

"What I suspect is that some people might support the death penalty, but when 
it comes to witnessing something like that, it's a different story," Booker 
said Tuesday. "It may cause emotional trauma for quite a while. It would be one 
of the most significant things you'll ever see in your life."

Booker, a funeral director at Roller Funeral Home in Little Rock, said he will 
not volunteer for the task.

"It's a lot different to be involved after the death has occurred," Booker 
said, adding that he vividly remembers stopping to help at the scene of a fatal 
traffic accident 40 years ago and helping a young man as he was dying.

Viewing an execution would be too much for him, he said.

"At this point in my life, I don't know if I'd want to risk being traumatized 
by it," Booker said. "That doesn't mean that I oppose the death penalty."

Rotarian Charlotte Gadberry said she has no interest in volunteering as a 
citizen witness.

"I can't imagine she [Kelley] will get a lot of volunteers," Gadberry said. "I 
don't think I could handle it. I'm not real sure how I feel about the death 
penalty, but it seems like there should be a better way of treating our fellow 
man."

Rotarian Karen Fetzer said she would not witness an execution but that Kelley 
may find some volunteers in the Rotary Club 99 crowd.

"It's just a personal preference for me," Fetzer said. "But there are others in 
our population who may be up for it."

None of the handful of Arkansas residents interviewed Tuesday by the 
Democrat-Gazette said they would volunteer for the assignment.

Charles Moore of Camden, who served 2 tours during the Vietnam War, said he's 
seen enough death in his lifetime.

"I stacked bodies on top of each other in Vietnam," said Moore, a retired 
disabled veteran who operates the Camden nonprofit children's foundation 
Planting A Seed. "I don't believe in an eye for an eye."

The subject spurred an argument between Jayme Hickman of Little Rock and her 
mother, Linda Fitzhugh, of Sheridan as they were sitting on a hill in the River 
Market District in Little Rock watching Hickman's two children play.

"No," Hickman said, shaking her head. "I don't agree with killing a person. 
Both families lose in that situation."

Fitzhugh interrupted by directing Hickman's gaze to the 2 children.

"What would you do if they hurt your daughters? They should execute them," 
Fitzhugh said loudly. "We don't need to be taking care of them with taxpayers' 
money."

In the end, Fitzhugh admitted that she couldn't bring herself to witness an 
execution.

Betty Fernau of Conway, who has officiated at weddings in prison, suggested a 
solution to the problem.

"I've heard jury duty can be traumatizing, depending on the case," Fernau said. 
"It seems like this is part of our judicial system. Finding witnesses should 
work the same way as calling jurors to a trial.

"If I were called to witness, I would see it as my duty and I would appear. But 
I would not volunteer."

Graves said anyone interested in volunteering should contact Kelley in writing 
at P.O. Box 8707, Pine Bluff, Ark. 71611.

The pace of the scheduled executions -- prompted by the fact that midazolam, 
one of the three lethal-injection drugs, will expire at the end of April -- is 
unprecedented not only for the state, but for the nation.

If the 8 executions are carried out next month, Arkansas will be the 1st state 
to execute that many inmates in that compressed of a timeline since 1976 -- the 
year the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.

Arkansas has executed 27 inmates since 1976. The quickest pace for executions 
was 3 in 1 day on Aug. 3, 1994, and Jan. 8, 1997.

Department of Correction data show that 189 men and 1 woman have been executed 
in the state since 1915, when executions first began being tracked.

During that time, the most inmates executed in 1 year in Arkansas was 10 in 
1926 and 1930. The most executed within close proximity on the calendar was 4 
in one day on Feb. 12, 1926, and Nov. 14, 1930. There were 4 executions in the 
month of October 1959 and the month of May 1960.

Kelley said Tuesday that the close proximity of the 8 execution dates will not 
affect the department's readiness for the lethal injections.

"The staff will be prepared," Kelley said. "We will be doing practice rounds 
and having lots of meetings. The protocols are confidential, but we will be 
prepared. We want everything to go as smoothly as possible for the inmate as 
well as the staff in the room and the witnesses."

With the execution dates fast approaching, the atmosphere at the Varner Unit's 
Supermax -- home to 34 male death-row inmates -- is somber, Kelley said.

