Doug Clark has an excellent commentary in the N&R today on the victim's perspective in the procedural mess that the Legislature, Medical Board and Courts have made of carrying out the death penalty in North Carolina.
Clark tells the story of Davidson County Democrat & NC Representative Hugh Holliman, who in 1998, watched the execution of the man who raped and murdered his then 16-year-old daughter, Suzi. Holliman describes a justice system that is very much geared towards insuring the rights of the defendant. Victims of crime (and their families) really don't have any rights (something I can empathize mightily with).
By the time the legal game plays out . . . the trials and (frequently multiple) appeals . . . the heinous nature of the (capital) crime and the victim's suffering is but a passing thought.
Of course, the argument of death penalty opponents is that it is better to set a hundred guilty men free than convict (or execute) even one innocent. There are many stories of innocent men on death row. In fact, in the spring of 2006, UNC-G Research Magazine published a fascinating article by Beth English describing the impact of a wrongful capital conviction and incarceration on exonorees. According to the article (to which I cannot find a link), "as of March 2006, 123 people nationally had been released from death row due to substantial evidence of their innocence". Most of these are the direct result of advances in DNA forensic analysis.
On the other hand, Suzi Holliman's killer was not innocent. Clark relates that he was, in fact, the last man in North Carolina executed in the gas chamber. It wasn't pretty. A reported who watched (Martin Kady II) described the effect of cyanide gas (the favorite tool of the Nazis under the trade name Zyklon B): "Sanderson turned beet red as the gas throttled his bloodstream and he strained against the leather straps that held him down. ... As he squirmed, white fluid flowed from his nose. His chest heaved as the gas infiltrated his lungs and rendered them obsolete. Within 10 minutes Sanderson stopped moving. His red skin had faded to ashen."
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I got a faint whiff of cyanide gas that wafted out into the lab from beneath a chemistry hood. It was not enough to make me sick. But the smell stayed with me. The aroma of almonds is distinct. To this day, I cannot stand almond flavoring.
The state of North Carolina subsequently switched to "prettier", more sanitzed methods of execution. James Adolf Campbell is the man currently facing the needle. According to a N&O article yesterday, Campbell, 45, was sentenced to death for the first-degree murder of Katherine Price, a 20-year-old Kannapolis woman. On Sept. 9, 1992, Price was raped, strangled and stabbed more than two dozen times to the face and neck. Campbell had only recently been released from a South Carolina prison, and prosecutors say he committed two other rapes for which he was never prosecuted.
Rowan District Attorney Bill Kenerly said Campbell gave a 27-page confession to investigators, even offering a specific time of death. Kenerly recalls Campbell telling investigators that "he looked at his watch when he saw the lights go out of her eyes."
So Mr. Campbell isn't innocent either.
I expect Miss Price suffered horribly and for a much longer period than Mr. Campbell ever will if that IV ultimately does deliver its deadly cocktail. Comparatively speaking (Doug's point), Miss Price suffered a much more "cruel and unusual" fate than any punishment that the state of North Carolina will ever deal out to Mr. Campbell.
And there is the suffering of her family . . . a family who thought closure was at hand.
Of course, Mr. Campbell's appellate lawyers describe a horrible childhood and "mental illness" as mitigating factors for Campbel''s murderous behavior. The NC Medical Board's cowardly side-step of a stupid law that puts doctors in the middle (where were they when the law was passed?), followed by a judge's cowardly dump onto the Council of State has made another round of legal challenges possible.
If North Carolina representatives want capital punishment to continue, they are going to have to acknowledge that NO METHOD of killing someone is pretty . . . and it has nothing to do with healthcare. If "lethal injection" continues to be the method of choice for condemned prisoners, doctors and nurses don't need to be in this equation. I'm especially wild about paramedics or EMT's being substitutes either. . . but I expect that is a choice an individual could make.
Putting in an IV is a very simple technique. Execution protocols do not require medical supervision because the end result is death. The ONLY doctor that should be involved is the State Medical Examiner after the fact.
It's time people accepted that death is an ugly proposition . . . be it courtesy of a needle, gas, Duke Power, a hail of bullets or a rope.
It's time for the Legislature to pick the poison or pour it all out.
Evening Update: Ironically, on FX tonight . . . The Green Mile.
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4 comments:
Adolf Campell. Interesting name but he deserves the death penalty. Keep Executions safe and legal.
There's little question what he deserves.
Toby, I hear what you're saying, but executions kill people. They are, by definition, not "safe".
Basic cannons of medical ethics were not taken into consideration when the legislature put physicians in the middle of this process (I guess the Medical Board was asleep that day). They're going to have to find another way to keep it legal.
Katherine Price was a dear friend of mine. To know someone on a personal level and have them taken by a monster is inexcusable. If this were a pit bull doge that had taken a life the dog would have been put down with no question or delay. People are animals much like the pit bull. The only difference is that people have the ability to make choices. People are to know right from wrong. People know the consequences of there actions and still choose the do the things that think they can get away with. Mans biggest problem is that they think that they can do what ever it is better than the other guy. regardless of the consequences. There are 3 states that to this day use the electric chair. there is one state that by choice of the convicted person may still be hanged. lethal injection is a way to pass afire the bleeding hearts of the country. If this pit bull murdered your child would you have any reservations of putting it down? What ever the way, Let it be done...
J.E. Lewis
I am profoundly sorry for your loss.
And I agree with you. Lethal injection is a cop-out.
Bring back the firing squads and chairs. Keep it ugly. Keep it honest. And as it is written, let it be done.
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