Death sentence debacle renews debate
Referring to the Resurrection of Jesus, this Sunday’s reading from Acts of the Apostles affirms that “God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death.” Clayton D. Lockett, a prisoner sentenced to death in Oklahoma and strapped to a gurney . . .
Referring to the Resurrection of Jesus, this Sunday’s reading from Acts of the Apostles affirms that “God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death.” Clayton D. Lockett, a prisoner sentenced to death in Oklahoma and strapped to a gurney Tuesday evening, stayed conscious during a 45-minute botched execution that left him writhing and moaning in the throes of death before succumbing to a heart attack.
Witnesses described Lockett in the execution room mumbling “man” after being declared unconscious. He was “grimacing, grunting, and lifting his head and shoulders entirely up from the gurney,” wrote Ziva Branstetter, enterprise editor of The Tulsa World and one of 12 news media witnesses to the execution. In describing the scene, Branstetter wrote, “reporters exchange shocked glances. Nothing like this has happened at an execution any of us has witnessed since 1990, when the state resumed executions using lethal injection.”
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said at a news conference Wednesday that she has called for an independent review of the failed execution. The problems with the bungled execution are expected to fuel the debate about the ability of states to administer lethal injections that meet the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that they be neither cruel nor unusual punishment.
That question has drawn renewed attention from defense lawyers and death penalty opponents in recent months, as several states scrambled to find new sources of drugs used in executions because drug makers that oppose capital punishment—many based in Europe—have stopped selling to prisons and corrections departments.
Catholic leaders and many other religious organizations have repeatedly voiced opposition to capital punishment. Anti-death penalty groups called for an immediate moratorium on all executions in Oklahoma.
Public support for the death penalty has generally been declining. In the most recent Gallup poll of Americans’ views of the death penalty for prisoners convicted of murder, 60 percent said they were in favor of it in October 2013, down from a peak of 80 percent in September 1994.
Homily hint: Supporters of the death penalty often refer to vengeance or retribution as a legitimate reason to support capital punishment. But on reflection, doesn’t such a position reveal a lack of trust in God’s judging power? If we truly believe that judgment belongs to God, there should be no need for us to take someone’s life in the name of justice.
Witnesses described Lockett in the execution room mumbling “man” after being declared unconscious. He was “grimacing, grunting, and lifting his head and shoulders entirely up from the gurney,” wrote Ziva Branstetter, enterprise editor of The Tulsa World and one of 12 news media witnesses to the execution. In describing the scene, Branstetter wrote, “reporters exchange shocked glances. Nothing like this has happened at an execution any of us has witnessed since 1990, when the state resumed executions using lethal injection.”
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said at a news conference Wednesday that she has called for an independent review of the failed execution. The problems with the bungled execution are expected to fuel the debate about the ability of states to administer lethal injections that meet the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that they be neither cruel nor unusual punishment.
That question has drawn renewed attention from defense lawyers and death penalty opponents in recent months, as several states scrambled to find new sources of drugs used in executions because drug makers that oppose capital punishment—many based in Europe—have stopped selling to prisons and corrections departments.
Catholic leaders and many other religious organizations have repeatedly voiced opposition to capital punishment. Anti-death penalty groups called for an immediate moratorium on all executions in Oklahoma.
Public support for the death penalty has generally been declining. In the most recent Gallup poll of Americans’ views of the death penalty for prisoners convicted of murder, 60 percent said they were in favor of it in October 2013, down from a peak of 80 percent in September 1994.
Homily hint: Supporters of the death penalty often refer to vengeance or retribution as a legitimate reason to support capital punishment. But on reflection, doesn’t such a position reveal a lack of trust in God’s judging power? If we truly believe that judgment belongs to God, there should be no need for us to take someone’s life in the name of justice.
Sources: Articles by Erick Eckholm and Motko Rich for the New York Times and Katie Fretland for The Guardian (UK)