"I don't think the 8 executions in 10 days has anything to do with it," Kelley 
said. "I think the fact that an execution is set for any of them would make it 
somber back there."

No extra security has been assigned to the unit, Kelley said. When the 
proclamation from Gov. Asa Hutchinson setting the execution dates was released 
in late February, each of the inmates was seen in private. Prison chaplains 
have made repeated rounds on death row, helping each inmate determine whether 
he wants a spiritual adviser and, if so, assisting in appointing one.

"I've been down there since the date was set," Kelley said. "It doesn't have 
anything to do with the number of inmates being executed. It's just part of the 
process."

The last inmate to be executed in the state was Eric Nance on Nov. 29, 2005. 
The state has not put anyone to death since then because of legal challenges to 
the state's death penalty process and a federal lawsuit opposing the use of the 
drug midazolam. Death penalty opponents claim that the drug does not induce a 
complete level of unconsciousness, which allows the inmate to feel pain.

On Monday, attorneys for 9 death row inmates -- including the 8 scheduled to 
die next month -- filed a petition for a rehearing with the U.S. Supreme Court. 
The argument is that the 2 executions at a time within the 10-day time frame is 
"truly extraordinary" and presents substantial new ground for considering the 
prisoners' case.

"Executing 8 men in ten days is far outside the bounds of what contemporary 
society finds acceptable," the petition read.

According to the governor's proclamations, the executions are scheduled to be 
carried out as follows:

-- Don Davis and Bruce Earl Ward, April 17.

-- Ledelle Lee and Stacey Johnson, April 20.

-- Marcell Williams and Jack Jones Jr., April 24.

-- Jason McGehee and Kenneth Williams, April 27.

(source: Democrat Gazette)

******************

Arkansas panel bats down execution curbs


Ending executions in Arkansas -- or at least significantly reducing their 
frequency -- was debated in a House committee Tuesday, with lawmakers broadly 
voicing support for the death penalty.

In a pair of voice votes, the House Judiciary Committee rejected bills 
proposing a prohibition of the death sentence for someone with serious mentally 
illness (House Bill 2170) and requiring the death penalty to be applied only if 
there is no doubt of guilt (HB1798).

Another proposal, House Bill 2103, was presented to the committee to remove the 
death penalty altogether from the state's sentencing statutes, but it was 
pulled down by its sponsor, state Rep. Vivian Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, who said 
later Tuesday that she would instead seek a legislative study on the matter.

Flowers said she is under no illusions about the feelings of the heavily 
Republican committee.

"There is an opportunity for us to move in another direction," Flowers said. 
"This was just the beginning of the conversation."

4 Democrats have seats on the 20-member committee. Only Rep. Charles Blake, 
D-Little Rock, the sponsor of HB1798, voiced support for both proposals.

Also sitting on the committee is Rep. Rebecca Petty, R-Rogers, whose 
12-year-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and murdered in 1999 by a man now on 
Arkansas' death row.

"It's not something I'm open to," Petty said of abolishing the death penalty.

Neither are Arkansans, both critics and proponents said. A public opinion 
researcher brought in by Flowers to testify said one 2014 poll showed more than 
2/3 of Arkansans supported the death penalty, though he said that was down from 
previous decades.

Arkansas is among 31 states that have the death penalty. Arkansas has gone 
longer without an execution than any other Southern state since carrying out 
the last one. Legal challenges and trouble maintaining a supply of execution 
drugs have kept Arkansas' execution chamber quiet for more than a decade. Eric 
Nance, a convicted murderer, was put to death by lethal injection in November 
2005.

That's set to change next month. Gov. Asa Hutchinson has scheduled eight 
inmates to die over the course of 10 days. The rapid pace of Hutchinson's 
execution schedule is due, in part, to 1 of the drugs expiring days after the 
last execution is scheduled to take place.

2 of the inmates set to die have clemency hearings scheduled for Friday. 3 more 
hearings are set for next week.

Death penalty critics pointed out that that innocent people have wound up on 
death row.

Citing statistics from the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, 
Flowers said 156 people on death row have been exonerated, or about one for 
every 10 executions in the time period of the exonerations. Blake's bill, 
HB1798, would raise the standard of guilt to "beyond any doubt" for a sentence 
of death.

"We shouldn't be killing people if we're 95 % sure," Blake said.

Prosecutors doubted that standard could ever be met, and Rep. David Whitaker, 
D-Fayetteville, who said he is against the death penalty, said it was not 
enough to ease concerns of killing an innocent person.

"Beyond a reasonable doubt is the only standard anyone can agree on," Whitaker 
said. "When the death penalty is an option, we can never be sure enough."

Petty said that if changes are made to Arkansas' capital punishment laws, they 
should be to hasten the process, such as limiting the appeals process.

"Grave crimes deserve grave punishment," Petty said. "It's time for justice to 
be served for these families."

(source: arkansasonline.com)






NEVADA----new death sentence

Javier Righetti sentenced to death for rape and murder of 15-year-old Alyssa 
Otremba


On deciding Javier Righetti's punishment for the rape and murder of 15-year-old 
Alyssa Otremba, a prosecutor on Tuesday urged jurors to look no further than 
the defendant's own words.

"I should just die," Chief Deputy District Attorney Giancarlo Pesci said, 
quoting the defendant.

After about 3 hours of deliberation, weighing upward of 37 mitigating factors 
against 11 aggravating factors, the panel handed down capital punishment. At 
24, Righetti becomes the youngest man on death row in Nevada.

Otremba was raped and fatally stabbed inside a tunnel less than 100 yards from 
her family's home on Sept. 2, 2011, her 1st week of class as a freshman at 
Arbor View High School. She had stayed home sick that day, but did not want to 
miss homework. She was headed out to borrow a geometry book from a friend when 
she was attacked.

Last week, the same jury found Righetti guilty of Otremba's murder. Righetti 
admitted to raping 2 other women inside the same tunnel. He also confessed to 
raping his cousin in Mexico just 3 months before Otremba's slaying.

Her mother spoke briefly to reporters after the sentence was read.

"We're grateful that justice has finally been done," Jennifer Otremba said. "In 
all honesty, this is not a win for anybody. 2 families have been destroyed, and 
this journey's been hard and it's just beginning for us, as well. We have the 
rest of life to live without Alyssa."

Pesci said the verdict also offered justice for Righetti's other victims.

"He represents a threat to people who should be protected, people who should be 
safe, young women should be able to walk to a friend's house to pick up a math 
book and not think they're going to be raped and murdered," the prosecutor 
said. "It's a very unsettling case because it can reach to everybody's hearts. 
It's very scary to think what could happen."

Before the jury decided his punishment, Righetti made a statement in the 
courtroom.

"I look around and see how many people I've hurt and failed," he said. "I truly 
am sorry for this entire tragedy."

Righetti's defense attorneys had asked jurors to send him to life behind bars 
without the possibility of parole.

"No matter what, your verdict ensures that he dies in prison," said Deputy 
Public Defender Christy Craig, who declined to comment after the sentence was 
handed down.

Righetti previously told Las Vegas police that, after raping Alyssa, he 
tortured her by using a knife to stab her more than 80 times in the face and 
other body parts, according to testimony. He carved the initials "LV" on her 
body because he felt it was "gangster," and he returned later to burn the body.

Some killers "are so morally reprehensible that the only appropriate punishment 
is death," Chief Deputy District Attorney Michelle Fleck told jurors. "Javier 
Righetti is that defendant."

(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)






CALIFORNIA:

California DAs should consider Florida state attorney's approach to death 
penalty


A new Florida State Attorney, Aramis Ayala, made a bold move when she recently 
announced that capital punishment is "not in the best interest of the community 
or the best interest of justice," and vowed not to seek the death penalty in 
future cases.

In taking this courageous stand, Ayala recognizes that the death penalty is a 
false promise to victims' families and the community. She joins other newly 
elected prosecutors across the nation who are no longer pushing for a policy 
that is tremendously costly, arbitrarily doled out and risky in its 
implementation. The death penalty is deeply flawed, and its use and support 
continue to dwindle nationwide.

California district attorneys should take a cue from their colleague in Florida 
and review and reconsider their support of this outdated policy.

Voters deserve to feel that their elected prosecutors actually listen to them. 
Last year, a majority of voters in 15 California counties supported Proposition 
62, which would have repealed the state's death penalty. In Los Angeles, San 
Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, Humboldt, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, San 
Francisco, Alpine, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Sonoma and Yolo 
counties, California voters supported replacing the death penalty with the 
sentence of life in prison.

And it's not just the voters. There are many other signs that the death penalty 
in California should be dismantled once and for all. It's broken beyond repair.

California has not had an execution in more than 10 years because of legal 
challenges and difficulty acquiring drugs. The state has spent a decade 
unsuccessfully trying to create a legally sound lethal injection protocol. 
Corrections officials also have no means to acquire safe or reliable lethal 
injection drugs because pharmaceutical companies refuse to allow their 
lifesaving medicine to be used to execute people.

Proposition 66, which falsely promised to resume executions and was narrowly 
approved by the voters, is tied up in lawsuits because it is so deeply flawed 
legally and practically.

Fortunately, there is a viable alternative that is already available to 
prosecutors: life in prison without the possibility of parole. It is a severe 
punishment and ensures a lifetime behind bars. No one who has been sentenced to 
life without parole in California has been released, except those who were able 
to prove their innocence. The nation has evolved past the death penalty, and 
it???s time for prosecutors to follow suit.

California's district attorneys have the power to reject this costly and failed 
policy. They can and should use their discretion to do what the Florida state 
attorney did: stop sending new people to our state's overflowing death row and 
take a stand against this failed government program.

The voters across California have shown that this is a decision they would 
support. It's time our district attorneys be the leaders we elected them to be.

(source: Ana Zamora is criminal justice policy director at the ACLU of Northern 
California----Sacramento Bee)






USA:

Can Mentally Ill Americans Be Executed? It's Complicated


Several states are considering a ban on capital punishment for people with 
mental illnesses or brain injuries.

There is a difference between mental illness - which encompasses a wide range 
of diagnoses, including serious ones like schizophrenia and paranoia - and 
insanity, a condition that is much more narrowly defined and more difficult to 
prove.

Insanity can shield you from being put on trial, found guilty or executed. But 
serious mental illness can't.

Dylann S. Roof, who killed 9 African-American churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., 
in 2015, has been sentenced to death despite some evidence of mental illness.

Here is a primer on mental illness and the death penalty.

Yes. The Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to shield mentally ill people 
from the death penalty, saying only that people who are insane cannot be 
executed.

But "the insane" is narrowly defined as "those who are unaware of the 
punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it" - a 
definition that excludes most people with severe mental illness.

Georgia executed Andrew H. Brannan, a decorated Vietnam War veteran with 
post-traumatic stress and bipolar disorder, in 2015. Florida executed John E. 
Ferguson, who believed that he was the "Prince of God" and that his death would 
save the world, in 2013.

7 states are likely to introduce legislation this year that would bar execution 
for people with severe mental illness, according to the 8th Amendment Project, 
an anti-death-penalty group. The bills do not agree on a common definition of 
severe mental illness, but it would typically include schizophrenia and 
schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, 
post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

If enough states exempt people with such illnesses, the Supreme Court may 
decide that national standards of decency have evolved and follow suit.

Critics of executing people with serious mental illnesses, including the 
American Bar Association, say these people are more vulnerable to wrongful 
convictions. Among other things, they may be more likely to make false 
confessions.

Are other categories of people exempt from execution?

Yes. The Supreme Court has held in recent years that juveniles and people with 
intellectual disabilities should not be put to death because they are less 
culpable.

But the limits can seem arbitrary: Someone who is a day under 18 when they 
commit a crime cannot be executed, but someone who is a day past their 18th 
birthday can. And because intellectual disability is legally defined as a 
disorder that manifests before age 18, people with brain damage do not 
necessarily qualify. Someone who suffered a brain injury as an adult would not 
be exempt from capital punishment even if their cognitive function is similar 
to that of an intellectually disabled person.

Insane is different from mentally ill. The legal definition of insanity centers 
on the inability to comprehend the nature of one's actions, a lack of 
understanding of right and wrong, or, in some states, a lack of capacity to 
control one's actions.

The insanity defense is rarely used and even more rarely successful. For 
example, Andrea Yates was deeply psychotic when she drowned her 5 children in 
2001, believing she was saving them from damnation. But that did not mean she 
did not understand the consequences of her actions or know they were wrong. At 
her first trial, the jury rejected her insanity defense.

And when it comes to execution, it is the person's mental state at the time of 
punishment that matters. No one argued that Alvin Bernard Ford was insane when 
he killed a police officer in 1974. But he later became obsessed with the Ku 
Klux Klan and came to believe that family members and prominent politicians 
were the victims of a prolonged hostage crisis. His case, Ford v. Wainwright, 
reached the Supreme Court, which ruled in 1986 that an insane person could not 
be executed.

3 years later, though, a federal judge ruled that Mr. Ford was not insane. He 
died on death row, of natural causes, in 1991.

Sanity can fluctuate. Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death 
Penalty Information Center, argued that one of his former clients, Gary M. 
Heidnik, was incompetent to be executed (that is, insane) because he believed 
that the death warrant against him was fake. During a hearing, it was explained 
that the warrant had been signed by the real governor of Pennsylvania, and Mr. 
Heidnik accepted that it was legitimate.

"While on the stand, he became competent to be executed," Mr. Dunham recalled. 
"He was executed despite the fact that he was stone-cold nuts."

The Supreme Court and many state laws say that mental illness - along with 
things like childhood abuse, trauma and the lack of a previous criminal record 
- can be presented as a mitigating factor for jurors to consider during the 
punishment phase of capital cases. Mitigating factors weigh against the death 
penalty; aggravating factors, like torturing a victim, weigh in favor of death.

A jury declined to give a death sentence to James E. Holmes, who killed 12 
people at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater in 2012, because of his long-term 
mental illness. There is, however, a risk that jurors will view severe mental 
illness as inherently dangerous.

Dylann S. Roof represented himself during the sentencing phase of his trial and 
refused to allow the jury to hear evidence of mental illness. He wrote in a 
journal that psychology was "a Jewish invention." Court papers unsealed after 
the trial indicated that he had "social anxiety disorder, a mixed substance 
abuse disorder, a schizoid personality disorder, depression by history and a 
possible autistic spectrum disorder."

The judge in Mr. Roof's case had to determine not whether he was mentally ill, 
but whether he was competent to stand trial - in other words, to understand the 
proceedings and assist in his defense - and able to represent himself.

Mr. Dunham argues that if Mr. Roof had the delusional belief that mental 
illness did not exist, it was a mistake to deem him capable of making rational 
decisions on whether to present evidence of his condition, "because his views 
about mental illness were themselves a product of his mental illness."

(source: New York Times)

******************

Pro-life conservatives and millennials should oppose the death penalty


The Declaration of Independence promises to protect our rights to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The unborn, the most vulnerable among 
us, retain those rights despite the current policies in place.

That same pro-liberty, pro-life rationale, adopted by many millennials, 
logically and inevitably leads to supporting the abolishment of the death 
penalty.

Millennials have been characterized as the "liberty generation," embracing a 
libertarian-leaning mix of beliefs centered on entrepreneurship, individual 
liberties, and tolerance. Much of conservative media also has been abuzz about 
how public opinion polls have consistently shown that millennials are strongly 
in favor of protecting the unborn, in contrast to millennials' supposedly 
left-leaning views on other social issues.

In what might initially seem to be an unrelated trend, a recent poll by the Pew 
Research Center revealed that support for abolishing the death penalty has 
reached its highest level since the 1960s.

Millennial conservatives now have a historic opportunity to be the generation 
that finally ends the death penalty once and for all.

The typical arguments for and against the death penalty are as old as the 
penalty itself and likely have changed little throughout history. Proponents of 
the death penalty primarily make arguments about deterrence and justice while 
opponents argue about a certain punishment for an uncertain crime, disparate 
racial and socioeconomic impacts, and the potential for compassion and 
forgiveness.

However, for those who are liberty-minded and pro-life, the real abhorrence of 
the modern death penalty is that the state, as often is represented by a simple 
majority of voters at a particular time, is creating rules about when people 
are allowed to live or die.

No crime punishable by death is universally agreed on by everyone in society, 
which means that large portions of society are subject to having their lives 
taken away by shifting red lines despite never having consented to it.

The death penalty is a relic of a time when civilization was in a more brutish 
and savage stage. The death penalty doesn't seem to be anything exceptionally 
bad when society as a whole is full of war, crime, disease, famine, and a lack 
of social stability. When nearly every law-abiding citizen is greatly worried 
about living to the next year, caring for the lives of horrible criminals seems 
quite unimportant.

In our modern age, however, we have effective law enforcement, secure prisons, 
and a society where people are not stuck in a day-to-day struggle for survival. 
For a society as developed, plentiful, and peaceful as ours, the death penalty 
sticks out like a sore thumb from the days when villages, cities, and states 
were constantly on the brink of collapse and anarchy.?

The rest of the free world has largely abolished the death penalty. While the 
actions of other countries ought to not have any bearing on how Americans 
choose to live our lives and govern ourselves, the arguments, realizations, and 
value judgments that other liberal democracies have gone through may be useful 
for us to look over and learn from.

Legally, the means of abolishing the death penalty remain uncertain. Solutions 
from courts are either on uncertain constitutional grounds or would be 
inappropriate legislating from the bench.

The most powerful, both legally and symbolically, means of abolishing the death 
penalty would be passing a constitutional amendment. This would permanently end 
the death penalty for sure, as well as send a clear signal that our country has 
definitively moved past it.

The pro-life and liberty movement has not made abolishing the death penalty a 
key part of its agenda, but we must do so in order to be consistent in our 
liberty-centered constitutional worldview.

The argument is clear and the opportunity is now. If conservative millennials 
truly want to be the generation of liberty and life, abolishing the death 
penalty must be a key part of that agenda and we must be willing to fight for 
it.

(source: Commentary; Erich Reimer is a millennial conservative living in 
Charlottesville, Va.----Washington Examiner)

*******************

Lethal injections are best option for death penalty, but formula of mixed drugs 
needs to switch to single sedative


A botched execution isn't all that uncommon in America, thanks to the 
instability of state laws regarding the death penalty. Instead of forcing 
certain inmates to suffer, essentially instituting torture, one efficient and 
quick method to execute prisoners needs to be determined.

With 32 states having 1 of 5 forms of the death penalty, according to Statistic 
Brain, the chances of something going wrong are higher than Americans should 
accept.

While mismanaged executions account for nearly 3 percent of all executions, 
according to deathpenaltyinfo.org, there are still 276 deaths recorded over 120 
years that have gone horribly wrong considering all methods of execution.

The death penalty should continue to use lethal injection, but without the 
cocktail of drugs used that make people suffer. 75 people have suffered from 
botched lethal injections, according to Sarat, which is less than every other 
execution method.

While America is clearly on the right path by mainly using lethal injections, 
the formula needs to be improved.

The problem with a random mix of drugs is that every person is different in 
terms of height, weight and tolerance. There's no way to tell which drugs will 
cause the desired effect needed.

In 1994, a prison inmate suffered for 13 minutes after a lethal injection of 
mixed drugs in Alabama, according to Vice News. The same article reports that 2 
lengthy deaths happened in Oklahoma in 2014. The drug cocktail used for all 
three contained the same failed drug of midazolam, Vice reported.

If America is going to continue executing death row inmates, we need a more 
sound way to humanely kill dangerous criminals. One strong sedative drug that 
would simply put them to sleep forever is the ideal choice for lethal 
injection.

While those on death row have committed terrible crimes, they do not deserve to 
suffer, often in front of others. Lethal injections need to be quick, painless 
and must continue to be the main way to execute death row inmates.

With Mississippi considering renewing the use of a firing squad and gas 
chambers, according to the Washington Examiner, a new and blanket regulation 
and strict enforcement of those regulations needs to become the standard.

America shouldn't put people to death in such a barbaric manner. Death by 
firing squad is a gruesome way to die, not to mention costly.

The 2010 execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner by firing squad cost Utah about 
$165,000, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

For comparison, Vice reported that the cost of the tools needed to end a 
person's life with pentobarbital, a powerful sedative, costs around $861.60. 
This is a drop in the bucket compared to the firing squad method.

While lethal injections are by far the best option, they still need major 
improvements.

Considering there is a record of a lethal injections failing for over 100 
years, the federal government should've taken that as a hint to figure out 
something better than a drug cocktail to kill someone.

With that in mind, it makes sense that one strong sedative would be the most 
humane way for a first-world country to punish inmates on death row. It's 
imperative to reign with an iron fist of justice, but the United States should 
do so with consistency and humanity.

(source: Opinion, Ashlyn Ramirez, The Daily Titan)